Depth

Horror is like any other genre of film: The most popular titles of a given era often gain their notoriety by striking a chord in audiences that is somehow related to the collective fears and hopes of that particular time.Along those lines, when critics associate horror films with modern social and political fears in post-9/11 America, they usually cite films of an apocalyptic nature: films that portray a community (or the entire world itself) as irrevocably unraveling at lightening speed at the hands of a monstrosity that is equal parts unexplainable, unstoppable and unavoidable.

Films released during the last several years such as “The Host“; “Sunshine“; “28 Weeks Later“; “Right at Your Door“; “Cloverfield“; “Land of the Dead“; and “Diary of the Dead” fit this trend. So do recent remakes such as “Dawn of the Dead,” and literary adaptations such as “War of the Worlds“; “30 Days of Night“; “I Am Legend“; and “The Mist.” These are akin to earlier films such as “Them!” (1954) and “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” (1956) that reflected the public’s fears of atomic weapons and communism back in the 1950s.

There is another kind of horror film that complements and yet contrasts this end-of-the-world sub-genre of horror, a kind of horror film that most critics dismiss. Unlike many of the apocalyptic films, these films do not so much depict a supreme battle between good and evil, but instead plague their characters with nothing but damned-if-you-do/damned-if-you-don’t choices.

Fears of vicious attacks and random massacres are not the product of some aberration of the natural order but an honest reflection of how the universe actually works. Thus, fears of this type of world do not center on vanquishing monsters to save others so much as on just surviving in a pre-determined situation. What kind of horror film is this? The crossover film that has the word “versus” in the title — namely, “Freddy vs. Jason” (2003), “Alien vs. Predator” (2004) and the recent “Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem” (2007).

It could be argued that versus-movies are the same as other monster films, because both kinds of film feature plenty of people who are killed before the monster is vanquished. To be fair, the number of surviving characters at the end of an average, one-monster-only “Alien,” “Friday the 13th,” “Nightmare on Elm Street” or “Predator” movie is never very high, either.

Yet there is a different narrative logic at work in the modern versus-movie, where a group of normal human protagonists are stuck in a violent conflict between two rival, non- or super-human individuals or groups. In “Freddy vs. Jason” (”FvJ”) and “Alien vs. Predator” (”AvP”), the monsters are powerful and dominant, while the protagonists don’t fully understand the nature of the conflict and are that much more powerless to stop it.

To make matters worse, the characters have to compromise with monsters on some level during the narrative: They either (as the adage goes) have to play the game by the monsters’ rules because no other strategy has a chance of working — or, as in the case of “Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem” (AvP:R”), they simply run away with the aid of one side. Indeed, to be a heroic character in a modern crossover movie is to be a compromised hero, a hero who cannot win without making a deal with a lesser evil (in these examples, working with Jason Vorhees or a Predator).

Many of the criticisms I’ve read about the versus-films include how under-developed the human characters are — there are no courageous Ellen Ripleys or Nancy Thompsons with whom the audience can empathize. However, in a versus-film, that’s the point: The lack of strong, distinct characterizations emphasizes the helplessness of the situation. The larger the influence of the monsters proportionately diminishes the significance of the human individuals. In turn, the protagonists never get to be “heroic” and exert control over their fates because the conflicts in which they are embroiled have been so pre-determined by the monsters.

On the basis of these narrative structures, which depict forced submissions into compromises with monsters and their brutal, competing agendas just to survive, I believe that the versus-films capture the beleaguered post-9/11 national mood better than more dramatic, more realistic narratives such as 2007’s “Rendition,” “In the Valley of Elah” and “Lions for Lambs,” or the apocalyptic horror films. Since the terrorist attack against major national icons on Sep. 11, 2001, the American public has been subjected to a corrupt, unaccountable presidency that has lasted for two terms; the loss of a major city, New Orleans, to a natural disaster while the government did little to help; and a “war on terror” that is both vaguely defined and poorly executed, both domestically and in the Middle East — a war that has involved such morally suspect strategies as waterboarding and indefinite periods of detention.

