Editorials
How ‘Crush the Skull’ Is a Step in the Right Direction for Asian American Representation in Horror
The Asian American experience will be different from person to person. And although many on-screen depictions highlight the more universal and timeless topics, such as generational gaps, cultural estrangement and racism, Viet Nguyen and Chris Dinh’s 2015 horror-comedy Crush the Skull instead focuses on its protagonist’s utmost dilemma; he and three other robbers inadvertently break into a serial killer’s house and then become trapped. Yet beneath the movie’s plot-driven exterior lies an overlooked but important example of Asian representation.
In Hollywood movies from both the past and present, Asians have a tendency to be the supporting character rather than the lead. And if they’re lucky, they may be given an occupation other than a doctor or a scientist of some kind. In more problematic cases, the Asian character is rooted in Orientalism or a product of Yellow Peril. Mister Wing from the original Gremlins, played to the max by Keye Luke, is a prime example of Hollywood’s weird habit of turning Asians into mystical and/or all-knowing beings with more powers than actual character development. They don’t quite fit in with standard American customs, and their Eastern ways, items or culture often bring about danger for (white) Americans. Refreshingly, Crush the Skull is a story without any of American horror’s old hangups about Asians.
Criminal activity and antisocial behavior are hardly uncommon among Asian characters in American media, but at the same time, Ollie isn’t part of a triad or a group of villainous martial artists. On the contrary, Ollie (played by co-writer Dinh) and partner Blair (Katie Savoy) are small-time burglars whose latest job gets bungled, requiring Ollie to then be bailed out and later indebted to a local Asian mobster. There’s no given explanation for Ollie’s turn to crime, mainly one that justifies his actions, but the story also doesn’t require it.
From a historical perspective, Hollywood was more inclined to pair an East Asian woman with a white man than the opposite. There have since been strides to change this practice as well as dispel general stereotypes about Asian men. Once shown as nerdy, awkward and less desirable than his white peers, the Asian man is not who he used to be in Western movies and television. Modern action entertainment is a direct method of undoing these deep-rooted myths; they may present Asian men as imposing and virile, but they also risk perpetuating other stereotypes (e.g., the monosyllabic or silent Asian).
In Crush the Skull, Ollie isn’t a casanova, but he has charisma to go along with his wiry physical appeal. He can’t tell a simple joke to save his life — the running gag here has Blair effectively restating the jokes that Ollie failed to deliver — and he trips over his own two feet, but none of this is done in a bid to make him unattractive. It, along with his propensity for self-sacrifices, makes him only more likable. The one other prominent Asian male character in the movie, Tim Chiou’s Riley, is unmistakably of the “himbo” persuasion, but even his wonted nonsense can’t totally undermine his sex appeal.
Horror hasn’t altogether come around to the romantic pairing of Asian and white characters, but certainly The Walking Dead’s Glen/Maggie romance was a breakthrough. In Crush the Skull, Ollie and Blair are already coupled up at the start, so there is no need for the usual routine seen in other movies. Ollie and Blair don’t meet by chance in an unfamiliar or foreign place, the relationship isn’t deemed taboo by themselves or others, and there are no cultural differences that they have to work out before getting together. Nguyen and Dinh are also sure to make Ollie and Blair’s relationship feel realistic and complicated; their connection is challenged only because Blair is ready to retire from the robbery game, whereas Ollie isn’t completely convinced to move on just yet.
For too long Asian Americans have had to contend with the model minority myth. Some succumb to and maintain this narrative, whereas others challenge it. And doing something as simple as turning Ollie into a minor criminal, albeit one who still wants to do the right thing when he can, Crush the Skull disrupts a longstanding pattern in Hollywood. Showing Asian Americans as doctors, scientists and whatnot in movies and TV isn’t harmful in itself, and those jobs shouldn’t be seen as something bad either, but when that’s the most prevalent depiction of Asian American life, other experiences are left out and dismissed.
Even knowing his career choice, Ollie is still a step in the right direction for Asian representation in not only American horror, but Asian American filmmaking in general. While Crush the Skull might be seen as a missed opportunity to expressly say something about being Asian in America, especially in the context of horror, the movie is still a great exercise in creating complex Asian American characters. Having writers from the diaspora makes a world of difference when telling Asian experiences — and not just the ones deemed acceptable.
Crush the Skull is now available on SCREAMBOX and other streaming services.
Due to a complex series of anthropological mishaps, the Wayans Brothers are a huge deal in Brazil. Around these parts, White Chicks is considered a national treasure by a lot of people, so it stands to reason that Brazilian audiences would continue to accompany the Wayans’ comedic output long after North America had stopped taking them seriously as comedic titans.
