Daily Archives: October 14, 2024

Top Tens – Film: Top 10 Horror Films (Special Mention) (1) SF Horror (Body Horror & Cosmic Horror)

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Poster art for the 1979 Alien film with one of the most iconic SF horror film taglines – “In space no one can hear you scream.”

 

(1) SF HORROR (BODY HORROR & COSMIC HORROR)

 

My preferred horror films tend to be supernatural or SF horror, but I tend to rank the latter as SF rather than horror.

The dividing line is partly my idiosyncratic opinion that the science fiction elements predominate in SF, such as where the sources of horror are aliens or time-travelling killer robots, but is also partly to preserve the SF entries in my Top 10 Fantasy and SF Films.

Alien, The Terminator, and The Thing are my holy trinity of SF horror but since they are all entries in my Top 10 Fantasy & SF Films I won’t feature them again here.

Well, except to note that Alien was essentially haunted house horror IN SPACE, with a spaceship for a haunted house (neatly solving the so-called haunted house problem of why the protagonists simply don’t leave the house) and the titular xenomorph for the ghost. In a sense the whole franchise is this in one way or another.

The Thing is also another alien haunted house horror story, except with an Antarctic base as haunted house – with the haunted house problem posed by the onset of winter as well as by seeking to avoid the Thing infecting the outside world.

Alien and The Thing also illustrate the subgenres of body horror and cosmic horror that recur with SF horror.

The Terminator was essentially robot slasher horror – okay, technically cyborg slasher horror.

 

I’ll probably flesh this out (heh) but for now my SF horror top ten on the spot (consisting of entries not featured in my Top 10 Fantasy & SF Horror Films):

 

 

1 JOHN CARPENTER – THEY LIVE (1988)

 

Of course, John Carpenter’s SF horror magnum opus is The Thing (featured in my Top 10 Fantasy & SF Films) but I had to feature him here with this entry as one of my two leading SF horror directors.

 

Which brings me to my next entry…

 

2 DAVID CRONENBERG – THE FLY (1986)

 

Yes, it’s a remake – but what an entry! Also representative of David Cronenberg, the other of my two leading SF horror directors – and whose work embodies (heh) body horror, so much so that Rick and Morty referenced it (as Cronenberging their world when they turn Earth into a population of body horror monstrosities).

 

3 – INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS (1978)

 

Yes – the original was in 1956 (based on the 1954 novel by Jack Finney and symbolic of Cold War paranoia) but this is my favorite of the “franchise”, particularly for its downer ending (with that shriek).

 

4 – PREDATOR (1987)

 

Probably more people think of this film and its subsequent franchise as SF action, but the Predator is essentially an alien slasher stalking humans for prey – not unlike the franchise with its audience at this point.

 

5 – TREMORS (1990)

 

Like the previous entry, probably more people think of this film (and its franchise) as comedic SF action but there’s enough of a horror element for me to count it.

 

6 – THE FACULTY (1998)

 

Fun spin on The Thing in a high school – including a fun spin on that blood sample test for the Thing.

 

7 – SLITHER (2006)

 

James Gunn does an SF horror alien invasion – with doses of body and cosmic horror.

 

8 – CLOVERFIELD / 10 CLOVERFIELD LANE (2008-2016)

 

I’m counting these as the same franchise for production rather than plot – the first is upated alien kaiju horror, the second is survival horror with one hell of a twist at the end.

 

9 – LIFE (2017)

 

Ah, Calvin – you rubbery rascal. Essentially another alien haunted house horror story IN SPACE.

 

10 – A QUIET PLACE (2018-2024)

 

Shhh – essentially alien slasher horror stalking by sound.

Top Tens – Film: Top 10 Horror Films (Special Mention)

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One of the most iconic silhouettes in horror film history – Count Orlok from the 1922 German film Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror directed by F.W. Murnau, essentially a version of Dracula

 

“Horror is a genre of fiction that exploits the primal fears of viewers” – “that seeks to elicit fear or disgust in its audience for entertainment purposes”.

It’s also a genre in which I watch a lot of films, so I don’t just have a Top 10 Horror Films – I also have my usual twenty special mentions for my top tens, including sub-genre or thematic entries as about half (or more) of my special mentions.

Top Tens – History (Rome): Top 10 Best & Worst Roman Emperors (4) Worst: Honorius

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Dovahhatty – Unbiased History of Rome XVIII: Barbarians at the Gates

 

(4) WORST: HONORIUS –

THEODOSIAN DYNASTY

(395 – 423 AD AD: 28 YEARS 6 MONTHS 29 DAYS)

 

Chicken boy.

