Editorials
Looking Back on the Controversial Monster Mockumentaries That Came Along in the Wake of ‘Blair Witch’
When The Blair Witch Project was released back in 1999, many critics questioned the ethics involved in presenting the film as a true story in order to generate box office buzz. Of course, humanity has been embellishing real life through storytelling since the dawn of time, so this wasn’t the first or last time that genre media would attempt to mislead audiences for fun and profit. Nevertheless, the movie sparked a conversation about how much reality we can really expect from our entertainment, though we never really found an answer.
These discussions would resurface a few years later with the rise of several popular TV specials speculating about the existence of mythical creatures, all presented in the style of legitimate nature documentaries. Tackling everything from dragons to mermaids and even colossal sharks, these specials became notorious for blurring the line between fact and fiction on networks traditionally associated with educational programming. However, putting ethical concerns aside, I actually think that these strange productions tapped into a primal fascination with monstrous mythology, and they’re still worth revisiting today, provided that you take their sensationalism with a grain of salt.
Of course, fake/misleading documentaries have been a thing since the format was first invented, with memorable incidents including the BBC’s infamous Spaghetti Tree special in the 50s and Fox’s Alien Autopsy investigation in the 90s. With the rise of Found-Footage movies and speculative nature docs like The Future is Wild and Alien Planet, plus an entire pantheon of shows based on Cryptozoology and Parapsychology, it’s only natural that networks would eventually attempt to use this format to explore classic myths and legends.
That brings us to Animal Planet’s 2004 special Dragons: A Fantasy Made Real (also known as The Last Dragon in its Channel 4 release), a blockbuster mockumentary that opens with an absurd battle between a T-Rex and a wyvern during the Cretaceous period. While Dragons feels a lot a natural evolution of the paleontology docs that were all the rage at the time, cutting between state-of-the-art CGI re-enactments and the supposed paleontological discoveries that inspired them, the show also boasted impressive visuals and sultry narration by either Patrick Stewart or Ian Holmes, depending on the region.
Not your average nature show.
Even as a child, I was aware that the program was trying to entertain more than it was trying to teach, but much like the X-Files, wanting to believe made it much more fun. Even with bizarre theories like positing that dragons survived the extinction event that killed the dinosaurs by evolving into mythical sea-serpents, Dragons still managed to be a genuinely informative special. By exploring the far reaches of the dragon myth throughout several cultures and presenting a more-or-less scientific revision of classic mythology, the special works as a clever thought experiment, even if some of its leaps in logic don’t quite hold up to scrutiny.
In 2011, we’d see a similar show that would double down on the sensationalist elements with Animal Planet/Discovery Channel’s Mermaids: The Body Found. While it’s the most ethically dubious of these productions, with only a few easy-to-miss disclaimers explaining that it’s a work of fiction, it’s also the most entertaining. Structured like a genuine investigation of evidence suggesting that a race of intelligent humanoids is thriving under the sea while also dealing with some real world conspiracy theories, it’s no wonder that this special scared the crap out of people when it first came out.
Mermaids might not be the first thing that come to mind when thinking of horrific monsters, but The Body Found gives off some serious Lovecraftian vibes as “real scientists” discuss the implications of sharing the planet with sentient underwater creatures. There are also a few Found-Footage segments that went viral around the time the special was released, with folks claiming to have caught glimpses of these illusive aquatic beings. While most of the footage has clearly been altered with CGI, it was believable enough to stir up quite a bit of controversy, convincing many viewers (especially younger ones) that these findings were legit.
Despite being criticized for its misleading presentation, The Body Found was a ratings juggernaut, breaking several records and eventually earning a sequel with 2013’s Mermaids: The New Evidence. While this second doc is mostly more of the same, with “experts” doing their best to justify the existence of mermaids based on recovered amateur footage and supposed physical evidence, it was another massive success for the channel. The sequel did a better job of making sure that viewers understood this was a piece of fiction, but it was still a bit too convincing for some folks. Regardless, the Mermaids specials are still some of my favorite TV oddities, even though they probably shouldn’t have been broadcast on channels known for informative nature shows.
Spooky.
Of course, you can’t discuss nature documentaries (speculative or otherwise) without touching on the worldwide phenomena of Shark Week. And in 2013’s edition of Discovery Channel’s Shark-based programming, the network released the least fantastical of these mockumentaries with Megalodon: The Monster Shark Lives. Another pseudo-journalistic endeavor where scientists discuss phony evidence suggesting that these monstrous creatures somehow escaped extinction, Megalodon shattered all Shark Week ratings records with its premiere, proving that audiences were ravenous for speculative content.
As gigantic sharks are a bit closer to reality than mermaids or dragons, The Monster Shark Lives sparked the ire of several scientists and NGOs who accused the special of being irresponsible. While the show makes an effort to provide at least some scientific basis for its outlandish theories, there’s no denying that it feels a lot more like an entertaining prelude to a monster movie than genuinely educational programming.
