Junji Ito: The Master of Horror Manga

Welcome to the last week of 2018's Month of Horror. It is surprising that horror isn't a particularly large genre in comic books; at the start of the month we looked at why there aren't many American horror comics which you can read about here. Likewise, in manga we see a fairly large gap in the horror genre and most of the notable examples of horror manga aren't particularly horrifying for want of a better word; the excellent Tokyo Ghoul is classed as a horror manga but it is a tenuous classification at best. As many anime series, and movies, are manga adaptations this has a knock on effect that few truly horror anime exist - some like Monster and Mononoke exist and I would consider them some of my favourite anime. However, there is one manga artist and writer who has truly mastered the horror genre: Junji Ito. Very few pieces of media actually makes me feel scared - Junji Ito manages to do that every time. His manga truly captures the essence of horror taking the ordinary and mundane, or things too bizarre to take seriously, and make them terrifying; as a result many of the adaptations of his work has failed to illicit the same instances of terror that his manga does. I will also recommend not reading ahead if you're easily disturbed - I am showing some panels from Ito's work and they can get quite disturbing.

Junji Ito and Horror

Ito's manga doesn't contain things we generally find scary. We don't see vampires and zombies as in Western media or yōkai and oni from Japanese media. Instead Ito uses distortions and things impossible to describe in his manga - Ito himself best describes his style of horror saying 'It's interesting to take things and look at them from a backwards perspective.' As a result Ito can make things as mundane as cats, children playing, and a group of people sitting at a table seem unnerving. Turning the absurd and mundane into something unnerving is how Ito creates his horror. One of his main inspirations is H.P. Lovecraft who also uses the absurd to make horror. Like with Lovecraft when reading one of Ito's manga you get the impression of an immense sense of dread looming over you. Ito utilises the medium to its full advantage. For one, Ito hand draws his manga so, instead of getting a glossy finish that we get in say a Western comic we don't get that with him. His illustrations often are sharply done with dark colours making them well-drawn but not easy to look at. This helps add to their unnerving quality. In some horror manga, including Elfen Lied, the art style changes slightly when we get to the horror elements by becoming less refined, but in Ito's the art style never changes. We get a continued unnerving art style building up tension continuously. It is very much like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and The Hills Have Eyes. Both films are not nearly as gory or visibly violent compared to sequels, remakes, and other horror movies but they earned they were better at creating horror. Made on small budgets in the desert they are not aesthetically pleasing movies which added to the brutal and rustic feel of them. Although Ito's work is not low budget it has the same effect - dark and sinister this creates horror. As mentioned earlier there's a tension building up when reading Ito and he always makes this pay off. Before we see a horrifying image we see a character's reaction to it at the bottom of the page and as you turn the page we see the image very clearly. Below we have an example of this from My Dear Ancestors. The story revolves around a young woman meeting her boyfriend's family for the first time and she is greeted by this...

One first glance you can't tell what it is. How can you? Ito takes something ordinary and distorts it beyond recognition. You have to look at it longer to understand what it is; like in this case it's not a centipede attached to his head but rather a series of skulls. Ito very rarely explains the origins of the monstrosities of his stories; you get glimpses into what they are but no clear explanation. Thanks to this even absurd ideas become terrifying, like a shark walking on spider legs...

Tomie, Uzumaki and Gyo

Now we'll look at three of Ito's most famous works. The most famous is Tomie which at the time of writing has nine live-action movies and two OVAs in the Junji Ito Collection. First appearing in 1987 this manga tells the story of a young and mysterious woman called Tomie Kawakami who has a manipulative personality. Her body is found mutilated and dismembered after vanishing following a school trip but she turns up the next day as if nothing happened sending her classmates into a state of panic. As people are treating her different she said bye to her best friend, Reiko, and jumped off a bridge. We find out through flashback that on the trip up a mountain her boyfriend, Yamamoto, found her having an affair with their teacher. Suddenly driven to a homicidal rage he pushed her and she fell off the mountain dying. The rest of the class, bar Reiko, loathed Tomie so convinced the pair not to go to the police - instead they opted to dismember her and each take a body part to dispose of. As Tomie's only friend Reiko had to dispose of Tomie's heart. When the class found out that after Tomie's second apparent death Yamamoto and the teacher wanted to go to the police so the class decided to take the pair out. However, Tomie turned up. At the end of the manga we find out that Yamamoto is now insane, and the rest of the class has either dropped out of school or commit suicide. Finally around Tomie's heart a new version is growing. Across the Tomie series (it stopped publishing in 2000) we find out more and more about her but not enough to truly understand her. All we know that she is an immortal being who is a manipulator and enjoys tormenting people who are driven to homicidal or suicidal tendencies. 

The next manga we're looking at is Uzumaki. First appearing in 1998 it has received a film adaptation and two video games. Like most of Ito's work it is a weird story with very disturbing imagery. Uzumaki tells the story of the town of Kurōzu-cho (Black Vortex Town) which has a curse revolving around spirals. People start becoming obsessed, or paranoid, by spirals until they in turn start becoming spirals. People's bodies start distorting into the shape of spirals, others begin turning into human-snail hybrids, and people's hair also start becoming spirals. One of the two protagonists, Kirie, has her hair become spirals and when she tries to cut it off it goes to strangle her. A freak storm wipes out most of the town leaving behind several abandoned terrace houses which the town moves into. Due to overcrowding the town expands building more houses, in a layout of a spiral. As the manga progresses the town becomes increasingly enveloped by spirals and the protagonists realise that even time is caught up in the curse...

Finally, we have Gyo which received an unintentionally hilarious anime adaptation in 2012. A young couple, Tadashi and Kaori, are visiting Okinawa when they encounter a strange, decaying fish walking on mechanical legs. This especially disturbs Kaori due to her having a hyper-sensitive sense of smell. Okinawa is then swarmed by various sea creatures on these legs including a great white shark. They return to Tokyo with the first fish, which Tadashi managed to bag, where they give it to his uncle, a scientist called Dr. Koyanagi, to analyse. However, Tokyo is soon also attacked by the fish and Koyanagi had to cut off his arm after the machine carrying the fish detached from it, and then attached to his arm. We actually get the origins of the fish as well: a virus producing a horrible stench was developed by the Imperial Army as a last ditch attempt to fight the war but the plane carrying it was shot down into the Pacific. Kadashi's father had built the machines, which pumps the virus into the victim, so it could walk and infect enemy soldiers. They soon found out that the virus does in fact affect humans when Kaori gets infected and starts becoming increasingly deformed.