In light of such troublesome events, the common citizen may feel not so much like the world is coming to an end but instead powerless, confused and compromised, stuck in an unending situation determined by larger, rival, out-of-control forces.

Curse of the Crossover

Crossover horror films have gotten a bad reputation over the years, due in no small part to the over-usage of the word “versus” in Japan’s sub-genre of hokey kaiju horror films: “Godzilla vs. Megalon,” “King Kong vs. Godzilla,” “Godzilla vs. The Smog Monster,” etc. These films usually featured men in rubber monster suits beating each other up and tearing apart a miniature of Tokyo or some other Japanese city in the process.

There were also crossover horror films in the United States during Hollywood’s so-called “Golden Age,” particularly with monsters owned by Universal Studios. Some of these films used the word “meets” instead of “versus” (”Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man“), or just included several monsters in a film with a suggestive title (”House of Frankenstein, House of Dracula“).

Unfortunately, these crossover films culminated in humor, not horror, when the comedic duo Abbott and Costello entered the pictures in titles such as “Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein,” “Abbott and Costello Meet Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” and “Abbott and Costello Meet the Mummy.”

In light of these later films, it seems more accurate to conclude that the Universal monster crossover movies paved the way for “Scooby-Doo” and like-minded cartoons, not new and lasting contributions to the horror genre.

Versus horror films like “FvJ” and “AvP” are like the Universal monster crossover movies of yore because the involved franchises are owned by the same companies — companies that are clearly willing to put the franchises together to squeeze more money out of these well-worn cash cows. This fact is not lost on the critics, of course, who mostly review these movies as such and nothing more.

The modern crossover films reflect changes in media ownership in that media companies have become so much larger and more consolidated that they increasingly treat movie franchises like physical property to own and develop rather than the outcome of creative filmmaking. This is especially true within the horror genre, which has seen more remakes and “re-imaginings” than any other genre in recent years.

Another drawback is that the crossovers are sequels of sorts to the original franchises, and twice the number of monsters unfortunately means twice the amount of expository dialog as the human characters try to figure out what the viewer already knows and has known for years, if not decades (this is especially true in “FvJ”).

On the other hand, the modern versus-movies have certain advantages that non-crossover horror movies lack. One thing to relish about them is the new details viewers learn about the title monsters. This is not to question the effectiveness of the less-is-more technique of horror filmmaking, but the unavoidable more-is-more style of versus-movies opens up new levels of detail to explore. “FvJ” and “AvP” allow the viewer to see how these monsters react when faced with equals, not human heroes who are compensating for their own mortal weaknesses when trying to defeat them.

The confrontations allow filmmakers to further explore the inner logic of these monstrosities — what drives them and how they make sense of their worlds, as seen in the Jason Vorhees dream sequence in “FvJ” and brief glimpses of the Predator homeworld in “AvP:R.” Most importantly, crossovers let filmmakers expand upon narrative themes present in the franchises in ways that stand-alone films cannot do.

For example, in the case of Japan’s “Godzilla” versus-movies, those versus-films reflect a sort of ambivalence that stems from the original movie. Even though Godzilla was originally conceived of and filmed as a horrific, unstoppable embodiment of the evil of nuclear warfare – particularly the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki — the monster’s heroic status in his versus-movies could be viewed as a grudging desire to nevertheless have such incredible power at one’s disposal, lest an equal or greater threat appears. The more contemporary Godzilla films better articulate the monster’s ambiguous, love/hate history with humanity, particular in “Godzilla 2000.”

Killer Competition

For as basic as the premise of slasher films can be, “FvJ” had plenty of thematic material from which to work. As a sub-genre, slasher films at their best are the horror genre’s version of coming-of-age tales. Consider this: In a standard slasher film, the teenage heroine learns that adults aren’t nearly as in charge as they appear to be (more often misguided and ill-informed than not); that her teenage peers can be unreliable, self-centered jerks; and that the only thing that seems to have any real power is death itself, which is represented by a seemingly unstoppable, bloodthirsty killer. All of these elements are present within the various “Friday the 13th” and “Nightmare on Elm Street” films, and they also appear in “FvJ.”

