Editorials
The Renfield Complex: Exploring the Unexpected Parallels Between ‘Rawhead Rex’ and 2018’s ‘Halloween’
2018’s Halloween was undoubtedly a major success. While not everyone loved it, by any stretch, it was pretty well received, did very well at the box office, and more than anything, proudly exclaimed that the franchise was back after a nine-year absence. However, there was one element of the movie that both the people who loved it and the people who hated it seemed to be united in their distaste for, and that’s the whole arc surrounding Dr. Ranbir Sartain.
It is impossible to bring up this movie without hearing someone complain about how unnecessary that character’s whole storyline is. After all, this is largely a film about how Laurie Strode’s forty years of trauma, and her inability to recover from what happened to her as a teen, is manifested in Michael’s return to Haddonfield. A character who worships Michael to the point of killing someone just in the hope it might lead him to understand his patient better, who is obsessed in forcing that reunion between Michael and Laurie, obviously distracts from the main point.
Admittedly, I can’t defend everything about Sartain, because I don’t think it’s great that the Michael-worshipping, self-appointing apprentice character who is also a doctor worse at his job than Loomis ever was, is also one of the movie’s only prominent characters who isn’t white. On paper, though, the basic elements of the character work just fine. They embody a trope that is not remotely new in horror. Sartain is simply the latest example of a good, old fashioned Renfield Complex.
A Renfield Complex, to me, denotes a character like Dracula’s Renfield, probably the most famous example, who works in service of the main monster, usually appointed by the monster themselves, but not always. After all, unlike most movie adaptations, Renfield and Dracula had never even met in the book before Renfield decided he was utterly devoted to the Count. There are plenty of other examples, too. Stephen King is great at writing low-level villains who work out of devotion to the larger antagonist, from the Trashcan Man in The Stand to IT’s Henry Bowers and Salem’s Lot’s Straker and so many more. I personally love this particular trope because, no matter how its portrayed, it gives the villain a mythic quality, even more so than they may already have. In that respect, it was particularly great to see in a Halloween movie, because even as grounded as this movie is, it makes it feel a little larger than life. I can’t explain it, but seeing a character with that kind of reverence for the killer helps Michael feel like he’s finally entered classic monster status. Which makes sense, as he’s about as old now as The Creature from the Black Lagoon was to me when I was growing up in the ‘90s.
Sartain is just the latest in a long line, but when compared to other characters driven by a Renfield Complex in other films, there is certainly one unlikely choice with which he has the most in common: Rawhead Rex’s priest, Declan O’Brien. Unlike Sartain, whose obsession with Michael reached critical mass long before the movie began, Declan has no fundamental knowledge of Rawhead before the movie starts. He simply places his hands on an altar and receives visions of Rawhead and it’s pretty much love at first sight. For a man who has devoted his life to God, he gives up God within seconds for a wrathful entity he hasn’t even physically laid eyes on yet.
Sartain and Declan are different characters, to be sure. Sartain is much more measured, he is much better at hiding the depths of his obsession and the lengths he’ll go to in devotion to that obsession, until the right moment. Declan, on the other hand, can’t hide a single thing about himself; he’s giddy and absolutely mad in his devotion to Rawhead. But there’s still something lucid in Declan’s manic ramblings, like there’s a genuine happiness, a weight that’s been lifted now that he’s worshipping a creature that he knows exists. There is no divine mystery with Rawhead. He is tangible and he is exactly what he appears to be. These characters both embody these traits of obsession in wildly different ways, but they are fundamentally united in their devotion, because they are both utterly devoted to monsters who are totally indifferent to them. That is where the deepest parallels lie.
Sartain is driven by a need to understand Michael, that much is clear even from the opening scene, long before we realize just how far down that rabbit hole he’s already fallen. This makes his designation as the “new Loomis” that much more ironic, as he is actually the opposite. Loomis did understand Michael, and was on a constant quest to make other people understand, almost never succeeding. Sartain kills Frank in hopes that by knowing how it feels to take a life, he will feel more connected to Michael. It doesn’t work, it doesn’t actually do anything to sate his obsession. In fact, it only fuels it that much more, to have done something so extreme—and enjoyed it—and to still learn nothing. But it is a totally one-sided relationship.