Other Stories

Junji Ito has written many stories so I'll quickly go over three which I found particularly disturbing which you might find interesting.

The Enigma of Amigara Fault

This was a story included as a bonus with Gyo. Like most of his stories it has a strange premise with frightening results. An earthquake leaving a fault in the side of a mountain range full of holes shaped like people. Several hikers become obsessed in finding their holes, and when they do they strip to their underwear to enter it. Other hikers have nightmares of those who had ventured into the mountain being still alive and in agony. At the end a second fault is found with holes in distorted shapes, and something coming through...

The Hanging Balloons

Again, another strange but disturbing premise. A famous celebrity is found hanging from a metal noose from a telegraph pole and her fans blame her boyfriend for nagging her about her career. Soon enough her fans kill themselves in the same way after supposedly seeing a balloon shaped like her head. Soon enough her boyfriend sees a balloon, climbs a tree, and hangs himself when told to do so. Her best friend, Kazuko, tries to tell people about the balloon and no one believes her until more balloons arrive. Each are shaped like someone and has a noose for a string which it aims to hang the person whom it resembles. Soon the rest of Tokyo is attacked by the hanging balloons and Kazuko's family soon are claimed one by one.

Army of One

Now we have Army of One which I consider to be the most disturbing story by Junji Ito. The story revolves around a hikikomori (a shut-in) called Michio is invited to a coming of age party for all the people in his old middle school now turning 20. Meanwhile, in the local park a couple is found dead and stitched together. Planes start dropping pamphlets advertising people to join the 'Army of One' which people connect to the murders. More and more people turn up stitched together and on Christmas Eve, when the Army's song is played on the radio, causing hundreds to be found stitched together; everyone killed was found distorted and strewn across Christmas decorations. Despite warnings the ceremony happens resulting everyone who attended to be found killed and stitched together. More and more people soon are found stitched together, and Michio realises that soon he might be as well. I found this one to be the most disturbing just because of how horrific and gruesome the images of the people stitched together are. It is truly one of the most disturbing panels in a manga that I've ever seen.

Conclusion

Junji Ito is truly a master of horror and should be considered alongside figures such as Stephen King and H.P. Lovecraft. Bold, unflinching and unpleasant each manga creates a tense and unnerving read. Even when he was commissioned to draw two Pokemon, Bannette and Gengar, he still made them incredibly disturbing. Skip the adaptations and go straight to the source material. Live-action and anime have, so far, failed to capture the intensity of Ito's work. The Tomie movies average out to 5/10 stars on IMDB, The Junji Ito Collection according to critics was a poor attempt to replicate Ito, and when Gyo was shown at my university's Anime society Halloween event it was widely mocked. That's because Ito's stories can only really be done by Ito and they are so wedded to manga as a medium. For true horror go to Junji Ito.

Thank you for reading and I hope you found this post, as well as 2018's Month of Horror, interesting. For future blog updates please see our Facebook or catch me on Twitter @LewisTwiby. In the UK it's Black History Month so every day in October we're looking at a person, event, or movement from black history so be sure to check that out. Thanks for reading.

The Horror Comics of the 1940s and 1950s

It is now October and longtime readers of this blog will know that every October I do the 'Month of Horror' where each blog post we look at something terrifying. To start 2018's Month of Horror I'd thought it would be interesting to look at a forgotten part of comic book history. By the end of the 1940s most superhero comics had gone into decline with only really Batman, Superman and Captain Marvel (now called Shazam) surviving until their return in the second half of the 1950s. In that time comic companies experimented with a range of genres including Western, romance, and, most importantly, horror. You don't see many comics truly in the horror genre. We have some notable ones including Scott Snyder's Wytches and the manga by Junji Ito but considering the size of the medium horror comics are a bit underrepresented. However, this wasn't always the case. During the late-1940s and 1950s there was a plethora of surprisingly graphic horror comics and today we're looking at them.

The Rise of Horror

Eerie #1

Superheroes were incredibly popular during the Second World War - readers saw the daring exploits of the comic book heroes and made a link to wartime propaganda. Soldiers were represented as heroes fighting for, (in the words of Superman comics), 'truth, freedom and the American way' so readers read the comics and imagined their friends and relatives doing the same. However, when the war ended so did the love for superheroes with the exception of a few like Captain Marvel and Batman. The end of the War did not bring an end to global issues making readers lose faith in glossy heroes, and returning veterans wanted something different. For several years they had been exposed to stories filled with sex and violence which made them want more which superhero comics, aimed at a younger audience, didn't offer. Avon Periodicals answered the call with a one-shot comic in January 1947 called Eerie (pictured above). The cover would create a stereotype for horror and comics for years to come which showed inspiration from the Universal horror movies like Dracula and The Bride of Frankenstein: a scantily clad, slim, voluptuous, bounded young woman was looking fearful in ruins as a vampire resembling Count Orlok from Nosferatu leering over her. Inside were stories of terror including a man being haunted by the ghost of a tiger and another of an island infested with carnivorous lizards. It was tame and even had some humour in it; a story of a man haunted by his wife was called 'The Strange Case of Henpecked Henry' and there was a two-paged story featuring a comical ghost. Nevertheless, it started a trend and a year later the first ongoing horror comic began with Adventures into the Unknown by American Comics Group. The first issue adapted Horace Walpole's The Castle of Otranto as well as other stories; the first two issues featured stories of werewolves, killer puppets and ghosts. This began a trend which other companies decided to emulate, including Marvel...

