Editorials
A Charming Apocalyptic Misfire: The Curious Case of Clive Barker’s ‘The Plague’
Clive Barker has always made it clear how grateful he is for Stephen King’s quote about him being “the future of horror”, an unexpected compliment that launched a legendary career. Over the years, the author has repaid that kindness by attempting to do the same for other horror artists, going so far as to start his own independent production company in order to help propagate the work of up-and-coming filmmakers. Back in 2006, this led Barker and Seraphim Pictures to proudly produce Hal Masonberg‘s The Plague, a unique apocalyptic thriller that was ultimately sabotaged by behind-the-scenes drama and meddling distributors.
Taking a cue from films like Village of the Damned and Invasion of the Body-Snatchers, The Plague follows the aftermath of an unexplainable illness that causes every child on earth to fall into an irreversible coma. A decade later, we accompany Tom Russell (James Van Der Beek) as he’s released from prison and returns to his quiet hometown in search of peace. Unfortunately, the infected children begin to wake up with homicidal intentions, compelling Tom and a small group of survivors to attempt to escape town during what appears to be a bizarre version of the biblical end times.
Part zombie movie, part supernatural thriller and part philosophical parable, it’s no surprise that The Plague‘s peculiar setup convinced Barker to add his name to the project. The idea of an entire generation turning against their predecessors makes this a uniquely tragic apocalypse, with parents being forced to confront their own offspring in order to survive. Having the comatose children share a collective hive-mind also ramps up the stakes significantly, with the infected slowly learning how to systematically eliminate all surviving adults with evolving strategies and weapons. This nightmarish scenario leads to a series of gruesome deaths that wouldn’t feel out of place in the Books of Blood collections.
While I have fond memories of watching The Plague on late-night television years ago and having fun with its unorthodox approach to what could have been just another George Romero knockoff, there’s no denying that the film is an absolute mess. Despite a genuinely interesting premise and likable characters, the storytelling here is downright sloppy, with wonky pacing, bad editing and the baffling absence of a proper final act. The movie simply “stops” instead of actually “ending”, leaving viewers with a vague collection of loose ends and never really bothering to explain its central mysteries.
Night of the living coma patients.
Unsurprisingly, most of these blunders appear to be the fault of Screen Gems, who were dissatisfied with the picture’s unconventional tone. After a series of arguments, the director supposedly exited the project before the movie was even locked, leading the distributor to re-edit the final film without any input from either Barker or Masonberg. Concerned with the movie’s slow pace and overly-somber tone, the distributors removed several important character moments, as well as a few brainy discussions about the nature of the plague itself before dumping the movie directly onto home video.
This haphazard edit led to even more pacing issues, with some segments of the film feeling like a bizarre fever-dream as the characters wander around from set-piece to set-piece, never really understanding what’s going on around them. The audience is also left confused with a series of references to Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath that don’t really amount to anything. While this dreamlike vibe can be entertaining in a Twin Peaks sort of way, it really doesn’t mesh well with the story’s obvious slow-burn intentions, resulting in the finished film having a near-constant identity crisis.
There are other issues as well, with The Plague‘s low production value sometimes making it look like a made-for-TV project despite excellent photography work by genre veteran Bill Butler. The modest budget also sabotages the large-scale story Masonberg was aiming to tell, as we never really see how the rest of the world is dealing with the situation. To be honest, I would have loved to see more of this alternate history where an entire generation was lost overnight and society had to adjust to the idea that humanity might no longer have a future. The film hints at the larger impact of the titular plague, but not enough time (or money) is spent developing how the world at large deals with this cataclysmic issue, which I think is a wasted opportunity.
Luckily, despite studio-mandated edits and a shoestring budget, The Plague still retains a mysterious Twilight-Zone-like atmosphere that helps to keep things interesting. The small-town setting helps with the eerie mood, and the vague nature of this apocalypse keeps audiences in the dark alongside our confused protagonists. These characters are also generally likable, though Van Der Beek really steals the show as an ex-con trying to make up for past mistakes. Ivana Milicevic is also great as Tom’s reluctant ex-lover Jean Raynor, and the movie even benefits from the always-charming Dee Wallace in a small but memorable appearance.
These kids have no respect for their elders.
Even so, both Masonberg and Barker have been refreshingly open about their distaste for The Plague‘s final cut, with the director even setting up a website asking fans to help convince Screen Gems to release the official writer’s/director’s cut. While I haven’t had the pleasure of watching this alternate version of the film, there are quite a few quotes on the site claiming that it’s a more coherent vision of a story that deserves to see the light of day.
According to interviews with Barker, however, even the unedited footage couldn’t quite live up to Masonberg’s original script, which promised a much grander and more stylized take on the end of the world. At one point during filming, Barker even suggested that producers throw some extra cash into the production so Masonberg could reshoot a few unsatisfactory scenes in order to better match what was on the page. Unfortunately, the producers had already made up their mind, and the rest is history.
While there’s no way of being sure if the fabled Director’s Cut is a significant improvement to the original release, the version of The Plague that we ultimately got is still worth revisiting as a cinematic oddity. It may be more than a little rough around the edges and the story’s attempts at a brainy apocalypse probably won’t be to everyone’s liking, but it’s easy to see that there was a lot of potential here. If you’re willing to overlook a few flaws, I think there’s a lot to love about this charming apocalyptic misfire.
Auteur Filmmaking is a term that gets thrown around a lot these days in reference to big name directors like Quentin Tarantino and even Wes Anderson, but the truth is that film is a collective medium, and no one person can be responsible for every single aspect of a particular production. However, the smaller a film’s budget, the bigger the individual impact of every creative decision behind it – and the easier it becomes to identify a genuine auteur.
