Monsters and Madmen

"Monsters and Madmen" is a collection of four classic films produced by the Gordon Brothers and released on DVD. "The Haunted Strangler." "Corridors of Blood." "First Man Into Space and "The Atomic Submarine."

Two of these films are Horror and two are Science Fiction, but in practice the horror movies, "The Haunted Strangler" and "Corridors of Blood", have more than a little Science Fiction in them as well. The latter concerns a doctor who does more than a little extracurricular research and the former a man hunting for a mad doctor. "Corridors of Blood" could outright pass for Victorian Science Fiction and "The Haunted Strangler" for a Jack London take on the whole subject.

The Science Fiction movies, "First Man Into Space" and "The Atomic Submarine", both also have more than a little Horror in them. "First Man Into Space" after all postulates the rather unlikely scenario of cosmic dust turning an astronaut into a monster. A premise that is commonplace in Horror stories and yet the setting is a Science Fiction one of spaceships and exploration into the unknown territories of space. Even if in this technologically primitive case, they were near earth orbital ones.

"The Atomic Submarine" too has a seemingly Science Fiction setting, yet that too is only the trappings of a Horror tale, that has a submarine crew confronting an alien monster and a plot against the earth.

Is "Monsters and Madmen" a collection of Horror films or Science Fiction ones? Or perhaps neither or both? The answers can't be simple ones but they are simpler than we think.

Coming from a time when cinematically horror and science fiction often blended together, both venturing into the exploration of the unknown, these movies date back to a time when horror was more than slasher flicks and science fiction was more than another asteroid about to plow into the earth.

All four of them treat the progress of science as opening up more doorways that should have perhaps remained closed and letting in the terror.

Boasting a heritage, long lost in both genres, what these four films have in common is that despite their awkward dialogue and plot twists that will appear cliched to the modern viewer who has grown used to watching movies whose filmmakers have the benefit of decades of experience, they are not the bland corporate studio products of the modern cinema, but a daring exploration into the unknown.

Long before transgressive art was transgressive, horror and science fiction flicks, even at their cheesiest, were transgressive summoning up monsters and madmen from the id, stalking the bloody corridors of human nightmares and digging out what was hidden within their walls. The classic horror film was the grandfather of nightmare, the ancestor of terror and their feeble progeny today that rely entirely on blood, gore and musical cues, cannot hold a flickering candle flame to their innate terrors.

The Haunted Strangler

When most people think of classic Horror, they think of Boris Karloff. From the zenith of playing Frankenstein's monster, to the nadir of "Plan 9 From Outer Space", still considered the worst movie ever made, Boris Karloff defines classic horror.

Here Boris Karloff is in fine form as James Rankin, an author investigating a series of gruesome murders supposedly perpetrated by a man executed two decades ago, who Rankin (Karloff) believes is innocent of the crime. Rankin's investigation leads him to the real culprit, but the dead man's hand or rather scalpel, reaches out from beyond the grave to continue the killing spree through the hands and flesh of the possessed Rankin.

Karloff was always a charismatic actor, capable of far more than he was usually given to work with and his talent emerges here, playing both man and madman, the pursuer of truth and the perpetrator of atrocity. The line between man and madman is a classic staple of horror, the fear that one will tumble into the other, that our id will overwhelm our ego, banish our superego and perpetrate all the crimes lurking in our subconscious. The madman becomes the id personified, will without sense and desire without morals. Rankin's struggle with himself is the eternal struggle of man with sanity against the terrors of the known.

This is the dividing line between the Monsters and Madmen of this collection and between its Horror and Science Fiction genre affiliations. The madmen are the unknown within the known, the darker parts of ourselves. The monsters are the unknown, the terrors of a universe even more horrific than what our subconscious has to offer.

Corridors of Blood

"Corridors of Blood" would almost pass for Victorian Science Fiction in its exploration of early medicine. Frankenstein too originated out of a Victorian preoccupation with medical research, yet "Corridors of Blood" features no monsters being grafted out of spare parts. Its thesis is as simple as anasthesia, the removal of pain. Dr. Thomas Bolton, also played by Karloff, is seeking to free the patients who go under his knife from experiencing the agony of pain. But his idealistic quest leads to narcotic addiction and a journey into the depths of human degradation and suffering. That decay of the noble aims of idealism in the pursuit of Science is a common theme in Horror influenced Science Fiction or conversely Science Fiction influenced Horror.

First Man Into Space

"First Man Into Space" could have almost been a Twilight Zone episode but its summation of the unknown is far too simplistic for Rod Serling's thinking, which aimed at a higher level of translating the human incomprehension of the universe onto his corner of the small sized silver screen.

Dan and Chuck Prescott, space pilot and commander, test their wills against each other and against the infinite mysteries of space. Dan, who is eager to penetrate the veil of the sky and burst out into the unknown territory of space, pays a horrific price for it, becoming an inhuman monster.

The fear of the unknown transforms the ordinary into the extraordinary. Like Rankin and Dr. Bolton, the price of exploring the unknown, is to become the unknown. To become a madman or monster.

The Atomic Submarine

"The Atomic Submarine" brings us an alien invasion of earth and all that stands between it and the survival of humanity is Commander Reef Holloway, who confronts the alien threat face to face. As with Dr. Bolton's research and Dan Prescott's rocket, technology becomes a vehicle for coming face to face with the horror of the unknown in the form of an alien monstrosity.

Yet The Atomic Submarine's plot is unique among this group of four releases in that the invasion is not humanity's fault and that humanity possesses the resources to confront and combat it. If "First Man Into Space" is another recitation of the hubris of human civilization, "The Atomic Submarine" assures that we have the mental and technological resources to combat the threat of the unknown. Hubris and Anti-Hubris. And it is fitting to end the collection on the note of hubris, on the side of erring in the hope that human aspirations outlive and outmatch our flaws and that in confronting the unknown outside ourselves and inside ourselves, we can slay the monsters.