Marvel's Dabble with Horror

At this stage I'm using Marvel, anachronistically: it would not be known as Marvel for years to come. By 1949 Timely Comics (which would go through another name change before becoming Marvel) was having an identity crisis. The end of World War Two had damaged Timely's three main characters: Human Torch, Namor and Captain America. It had started moving away from superheroes to focus on Westerns like Two-Gun Kid, romances like My Romance and at times mixing the two together with comics like Rangeland Love. Timely even made an Archie-esque humour comic called Millie the Model and even got Archie artist Dan DeCarlo to write and draw for the comic from issue 18 in order to compete with Archie. The popularity of Adventures into the Unknown had spawned several other horror series so Timely joined in, tentatively at first. In August 1943 Timely's first publication as Timely, Marvel Comics or since issue two Marvel Mystery Comics, was renamed Marvel Tales in issue 93 featuring a cover featuring a shadowy ghoul. However, more shockingly was what they did with Captain America. Captain America's Comics in issue 74 was renamed Captain America's Weird Tales featuring a demonic looking Red Skull looming over a far smaller Captain America, seen only from behind, and Captain America was much smaller in the title compared to Weird Tales. Even the story embraced horror where Captain America fought Red Skull in Hell! The next issue only had Captain America in the title of the comic itself and eventually Captain America would be scrubbed out entirely. The cover was done by Gene Colan who would later be a major illustrator in Marvel and one of the few female illustrators.

Timely's first embracing of Horror

Timely in 1951 would launch two horror comics, Mystic and Strange Tales, who were often used interchangeably. Those who know their comic book history will recognise Strange Tales as the comic which would go on to publish Doctor Strange and Nick Fury stories. The reason for these publications was to compete with another company which we'll get to later on. In December Timely became Atlas and with it came more horror comics including Journey Into Mystery which would go on to publish Thor. Atlas would further embrace the horror trend even turning comics with little to do with horror into horror comics. In 1948 to entice fans of teen humour and a female audience Timely had started publishing a comic called Venus about the goddess who came to Earth, fell in love, and then hi-jinks ensued. As her popularity decreased by 1952 more fantasy and horror elements were brought in including her being embraced by a man whose face turned into a quite graphic skull. The comics started becoming increasingly graphic. In one, Suspense #29, future Marvel heavyweight Stan Lee and artist Joe Maneely had a cover featuring a man being buried alive with sheer and realistic terror on his face. One story in the comic, 'The Raving Maniac', featured a Stan Lee stand-in arguing with a stand-in for psychiatrist Frederic Wertham, a fierce critic of comics, who is dragged to an asylum. Astonishing #34, pictured below, is very graphic and disturbing featuring on its cover a terrified man awaiting the blade of a guillotine. 

This was published by the same people who would later publish Spider-Man!

Timely and Atlas never truly embraced horror. Although it had many horror comics it had an equal amount of romance and Westerns, and after the outbreak of the Korean War there was a boom in war and spy comics. At times it even continued to dabble in bringing back superheroes although this would not properly happen until Stan Lee and Jack Kirby took over. They were also fairly tame for the time compared to its competitors. Even though it's very intense Astonishing #34 had nothing on the comics by another company...

EC Comics - The Masters of Horror

Tales from the Crypt #31, compared to the comics from Atlas it is far more distressing featuring more graphic images, actual weapons, and depictions of violence

In 1944 a new company called Educational Comics was founded by Maxwell Gaines and, unsurprisingly, largely published educational comics for schools and Churches. He later was killed in a boating accident in 1947 bringing control of the company to his son, William. Being a veteran himself he knew that more mature stories would be popular so renaming the company to be Entertaining Comics, or EC, he began publishing darker stories. These dealt with sex, drugs, racism, justice, revenge, violence, and commentaries on society with Gaines himself even contributing to a few stories. EC soon made its mark for two reasons: its biting satirical comic MAD and its gory, graphic and violent horror comics. Over the course of 1950 three bi-monthly horror comics were published: The Vault of Horror, The Haunt of Fear, and, most famously, Tales from the Crypt. There would be other comics like Weird Science and SuspenStories but these would be the main three. In practice there was little to distinguish each of the three comics with all of them featuring violent and graphic supernatural tales with accompanying images. Instead to differentiate the three each one had a 'host' who in most of the comics would link each story together. Vault featured a hooded old man named the Vault-Keeper who would later be joined by a scantily clad silent co-host called Drusilla; Haunt featured a cackling and almost disformed witch with one giant eye called the Old Witch; and Crypt featured sinister hermit sitting on the threshold of a crypt called the Crypt-Keeper. At times the hosts would appear in the comics themselves. As the comics progressed the hosts would become increasingly comedic making jokes as they introduced the stories and pretending to have a rivalry with each other. 

The hosts: top-right is the Crypt-Keeper; bottom-left is the Old Witch; and bottom-right is the Crypt-Keeper

Gaines had a surprising large influence in writing the stories often reading horror stories beforehand and then using that as a springboard to write stories. Several stories show clear inspiration from various H.P. Lovecraft stories, 'Voodoo Horror' in issue 17 of Vault shows inspiration from Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray, and at least two stories in Haunt show inspiration from Edgar Allan Poe's The Tell-Tale Heart. Some stories showed a bit too much inspiration from stories by Ray Bradbury; so much so that Bradbury actually contacted EC about plagiarising his stories. They came to an agreement where EC would adapt six of his stories, two in each comic, and the charges of plagiarism were dropped. Stories often featured themes of ironic, and gruesome, poetic justice including one where a husband kills and stuffs his wife's cat only for her to take revenge by doing the same to him. Other stories included gory retellings of fairy tales, tales of conjoined twins (about nine stories all together), and satire on injustices in society including lynching, political corruption, racism, and antisemitism. Naturally all of this was accompanied by sex, suspense, violence, guts and gore. There's one cover from Crypt #44 which I like to imagine is the aftermath of the cover of Astonishing #34:

EC was never shy of showing the darker side of life. While Atlas was publishing heroic stories of soldiers EC was publishing stories of soldiers going mad. I can't show all of their more gruesome parts, I'm literally spoiled for choice, so I'll just show one: a man handcuffed to another man who's gorily being torn apart by vultures.