Michael doesn’t care about him, Michael doesn’t for a second stop to offer Sartain any insight into why he does what he does. One of the strongest elements of Halloween 2018 is how it highlights this obsession with understanding Michael, a kind of clever commentary on the way fans so often theorize about Michael’s nature, not to mention the fans’ desire to see Laurie and Michael reunited, which is literally Sartain’s whole plan. Michael doesn’t care about any of it. Sartain winds up just as the podcasters did, demanding that Michael say something and, as a result, simply gets his face smashed in under Michael’s boot.
With Declan, it’s even more extreme. He has abandoned God entirely in favor of Rawhead. This is partially because Rawhead is real and tangible, partially because of the supernatural visions that gave him his first glimpse of the creature, but also likely because he was using God’s wrath as a stand-in for the belief that most people just deserve to die. And now instead of giving sermons, there’s a real beast ready to kill anyone and everyone and Declan is acting very much like a kid in a candy store. He’s devoted his mind, body and soul to Rawhead and this is made most obvious in the film’s most infamous scene. He kneels at Rawhead’s feet and the monster urinates all over Declan’s head. This is the perfect embodiment of the one-sided idolization at the heart of both movies. For Declan, this is the most important moment of his entire life. This is the moment he truly becomes a disciple of what he considers to be his new God. For Rawhead, he’s just taking a piss. With both Sartain and Declan, their devotion is completely unrequited. They simply cannot take a hint, utterly losing themselves in their refusal to admit that neither of these monsters are into them. And both of them receive nothing but death for their devotion, as Sartain gets his face caved in and Declan gets his throat torn out.
Both Michael and Rawhead are utterly uncaring entities in their respective films, both simply content to wreak havoc wherever they find it, their motives entirely their own and not shared with anyone. While the respective Renfield Complexes of Sartain and Declan and their unrequited devotion are the major things the two movies have in common, though, they are far from the only things they have in common.
In Rawhead Rex, a small community is tormented by its long-buried past. Rawhead ruled this land when humans were young, roaming the countryside and devouring and destroying everything in sight, until he was buried literally by the townspeople of the past and historically by the early Christians, effectively eliminating the pagan past of a land they had claimed for themselves. Because of that, no one even remembers the stories of Rawhead in the present. Only a single stained glass window depicts his image. He is forgotten, and this buried past of course comes back to run amok amongst the present. He’s devouring everything in sight, striking with no rhyme or reason, going from door to door to barn to trailer to church, it doesn’t matter. He’s simply devouring life wherever he finds it.
In Halloween, it’s a very similar situation. In this incarnation, Michael Myers struck forty years ago and while it’s still probably what Haddonfield is known for, most people in town have forgotten all about it. Even the teens who are aware of what happened—and even then, they’re friends with the granddaughter of a survivor, so they’re more closely linked than most—don’t know any of the details. Dave asks if it was Laurie’s brother who killed all of those people in a very pointed nod to the previous sequels. He doesn’t even seem to know Michael’s name and passes off the events of the 1978 murders as being tame by today’s standards, even though he clearly knows next to nothing about what happened. Michael can even freely walk down the street without anyone telling him his costume is in bad taste. This is certainly a part of Laurie’s frustration in the movie, as she is still in the grips of her trauma, just as if Michael’s attack had happened yesterday, and the town moved on. It forgot and she didn’t and the only people who remember are the family members who grew up in the shadow of her fear of Michael Myers and obsessed people seeking to either exploit or rekindle the horrific events that she suffered through.
Michael’s rampage when he returns home even has much in common with Rawhead’s, certainly more than any previous Halloween entry. This is the only Halloween film in which Michael does not have a target. He doesn’t even seem to be after Laurie. As much as I love it, I do admit that it feels at times like the movie forgets in retaining Michael’s original mystery that Michael’s mystique was never that he wasn’t targeting anyone in particular. He very clearly was after Laurie in the original, the mystery was that we didn’t know why. Here, Michael is totally unpredictable. In one of the film’s best sequences, he goes door to door, basically trick-or-treating in his own way, killing with no real rhyme or reason. It is very similar to the way Rawhead simply makes his way from place to place as he runs amok throughout town. In Rawhead Rex, the monster even famously kills a child. While that doesn’t happen in Halloween, there is a moment when Michael pauses at a baby’s crib, and even if he doesn’t actually kill the infant the intent of that moment is definitely to make you think that he might.