Further benefiting “FvJ” are the thematic similarities of their title monsters. Unlike most other cinematic serial killers, Freddy Kruger and Jason Vorhees represent horrible mistakes from the past that not only refuse to go away, but get worse as time goes along. They both emphasize the abuse of children at the hands of others: In their mortal lives, Freddy used to torture and kill children, while Jason was taunted and killed by his peers when he was a child. (It is even shown in “FvJ” that the rotting, undead Jason is still capable of having nightmares of his original, abusive demise.)

In turn, the victims in the franchises (more so in “Nightmare on Elm Street” than “Friday the 13th”) are teens who come from troubled, abusive homes; naturally, the themes of physical and psychological child abuse become the focal point of the “FvJ” narrative.

“FvJ” primarily consists of two rival killers with two different agendas, with hapless teenage protagonists stuck in the middle. Yet what sets this conflict in motion is another agenda utilized by the adults of Freddy’s hometown Springwood to fight the dream killer. It was suggested in previous Elm Street films that Freddy could expand his number of victims by “infecting” their dreams through others. (The concept of haunting via infection pre-dates the Japanese horror films “Ringu” and “Ju-On.”)

To deal with this contagion of the mind, the Springwood adults decide to erase Freddy from dreams by erasing him from collective memory. In addition to deleting all references to him from town records (including old newspaper copies), they also enforce their own system of quarantine: All teenagers who have heard of Freddy are committed indefinitely to the Westin Hills psychiatric facility because they MIGHT pose a threat to their community. They are also given a steady dosage of the experimental dream-suppressing drug Hypnocil, a drug with potentially debilitating side effects that include comas and death.

For Elm Street fans, there’s an element of tragedy to this particular plot: Hypnocil was first introduced to Westin Hills in the third “Elm Street” film by Freddy’s original nemesis, Nancy Thompson (Heather Langenkamp), implying that even the most well-intentioned efforts by heroes can have devastating results. From the perspective of real-world post-9/11 events, Freddy doesn’t just come back to stalk, torture and slay teenagers in “FvJ,” he gets his own sort of Guantanamo Bay prison in his honor.

In this context, Westin Hills is a fictitious analogue to where America sends suspected terrorists indefinitely and without fair due process because of their supposed yet unverified threat, all as part of fighting an enemy that authorities don’t completely understand.

The abusive, unjust and ultimately futile Westin Hills solution to Freddy sets the plot of “FvJ” in motion, with Freddy manipulating Jason into tricking the residents of Springwood into remembering him again, regardless of how many teenagers are incarcerated. Two of teen protagonists from “FvJ” — Will (Jason Ritter) and Mark (Brendan Fletcher) — are escapees from Westin Hills. Will was committed after witnessing his girlfriend’s mother die in her sleep because of Freddy. Mark’s brother was killed by Freddy and returns home after escaping Westin Hills only to find his house empty, suggesting abandonment by his parents.

Just as these characters were abandoned to Westin Hills with no firm hope of release because of the unverified threat they present, so too have the prisoners of Guantanamo Bay been deprived of due process because of their unverified threat. Yet while the teenage protagonists’ approach to fighting the supernatural slashers is far less draconian than the adults’ (telling their peers about Freddy as opposed to censoring information about him), they still need Jason to defeat Freddy — even if Jason still kills whoever crosses his path. Relying on an indiscriminate supernatural killer to vanquish another supernatural killer further emphasizes the hopelessness of the “FvJ” worlds of Westin Hills, Springwood and Crystal Lake.

Given the number of patients at Westin Hills, both awake and those put in a comatose state by Hypnocil, it could be argued that this strategy of indefinite incarceration claimed more victims than Krueger ever did, both when he was alive and (un)dead. Going back to the Guantanamo/Westin Hills analogy, it could likewise be argued that jailing supposed terrorists indefinitely is not only ineffective, but it did not prevent the ill-fated American invasion and occupation of Iraq and the ongoing acts of terrorism that occur there.