Why then did all this come to an end? Why don't we refer to EC in the same way we do Marvel, DC, or Dark Horse? Two words: public scandal.

The End and Legacies

The 1950s were times of change in the US. We saw the first steps of the African-American Civil Rights movement and Second Wave feminism causing great waves in society, but also there was a conservative backlash to changes. One reason for this was thanks to the Cold War and Red Scare. Fear of 'Reds under the Bed' spread across the US as individuals ranging from Richard Nixon to Walt Disney vowed to root out communist subversion. People were concerned that communists were attacking traditional values and Christian morality so there were cries to have them protected. There was a second reason concerning the youth. The 1950s saw the emergence of a teenage subculture, especially among the middle-class. As famously shown in the 1955 movie Rebel Without a Cause a new generation born into affluence and bored with life emerged, and was willing to rebel against the family system. A moral panic happened targeting everything from movies to books to music; Catcher in the Rye's infamy came from this panic. Comic books were not exempt and child psychiatrist Fredric Wertham, lampooned by Stan Lee in Suspense #29, attacked the medium accusing comics of corrupting the minds of the youth. Wertham had caused a stir but what really damaged comics was his 1954 book Seduction of the Youth. He accused comics of encouraging violence, crime, and sex in a young and impressionable audience; among his accusations included saying that Batman and Robin were gay (bearing in mind the US was very homophobic), Wonder Woman promoted BDSM, Blue Beetle was a Kafkaesque nightmare, and Captain Marvel featured a decapitation. The book was criticised by contemporary comic writers, including Stan Lee, for distorting reality. For example, the 'decapitation' in Captain Marvel was really someone spilling invisible ink on someone's head and Blue Beetle was a human who dressed as a bug, not someone turned into a bug like in The Metamorphosis as Wertham claimed. In 2010 when his original research was officially released Carol Tilley found that he had even falsified his evidence that comics caused crime and mental illness; he purposefully used small test groups, children who had mental illnesses before reading comics, and even lied about results.

The Comics Code Authority which killed horror comics

Despite all this the population in moral panic mode believed Wertham. Stan Lee summed it up best:  it was like shouting fire in a theater, but there was little scientific validity to it. And yet because he had the name doctor people took what he said seriously, and it started a whole crusade against comics. A Senate committee on comics was formed with Wertham as chief witness and it even brought William Gaines up before it! The committee decided that comics did not cause crime but it did give a thinly veiled threat that comics had to voluntarily tone down the violence. Thus the Comics Code of Authority, referred to as CCA from now on, came into being. The CCA would give its stamp of approval to comics it deemed 'safe' which meant that comics couldn't be: too violent, allow villains to get away without seeing justice, showed sex, showed LGBT+ themes, or even mention 'horror' or 'zombie'. A comic could publish without adhering to the CCA but due to the Senate and moral panic if they wanted to actually get sales they needed the CCA's approval. However, EC regularly violated these rules so struggled to sell their comics. Within a year Vault, Crypt and Haunt all stopped publishing - only MAD managed to survive from EC's biggest titles. Horror comics, except Adventures into the Unknown which lasted until 1967, were wiped out. As a whole comics were throttled by the CCA and some interesting things came out of it, like Batman's 'no-kill, no-gun' rule, most times it hindered comics, especially with LGBT+ characters. Companies continued to use the CCA until the 1980s when comics became more willing to publish maturer comics which caused a domino effect. More and more comics started being published and were selling with CCA approval and soon companies stopped seeking CCA approval. By 2010 only three companies continued with the CCA, including strangely DC which in the 1980s had several major maturer comics like The Dark Knight Returns, but within a year no companies signed up to the CCA. 

Creepshow by Stephen King and George A. Romero is practically an EC comic on screen

The CCA is a big reason why we don't have as many horror comics today as you would expect but their brief time in the sun proved very influential. Particularly the EC horror comics were read by many people who in turn would keep the horror anthology series alive. In 1972 there was a Tales from the Crypt movie which adapted several stories from all of EC's comics which was overshadowed by HBO's own series of the same name. The Crypt-Keeper was re-imagined as a corpse and it adapted again stories from across EC's library. It even featured guest stars and directors including an episode by Arnold Schwarzenegger. Then in 1982 two masters of horror, Stephen King and George A. Romero, came together to make an anthology film called Creepshow heavily inspired by EC's stories. The film opens with a boy having his horror comic taken away by his dad and who is later visited by the host of the comic called the Creep. We get the five stories from the comic featuring supernatural monsters, ironic revenge, dark comedy and features classic effects by Tom Savini of Dawn of the Dead and Friday the 13th fame. A sequel was made but the third movie had nothing to do with King, Romero, and EC which also explains why it was terrible and direct-to-DVD holding 0% on Rotten Tomatoes. In the last ten years comic companies have reprinted the old EC horror comics introducing the tales of horror and suspense to a new generation. 

Thank you for reading and I hope you found it interesting. Catch the blog every week this month for other Month of Horror posts. For future blog updates please see our Facebook or catch me on Twitter @LewisTwiby. Also, in the UK it is Black History Month and to mark this on Facebook for every day we're doing a short post about something from black history if you want to check that out.

Comics Explained: Scarecrow

Scarecrow

To finish off 2017's 'Month of Horror' I thought it would be good to end with a Batman villain considering one of the greatest comics to ever be written was Batman: The Long Halloween. I thought we should look at my personal favorite Batman villain who uses the shared weakness that we all have: fear. Scarecrow uses our primordial and irrational fears against us making him one of Batman's most endearing foes. Appearing in Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight Trilogy (played by Cillian Murphy) and the spectacular Batman: Arkham games Scarecrow is truly one of Batman's best foes.

