Cat and the Canary (film)

I have adapted Agatha Christie mysteries for the stage, The Mysterious Affair at Styles and The Secret Adversary. However, it was my older brother Henrik who was mystery-obsessive. It was he who introduced me to Hercule Poirot, Nero Wolfe, Ellery Queen, and he was quite an expert on Sherlock Holmes.

I say he “introduced” me because though throughout my childhood these tales were in the atmosphere, I didn’t take an interest. I wasn’t into puzzles and plotting, and to be honest, mysteries scared me. Someone’s dead -- and we don’t know why or how it happened? The unknown is horrifying to me.

I understand that it is the solution to mysteries than many find so reassuring, they bring order to chaos, and suggest that every problem has an answer, that all loose ends will eventually be tied. These people are also probably have religion for the same reason.

I always flash back to that moment when the victim is dying, perhaps violently, shocked, and afraid and alone. The tragedy itself is not made softer by there existing an explanation. Perhaps I am an atheist for the same reason.

My brother took me to this film once -- twice, actually. He would have been fourteen, I was only ten. We went twice on two different days, probably over a weekend. Maybe we took the bus, maybe my parents dropped us at the mall, can’t remember, I was ten. The film was Cat and the Canary, a stylish, period remake of a film made famous as a Bob Hope picture in the 30s. This 1978 version was considerably more bloody. Grisly. It was the seventies.

Cat and the Canary is one of those "bumped-off-one-at-a-time" mysteries in which the house itself is the murder weapon. I was fascinated by the twists and turns, the disappearances, the horrible, clever ways people were separated from each other, and then craftily dispatched. I was also horrified. I was unable to sleep. I was terrified someone would come through my window or stab me through the bed.

My brother was scolded for taking me to see it, to see it twice. I protested that I had asked him to take me to see it again, and so attention was turned to me. I was made to feel foolish. “If it scared you so, why would you want to see it again?”

I carried this with me as I became an adolescent and we moved into the era of the slasher film -- and cable TV. From Michael Myers to Jason Voorhees to Freddy Kruger, I abstained. I just didn’t watch them.

Now, slasher movies aren’t necessarily mysteries, but mysteries can be slasher films (see: Psycho) and I have watched each, but it is the moments of isolation and despair which frighten me the most. The Vanishing comes to mind. Never seen it, know how it ends, that’s enough to keep me awake at night.

So when it came time to adapt a Sherlock Holmes mystery into a play for children, there was more than one reason to avoid plots featuring violent crimes -- or any violence at all. When we produced Jabberwocky three years ago, there is a scene where a child confronts a bully the wrong way, by hitting back. With a stick.

It was meant to be an example of making a bad choice. And yet, talkback after talkback, this was the kids’ favorite part. It was what they best remembered, it elicited the most joyful reaction. They loved seeing that one kids hit the other kids with a stick -- and they hadn’t even seen it! The beating took place off stage, with one child character chasing the other behind a curtain and then hearing the bully cry out in pain.

Now, many of Doyle’s mysteries are murder mysteries, so it couldn’t be any of those. There are a few thefts in his tales, but none presented situations that interested me -- or more importantly, supporting characters that would interest children.

The education department brainstorm non-violent crimes, which included theft, extortion, vandalism, fraud, embezzlement, forgery, pickpocketing, arson, the receipt of stolen goods, and counterfeiting.

For the past several months, these ideas have been simmering, and I have been making notes, and reading story after story, and stringing together original ideas for a brand new mystery of my own.

Because there was one very important element lacking in all of Sherlock Holmes’ adventures, and it was that which would not only set this story apart, but satisfying a great many details of the upcoming outreach tour.

Strong female characters.

To be continued.

On Fear

A spider. How "Bourgeois".

When I was a child, our house had a crawlspace in the basement. It was behind a door with a simple lock, built up about three feet off the floor. There was a single bulb, the floor was rough concrete. When I was six I would hide in there, draw pictures of monsters and tack them to the beams. A gallery of monsters.

When I was around seven, my family went to a haunted house. It may have been in Avon Lake or something, like a “Haunted Fire Station” to raise money for charity.

Berea ... is so ... SCARAY ...

It was traumatizing. As is her wont, my mother to this day expresses deep, lasting regret for the decision to take me. “I guess I figured if you were too scared you could cover your eyes,” she says. Of course, hearing what you cannot see if much more terrifiying.

The pictures in the crawlspace came down, and I never went in there again, unless I had company.

Children need fear. They need to learn to enjoy chills and suspense, and to know the difference between what is fantastic and what are real life dangers to be avoided. This is why belief in the supernatural, especially mainstream beliefs such as Christianity and Islam, lead to uncertainty, confusion and life-threatening neuroses.

Your odds are not good.

The 21st century has brought with it an interesting revival in monsters. The work of Tim Burton doesn’t seem odd anymore, to anyone. The bizarre, edgy, creepy-funny Beetlejuice has evolved into the much-hated, yawn-fest Dark Shadows.

The World Famous.

