Episode 287 - Long Live The New Flesh

[kingstownted]

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This week we discuss the perversion of medical science in horrific ways. Horror has had a long history of using medicine and institutions of healing as a foil for terrifying storytelling. Hospital horror is a subgenre unto itself and the dastardly works performed by mad scientists dates all the way back to Henry Frankenstein. Another favourite theme of the genre is the use of infection or contamination of the body to generate the threat or simply allow for gruesome bloodletting.

The subject of medicine gone wrong is tackled with a trio of 2012 films that embody a consistent theme of manipulation of the body - unnecessary procedures carried out by unqualified people. To drill things down even further, we selected three picks from debut / sophomore directors who impressed us with some obvious talent.

Things kick off with David's son Brandon Cronenberg's Antiviral which takes the concept of body horror and carries on his father's tradition. Next up is American Mary, the Soska sister's follow up to their impressive debut Dead Hooker in a Trunk, which follows a promising med-school student's descent into the dark world of underground surgery. Finally, we discuss Excision, a highly touted 2012 directorial debut that mirrors Lucky McKee's May (2002) in many ways. All three movies worked for us and we hope you find something to like as well.

All this, a Dr. Giggles schlock corner, Batman: The Dark Knight Returns part 2, and an on-air injury make an episode.

As always we welcome your comments: [e-mail]
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[jmodlinc]

I have to say, I think both mediums of animation and comic books have always been capable of delivering material that is beyond cookie cutter, superficial, bubble gum-flavored flights of fancy or stories that are "dumbed down" for younger audiences; the sole factor in that is obviously the storytellers behind them and how successful they are at crafting and pulling off the stories they are wanting to tell. I don't think there's any inherent deficiencies in either art form that one has to first get past or maneuver in order to do something that is layered or has depth to it.

Not saying at all that's a view you were expressing Ted, but I just wanted to state an obvious I guess that I'd think it'd be pretty silly to think that when hearing of something that's animated or is in comic book form, one automatically assumes the material is more juvenile or not as intelligent/adult-friendly as other storytelling avenues.

While skirting the subject of "The Dark Knight Returns" by the way, thought it'd be worth bringing up one particular bit of casting that I'm slightly surprised neither you nor Doug brought up: Michael Emerson, who I suppose is best known even still as having played villainous Ben Linus on "Lost," voices the Joker this time out. Perhaps his performance didn't stand out much to either of you, but since you were such "Lost" fans I thought it was worth mentioning.