questionable role models

JOHN WATERS

John Waters earned my respect and admiration when I first saw Pink Flamingos in high school. I was fairly jaded and, particularly as a horror fan, was under the impression that I had seen all there was to be seen. John Waters, the "Prince of Puke," based his entire career on shocking audiences and giving them something they'd never, ever seen before. Not only was he successful in doing so, he managed to launch a mainstream career off it. By setting up a reality of his own creation in which the audience's perceptions of what is normal and what isn't are turned on their sides, Waters manages to make (almost) endearing characters out of complete freaks and degenerates with the help of really hilarious and subversive writing.

This is your protagonist.

His storytelling is much more active than it is didactic, which is part of what makes it so shocking. The audience isn't given the privilege of being told it's okay to hate these people or that it's okay to love them, nor does Waters care to explain why such bizarre behavior is seemingly commonplace--like, say, Edith Massey spending most of the film in that skin-tight get-up wailing at the top of her lungs in Female Trouble. The audience is simply left alone with this veritable freak show and has to decide whether to laugh, feel repulsed, or a bit of both. The worst thing for a filmmaker is for someone to walk away from their film without inspiring any strong feelings and to have your work be forgotten. I admire John Waters most for his assurance that no matter what, you will never be able to forget what you saw in his films.

QUENTIN TARANTINO

aka "Mr. Shit"

Quentin Tarantino's movies, for me, are all about subtext. Looking at Kill Bill, Vol. 1 the text of the film is simply that a woman scorned seeks revenge from those who once tried to kill her. It's fairly standard. Looking at the subtext, though, the film becomes such a rich experience and, really, all of Tarantino's films are partly storytelling and partly his love letter to the films that inspired him. As an aspiring filmmaker, I identify with him because of his obvious identity as a film fan before being a filmmaker. If I'm sitting in a theatre watching Inglourious Basterds and I hear a music cue from A Fistful of Dollars, I'm going to smile and instantly understand the tone that Tarantino is pulling for by knowing that piece of score in its original context. It's like some strange, exclusive club where you're rewarded for being a giant nerd, which I'm all for. In a creative environment, it's important to recognize and embrace your influences and build from them to create. No one does that better (or more blatantly) than Tarantino.

 

 The text of this scene is fairly simple. It's a big crazy fight sequence to act as the centerpiece of the film. Looking at it more closely, however, this entire scene is Tarantino paying homage (or ripping off, depending on who you ask) his inspirations in film. The Bride's trademark jumpsuit is the same worn by Bruce Lee in his last film, Game of Death. Axe to the head? Just like Navajo Joe. Yakuza split down the middle with a sword? Looks like Ichi the Killer. Shadow sword-play from Samurai Fiction, plucking out someone's eye looks an awful lot like The Five Fingers of death--this entire piece is constructed from countless sources, from Kurosawa to Leone. Uma Thurman is a blonde-haired warrior with no name--she might as well be "Blondie" in The Good the Bad and the Ugly. From the cinematography to the score to costuming and set pieces, Tarantino creates a kind of film mash-up of some of the greatest films, then puts his own particular spin on it to make it appeal to a modern audience. It's a celebration of cult and camp and filmmaking in general and a testament to his ability to make the old new and fresh.

No, but seriously, I kind of love Tarantino.

JOHN CARPENTER

Oh, sweet JESUS what is that?

I am, at heart, a horror fangirl. If I could spend the rest of my life dumping fake blood on people and making schlocky movies, I'd die a happy girl. John Carpenter is one of my main inspirations as a horror director, primarily because, better than anyone else, Carpenter knows how to ratchet tension right to the breaking point before finally giving audiences a terrifying release. In his remake of The Thing (one of the few movies to really surpass and really make the original almost forgettable), Carpenter presents us with a research team alone in their arctic base in the midst of an outbreak of some kind of alien force looking to assimilate each and every one of them by turning them into nightmarish aliens so horrible that not even Kurt Russell can save them. It's a bleak, quiet film with a minimalistic soundtrack that creates a feeling of tense claustrophobia which is then given release through a series of terrifying, cathartic scenes of WTF.

 

In one of the aforementioned scenes of WTF, Kurt Russell, playing R.J. MacReady, has learned that this alien reacts violently to fire. In order to determine who among them is still themselves and who has been taken over by "the thing," he proceeds to systematically test a blood sample from each by applying heat to it. It starts slow, with MacReady explaining and setting up the expectation for the audience: something terrible is coming out of this. He tests sample after sample and nothing happens, building tension with quiet deliberation until finally, he hits Palmer's sample, which sets off a chaotic scene of shock and horror so strongly contrasted against the earlier quiet of the film. The release of knowing who is really "the thing" and who is not is instantly overtaken by more tension as the rest of the crew are tied down and totally helpless against the monster, as both MacReady and Windows' flamethrowers fail them. The second release finally comes with the explosion of the dynamite that ultimately kills the monster. Carpenter was the master with this kind of thing, no pun intended. Halloween is the most obvious example of his prowess in creating tension in horror, but The Thing holds a special place in my heart for having such mind-blowing practical make-up effects and, of course, Kurt Russell.