This is the only reason why I originally watched Michael Tiddes and Marlon Wayans’ 2013 horror spoof A Haunted House – appropriately known as “Paranormal Inactivity” in South America – despite having abandoned this kind of movie shortly after the excellent Scary Movie 3. However, to my complete and utter amazement, I found myself mostly enjoying this unhinged parody of Found Footage films almost as much as the iconic spoofs that spear-headed the genre during the 2000s. And with Paramount having recently announced a reboot of the Scary Movie franchise, I think this is the perfect time to revisit the divisive humor of A Haunted House and maybe figure out why this kind of film hasn’t been popular in a long time.
Before we had memes and internet personalities to make fun of movie tropes for free on the internet, parody movies had been entertaining audiences with meta-humor since the very dawn of cinema. And since the genre attracted large audiences without the need for a serious budget, it made sense for studios to encourage parodies of their own productions – which is precisely what happened with Miramax when they commissioned a parody of the Scream franchise, the original Scary Movie.
The unprecedented success of the spoof (especially overseas) led to a series of sequels, spin-offs and rip-offs that came along throughout the 2000s. While some of these were still quite funny (I have a soft spot for 2008’s Superhero Movie), they ended up flooding the market much like the Guitar Hero games that plagued video game stores during that same timeframe.
You could really confuse someone by editing this scene into Paranormal Activity.
Of course, that didn’t stop Tiddes and Marlon Wayans from wanting to make another spoof meant to lampoon a sub-genre that had been mostly overlooked by the Scary Movie series – namely the second wave of Found Footage films inspired by Paranormal Activity. Wayans actually had an easier time than usual funding the picture due to the project’s Found Footage presentation, with the format allowing for a lower budget without compromising box office appeal.
In the finished film, we’re presented with supposedly real footage recovered from the home of Malcom Johnson (Wayans). The recordings themselves depict a series of unexplainable events that begin to plague his home when Kisha Davis (Essence Atkins) decides to move in, with the couple slowly realizing that the difficulties of a shared life are no match for demonic shenanigans.
In practice, this means that viewers are subjected to a series of familiar scares subverted by wacky hijinks, with the flick featuring everything from a humorous recreation of the iconic fan-camera from Paranormal Activity 3 to bizarre dance numbers replacing Katy’s late-night trances from Oren Peli’s original movie.
Your enjoyment of these antics will obviously depend on how accepting you are of Wayans’ patented brand of crass comedy. From advanced potty humor to some exaggerated racial commentary – including a clever moment where Malcom actually attempts to move out of the titular haunted house because he’s not white enough to deal with the haunting – it’s not all that surprising that the flick wound up with a 10% rating on Rotten Tomatoes despite making a killing at the box office.
However, while this isn’t my preferred kind of humor, I think the inherent limitations of Found Footage ended up curtailing the usual excesses present in this kind of parody, with the filmmakers being forced to focus on character-based comedy and a smaller scale story. This is why I mostly appreciate the love-hate rapport between Kisha and Malcom even if it wouldn’t translate to a healthy relationship in real life.
Of course, the jokes themselves can also be pretty entertaining on their own, with cartoony gags like the ghost getting high with the protagonists (complete with smoke-filled invisible lungs) and a series of silly The Exorcist homages towards the end of the movie. The major issue here is that these legitimately funny and genre-specific jokes are often accompanied by repetitive attempts at low-brow humor that you could find in any other cheap comedy.
Not a good idea.
Not only are some of these painfully drawn out “jokes” incredibly unfunny, but they can also be remarkably offensive in some cases. There are some pretty insensitive allusions to sexual assault here, as well as a collection of secondary characters defined by negative racial stereotypes (even though I chuckled heartily when the Latina maid was revealed to have been faking her poor English the entire time).
Cinephiles often claim that increasingly sloppy writing led to audiences giving up on spoof movies, but the fact is that many of the more beloved examples of the genre contain some of the same issues as later films like A Haunted House – it’s just that we as an audience have (mostly) grown up and are now demanding more from our comedy. However, this isn’t the case everywhere, as – much like the Elves from Lord of the Rings – spoof movies never really died, they simply diminished.
A Haunted House made so much money that they immediately started working on a second one that released the following year (to even worse reviews), and the same team would later collaborate once again on yet another spoof, 50 Shades of Black. This kind of film clearly still exists and still makes a lot of money (especially here in Brazil), they just don’t have the same cultural impact that they used to in a pre-social-media-humor world.
At the end of the day, A Haunted House is no comedic masterpiece, failing to live up to the laugh-out-loud thrills of films like Scary Movie 3, but it’s also not the trainwreck that most critics made it out to be back in 2013. Comedy is extremely subjective, and while the raunchy humor behind this flick definitely isn’t for everyone, I still think that this satirical romp is mostly harmless fun that might entertain Found Footage fans that don’t take themselves too seriously.
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