Real World Origins
The Scarecrow was actually made by the same pair who made Batman, Bill Finger and Bob Kane. In 1941's World's Finest Comics #3 Batman first faced the Scarecrow but he was fairly different from his current version. Instead of using his famous fear gas to instill fear he instead used a gun. However, he was only seen twice during the Golden Age of Comics and he had to wait until 1967 to appear again. In Gardner Fox's Batman #189 in a story which also marked the debut of Scarecrow's fear toxin. During this story Scarecrow manages to use his toxin to make Batman and Robin scared of heights - later on his toxin would be changed so you see your own worst fears - and they manage to defeat him using his own fear: the fear of being caught. Unlike during the Golden Age Scarecrow made more regular appearances with him returning the following year in Batman #200 by Mike Friedrich. Here Scarecrow makes the Dynamic Duo scared of him so Alfred has to help them become resistant to Scarecrow's toxin, as well as making Scarecrow fearful of them. Since then although he hasn't appeared as regularly as the Penguin, Joker or Riddler he has remained a key figure in Batman's Rogue Gallery.

Origins

Batman #189

Scarecrow actually has three origin stories. Unlike Marvel - which has a sliding timescale - DC has rebooted its timeline twice. His first origin was explained in both World's Finest Comics #3 and Batman #189. Professor Jonathan Crane was a university professor teaching psychology with a particular emphasis on fear. He was disliked by his colleagues for his strange appearance, eccentric demeanor and shabby clothes because he spent all his money on books. To make a point about fear and drive it home to his class he shot a gun during one class which got him rightly fired. This enraged Crane and he decided to take revenge adopting the moniker of Scarecrow combing fear, (as scarecrows are used to scare away birds), and poverty. He would take revenge on his colleagues who fired him and would also commit a series of robberies using his gun, and later fear toxin, to scare guards/Batman into submission.

Batman/Scarecrow: Year One

Following the Crisis on Infinite Earths which rebooted the DC timeline Scarecrow gained a new origin story in 2005's Batman/Scarecrow: Year One - it was assumed by fans that he had the same origin story as his pre-Crisis incarnation until that point. Crane was abandoned by his parents leaving him with his emotionally manipulative and religiously fanatic grandmother who would abuse Crane. When she disapproved something that he did she would make him wear a suit dipped in a concoction which made crows go made, made him go into the family chapel, and then would be attacked by crows. His school life was equally traumatic. For his lanky and disheveled appearance he would be bullied, and unlike most bullies his bullies seemed to know literature nicknaming him 'Ichabod' after the protagonist of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. Crane started dabbling in chemistry and psychology, and after being bullied after being declined by a popular girl he decided to take revenge. Using an adapted version of his grandmother's concoction, and while dressed as a scarecrow, he attacked the girl and the bullies. One bully is partially blinded by crows, the girl is killed, and one bully is paralyzed thanks to a car crash. This would inspire Crane to later on kill his own grandmother and frame it as an accident. Years later he would become a professor of psychology at Gotham University and like his previous incarnation he would be fired for firing a gun in class to teach fear. However, unlike his previous version who was fine with just stealing from those who wronged him, this version opted to murder them. He would then become head psychologist at Arkham Asylum for the Criminally Insane while working at a psychiatric clinic on the side. There he would torment patients under his moniker of Scarecrow. To his dismay Batman was investigating the university murders and stopped Crane.

The final incarnation is the currently canon origin which has actually partially inspired Scarecrow's appearance in the TV series Gotham. When the DC Universe was rebooted with the New 52 they decided to rewrite Scarecrow's origins, which were told in Batman: The Dark Knight Vol.2 #13. This version of the Scarecrow has Crane living with his father who is a scientist working on weaponizing fear for the US government. Unable to procure test subjects he used his own son as a guinea pig. To test fear Dr. Crane would lock the young Jonathan in a basement full of creepy objects like replica dead bodies. Except one day he died of a heart attack leaving Jonathan trapped and traumatized until the police found him after a few days. Growing up traumatized he decided to gain controls of his fears by trying to understand fear itself and he becomes a professor of psychology at Gotham University. Although he would do unethical experiments on patients during his psychology work resulting in the creation of his Fear Gas and one experiment got him fired. A coed suffered from arachnophobia so he decided to try and cure it with an extreme habituation by throwing a box of spiders on her. He later became a psychologist with a private practice where he continued his experiments until he killed a patient which made him properly become the Scarecrow.

Appearances
To my dismay Scarecrow is often relegated to the sidelines so, unlike Joker or Two-Face, he does not have his own one-on-one story arcs with Batman. Instead he is often has a minor role so we'll go through a few of these today.

Batman: The Long Halloween

The Long Halloween

The first story that we shall talk about is his appearance in Jeph Loeb's fantastic The Long Halloween. Starting on Halloween Gotham's crime family is being killed off on holidays so Batman goes to see Calendar Man in Arkham to see if he has any clues on Mother's Day. There an inmate escapes and the terror in the voices of the guards indicate that it can only be Scarecrow. Head of one of Gotham's crime families, Carmine Falcone, and the Mad Hatter manage to break Scarcrow out of Arkham. When Batman goes to grab Crane it turns out to be a dummy loaded with his toxin which drives Batman so insane that he is resorted to crying while clinging hold to his mother's gravestone in an extremely powerful image drawn by Tim Sale. In this story Scarecrow is portrayed as deranged singing nursery rhymes constantly as he makes his toxin with Mad Hatter's help. We then find out Falcone freed Scarecrow so he and Hatter could rob the Gotham Bank Depository on Independence Day using the fireworks as a diversion, and Scarecrow's toxin to defeat the guards. However, Batman, and to an extent Catwoman, prevent the robbery.

Knightfall
The villain Bane wanted to break Batman mentally and physically, so he launched a raid on Arkham Asylum to free each of Batman's enemies so he would mentally exhaust himself tracking them down. Scarecrow was freed and he made an alliance with another villain: the Joker. Together they kidnap the mayor, after Joker's failed attempt to kidnap Commissioner Gordon, utilizing Scarecrow's toxin with the mayor's fear of snakes to bring Gotham to its knees. While they have him they make him cancel a request from the governor to get the National Guard to help keep Gotham safe, told the papers that Gordon's poor leadership caused the Arkham breakout, and told the president of the firefighters union that he plans to reduce wages. However, their disagreements over whether to destroy Gotham or Batman first allows Batman to easily defeat them. Later on when Azrael becomes Batman he tries to use hypnotized students to distribute his gas across Gotham until Azrael-Batman stops him.