This isn’t necessarily a judgement of value, as blockbuster filmmaking comes with its own challenges and a good movie remains a miracle regardless of how big the crew is, but I’ve always been more interested in soulful b-movies produced by handfuls of passionate artists than blockbusters backed by creative armies.
That’s why I love exploring low-budget franchises that never left the hands of their original creators, as you really get to know the artists involved with these flicks and can accompany their evolution over a period of time. With that in mind, I’d like to invite readers to join me in this multi-part series as we look into a vampire saga helmed by one of the most fascinating auteurs of the 1990s. Naturally, I’m referring to Ted Nicolaou’s criminally underrated Subspecies!
The Birth of an Unlikely Horror Franchise
A proud graduate of the University of Texas’ Film program, Nicolaou got his start in the industry as a sound technician working on Tobe Hooper’s original Texas Chain Saw Massacre. From there, the filmmaker would go on to work for notorious indie producer Charles Band, the founder of both Empire Pictures and Full Moon Productions. According to Nicolaou, Band would usually contact him with an offer to direct a feature after more prominent filmmakers, such as the late, great Stuart Gordon, had already refused, meaning that his projects tended to have lower budgets and more inexperienced crew members.
The plans for Subspecies began almost immediately after the fall of Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu, with screenwriter David Pabian turning in an initial draft of the film after a Romanian producer contacted Band and explained that Romanian tax incentives could cover the cost of film production there so long as Full Moon took care of the post-production process. Since Stuart Gordon was unwilling to travel to Romania, Ted Nicolaou ended up taking over the picture.
However, while the financial incentives meant that this Romanian-American co-production could look and feel much more expensive than it really was, with Nicolaou scouting for locations in advance and selecting real castle ruins to be featured in the movie, the director was soon faced with an incredibly difficult shooting process. In interviews, Nicolaou would later describe the experience as something of a nightmare, with language barriers and the generalized distrust of capitalist outsiders sabotaging many of the team’s plans for the film.
In fact, the script, which had already been altered by Band, ultimately had portions of it rewritten by both Jack Canson and Nicolaou himself in an attempt to adapt the story to their unique limitations.
Radu Is One of Horror’s Greatest Underrated Villains
In the finished film, which was released directly to video in 1991, we follow a pair of American anthropology students, Michelle (Laura Mae Tate) and Lillian (Michelle McBride), as they reunite with their Romanian colleague Mara (Irina Movila) in her native land. The group intends to study the folklore surrounding the secluded town of Prejmer, but their research is cut short by the return of Radu Vladislas (Anders Hove) – the evil son of a vampire king (Angus Scrimm) who had previously established a truce with the region’s human residents. It’s now up to Radu’s human-loving half-brother Stefan (Michael Watson) to protect the girls from a fate worse than death as the power-hungry vampire seeks to control a magical artifact known as the Bloodstone.
Right off the bat, you may have noticed that the film’s premise sounds decidedly old-fashioned when compared to other vampire movies from around the same time. While the 1990s saw the rise of cool-looking bloodsuckers with badass elements borrowed from Westerns, as well as the sexy aristocrats of Anne Rice’s stories, Subspecies has a lot more in common with Nosferatu and the Hammer Horror series than any of its contemporaries.
This is both a blessing and a curse, as the film falls victim to overly familiar genre tropes while also standing out as a rare example of a ’90s vampire flick that isn’t afraid to flex its muscles as a Creature Feature. In fact, I’d argue that the presence of age-old clichés is a small price to pay when confronted with one of the most compelling vampire antagonists in all of cinema.
Named after Vlad the Impaler’s real-life brother, Anders Hove’s Radu is such a fascinating character and the main reason why Subspecies is still worth watching 35 years later. From his animalistic mannerisms to the joy he feels in simply existing as a chaotic creature of the night, and that’s not even mentioning the iconic makeup that almost certainly inspired the undead from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Radu is a hypnotic presence harkening back to a time when audiences didn’t mind purely evil villains that couldn’t be redeemed through tragic backstories or sex appeal.
Gothic Atmosphere on an Indie Budget
Of course, the film’s Romanian setting and authentic art direction do a lot of the heavy lifting whenever Radu isn’t around. From the masked festivals of the village to the visually interesting selection of local extras, Subspecies’ multicultural elements help it to stand out when compared to similar flicks from the ’90s.
That being said, Nicolaou’s unique eye for special effects and exciting action sequences – as well as Vlad Paunescu’s excellent cinematography – make the movie a delight for fans of expressionist cinema and old-timey gothic horror. While the crew is obviously dealing with limited resources, many of the flick’s blemishes (such as the odd stop-motion demons that serve Radu) end up feeling more like charming idiosyncrasies than actual flaws.
I’d argue that the only real issue here is pacing, as there are long stretches of film where the protagonists are simply bumbling around without realizing what’s really going on around them. Thankfully, the gorgeous visuals and surprisingly effective soundtrack usually make up for this. Besides, how can you dislike a movie where shotgun shells are loaded with rosary beads and our lead vampires duke it out in a dramatic swordfight that would feel out of place during the golden age of Hollywood?
Your overall enjoyment of Subspecies will mostly depend on whether or not you find low-budget corner-cutting and janky practical effects charming rather than distracting, but I know I’ll keep coming back to this Full Moon feature again and again in the future.
That being said, while this first movie is worth revisiting by its own merits as the birth of an indie horror icon, I’d like to invite you to join us as we look into the cult sequel Bloodstone: Subspecies II soon.
You must be logged in to post a comment.