Editorials
[Editorial] Pascal Laugier’s ‘Incident in a Ghostland’ and the Salvation of Storytelling
“I wrote this book to keep from going insane.”
This article is loaded with spoilers, so turn away now if you’ve yet to see the film.
Upon its release in theaters and on digital platforms back in June, the discourse surrounding Martyrs director Pascal Laugier’s Incident in a Ghostland (now also on DVD) was largely dominated by its more problematic aspects, particularly the valid concern that it helps perpetuate some troubling stigmas; one of the film’s two killers is either a cross-dressing man or a trans woman, but it’s hard to say given it’s never really addressed. Either way, it’s the latest in a long line of horror films to demonize trans characters, presenting them as both creepy and insane.
No doubt, the film’s villains are frustratingly underdeveloped at best and quite problematic at worst, as our own Dax Ebaben pointed out in his recent review for this very site. But the flaws that are very much present in Laugier’s latest don’t derail the film entirely, as its weak points are bolstered by what ultimately amounts to be a surprisingly powerful storyline.
Underneath all of its brutality, a silver lining of hope.
Incident in a Ghostland centers on young sisters Beth (Emilia Jones) and Vera (Taylor Hickson), who move into a new house with their mother at the start of the film. It’s not long before a creepy ice cream truck pulls up outside, letting loose two sadistic killers who rampage through the home. Bravely, mom brutally dispatches them both with relative ease… or does she?
One of this year’s biggest gut punches comes courtesy of a second act twist in Incident in a Ghostland, wherein Laugier informs us that the version of events he had been showing us following the home invasion was merely a delusion inside the mind of Beth, who serves as the film’s main character. As it’s established right off the bat, Beth is obsessed with horror fiction (particularly the work of H.P. Lovecraft) and fancies herself a writer, using her scary stories to escape from her realities – in reality, she can hardly stand the sight of blood, nearly losing her mind when she has her first period. But whereas Beth had been coping with reality by conjuring up stories much scarier than anything she was actually living through, Incident in a Ghostland‘s twist informs us that what we’d been watching in the wake of the home invasion was actually a pleasant story she conjured up to escape a real nightmare. Go figure.
In her fantasy world, Beth has grown up and overcome the nightmarish events of her past, using them as the inspiration for a best-selling horror novel. She’s married. She has a happy child and a happy life. All of her dreams have come true. But in reality, things played out quite differently on that fateful night.
In reality, Beth’s mom was killed by the intruders, and Beth and her sister Vera have been chained up in the basement ever since, subjected to daily physical abuse by their mother’s killers. The man she imagined as her husband was merely an old photograph she had found in the basement. Same goes for the child she imagined having with him. None of it was real. Beth isn’t a successful writer who exorcised her real life demons by writing a hit horror novel. Rather, she’s still a child. And her nightmare is far from over.
The twist is a thoroughly devastating one, especially since Laugier had given us no indication whatsoever that Beth’s happy life was a fabrication inside her head. So when he pulls the rug out from under us, it’s a genuine shocker that delivers an emotional punch right to the gut. It’s not just a cruel twist, however, but rather a fairly brilliant representation of the film’s theme.
With Incident in a Ghostland, Laugier is clearly stressing the importance of storytelling, and the way that escaping into fiction can be one of the most effective ways to deal with whatever’s going on in our real lives. In the film, of course, it’s the most extreme of examples, with Beth being trapped in a horror movie nightmare and fantasizing that she’s living her dream life. But don’t we all cope with life’s daily struggles, both big and small, by daydreaming? By either writing our own stories or consuming the stories told by others?
How often is that escapism the only thing that’s even keeping us going?
What’s most interesting about Incident in a Ghostland is that Beth ultimately ends up surviving her ordeal, and saving her sister’s life as well, not because she’s physically strong but rather because she’s armed with a weapon nobody can take away from her: the boundless imagination that sits somewhere between her ears. Beth literally imagines a better life as a means to overcome what has become the most unimaginably awful existence, and it’s because of her escape into fantasy that she gets through the hellish ordeal unbroken. Essentially, she transcends the horrors she’s subjected to, which is clearly an idea that Laugier, having previously directed Martyrs, is fascinated with. The same cannot be said for her sister, whose own nightmare is perhaps even more horrifying. With no means to escape physically or mentally, Vera has been head-on dealing with every second of trauma. And she’s clearly the worse for wear as a result.