In Rawhead Rex, the monster is literally repelled by womanhood. It’s the beast’s one weakness, and one that worked a little better in the short story, where the creature was basically a walking phallus with teeth. Most monsters of the era in which Rawhead was made were defeated by women, so Barker if anything simply hammered the point home by showing the monster not only being afraid of female power, but female life, bodies, autonomy, everything. Michael’s certainly had his ass handed to him by a number of women over the course of the franchise, but the ending of the 2018 movie is by far the most similar to Rawhead in that regard. Here, Michael is defeated by three generations of Strode women, staring up at them with helpless contempt as they leave him caged, boxed in as the flames close in on him. There might be more contempt for womanhood in that moment than Michael had ever shown in any of the preceding movies.
Still, it is with Sartain and Declan that David Gordon Green’s Halloween and Rawhead Rex have the most in common. Even if these men go about their obsession in different ways, they both embody the exact same kind of devotion, worshipping monsters who barely even notice that they are there. It’s just an added bonus, really, that the two stories share so much else in common as well. I’m not saying that 2018’s Halloween is a loose remake of Rawhead Rex, but I’m not sure I’m not saying that either. I think the similarities are wholly accidental, and that honestly makes them so much better. It would be delightful if the latest Michael Myers outing cribbed anything from Barker’s monster-on-the-loose tale, but it is absolutely incredible that these things happened unintentionally and, in some ways, makes me love both things just a little bit more.
College kids, strippers and vampires—those were Donald P. Borchers’ only requirements when he approached Richard Wenk about writing and directing a movie for New World Pictures. As requested, Wenk cooked up Vamp (1986), a tailor-made blend of the decade’s teen movie craze as well as its horror boom.
Grim and earnest stories were still very much a part of the ’80s horror landscape, yet Vamp is something of a comedy. One difference between it and, say, Saturday the 14th, though, is the former avoids using schtick. Wenk’s movie proves that horror comedies also don’t have to subtract thrills from their recipes. Of course, it takes a minute before reaching that point; college antics and culture shocks preface this one macabre misadventure.
Vamp‘s initial setup is apt for a typical college-set, sex-driven comedy; to bribe their way into a fraternity house, two pledges (Chris Makepeace, Robert Rusler) go looking for some adult entertainment. Without wasting time on any further exposition, the characters embark on an all-in-one-night trip that quickly detours into terror.
To procure their elusive MacGuffin—a stripper willing to gyrate for some frat boys—Keith (Makepeace) and AJ (Rusler), plus a third wheel named Duncan (Gedee Watanabe), trade the safety of their remote college campus for the seediness of some unnamed city. The setting is recognizably L.A. by day, but as soon as night falls, downtown, along with the characters, slips into a kind of surreal universe. Director of photography Elliot Davis gave this early entry on his prolific résumé an unusual yet distinctive look; that Mario Bava-esque, magenta-green lighting is omnipresent, so much so that it’s almost its own character.
Chris Makepeace and Robert Rusler in Vamp
The faint comparisons to Martin Scorsese’s After Hours are merited, although not just because of Vamp’s distinguishing nighttime aesthetic. Save for the primary characters, the supporting roles in Wenk’s movie are also quite colorful and transactional in their behavior. The difference here, though, is the additional urge to ruin Keith and his friends at every turn. Some of that harm is humorous and tolerable enough, whereas the moment Vamp dishes out its first fatality, it’s abundantly clear how this movie qualifies as horror.
Vamp falls into that category of horror movie that reveals its genre with a scream rather than a series of whispers. The opening scene can function as a hint of what lies ahead—things are not at all what they appear to be—but otherwise, Wenk is more than happy to hold off on the horror. When that time does come, though, it catches the viewer off guard. In addition to the pure shock value is that sudden decision to upend the movie’s foremost feature. Or so it would seem.
If afraid of major spoilage, those new to Vamp would be wise to stop reading here. There’s just no skirting around the fact that the central fellowship in this buddy movie hits a serious snag when AJ is killed. That development causes the story to become more of a “long, bad night” journey for Keith and his romantic interest. So while Wenk scores points for subverting expectations, there is also a touch of sadness in his decision. Because if Vamp does anything well, it’s making the characters likable.
Something that comes easily to Vamp—and other teen horror movies from this same era—is its ability to invent young characters worth caring about, or at the very least, are interesting and not so immediately off-putting. More impressive is how Wenk did all this without actually fleshing out those characters. Still and all, Keith and his kind are a grade above cookie-cutter, and in some cases, aren’t completely devoid of growth.
