Editorials
‘The Innocents’ and Horror’s History of a Fragile Mind
Henry James is a literary great who’d developed a reputation for penning atmospheric and emotionally gripping ghost stories. Though he’d written many, his most famous by far is his 1898 novella The Turn of the Screw. James preferred style was unconventional, supernatural hauntings that were extensions of reality. The haunting at Bly Manor was steeped in ambiguity, so much so that it remains wide open for many different interpretations. This is why the novella has been the subject of numerous adaptations over the years. 2020 offers two varying takes alone; The Turning and Netflix’s The Haunting of Bly Manor. So far, Jack Clayton’s The Innocents remains the gold standard of adaptations, though.
Opening on Christmas Eve, as many classic ghost stories do, an unknown narrator listens to a friend read a manuscript from a former governess. He provides introductory details before diving into the reading; a handsome and wealthy bachelor is the guardian of his orphaned niece and nephew but prefers to leave them in the care of a governess so he can continue his bachelor lifestyle away from the country home. When the previous governess dies, he hires an attractive but unqualified woman — the narrative shifts to the new governess’s point of view as she relays her eerie tale.
The governess is immediately smitten by the youngest child, Flora, and bonds with the maid Mrs. Grose. Flora’s brother, Miles, returns home soon after due to school expulsion under mysterious circumstances. It coincides with the governess seeing apparitions of a man and woman, separately, on the grounds of the country estate — the ghosts of the former governess, Miss Jessel, and Quint, a former valet. Frightened by their appearances, the governess surmises the spirits are after the children, who’ve been behaving strangely. Fearing they’re being possessed, she’s determined to save their souls.
There’s nothing straightforward about the narrative. The ending is abrupt and without a concise explanation. James keeps things intentionally vague and enigmatic, and one of the most common reads is that the governess is an unreliable narrator crumbling under the weight of her repressed sexuality. That the ghosts, manifestations of her delicate state of mind, represent unrestrained sexuality. The Innocents makes the subtext of these themes much more explicit.
From the outset, director Jack Clayton (Something Wicked This Way Comes) and writers William Archibald and Truman Capote paint the governess, Miss Giddens (Deborah Kerr), as fearful and delicate. She’s overwhelmed and worried when her employer, the bachelor uncle, leaves her to her duties with instructions that she has supreme authority; and to never bother him at all. While James’ novella implied a creepy sexual attraction between Miles and Miss Giddens, Clayton makes it more overt. Though filmed with stunning gothic style, and delivering one of horror’s greatest scares via ghostly encounter, it’s clear that we’re meant to question Miss Giddens’ fragile mind. The more the ghosts of Bly Manor’s past appear, the more frenzied she becomes.
The fragile mind is a common motif in horror. Alfred Hitchcock’s Rebecca followed a woman struggling to adjust to life as a newlywed, finding herself haunted by her husband’s previous wife. It was an adaptation of Daphne du Maurier’s novel of the same name, with a modern update heading to Netflix sometime this year. Just four years after the release of The Innocents, Roman Polanski made his debut with Repulsion, which centers around a woman so repulsed by sexuality that she’s driven to hallucinogenic madness. In between the two was The Haunting, a classic horror film that saw its lead, Nell (Julie Harris), susceptible to the ghosts of Hill House due to her psychological fragility.
Poor Jessica checks out of a mental hospital, only for voices and apparitions to call her sanity into question once more in Let’s Scare Jessica to Death. The Entity, though not subtle in the least, saw a woman being sexually tormented by an unseen demon, causing her soundness of mind to come into question by everyone around her. More recently, a single mother drowning in grief saw her fragile state of mind manifest a physical haunting in the form of The Babadook.
The nature of this type of horror, of haunted heroines with fragile minds, presents a psychological element that sets up a central driving mystery; is it all in the narrator’s mind, or is there a supernatural presence? More importantly, it’s the core foundation to build upon what horror does best, which is to reflect our current societal or personal fears. For James’ novella, it’s been speculated that the themes of repressed sexuality possibly reflected the author’s repressed attraction to men. In The Haunting, Nell was susceptible to Hill House because of her isolation in caring for an oppressive and invalid mother. Something that caused her to suppress her thoughts, dreams, and desires.
Horror’s exploration of the fragile mind, especially in the case of James’ novella, makes for a blank canvas ripe for reinterpretation again and again. We can expect Mike Flanagan to take loose artistic liberties with The Turn of the Screw for Bly Manor, as he did with Shirley Jackson’s source material for The Haunting of Hill House. What’s less clear is how Floria Sigismondi will approach the source material for The Turning. The choice to set the film in the ‘90s is an interesting one. Will this be a straight forward supernatural haunting? Or an unraveling psychosis of Mackenzie Davis’ lead character?
The interesting thing about James’ original story is that it can go anywhere.
The problem with filming sequels back-to-back is that, unless you can afford expensive reshoots, there’s no easy way to adjust course in between movies if fans react badly to where the story is headed. That’s why it’s important to have a complete narrative thought out well in advance lest you accidentally kill a budding franchise.