Batman: Hush
Hush revolves around a new villain named Hush, I won't reveal his identity, uniting all of Gotham's villains against Batman. We find out that Crane was Hush's therapist but instead of helping him he made his condition worst. Working with Hush and Riddler he compiles a dossier of all of Gotham's villains exposing their weaknesses allowing the duo to control Batman's Rogue Gallery. He later uses his fear gas to turn Huntress and Catwoman against one another, but is eventually defeated by Jason Todd.

Blackest Night

Yellow Lantern Scarecrow

This is a Green Lantern story where a new Lantern Corps, the Black Lanterns, made up of the dead intend to wipe out all life. However, they see in emotions but due to years of neglect, trauma, and exposure to his own fear toxin Crane now lacks emotions. He can only feel fear but the only person who can make him scared is Batman. To combat the Black Lanterns each of the Lantern Corps make several people new members and Scarecrow is made into a Yellow Lantern: the Corps which utilizes fear. This is short lived as Lex Luthor wielding an orange ring of avarice steals Crane's ring from him. After the Blackest Night has ended Crane starts murdering LexCorp interns in revenge. Supergirl and Robin try and stop him only to find his fear toxin is powerful enough to work on a Kryptonian. Both managed to overcome the toxin and defeat him.

Other Media

Arkham Knight Scarecrow

Scarecrow has had several appearances in other media; most notably the Christopher Nolan Dark Knight movies where he was played by Cillian Murphy. My personal favorite appearance is in the spectacular Batman: Arkham games. In Arkham Asylum he helps Joker create his Titan formula but is apparently eaten by Killer Croc near the end of the game, as well as featuring some of the most creative parts of the game. He later appeared in Arkham Knight as one of the two primary antagonists where it was revealed that he was mauled by Killer Croc and now wants revenge on Gotham/Batman. Scarecrow also made several appearances in Batman: The Animated Series as well as other animated DC shows. He has also appeared in the TV series Gotham where his New 52 origin has been partially adapted. Finally he appeared in the fighting game Injustice: Gods Among Us as a background character in the Arkham Asylum stage, as well as the prequel comic where it was revealed that he helped make a toxin to make Superman hallucinate. He was a playable character in the sequel Injustice 2 where he was voiced by Freddy Krueger himself, Robert Englund.

Thank you for reading and I hope you enjoyed it. Thank you as well for reading 2017's Month of Horror. For future blog updates please see our Facebook or catch me on Twitter @LewisTwiby. 

13 Facts about the Friday the 13th series

Jason, star of the show

Finally a Month of Horror coincides with a Friday the Thirteenth. What better way to continue 2017's Month of Horror but by looking at one of the most famous horror movie franchises of all time. Jason Voorhees is easily one of the icons of not only the horror genre but also 1980s popular culture. Only perhaps Freddy Krueger from Nightmare on Elm Street manages to have the same standing. Several years ago I did a piece of trivia for each entry in the film series, (here it is if you're interested), so today we're going to look at general trivia for the entire Friday the 13th franchise, 13 in fact. So let's look at the man behind the mask...

Warning- May contain spoilers

1- Alice Cooper made a song for the series

Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives is by far my favorite entry in the series and had a song made for it by one of my favorite artists. Alice Cooper is quintessential 1980s campy rock which made him perfect for Part VI. This entry was the first to stop taking itself seriously and just embraced the absurdity of a man giant zombie in a hockey mask hacking people to death. It made sense that the two should come together. Cooper recorded The Man Behind the Mask which featured in the movie. It was not even the only Alice Cooper song to be featured in the film. A further two songs were featured! One was Teenage Frankenstein which is a nod to how the Universal Frankenstein movies helped influence Part VI. The Man Behind the Mask also made a second appearance in the series. In a novel tie-in to the series released in 2005 characters are listening to the song.

2-There were going to be 13 entries into the series

As of writing there are twelve Friday the 13th movies. There are the ten original movies, the 2003 crossover where he fights Freddy Krueger and finally the 2009 remake. There were plans to make a sequel to the remake but poor reception, lackluster box office returns, and producer Michael Bay's anger over the remake caused plans for a sequel to be dropped. However, Paramount Pictures announced that they planned to make a new remake which would have been released on this exact day that I am writing this, (13 October 2017). It was going to be written by Aaron Guzikowski and it was going to be a quasi-origin story with it filling in the blanks of Jason's origins. Recently video game series have been having guest characters for cross promotion and Netherrealm studios had been very big on this. In Mortal Kombat X Jason, the Alien, the Predator and Leatherface (from Texas Chainsaw Massacre) all appeared and all have new movies, (Alien Covenant, Leatherface and a new Predator to be released in 2018). After the both financial and critical failure of Rings earlier this year it is likely that this is why the remake was cancelled before shooting began. The thirteenth Friday the 13th movie won't be happening for the foreseeable future. 

3- Friday the 13th TV series

The opening

Although we don't have a thirteenth movie we have a TV series. Despite having several people who worked or appeared in the movies working on the series, sharing the name, and the same font of the title it has nothing to do with the movies. Allegedly when it was released in the UK it went under the name Friday's Curse. Instead it revolved around some owners of an antique store hunting down cursed objects. There was a decision to have Jason's hockey mask to appear in the series but it was scrapped so the series could be independent. Also, there is a rumor that the final episode before the series was cut short was to focus around Jason's mask and possibly even confronting Jason. Despite being cut short people have spotted how it may have inspired Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, The X-Files and the show Warehouse 13 has even been accused of plagiarizing this series!

4- Jason isn't the killer in every movie

Despite being one of the most famous horror movie character from the 1980s Jason is not the killer in two entries of the series. In the first movie it is actually his mother, Pamela Voorhees played by Betsy Palmer, who is the killer. Sent mad by her son drowning at Camp Crystal Lake when two camp counselors were busy having sex she decided to go on a killing spree when the camp reopened. Jason only appears at the end as a corpse, (in a possible dream sequence), dragging the last survivor underwater. The other entry is Part V. After being killed by Tommy Jarvis, (Corey Feldman), at the end of Part IV it is a copycat killer pretending to be Jason in perhaps the weakest entry in the series. Something which brings us to fact five...