Grace Jones in Vamp
Vamp appeals with an assorted cast of characters. No two are the same, nor are they operating on the same wavelength. The cinematically extroverted AJ, whose actor conveyed charm and vulnerability in near equal amounts, comes alive when he’s at his most undead. Makepeace then makes the chronically cautious Keith a sympathetic fellow, even as he’s more and more affected by the night’s bizarre events. Meanwhile, Duncan is indeed the designated loser of the whole bunch, but Watanabe still manages to humanize him. As a bonus, the role didn’t require him to pull a Long Duk Dong.
As for Dedee Pfeiffer, she is plain adorable as the mysterious After Dark server nicknamed “Amaretto”. She spends all night fixing her dress strap while at the same time trying to get Keith to remember how he knows her. As their offbeat romance grows, it becomes another highlight of this movie. Whether or not Pfeiffer’s character is really a vampire also creates some welcome tension in the story.
Like a lot of its contemporaries, Vamp went on to become a bit of a cult classic. That current status is determined by several factors, but without a doubt, the casting of Grace Jones is the most considerable. The image of her writhing on that unique-looking chair, a Keith Haring original, springs to mind whenever this movie is brought up.
Chris Makepeace, Billy Drago and Paunita Nichols in Vamp
Prior to that first display of unequivocal horror, local vampire queen Katrina (Jones) took to the stage and delivered a strip show like no other. One would expect nothing less from that renowned model and performance artist. By now reports of Jones’ tardiness on set are no secret, yet it’s also hard to deny her commitment to the part of Katrina. It was, in fact, Jones who took charge of her character’s appearance—on top of Haring painting her body and that now-iconic chair, she had Andy Warhol handle her costuming. And not too many actors could seize a room’s attention without saying a single line of dialogue.
In 2022, Vamp received a retrospective novelization from Encyclopocalypse. This literary union of preexisting source material—Wenk’s original screenplay—and new ideas from author Christian Francis amounts to a more comprehensive visit to the After Dark Club. The basic story there is no different than what’s shown on screen; however, Francis gets creative with the characters’ origins and designs, and he enhances a number of key scenes.
The novelization expands on the urban and social decay of the main setting, and supplies a background for the After Dark Club. Sandy Baron’s character, Katrina’s emcee and familiar, is given ample motivation for sticking around; up until the fiery end, he is loyal to his friend and former business partner “Squeak”, who looks like he was “fed through a combine harvester, and left as nothing more than a heap of mangled remains”. Then there is Billy Drago’s character Snow, the leader of a street gang called The Dragons. His reason for menacing Keith and AJ is more altruistic than in the movie; he and his peers act tough to scare off any potential food for the vampires.
Lisa Lyon in Vamp
If not for all the backstories, Francis’ Vamp would be a hell of a lot shorter. Instead, this tie-in read dives into how AJ met Keith—the orphaned Anthony Joseph hailed from a broken home back in Brooklyn—and how their friendship flourished over the years. Keith’s archership is no longer just an assumed part of his entire being; it’s a confidence-building extracurricular for a boy who got picked on before coming into the protection of the new kid in town. These supplemental, in-depth looks at the protagonists, plus their close connection, are maybe unnecessary. The movie already did a fair and concise job of addressing their platonic intimacy without the need for flashbacks and insights, specifically in that scene where AJ lays it all out as he sacrifices himself.
Where the novelization gets off course is its approach to the minor characters. Intermittently backstorying the likes of Katrina’s indentured servants, Seko (Leila Hee Olsen) and Vlad (Brad Logan), ends up disturbing the flow of the writing. Was it absolutely essential that readers know Vlad was the Grand Duke of the House of Romanov, or how Snow’s accomplice Maven (Paunita Nichols) became so dentally challenged? No, not really. However, one’s mileage with these random biographies may vary.
The novelization is a more substantial experience, but for a movie like Vamp, less is more. And as plentiful as they are, it never simply coasts on its campy charms, either. The character work sits comfortably in that realm between cursory and meticulous, the script is sharper than first realized, and Greg Cannom’s vampire makeup is straightforward yet effective. Most of all, the movie didn’t squander its out-of-the-box concept. Richard Wenk made his vision of a “comic nightmare in which just about anything that can go wrong does” come true, and it is very enjoyable.
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