The Monstrous Fantastic Conference Paper Abstracts - International ...

22. (FTV) Cult Monsters: Rabbits, Robots, and Revenants CypressChair: Isabella van ElferenUtrecht UniversityA Leap of Imagination: The Monstrous Rabbits of Night of the LepusKatherine A. FowkesHigh Point UniversityArguably one of the worst movies ever, Night of the Lepus is one of those films that’s so bad it’s funny. Ostensibly operating in the tradition ofsci-fi/horror films that feature plagues of super-sized critters, here giant carnivorous rabbits roam the land terrorizing the locals. Seguing fromlast year’s conference on the ridiculous to this year’s on the monstrous, this paper will explore the monstrous rabbits in the context of bothhorror and humor. Could the concept have succeeded as horror with a better script or better special effects? Or does the very notion ofmonster rabbits doom the film to ridicule? By one definition, the rabbits are monstrous simply by being impossibly large. While rabbits areusually characterized as being cute or scared, scary movie rabbits DO exist (Donnie Darko, for example). But while rabbits have indeed inspiredfear in certain cultures-- most notably when associated with witchcraft, current associations are usually of innocence and vulnerability. Thisassociation creates humor in Monty Python and the Holy Grail where the incongruity between our assumptions that rabbits are cute andharmless collides with the image of a rabid-rabbit-assault. Comparing the humorous Chewbacca in Star Wars to similar creatures in successfulhorror movies, Noel Carroll writes that creatures become monstrous in part through the reaction of the other characters. Yet in this film,despite the horrified response of the characters to these giant predators, the rabbits fail to meet another of Carroll’s monster criteria: filmfootage of real grass-munching rabbits is just not that disgusting or repulsive. If monsters are also examples of phenomena gone impossiblywrong, or alternately creatures cast as repressed or vilified “Others,” (see Biskind, Cohen, Wood, for example) then the rabbits in this film are(ironically) monstrous precisely because they are monstrously inappropriate villains for a horror film.Robot Monster and the Science Fiction Cult FilmJ. P. TelotteGeorgia TechAs Lincoln Geraghty reminds us, early 1950s science fiction cinema, typified by films like The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951), The Thing (1951),Invaders from Mars (1953), and War of the Worlds (1953), typically “presented America and the world in the grip of emergencies—emergenciesthat jeopardized the future of the [human] race” (23). And the “emergency” visions in the film he cites did assert a serious purpose and raise alevel of awareness, as they prompted audiences to contemplate the trajectory of their newly atomic-driven world, to reconsider the strainedand potentially destructive relations between nations, or simply, as The Thing urged viewers, to “watch the skies, keep watching the skies” forpossible threats—from aliens, both extraterrestrial and earthly. Yet other films of the era, works like Plan 9 from Outer Space (1959), Cat-Women of the Moon (1953), and Robot Monster (1953)—all of which also invoked the specter of invasion, monsters, and apocalypticdestruction—moved viewers in rather different ways. While tracking many of the same concerns and anxieties of the era, these works and theirmonstrous visitors prompted, both then and now, a less serious, at times even laughing response—albeit one that suggests a kinship betweenthe film groups. As most readily recognize, works like Plan 9 from Outer Space, Cat-Women of the Moon, and Robot Monster are cult films,works that have a special following and special appeal, even if mainly as camp texts. Yet thanks to such key verbal indicators as “space,”“moon,” and “robot,” we also quickly recognize their science fictional status, as works that draw much of their identity from the way they treatscience, technology, and reason, the triad at the film genre’s heart. In fact, a great many science fiction films have attained a similar status,found their own cult reputation and following, works like The Phantom Empire (1935), Attack of the 50 Foot Woman (1958), Santa ClausConquers the Martians (1964), Zardoz (1974), The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975), The Man Who Fell to Earth (1976), even a recent film likeSerenity (2005). They have done so, I would suggest, not because they are bad or campy films—although several answer to both charges—butrather, at least in part, because of their science fiction identity and thus because of a similarity between the science fictional and the cult interms of their thrust, their narrative, and their audience appeal.From Gunfighters to the Living Dead: The Western Revitalized as the Zombie FilmLokke HeissIndependent ScholarThe concept of the paper takes its cue from the seminal work of film historian Richard Slotkin, in particular his book about the Western titledGunfighter Nation. Sloktkin's thesis is that for about sixty years, Western genre became the most important pop culture forum in attempting tocreate a national mythology...a forum that tried to explain or discuss race, miscegenation, and regeneration through violence. Slotkin'sconclusion is that the genre as a central American mythology fell apart in the mid-70s, in part due to its failure to encompass or explain thefailure of the Vietnam War. My contention is that the Western genre split into fragments, partly turning to space opera (Star Wars) and partlyfinding its issues of race and identity in the films that would become 'the zombie film,' a new genre that is finding more traction every year. Ithink the zombie film has taken over the role of the Western, and would discuss how the TV show Walking Dead is this decade's version ofBonanza.