5- Tommy Jarvis was supposed to be the new Jason

Tommy at the end

The fifth entry was entitled Friday the 13th: A New Beginning as that was the intention of it. Throughout the movie it had been hinting that after the events of Part IV that Tommy Jarvis had been driven to madness by Jason's murders and was now the copycat killer. However, we find out that instead a character who had about five minutes of screentime with no dialogue was actually the killer. At the end Tommy dons the infamous hockey mask and armed with a knife goes to attack one of the other survivors, (pictured above). Thanks to Jason coming back to life in Part VI this scene has been assumed to be a dream sequence but originally this was meant to make Tommy the new Jason. Tommy was meant to be the new murderer and the original opening was supposed to reaffirm this. Originally it was going to open with Tommy attacking hospital staff immediately after the events of the previous movie, fighting his way to the morgue where Jason wakes up, and then Tommy wakes up from a dream. Through poor reception from both fans and critics it is likely that Tommy becoming the new murderer was dropped in favor of resurrecting Jason.

6- Tom Savini made the first iconic effects

Savini working on Jason in the first movie

Tom Savini is well known among fans of horror movies as he is a special effects artist and actor. He became well renowned for his effects, as well as acting, in Dawn of the Dead which led him to being nominated for a Saturn Award for make-up. Although Dawn is by far his best work he has managed to create groundbreaking effects in everything that he has worked on. He has worked on two movies in the franchise: the first and the fourth. It is no coincidence that these two have some of the most graphic kills in the series. Savini is extremely good in creating realistic gore and he went full out on Friday the 13th. Not only making the gory kills he also made Jason himself. Above you can see the first steps in creating the rotting corpse of Jason which jumps from the lake at the end of the movie. 

7- The series was meant to end several times

Friday the 13th was never intended to have so many sequels. Initially it was meant to be a trilogy with Part III ending with Jason dying and staying dead at the end of the movie. However, Paramount was not content in having Part III being Jason's last killing spree, mostly because it made a profit of over $34 million. It was decided that the series should end with the fourth movie. It was even entitled The Final Chapter to signify that this was to be the last entry of the series. Due to Tommy looking disturbed staring into the distance it was left up to the audience to decide what this meant. With it making over $19 million it was decided that the audience needed a new entry. In 1993 it was decided to end the series with the ninth entry: Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday. This movie literally ends with Jason going to Hell, (and another character dragging the last image of Jason with him), and that actually ended the series for six years until Jason X literally took Jason to space. 

8- Horror Crossovers

Freddy vs. Jason

We already know that Jason has met other horror icons with 2003's Freddy vs. Jason where he battles Freddy Krueger from Nightmare on Elm Street. This was not the first time that Freddy met Jason though. As mentioned in the previous point another character dragged Jason's last image to Hell at the end of the ninth entry. The movie ends with Jason's mask in the desert where Freddy Krueger's hand burst from the sand and drags it to Hell. Part VI was even intended to be a battle between the two but it was cancelled when Paramount could not obtain Freddy's rights. The ninth entry also contains a reference to another film series. Almost an hour into the movie you can very visibly see the Necronomicon prop from the Evil Dead franchise. Based off of the Necronomicon from H.P. Lovecraft's famous mythos the Necronomicon brings the zombie like Deadites to life. Due to this cameo we got the comic book Freddy vs. Jason vs. Ash where Freddy tries to get back at Jason from Freddy vs. Jason by using the Necronomicon in Jason's hut. Then Ash from The Evil Dead finds out and tries to stop them. One last thing is that another horror icon was meant to appear in Freddy vs. Jason but it was cancelled due to how expensive the rights were. Freddy and Jason were meant to be dragged to Hell where they become shackled by chains. Then Pinhead from Hellraiser would come out and say 'Gentlemen, what seems to be the problem?'

9- Video Game Easter Eggs

The game

Earlier this year a video game was released where you either play as a camp counselor trying to survive or play as Jason trying to massacre them. This game contains so many references to the movies. Many of the counselors are inspired by the characters from the movies, many of Jason's kills are directly from the movies, Jason's costumes are exactly like his film variants, and Jason even smashes through doors in a similar way to how he does it in Part VI. These are not the only references. The Higgins Haven map has a damaged bridge which is damaged in the exact same way in how the bridge was damaged in Part III. To kill Jason you have to combine several ways how Jason is killed in the movies. One of the female characters have to wear Pamela Voorhees' jumper and the Tommy Jarvis player has to deal the killing blow.

10- Many Actors

Kane Hodder

Ten people have played throughout the history of the movies. The first was Ari Lehman who portrayed Jason as a child in the first movie. Kane Hodder is the person to have played the character the most and is well regarded by fans. Hodder has played Jason in every entry of the series between Part VII and Jason X. There was a controversy with fans when Hodder wasn't cast as Jason in Freddy vs. Jason as director Ronny Yu wanted someone to tower over 5'10'' Robert Englund who was portraying Freddy Krueger. Yu wanted it to be a 'David v. Goliath' type match so Ken Kirzinger was cast instead. Recently Hodder has been recast as Jason with serving as the killer via motion capture with the new Friday the 13th Game.

11- Mortal Kombat Appearance

As earlier mentioned Jason has appeared in the hit fighting video game Mortal Kombat X, possibly as a way to advertise the now cancelled thirteenth movie. Jason was a DLC, (downloadable content), which the player would have to buy in order to play. There Jason would be able to fight Mortal Kombat's ninjas, gods and monsters. Or alternatively you could have Jason fight Jason. Jason was released at the same time as the Predator and later was joined by the Alien and Leatherface. Jason and Leatherface weren't the first horror characters to appear in Mortal Kombat. In the previous game, entitled Mortal Kombat but referred to as MK 9 by fans, Freddy Krueger was a possible playable character. Like with Jason his inclusion may have been a way to cross promote the then recent Nightmare on Elm Street remake.