Being such a huge success, it’s only natural that this one also earned a couple of sequels with 2014’s Megalodon: The New Evidence and 2018’s Megalodon: Fact Vs. Fiction. While the former dives even deeper into speculative territory, offering more Found-Footage evidence and outrageous testimonies, the latter is actually a re-edit of the original special with added segments debunking most of the phony pseudo-science. The added scientific context may get in the way of having fun with the original show’s premise, but I applaud Discovery Channel for attempting to inform viewers through speculative storytelling.
At the end of the day, these strange pieces of Docufiction might not be everyone’s cup of tea, but with the recent rise of Fake News scandals and a generalized distrust of authority, it’s funny to look back on this weird moment in television history when huge networks were willing to combine fact and fiction in order to spark a conversation. They might have been a little irresponsible at times, but I think there’s a lot of entertainment to be had in revisiting these shows in a new context. Much like the best speculative fiction, these specials suggested that maybe the important question isn’t “do monsters exist?” but rather “what if they did?”, and that’s enough for me to recommend them to monster aficionados everywhere.
The great Ernest Dickerson turns seventy-five years old this month, so we’re looking back at his most memorable contribution to the horror genre – 1995’s Tales from the Crypt: Demon Knight!
The film hit screens while the Tales from the Crypt series was winding down its run on television, and it stands apart with a story that feels a step or two removed from the franchise norm. That was the smart play, though, as the show’s stories – and those from the original EC comics – work best in short bites. The result is a film that holds up beautifully as a gory good time.
Now keep reading to see what I heard on the commentary for…
Tales from the Crypt: Demon Knight (1995)
Commentator: Ernest Dickerson (director), Michael Felsher (moderator)
1. Dickerson was in post-production on Surviving the Game when he got a call from his agent saying that producer Gil Adler wanted to meet about a Tales from the Crypt feature film. It went well, so Dickerson met with Joel Silver next and secured the job.
2. The original screenplay for the film came to the producers as a spec script wholly detached from the Tales from the Crypt brand. They added the Crypt Keeper (voiced by John Kassir) bookends to make it fit.
3. Dickerson was more familiar with the original EC comic books having read them as a kid, but he had watched a few episodes of the HBO series, so he knew what the current vibe was for the project.
4. Adler directed the film’s wraparound segments, meaning Dickerson never actually got to work with the creepy puppet. “Gil and the Crypt Keeper had a great relationship,” he adds, “they worked together for years.”
5. While he was new to the Tales from the Crypt family, Dickerson had previously worked as a director of photography on the Tales from the Darkside anthology series. That show is underappreciated in my humble opinion, and I will go to bat for both it and the equally underloved Monsters.
6. A big appeal of the horror genre for Dickerson is the idea of dark mysteries that challenge our imagination. For this film, that came down to the mythology being created between the characters.
7. Five executive producers are listed in the opening credits, but Dickerson says the only two he had dealings with were Silver and Richard Donner. The other three were Walter Hill, Robert Zemeckis, and David Giler.
8. Dickerson had only ever seen Billy Zane in movies with a full head of hair, so he was surprised when Zane showed up on the first day with a bald head. “He had this case, and he opened up the case that he had all these hair pieces in, and he says, ‘So which one of these do you think I should use?’” Dickerson looked at him and suggested he just go bald for the character.
9. While the bulk of the opening exteriors were filmed in a desert just outside Los Angeles, the shot of the old church at 11:26 was created on a warehouse hangar soundstage where the film’s interiors were shot.
10. When he had read the script, Dickerson pictured the character of Jeryline (Jada Pinkett Smith) “as a little, tough lady.” He had recently seen Smith in Menace II Society, and while the producers had someone else in mind for the role, he fought to get her instead.
11. Just as Zane surprised Dickerson with his hair (or lack thereof), Smith arrived on the first day with her hair dyed platinum white. He “liked the idea” but asked her to please get it tweaked so it looked more yellowish blond. “It’s definitely a statement.”
12. He had seen Brenda Bakke in the 1989 sci-fi/action film from Japan, Gunhed, and thought she’d be great here as Cordelia. The rest of us might recognize her from Death Spa or Trucks.
13. Felsher comments that the film’s setup does a good job not telegraphing who’s going to live or die, and he uses the “nice guy” (Charles Fleischer) and “the kid” (Ryan O’Donohue) as examples. “You don’t play by those rules here,” he says, and Dickerson replies that he wanted to subvert those rules. That extends to Smith as well because she’s Black, “and usually in movies like this they’re the first folks to die.”
14. Dickerson says they had forty days of filming, “which, the way I’m used to working, was a very generous schedule.” It was budgeted at around $10 million.
15. This probably won’t surprise you, but Zane improvised the bit at 26:25 after he jumps out the window and says, “Fuck this cowboy shit! You fuckin’, hodunk Podunk, well, then, motherfuckers!”
16. In the original script, the demons that The Collector (Zane) raises from the dirt actually looked more like the people they used to be. “They were more human,” but the very smart decision was made in pre-production to make them look far more unique instead.
17. The demons are killed by shooting their eyes, but Dickerson felt there should be one more element to it. “Shoot out their eyes, you gotta duck because the souls come shooting out, and if it hits ya, boom, it can kill ya.” This is a fun touch.