In the end, Beth has one final “daydream” that compels her to fight back and overcome her and her sister’s tormentors. Only this time, she seems to be keenly aware that it’s merely a daydream, the sort of happy life that she needs to fight for the future possibility of. In this particular daydream, Beth is at a Christmas party and her mother is there with her. So too is her idol, H.P. Lovecraft. Played by Paul Titley in the film, Lovecraft praises Beth’s writing in what plays out like an almost divine (and highly unexpected) moment of validation in her talents, spurring her on to fight for the ability to keep on living… to keep on writing. Rather than staying at the party/in the daydream, Beth chooses to return to her reality, finally facing it head on for the very first time. After all, escapism is only healthy in moderation. In a triumphant moment that’s incredibly on the nose but satisfying all the same, Beth beats her abuser half to death with the old typewriter she uses to write her stories.
The film’s final moments are quite moving, with Beth and Vera emerging from their prison and loaded up into separate ambulances. The paramedic looking over Beth comments to her that she’s a tough girl, and that she must be into sports. But Beth’s toughness is her brains, not her brawn. “I write stories,” Beth confidently tells the paramedic, shooting down his well-intended but ultimately insulting suggestion that she must be a certain type of girl to have so bravely survived such a horrible nightmare. For the first time in her life, she’s confident about her abilities. Not because a fantasy version of a dead horror author told her she’s good at what she does, but because her talents quite literally saved her life.
Laugier never tells us what becomes of Beth when she grows up. But it seems clear that her fantasy life will eventually become reality. The film’s cruel twist is also its hopeful potential.
Aren’t all of our daydreams, if only we persist?
Editorials
Before ‘The Blair Witch Project’, ‘Alien Autopsy’ Showed How Real Found Footage Could Feel
The line separating artist from con man is a lot thinner than you might initially believe. While I think we can all agree that lying for the sake of profit is actively malicious behavior, isn’t it also true that the faux documentary aspect of The Blair Witch Project is half the reason why that film became such a cultural phenomenon? After all, if there’s one thing filmmakers have in common with stage magicians, it’s that misleading and misdirecting audiences is simply part of the job.
That’s why I’ve developed a habit of mostly ignoring the moral quandaries behind many of film and television’s biggest “hoaxes” in favor of appreciating the narrative elements that drive productions like Mermaids: The Body Found and even Animal Planet’s highly underrated The Cannibal in the Jungle. However, if there’s a definitive case of a highly publicized broadcast fooling the world into taking it seriously, it has to be Fox’s infamous 1995 TV special Alien Autopsy: Fact or Fiction.
It’s been over three decades since that eerie footage first haunted television screens right at the peak of the ’90s ufology craze, and in that time, the video has taken on a life of its own. From countless parodies and references in everything from The X-Files to Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater (as well as John Dower’s recently released tell-all documentary The Alien Autopsy Scandal, which I’d highly recommend to genre fans everywhere), there’s no denying the legacy of the Alien Autopsy video. However, I rarely see the tape discussed as what it truly is: a highly convincing found footage film directed by a passionate stage magician and brought to life by masterful practical effects work.
That’s why I’d like to invite readers to join me on a deep dive into one of the most infamous broadcasts of all time in an attempt to reevaluate the footage as a fascinating narrative experience rather than a complete hoax.
The TV Special That Convinced Millions It Was Real
Ray Santilli next to Extraterrestrial replica in ‘The Alien Autopsy Scandal’
For starters, regardless of whether or not you believe that there was in fact an extraterrestrial crash in Roswell during the summer of 1947 and that some form of autopsy was performed on the victims, the producers behind the black & white recordings, Ray Santilli and Gary Shoefield, insist that their video was a “restoration.” Though I’d argue that the proper word is “remake”of genuine footage that was too damaged to air on television. That’s why the duo went on to recruit filmmaker and eccentric magician Spyros Melaris and sculptor/monster designer John Humphreys to bring their version of the autopsy to life and sell it to the highest bidder.