Dovahhatty summed him up best – “Honorius continued on living as he always had, laying around, babbling like an idiot as the world around him fell apart, but for one exception. One day Honorius turned it all around and decided, for once, to do the best possible thing he could do for the empire and died, after ruling Rome for a godawful thirty years.”

Getting up there as candidate for the worst Roman emperor ever, although you could easily shuffle him with Valentinian III – a.k.a Honorius II – for that spot, as they are so uncannily similar as to be interchangeable. I know I said it before for Valentinian III but it’s worth saying again for Honorius – each was a model of supine inactivity as the empire crumbled, except for betraying the loyal subordinate who was the one holding things together and stabbing that man in the back, as well as each with one of the two notorious sacks of Rome following shortly afterwards. Between the two of them and their inexplicably long reigns, almost 60 years in combination, they broke the western Roman empire and presided over its fall. It’s like the Roman Empire cloned its crappiest emperor, just so it could have him reign twice to ensure its own fall.

Now I have ranked Honorius as worse than Valentinian III as Honorius came first and you know how it is for the diminishing returns of sequels – Valentinian III hit all the same beats and even tried to have some new twists but it just wasn’t up to the original. Less flippantly, Valentinian III inherited the wreckage of the western empire from Honorius – in particular, the barbarians firmly ensconced within the empire as they had not been before Honorius. Not that Valentinian III would do or was ever going to do anything but wreck it further.

In the case of Honorius, the loyal subordinate was his general Stilicho, who had also been his regent and was his father-in-law. Now I have argued that Valentinian’s betrayal of Aetius was worse, but that is more a matter of his direct personal involvement – killing Aetius himself – being more despicable. The betrayal by Honorius of Stilicho was more destructive for the empire.

Firstly, at least Valentinian III waited until the threat of Attila and his Huns had receded from Italy (and the empire itself as it turned out) before his betrayal of Aetius. Honorius betrayed Stilicho when the threat of Alaric and his Visigoths to Italy and Rome was still very much dire. Secondly – and worse – Honorius’ betrayal of Stilicho strengthened that threat, both by removing Stilicho as the effective deterrent to it and with the defection of Stilicho’s foederati troops en masse to Alaric following Honorius’ massacre of their families as Stilicho’s camp followers.Thirdly, at least Valentinian’s betrayal of Alaric had the prompt consequence of Valentinian’s own assassination, where Honorius continued to burden the empire with his reign for another fifteen years.

Although Honorius didn’t have to wait that long for the sack of Rome which followed as a consequence of his betrayal of Stilicho. That betrayal led in a direct line to the sack of Rome by Alaric and the Visigoths in 410, which again was arguably worse than the corresponding sack of Rome by the Vandals in 455.

Firstly, the sack of Rome by Alaric in 410 was a profound shock to the empire, the first such sack for eight centuries. While the sack of Rome by the Vandals was more destructive – such that the Vandals lent their name as a synonym for destruction ever since – it lacked that same sense of shock given the recent occurrence of the first sack. Secondly, at least Valentinian wasn’t still alive to injure Rome further with his continued existence for its sack in 455 AD. Thirdly, Honorius added insult to injury with his initial alarm that Rome had “perished” was a reference to his favorite pet chicken he had named Roma, where he was relieved to find out it was only in reference to the actual city. That story has been identified to be likely an apocryphal one, but it’s just too true to his character and symbolic with respect to it involving a chicken that I accept it anyway.

The only distinction between Honorius and Valentinian III that led to the former reigning fifteen more years after his betrayal of Stilicho was that Honorius was fortunate enough to have a capable general (and briefly co-emperor) in Constantius III to substitute for Stilicho propping up him and the empire. All Valentinian III had after Aetius was Petronius Maximus and we’ve seen how well that went – his own assassination and the sack of Rome.

Also, Honorius was literally the creepy uncle to Valentinian, albeit more to Valentinian’s mother (and his half sister), so I blame Honorius somewhat for how Valentinian turned out.

As usual, Edward Gibbon had the best snark about Honorius, which I can’t resist quoting in all its glory –

“His feeble and languid disposition was alike incapable of discharging the duties of his rank…the amusement of feeding poultry became the serious and daily care of the monarch of the West, who resigned the reins of empire to the firm and skilful hand of his guardian Stilicho…The predecessors of Honorius were accustomed to animate by their example, or at least by their presence, the valour of the legions; and the dates of their laws attest the perpetual activity of their motions through the provinces of the Roman world. But the son of Theodosius passed the slumber of his life a captive in his palace, a stranger in his country, and the patient, almost the indifferent, spectator of the ruin of the Western empire, which was repeatedly attacked, and finally subverted, by the arms of the barbarians. In the eventful history of a reign of twenty-eight years, it will seldom be necessary to mention the name of the emperor Honorius”.