Things from Another World

Thematically, the “AvP” movies have a grim template from which to begin: In the “Alien” universe, the only extraterrestrials encountered by space-faring human beings are hive-building, bio-mechanical, parasitic killing machines, presenting the morbid suggestion that no matter how advanced humanity becomes we will never outrun nature’s mandated order of predator and prey. The Alien’s demonstrated ability to both survive and thrive in any environment emphasizes that in the larger universe, biological tenacity provided by nature can and will defeat humanity’s scientific and technological prowess.

Adding Predators to this kind of fictional universe expands this idea to even grimmer lengths: that even the most technologically advanced civilizations will eventually come back to recognizing that nature’s predator/prey dichotomy is not only unavoidable, but should serve as the foundational principle of society. In sci-fi franchises such as “Star Trek” and “Babylon 5,” space-traveling civilizations engage in complex social activities such as building alliances, exploring the galaxy, and fighting interplanetary wars.

Not so for the Predators: The only aggressive action they pursue is not to gain territory, claim natural resources, or overthrow political regimes, but to ritualistically fulfill nature’s creed of gaining strength through the raw physical challenge of the hunt. Even when a Predator is defeated by his intended prey, his fellow hunters do not declare war or seek revenge; they simply accept it as a possible risk.

The story of the first “AvP” film not only pits the rival creatures in a ritualistic hunt, but it also tells how the Predators have included humans from civilizations as far back as ancient Egypt in this rite of passage. While the “ancient astronaut” idea has become a cliché within science fiction (the entire “Stargate” franchise is predicated on this concept), it works well as a device to insert the Predators into the “Alien” universe. The recurring theme within the “Alien” movies is humanity’s willingness to sacrifice lives for the sake of technological advancement; thus, to have Predators revered as gods who demand blood sacrifice in exchange for knowledge in ancient earth civilizations adds an element of timelessness to this theme, that humanity is forever cursed with a thinly-veiled bloodlust for technological (and in turn military and political) superiority.

“AvP” further emphasizes this theme in the character of Charles Bishop Weyland (Lance Henriksen). Not only is he the co-founder of the “Alien” saga’s nefarious Weyland-Yutani Corporation (a.k.a. “The Company”), but he hastily initiates the ill-fated expedition to the Arctic in his determination to beat potential competitors so he can have a “legacy.” The master-servant/mentor-apprentice relationship between the Predators and humans is also reflected in how differently both approach the Alien species: The Predators see them as tools of ritual, even going so far as to build their own private hunting reserve devoted to them in the Arctic, while the humans covet them as tools for warfare and conquest.

The subterranean pyramid battleground in “AvP” is completely the creation of the Predators, in contrast to the settings of the previous two “Predator” films (a Central American jungle and Los Angeles). In turn, this alien-controlled environment renders the humans that much more ineffective than the protagonists in other Predator movies, since the only intended role for the “AvP” humans to play in this environment is that of hosts for the Predators’ prey.

In fact, you could say that the humans’ refusal to “play by the rules” by unwittingly stealing the Predators’ shoulder cannons is what results in the Predators’ rite of passage going awry, the egg-laying Alien Queen almost escaping, and the undetected impregnation of one of the Predator initiates — which in turn leads to more death and disaster in “AvP:R.”

When “AvP” survivor Alexa Woods (Sanaa Lathan) finally understands that the only way to live is to try to form an alliance with a Predator (essentially becoming his sidekick), she’s too busy trying to escape instead of heroically vanquishing the creature who is actually responsible for the deaths of her expeditionary team by luring them to the Arctic in the first place.

While “AvP:R” takes place outside of a Predator-manipulated setting, it does not make the human characters any less subject to feebleness. Most notably, the human characters in “AvP:R” are the most mundane of any of the “Alien” or “Predator” movies: They don’t travel through space, colonize planets, perform clandestine military missions in the jungle, fight illegal drug cartels in big cities, or brave the Arctic to examine ancient artifacts. They are just small-town folk who do small-town-scale things like delivering pizza, eating at diners and hunting deer.

