While procrastinating on a critique project I keep toying with I began cogitating on a passage from Carol J. Clover’s seminal book Men, Women, and Chainsaws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film that angered, frustrated, and offended me.
Clover wrote: “The pair of murders at the therapy pool in Halloween II illustrates the standard iconography. We see the orderly in two shots: the first at close range in the control room, just before the stabbing, and the second as he is being stabbed, through the vapors in a medium long shot; the orderly never even sees his assailant. The nurse’s death, on the other hand, is shot entirely in medium close-up. The camera studies her face as it registers first her unwitting complicity (as the killer strokes her neck and shoulders from behind), then apprehension, and then, as she faces him, terror; we see the knife plunge into her repeatedly, hear her cries, and watch her blood fill the pool.” [Men, Women, and Chainsaws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film, by Carol J. Clover, Page 35]
What angered, frustrated, and offended me was how Clover gave a detailed description of something that does not happen in the actual film. While the generalities regarding camera placement and framing are correct, there is no stabbing or bloodshed.
Here is the scene:
See? No stabbing or bloodshed. I do not know if this has ever been addressed or corrected, but it really soured my mood when I first read it, way back in the mid-90s. I wanted, hoped, and expected better attention to be paid to the text being cited and critiqued. Get your facts right. It’s important.
My perseverating on this scene led to me thinking about Dario Argento’s Profondo Rosso. Why? Because I have a memory of reading an interview with John Carpenter, most likely in an issue of Fangoria magazine, wherein he described his film Halloween as being a homage of sorts to Argento. Much like Assault on Precinct 13 was his homage to Howard Hawks and George A. Romero.
In Profondo Rosso a woman (Giuliana Calandra) is brutally murdered by having her head forcibly submerged in scalding hot water.
Because she is still alive when dropped on the floor, and lives just long enough to leave a clue, the implication is that the pain and shock are what really kill her.
The unfortunate Karen (Pamela Susan Shoop) appears to be quite dead when Michael (Dick Warlock) lets her slack body drop to the floor. There is no need for clues to be left here.
But I was stuck by the similarity on display. Or maybe I was just reading a tad too much into Carpenter’s Argento comment.
Then again, Friday the 13th Part 2 was known to have replicated kill scenes from Mario Bava’s seminal 1971 proto-slasher A Bay of Blood [Ecologia del delitto]. Maybe Carpenter was doing the same with Profondo Rosso when he was writing Halloween II?
Despite my grousing about Halloween II being misquoted in the book, I do recommend Men, Women, and Chainsaws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film. The chapter that compares and contrasts the feminist messaging in Meir Zarchi’s I Spit on Your Grave (aka Day of the Woman) with the feminist messaging in Jonathan Kaplan’s The Accused was an interesting and thought-provoking read.
Ghoulies, Ghosties, and Long-Leggedy Beasties 