 

EMPIRE BREAKER

 

Arguably the emperor who broke the empire more than anyone else.

I’m not going to even bother with imperial victory titles or deification – he had none and deserved less. I’m not sure the Senate was doing damnatio memoriae by then.

 

DID DOVAHATTY DO RIGHT?

 

Probably the virgin emperor Dovahhatty did best – and said it best, as evidenced by the quote I featured at the outset.

 

RATING: 1 STAR*

F-TIER (FAIL TIER)

 

 

Top Tens – History (Rome): Top 10 Best & Worst Roman Emperors (4) Best: Hadrian

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Dovahhatty – Unbiased History of Rome XII: The Five Good Emperors

 

 

(4) BEST: HADRIAN –

NERVA-ANTONINE DYNASTY / FIVE GOOD EMPERORS

(117 – 138 AD: 20 YEARS 10 MONTHS 29 DAYS)

 

The definitive Roman emperor, exceeded as such only by my top two entries.

That’s notable in that he did not add any conquests to the empire, but instead withdrew from the conquests of his predecessor, particularly in Mesopotamia but to some extent in Dacia as well. Although the Romans themselves tended to esteem expansionism, Hadrian focused on the consolidation of the empire – “Hadrian preferred to invest in the development of stable, defensible borders and the unification of the empire’s disparate peoples”.

It is hard not to see that as the correct focus, as Hadrian presided over an empire at its peak strength and stability, without any adversary of real substance let alone rival or threat to it. Otherwise, it might have become overstretched (or more so) – and it’s possible that even his predecessor who had conquered Mesopotamia (from Persia) “may have thought his gains in Mesopotamia indefensible and abandoned them shortly before his death”.

As such, unlike other emperors in this top ten Hadrian did not even have to engage in any robust military action in defense of the empire – with one notable exception where he was very robust indeed with the one substantial adversary that revolted against the empire during his reign, which we’ll get to shortly.

However, Hadrian didn’t just sit on the empire’s laurels. He “also developed permanent fortifications and military posts along the empire’s border (limites, sl. limes) to support his policy of stability, peace and preparedness”, including the wall in Britain that famously bore his name. “Hadrian’s policy was peace through strength”, emphasised by discipline – “troops practised intensive, regular drill routines” and historian Cassius Dio “praised Hadrian’s emphasis on spit and polish as cause for the generally peaceful character of his reign”.

Fortifications weren’t all he built or rebuilt – Hadrian was famed for his building projects throughout the empire. To that end, Hadrian “travelled almost constantly throughout the empire” and “was to spend more than half his reign outside Italy”.

Hadrian was notoriously fond of Greece and the Greeks – the Historia Augusta opined he may have been “a little too much Greek” – and fond of a Greek in particular, the youth Antinous.

Not that there’s anything wrong with that but I would say that Hadrian deifying Antinous after the latter’s untimely death as a gay god was a step too far. Some men will literally apotheosize their dead catamite instead going to therapy.

The other notorious aspect of Hadrian’s regime was wiping Jerusalem and Judaea off the map in response to the Jewish Bar Kokhba Revolt. The Caledonian chieftain Calgacus as quoted (or concocted) by Tacitus had seen nothing yet when he said the Romans make a desert and call it peace – Hadrian showed how it was really done.

Hadrian was also initiated into in the Greek Eleusinian Mysteries – which I’d like to think of as the classical equivalent of the Illuminati, or perhaps just the actual Illuminati as who knows how far back that secret society and their conspiracies go…?

 

EMPIRE BASER:

 

Arguably the most based of them all.

 

MAXIMUS:

 

I don’t think he claimed any – putting down revolts isn’t quite the same thing

 

DEIFICATION:

 

O yes – although his successor had to insist on it to the Senate

 

DID DOVAHHATTY DO RIGHT?

 

Yes – as another one of the five good chad emperors, aptly depicted in my feature image with the Wall from the Game of Thrones TV series – itself influenced by Hadrian’s eponymous wall in Britain.

I particularly like Dovahhatty’s joke about Hadrian being infra-gay – at the opposite end of the spectrum to Elagabalus being ultra-gay. Indeed, as I understand it, that joke reflects the dichotomy the Romans themselves drew for sexuality – between the active, dominant or masculine role and the passive, submissive or feminine role. Or to put it bluntly, between the giving and receiving roles. Men could engage in the former “without a perceived loss of masculinity or social status” – hence infra-gay rather than ultra-gay – although deifying your dead ultra-gay lover was probably pushing the boundaries of Roman social acceptability.

 

RATING: 4 STARS****

S-TIER (GOD TIER)