However, this isn’t always the case. Every once in a while, it seems like the cinema gods smile upon certain chaotic productions and gift moviegoers with complete franchises that feel like more than the sum of their hastily produced parts. Ted Nicolaou’s Bloodlust: Subspecies III is precisely one of these miraculous pictures, with the raw talents of the artists involved (as well as the continued support from Romania) turning the feature into an effective conclusion for a series that kind of made things up as the filmmakers went along.
That’s why I’d like to invite my fellow readers to join me on this third part of our journey through the Subspecies franchise as we look into Bloodlust and talk about how it remains a surprisingly satisfying finale to the original trilogy.
A Trilogy Planned on the Fly
Released only a year after Bloodstone found plenty of success in rental stores and mail-in VHS catalogues worldwide, 1994’s Bloodlust was produced at the same time as its predecessor in (mostly) the same locations and with the same team. This means that the movie benefited from all the same upgrades as Bloodstone, with the crew now being more experienced with the ins and outs of surviving a low-budget Romanian production and the cast really settling into their characters.
At this point, everything from location scouting to the makeup process had been streamlined, with Wayne Toth and Norman Cabrera, the main duo behind special effects, even switching out time-consuming prosthetics for latex gloves in order to speed up Anders Hove’s monstrous transformation. The titular “subspecies” demons were also once again relegated to a mere cameo appearance due to the laborious puppetry required to bring them to life.
The only real hiccup came from the fact that actress Denice Duff had replaced the first film’s Michelle (Laura Mae Tate) and was immediately expected to portray the character as both an innocent victim in part II and as a secondary villain in part III. According to behind-the-scenes interviews, the hectic production schedule that blended two different movies meant that Duff would often find herself having to alternate between two incredibly different versions of Michelle during the same shooting day – though it’s obvious that she’s having more fun with Bloodlust’s more traditionally vampiric version of her character.
In the finished film, we pick things up immediately where the previous entry left off as Rebecca (Melanie Shatner) is forced to leave her vampire sister Michelle (Duff) behind in the dungeons of Castle Vladislav due to the rising sun. This allows Mummy (Pamela Gordon) to use Michelle’s blood to revive the vicious Radu (Hove) so that he may continue his quest for the coveted Bloodstone – a magical artifact that perpetually drips the Blood of Saints.
Meanwhile, the dreamy US embassy agent Mel (Kevin Blair) agrees to help Rebecca plan a rescue mission, though they’re unaware that Radu has become infatuated with Michelle during his attempts to guide her growing bloodlust. This all culminates in a climactic confrontation meant to tie up all of the series’ loose ends in one of Full Moon Pictures’ most ambitious productions.
The Evolution of Radu
Like its predecessor, Bloodlust: Subspecies III was also warmly received by fans who argued that the series was an even bigger success than Full Moon’s other major horror franchise, Puppet Master. This praise wasn’t unanimous, however, as 1994 had seen the rise of a more modern breed of sexy vampire popularized by Anne Rice, with old-school Nosferatu like Radu being viewed as obsolete when compared to the likes of Lestat and Gary Oldman’s take on Dracula.
In a way, one might argue that Nicolaou’s film is something of a swan song for the classic vampire story, as Bloodlust combines all of the traditional elements we tend to associate with these tales into a single tragic yarn that ties a neat little bow on Radu’s story as well as the old-fashioned monster movies that he represents. The finale remains shocking despite the fact that this is the third time we see Radu get brutally killed onscreen, with the brief tease that he may one day return feeling more like a nod towards the nature of evil rather than sequel bait.
The film dabbles a bit in gothic romance and even explores the inherent power fantasy behind transforming into an immortal creature of the night, but the filmmakers never lose sight of Radu as a demonic force even when he’s willing to betray his beloved Mummy for Michelle’s sake. In fact, his twisted “love” for his fledgling makes him even creepier as we get the feeling that his passion comes from a dark and disturbing place.
Anders Hove is at his absolute best in this film, with the effects department boosting his moments of what the younger generation would call “aura farming” whenever Radu emerges from shadows like a 90s version of Count Orlok. There are even a couple of surprisingly effective jump-scares here, which is why I’d argue that Bloodlust cements Radu as one of the most memorable cinematic vampires of all time despite his humble origins.
Subspecies Saves Its Best For Last
Nicolaou and Vlad Panescu also saved the best for “last” (more on that in a bit) regarding the film’s visuals, with the cinematography and overall atmosphere of Bloodlust absolutely surpassing what we saw in the previous films. Everything feels appropriately climactic this time around (including the wonderful soundtrack that was co-composed alongside an authentic Romanian orchestra), and I appreciate how this is the fastest-paced entry in the trilogy since the film doesn’t need to waste time setting anything up.
Bloodlust still suffers from some of the same low-budget blemishes as its predecessors, but there’s so much creative passion here that no amount of wonky effects work or stilted dialogue can get in the way of appreciating the flick’s gothic grandeur. That’s why it’s not surprising that the movie’s definitive(-ish) ending would later be retconned as fans begged for more Radu.
Of course, the next entry in this series would be a different kind of vampiric endeavor altogether, with the filmmakers attempting to engage with the same trends that ultimately killed Radu and his antiquated kin. That, however, is a story for another time. For now, I’ll merely insist that Bloodlust: Subspecies III remains a highlight of Full Moon’s expansive catalogue and is definitely worth seeking out today.
You must be logged in to post a comment.