They are also the only characters in any of the Alien or Predator films who never really understand what is happening to them: Because the Aliens remain effectively hidden for most of the infestation, and the lone Predator who arrives continues to erase evidence of any and all extraterrestrial presence — leaving the humans with no relics to translate, no facehuggers to dissect, no cocooned bodies to find, etc. — the characters in “AvP:R” are completely in the dark about what is attacking them and thus cannot determine a strategy to save their town.

In summary, the human protagonists of “AvP:R” are not only the most mundane, they are also the least heroic because they are the most helpless of any of the “Alien” and “Predator” characters. The ones who do escape can only do so by using one of the Predator’s cannons to blast their way to a helicopter while the Predator fights the Aliens — hardly a dignified cinematic escape.

The basic plots of the “AvP” movies revolve around violent conflicts where humans are at first outsiders and then victims, but not direct participants. To be more exact by following the narrative logic established by Gary Busey’s character Peter Keyes in “Predator 2,” the conflict in AvP films is focused on two rival, warring groups that the American government is somewhat aware of but hardly understands and thus loses both soldiers and civilians as the result of such ignorance.

This fictitious world is almost like a funhouse mirror reflection of the Sunni-Shitte conflict that has dogged the U.S. military’s presence in Iraq, a conflict that the Iraq War’s ill-educated authors failed to anticipate. The Iraq War connection is hinted at in the case of the “AvP:R” character Kelly O’Brien (Reiko Aylesworth), who is returning to her home in Gunnison, Col., from military service overseas. While it’s never said exactly where she served, she arrives home in desert fatigues, implying that she served somewhere in the Middle East.

In that sense, “AvP:R” could be seen as a grim parody of the Iraq War’s ad-hoc rationale of “fighting them over there so we don’t have to fight them here” — O’Brien comes back from “over there” just to fight something even worse “over here” after all. Likewise, the ineffectiveness of the National Guard (they quickly disappear at the hands of the Aliens after they arrive during a rain storm) and the government’s panicked, reckless decision on how to deal with Gunnison’s abrupt flood of chaos eerily echoes New Orleans during the Hurricane Katrina crisis.

The Value of Versus

It’s doubtful that the makers behind any of the recent versus films made their films to address the fears or issues specific to the post-9/11 era. The ideas of crossovers featuring these particular monsters pre-date 9/11 by at least a decade in the form of comic books, novels, video games and unproduced screenplays. None of the versus-films to date have been overnight box office sensations (given how thematically depressing they are, how could they?) and they have not received any critical acclaim.

For example, most of the complaints I’ve read from critics about “AvP:R” are akin to run-of-the-mill complaints I hear from my mother-in-law: It’s too dark, it’s too loud, it’s too confusing, it has too many young people. Further clouding critical judgment regarding these versus-movies is that their featured monsters first appeared between the late ’70s and mid ’80s, so some may find it implausible to see them as having a unique meaning in post-9/11 America.

Finally, some of the other versus-tales within these four franchises do not hold true to the versus-narrative form of lacking a strong, central hero. For example, in Dark Horse Comics’ “Aliens vs. Predator vs. Terminator,” Alien nemesis Ellen Ripley is the main character and “Terminator” hero John Connor makes a cameo appearance. In Dynamite Comics’ adaptation of the unproduced “Freddy vs. Jason vs. Ash” film treatment, the hero from the “Evil Dead” franchise is the main protagonist, an experienced monster slayer who fights the dueling slashers.

Nevertheless, the lack of popularity of monster-versus movies among film critics and general audiences alike does not diminish their cultural significance. Their lack of direct, rational focus on post-9/11 issues makes it easier for these movies to tap directly into the modern feelings of confusion, vulnerability and forced compromise, which adds to their narrative power. To use Freudian terminology, they are shadows of the modern Id, not the hyper-rational Superego that only recognizes and openly appreciates films that attempt nuanced, linear analyses of post-9/11 America.

In modern American society, where irrational political decisions, large-scale tragedies and vitriolic political discourse are commonplace, it could be that the only movies that truly make sense are those where monsters, not mankind, rule the world.