This is where the story of the Alien Autopsy as a narrative experience really begins. Melaris claims that his approach to the faux recording consisted of striving for extreme period accuracy in both shooting equipment and setting while also planting subtle details that would initially seem like mistakes but could later be revealed to actually fit the time period. That being said, the filmmaker was under the impression that the short would be released for free as a PR stunt, with the team later producing and selling an informative documentary chronicling exactly how the footage was faked and commenting on how easy it is to manipulate public perception with a good old-fashioned magic trick.
This obviously isn’t how things went down, and that’s likely the reason why Melaris has since distanced himself from everyone else involved with the project. Yet, no amount of behind-the-scenes drama can undermine the genuine effort that went into making the short as impressive as it is. From the sourcing of real animal organs from a local butcher to make the organic part of the creature more lifelike to the highly detailed sculpt that made use of a hollowed-out underlayer that could be filled with fake blood and assorted viscera, there’s a reason why so many Hollywood specialists are still impressed with the artistry on display here.
Of course, the believability is only half the story, as I think that the best part of the autopsy is how Melaris builds on the existing tension by obscuring certain details and often embracing the chaos of what a real examination of extraterrestrial life could feel like. The camera often goes out of focus at just the right time to make certain effects hit even harder, and we can only speculate as to what the hazmat-suited doctors are gesticulating about during the operation. There’s a real air of mystery to the whole thing that almost makes it feel like a cosmically terrifying, cursed film containing forbidden knowledge that civilians were never meant to see.
So when Fox’s Fact or Fiction brings in the specialists to comment on the film and its otherworldly subject, it’s no surprise that we end up with one of the most memorable mockumentaries of all time – albeit one where the participants are unaware that the footage they’re commenting on is basically a large-scale practical joke. A joke that the network was obviously in on, as many participants claim that the TV special cut out significant portions where guests point out that they believe the footage to be an elaborate hoax.
The Lasting Impact of the Hoax Turned Cultural Event
Regardless, I remember going to bed terrified after watching reruns of the special and thinking about the respected pathologist who claimed that the body was almost certainly inhuman, with even effects maestro Stan Winston commenting on how difficult it would be to recreate some of these visuals through practical puppetry. That’s not even mentioning Jonathan Frakes’ dramatic hyping up of the disturbing imagery as if he was talking about the tape from The Ring, with his spooky demeanor here likely being responsible for his later role as the host of Beyond Belief: Fact or Fiction a few years later.
Personally, I’d argue that the Alien Autopsy phenomenon had just as much of an impact on me as a horror fan as The Blair Witch Project, a film that was almost certainly influenced by the success of this immensely popular hoax (to the point where they even produced their own TV special commenting on Heather’s found footage). Even if Fox didn’t intend to produce a narrative feature about the aftermath of the Roswell crash, the end product still holds up remarkably well as a highly entertaining mockumentary exploring the idea that we may not be alone in the universe.
While neither Santilli nor the rest of the production team has ever commented on this, I also think it’s very likely that the idea of a faux Alien Autopsy could have been influenced by Dean Alioto’s The McPherson Tape/UFO Abduction. I’ve already written about how this granddaddy of found footage was co-opted by rogue ufologists who began selling bootlegs of the tape at conventions as if it were real evidence of a close encounter, so it’s not that much of a stretch to imagine that Santilli and company could have heard about this phenomenon and been inspired to come up with their own highly profitable hoax.
At the end of the day, it’s unlikely that the Alien Autopsy film is recreating any real footage from Roswell, but I can still appreciate the short and the accompanying television event as a standalone horror story that still influences the way we see found footage to this very day.
After all, the possibility that something could be real is often much scarier than finding out for sure – and that’s why I think Alien Autopsy: Fact or Fiction is still worth revisiting three decades down the line.
You must be logged in to post a comment.