18. He’s been asked more than once if these demons are where Peter Jackson got the idea for how the orcs would look in his Lord of the Rings movies. “They do look like orcs.”
19. He recalls having seen Ronny Yu’s The Bride with White Hair shortly before going to work on Demon Knight, and he hoped to bring some of that staged style into his own film. An example of that in practice is Brayker’s (William Sadler) brief flashbacks to Christ on the cross.
20. Character deaths were mostly based on the idea that “each person’s downfall was going to be predicated by their weakness.” The Collector discovers someone’s weakness and then uses it against them. Cordelia wants to be loved, Jeryline wants to travel, Uncle Willy (Dick Miller) is a horndog for both liquor and ladies, Danny loves horror comics, etc.
21. Dickerson says that plenty of genre classics were in the back of his head while making the film, including Assault on Precinct 13, Alien, Aliens, and more.
22. Cordelia is possessed into a demonic form, and Dickerson’s idea for how she’d look was originally a bit different. “Since Cordelia was a prostitute, I thought that her mouth should actually be a vertical slit that was in her stomach… which would open up with teeth and a tongue.” It was nixed, he says, when “the wife of one of the producers read that and said ‘no way you’re putting that in the movie.’”
23. The key makes an appearance in the followup, Tales from the Crypt: Bordello of Blood, but it wasn’t originally meant to. Apparently, early test audiences expected it to be a more connected sequel to Demon Knight, so the filmmakers added it in to appease them. This is where I go on record saying that Bordello of Blood is a fun time. Can’t touch Demon Knight, obviously, but it’s more entertaining than its reputation suggests.
24. They had to film Uncle Willy’s bar scene “dream” twice, once with the women topless and once with them in bikinis, to have versions for both theaters and television broadcast. “Dick’s a pro.” (To be fair, Dickerson says this in regard to Miller having to endure the makeup application, but the sentiment fits both situations, so…)
25. Dickerson says he’s “always amazed at the love that people show this film,” and adds that fans bring it up to him incredibly often. This is great to hear, as we should always be telling artists how much their work means to us while they’re still alive and able to hear it.
26. Zane also suggested the gag at 1:08:21 with the sponge coming out of his mouth. The beat reminds Dickerson to praise the actor even more, adding that he was an “ally” to the director when “bad ideas” came down from the studio suits.
27. He didn’t get any pushback on killing little Danny. He did insist on one added element, though, as he wanted to immediately follow the boy exploding in the air with a shot of his bloody and torn sneaker hitting the ground below. “And the sneaker had to be a hightop.”
28. Dickerson says there’s “something kinky sexy about” Smith being covered in blood, and then the two commentators go quiet for almost two minutes out of respect for the scene. It’s a good opportunity to reflect on how Dickerson had previously mentioned Alien and Aliens as films being in the back of his head during filming, and how two scenes here reflect that – Jeryline stripping down to her underwear for the final confrontation feels like a nod to Ridley Scott’s film, while an earlier scene with Irene (CCH Pounder) and Dep. Bob (Gary Farmer) realizing they’re surrounded and choosing to blow themselves up alongside some of the demons is something of a callback to the air vent sacrifice in James Cameron’s film.
29. Asked about the film’s critical reception at the time of release, Dickerson says it received good reviews from horror-loving critics and then talks about the importance of horror in general. “Horror has always been a great way of putting out ideas, of talking about some of the things that affect us as people. Some of the best horror, like the best science fiction, talks about what it’s like to be human. Some of the best horror gets very political.”
30. The original ending would have featured The Collector showing “his true self, which is a demon made of fire.” They spent a lot of time trying to make it work, but it was “extremely difficult… back in the day of analog effects.” It was rewritten into the faceoff between him and Jeryline featuring the dancing, the crotch fire, Zane’s attempts at saying “love,” and his eventual demise from her bloody spit.
31. They both agree that a direct sequel to Demon Knight could be a lot of fun, but Dickerson says he’s unaware of any talk on the possibility.
32. Dickerson was super excited about this new Scream Factory Blu-ray in 2015, and he mentions that before its release, he had imported a Blu-ray from Germany presumably to enjoy the film in HD. He’s just like us! (Or am I the only one here who’s imported a German Blu-ray of the much maligned werewolf flick Big Bad Wolf…)
Quotes Without Context
“I was so happy to get Dick Miller for this movie.”
“There was a time when guys used to put ketchup on everything.”
“I’m a big student of Hitchcock, and the best way to make a moment of horror work is to lull the audience into a false sense of security.”
“A villain should always be the most interesting person in a movie.”
“They were a really great bunch of performers who were performing on these little leg-extension stilts wearing a diaper that had a radio-controlled tail that was being manipulated by a special effects tech right out of the frame.”
“It’s hard to direct air; it doesn’t do what you want.”
“The only censorship problem came from the producer’s wife, who didn’t want the vagina dentalis [sic] in the movie.”
“One of the executives wanted to know why the devil didn’t try to have sex with Jada.”
“It always starts with the script.”
Keep up with more horror commentary breakdowns here.
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