The human skull is (or was) the new smiley face. My daughter has pink pj bottoms featuring skulls wearing a hair bow. Anyone who knows me knows I really enjoy wearing  all the swag my in-laws provide from The Smiling Skull Saloon, but no one would confuse me with some kind of threatening person.

There are now a swath of television programs and movies geared toward children that I would have thought unimaginable ten years ago. Disney recently debuted Gravity Falls, about two kids spending the summer in the great northwest with their grand-uncle who manages a “Mystery House”. Every episode centers around a presumed supernatural threat which turns out to be non-threatening … though still supernatural. For example, the male protagonist fears his sister is dating a zombie. In reality, the boyfriend is not a zombie, but a gang of gnomes disguised as one teenager.

Dude ... check it out ...

Anyway. It’s like a cross between Twin Peaks and The X-Files. We all think it is hilarious. However, the boy (age seven) does get increasing scared by the show, and has often had to cover his face, until the reveal, and then it’s all okay. I like that, some chills, then relief. No nightmares.

Paranorman, however, was not a good choice. It’s a very good movie. But I fret because  to really understand it, to even think it’s funny, you need a wealth of pop culture experience that your average nine year-old just doesn’t have. A lot of the humor makes no sense without a basic familiarity with the works of George Romero and the Salem Witch Trials. The boy didn't get the funny, he just saw zombies, and had to leave partway through.

One recent development in pop culture is the ascendance of the zombie. Dracula long ago became cuddly, thanks to the likes of The Munsters, Sesame Street and Count Chocula, the same for “Frankenstein”.  Good Lord, remember Monster Squad? As what scares us becomes familiar, we must turn to what is truly scary. When I was a child it was the Devil (The Exorcist, The Omen, et al) as an adolescent it was the stalker-killer (Friday, the 13th, Halloween and all the rest.)

Monster Squad (1976)

Supernatural animals like werewolves have never been taken seriously in my lifetime -- An American Werewolf in London, the only exception. Only the once-dead remain truly horrifying. The gentleman-corpse who is the vampire has become one to admire and love, and the Creature, in his own way a zombie, can be sympathized with because he has feelings. The zombie is simply a dead thing that continues to move -- and has only one recognizeable thought, and it is to eat you. They don’t even bother killing you first.

But even the zombie is being made more accessible. Leafing through a children’s costume catalog with the boy, we found zombie versions of superheroes. What is up with that? Why would you want to be that for Halloween? Not just a zombie … Zombie Robin? Uh, okay.

The boy and I had a very interesting conversation recently about why Halloween is associated with scary things. It wasn’t easy to explain, and maybe that confuses the average person. But it helps to know these two things; he has always known about his stillborn older brother, so celebrating the dead -- and the Day of the Dead -- are not bizarre, spooky ritauls, but an annual celebration on par with birthdays and other anniversaries. Also, too, having been raised non-religious, he has no weird conception of what death is. People are born, they live, they die and return to the earth.

Death does not scare him. At least, not yet.

Tradition.

So why is All Hallow’s Eve, and the Day of the Dead, the holidays which inspired Halloween, associated with the supernatural? He still doesn’t get it. It doesn’t keep him from enjoying it.

There is a home near us with a large front yard facing a very busy street which has an annual Halloween display which is pretty creepy. This year, however, in creating their display they decided to include a hanged person. They weren’t finished with it, but apparently someone compained, presumably, that the depiction of someone hanged -- lynched -- was offensive.

How did I know this? Because, in addition to the numerous “gag” tombstones featured in the display, they included this defensive response to whom it may concern:

I found their response more unfortunate than the hanged dummy. My city is racially diverse, with the population of whites and blacks running close to 50/50. Lynching as a symbol of race terrorism existed (past tense?) through the lifetime of many of my neighbors, it’s not something abstract.

Might I also add that if the featured style of execution were something else, say another deeply symbolic form of torturous death, say crucifixion, that might also offend a lot of people.

Part of the problem was that the figure was generic, just a big stuffed head through the noose. If it had been a cartoony witch or something, that might have seemed more in the spirit of the season.

I mean, the display also features someone drawn and quartered. That freaks the girl out more than the hanged person -- which has, at last, been detailed to represent a bonnet-wearing Puritan woman. Putting it into a period well-past, and associating it with the witch trials does make it look more appropriate to the season. But the defensive-message gravestone remains today.

SPOILER ALERT: PARANORMAN

Which brings me back to Paranorman. There really was a witch hanged in this story, a young girl who had magical powers, who was condemned as a witch. The lesson is about acceptance, about tolerance. She was a little girl with special abilities -- she wasn’t evil. However, according to certain religions, which believe in witches, it doesn’t matter if she felt she was good, having these powers means that, will you, nill you, she is a product of Satan. Like the gays. For some, tolerance is not an option.

Not a witch.

But homosexuality is a real part of nature, supernatural "witchcraft" abilities are not. The Salem Witch Trial was something that actually happened, many were imprisoned, twenty were executed. None of them were actually witches. Depicting a hanged "Salem witch" troubles me, too. That's an innocent, hanging there, first terrorized and tortured and then killed. They were lynched, too.

Monsters are fun. Men are scary.