12- The famous stalking noise

Those who have watched the movies will recognize the above noise. When Jason is stalking or about to murder someone this sound is played. There is actually some meaning behind it according to the original score composer Harry Manfredini. Normally people say that the sound is 'chi, chi. chi, ha, ha, ha' but instead it really is 'ki, ki, ki, ma, ma, ma'. Manfredini has said that in the first movie it is really representing Jason saying 'kill, kill, kill, mom, mom, mom' as Pamela believes that Jason is telling her to kill people. In the later films it is shown that Jason is killing seemingly on Pamela's orders. In Part V it is changed to 'ki, ki, ki, ta, ta, ta' if you listen carefully. This is a subtle nod to how it is now Jason telling Tommy to kill.

13- Possible fan theory

The original Friday the 13th is effectively a poor attempt to replicate the horror classic Halloween with a regular human committing the murders, and initially it was assumed that Jason dragging the last survivor into the lake was a dream. That is until Jason actually returns and kills the only two characters to survive the previous movie. Fans wondered how did Jason age up if he was a corpse child at the end of the first movie. Was he actually alive the entire time? A fan theory has cropped up based on the Necronomicon's cameo in Jason goes to Hell. There is a theory that Pamela Voorhees discovers the Necronomicon and decides to bring Jason back. The murders that she committed throughout the movie were then actually part of a blood ritual to bring Jason back which became complete when Pamela was beheaded. After his first appearance he rapidly ages to the age he would have been if he had not drowned. 

Thank you for reading. If you would like to keep up with the blog please see our Facebook or follow me on Twitter @LewisTwiby.

Review: Trick 'r Treat (2007)

Trick 'R Treat

As we come to the end of 2016's 'Month of Horror' I thought it would be a good idea to review a severely underrated horror movie. Trick 'r Treat never got a widespread showing when it was released instead having it shown in a select few cinemas. The only reason why I know about the film is because James Rolfe of Cinemassacre.com reviewed it two years ago. Trick 'r Treat is also one of the few movies which truly embraces the premise of Halloween; even the Halloween movies, with the exception of the third one, merely had the holiday as a backdrop. Halloween is my favorite holiday, I love horror, I'm interested in pre-Christian belief systems, and I am not religious holidays like Easter and Christmas never had the same effect which Halloween had. As a result I was very eager to see this film, so let's begin the review.

Plot

It is not easy to explain the plot of Trick 'r Treat. It is an anthology movie where instead of one story finishing another begins all four stories, (roughly), occurs at the same time. If you look out at times you can hear or see characters from another story in the background. One story, the first and shortest one, revolves around a couple coming back from a costume party. The girlfriend is very dismissive of the traditions of Halloween whereas the boyfriend fully embraces and loves them. It soon turns out that it is a wise idea to respect the traditions. Another story deals with a murderous principal, (played by Dylan Baker), who takes the traditions of Halloween. The third revolves around a virgin student, (played by Anna Paquin), whose friends and older sister are trying to get her to lose her 'virginity' but there is a twist to it. My favorite story deals with a group of kids pranking an unpopular girl from their school at the site where a bus full of mentally ill children crashed into a lake, and it happens to go brutally wrong. The final story deals with the neighbor of the homicidal, Halloween-loving principal, (played by Brian Cox), who loathes Halloween and comes afoul of a figure seen in all the other stories. Seen in every story is a child wearing a burlap sack called Sam who acts as the enforcer of the Halloween traditions.

The overlapping plots of Trick 'r Treat are done really well. They do not get confusing and it is quite interesting to see how each scene fits into the chronology of the story. Each story even has a twist which fits extremely well in the overall narrative. Despite going from cruel pranks, to werewolves, to demonic pumpkin children, to vampires it seems natural. The way the story is structured allows it not to seem overly far-fetched. Director and screenwriter Michael Dougherty did a fantastic job. Surprisingly the murderous principal story is extremely tense which was very effective. My only criticism for the plot is with the prank story, and the virgin story twists it does seem somewhat predictable. I managed to correctly guess from the outset the prank story twist and I almost did correctly guess the virgin story twist, (without giving too much away I guessed it would involve a creature of the night but guessed the incorrect creature).

Acting

The acting varies in quality throughout the movie. The more well-known actors like Dylan Baker, Anna Paquin, and Brian Cox did fantastic jobs in their various roles. Surprisingly event the child actors did really good jobs which I was surprised about. Leslie Bibb who plays the girlfriend in the first story is somewhat stale although she is not in the film for too long so it's not a major issue. Similarly Anna Paquin's friends, although not the sister character, do seem overly cliche and boring but they are side characters which again is just me being pedantic.

Effects

Sam unmasked

The effects are stunning. I am a huge fan of practical effects which the movie heavily relies on. At only one part could I identify something as CGI, and even then it was not overly bad CGI. The mask for Sam when he's unmasked is fantastic. It genuinely looks creepy and the effect is enhanced through the lighting in that scene. The costumes and makeup for the zombie children are extremely realistic as well and at times were quite unnerving to look at. By far though my favorite effects involved the werewolves. It was a very unique transformation scene which was quite captivating to watch. I would say it was one of the best werewolf transformation scenes in cinema after The Howling and An American Werewolf in London.

Final Points

Trick 'r Treat truly embraces the idea of Halloween. It brings together the modern idea of Halloween, and the ancient idea of Samhein. We have parties and festivals, and then we have sacrificial rituals. We have urban legends, and we have spirits attacking people for removing their wards against evil. Trick 'r Treat embraces the old and the new. Quite literally as well due to the fact that there is a scene which I thought was referencing the fantastic vampire movie The Lost Boys. The demonic child character Sam also appeared in director Michael Dougherty's 1996 animated short Season's Greetings. It just shows that early ideas can be left to evolve and become something better.

Conclusion

For fantastic effects, creating a perfect Halloween atmosphere, with a few mediocre performances I would give Trick 'r Treat a 7.5/10. Thank you for reading and have a happy Halloween!