Editorials
The Talking Dead: ‘Séance on a Wet Afternoon’ and ‘Kourei’ [Horrors Elsewhere]
Certain stories are worth adapting more than once. Such is the case for Mark McShane’s Séance on a Wet Afternoon. The two notable, not to mention distinct interpretations of this 1961 novel each capture a disquieting tale of an overzealous medium, and her plan to become esteemed and famous. Although one film follows the text more closely, the other takes creative license by underscoring the novel’s ambiguous supernatural element.
While McShane’s Séance on a Wet Afternoon was published years after spiritualism peaked in 19th century England, there was still a niche interest in clairvoyance, mesmerism and the like. As seen in Bryan Forbes’ ‘64 film, plenty of people seek out folks like Myra Savage; specifically those who stand between this world and the next. Or so they claim. Yet for Myra, she craves more than local repute. No, the protagonist of Séance on a Wet Afternoon wants everyone to know her name.
Forbes’ adaptation follows McShane’s story in most but not all respects. In the film, Myra (Kim Stanley) and her husband William (Richard Attenborough) abduct a child as part of their nefarious scheme. The victim in this sorry scenario is Amanda Clayton (Judith Donner), who was originally named Adriana in the novel. Regardless of what she is called, the child’s mistreatment is all the same; she is repeatedly drugged, locked away in a makeshift “hospital” room, and then disposed of when things do not go according to plan.
One area where the film and novel significantly diverge is the validity of Myra’s gift. Early on in the novel, McShane states Myra’s power manifested at a young age. She saw her father’s ghost six months after his death, and she psychically witnessed her mother’s fatal fall. These personal accounts legitimize Myra’s medium status to both herself and the readers, however, events and moments such as these, unusual as they may be, are hardly enough to convince all of society. So enter the séances which do far more to assure belief in Myra’s ability.
Apparently, Myra’s psychic feats in the novel have less to do with channeling the dead and more with reading others’ minds. Telepathy, as the author called it. Whether or not this was authentic mind reading is unclear, though. Many mediums have perfected their art to the point where they can convince anyone of anything simply by making vague or generic observations about their clients. Myra does the same, and when people assumed she could communicate with the dead, she did not bother to correct them. The difference between Myra and charlatans, however, is she genuinely believes in her own extrasensory-perception. Whereas in the film, Forbes is more inclined to show Myra’s act is just that — an act.
Kim Stanley’s depiction of the determined medium is a great deal more layered now that the director and writer added in Arthur, the dead son of Myra and William. While the couple was explicitly childless in the novel, here they are mourning. To help himself cope, William stays busy by being attentive to Myra’s needs and wants, often to the detriment of his own wellbeing. Richard Attenborough also brings his character’s codependency more to the surface. Myra, on the other hand, is less willing to share her feelings about Arthur. Her grief avoidance eventually leads to a massive break in reality.
McShane’s novel subsists mainly on Myra’s hunger for validation and eminence, but Forbes provides an even more persuasive rationale for her orchestrating a kidnapping. Myra, who is incapable of dealing with her maternal pain, channels the dead to keep Arthur alive. As horror fans all know, parental grief has proven itself to be a strong motivator throughout genre storytelling. And Séance on a Wet Afternoon was, regarding films that have bereft and traumatized characters using heinous crimes as coping mechanisms, well ahead of the curve.
Oddly, Forbes did not follow through on the novel’s most shocking moment: William inadvertently killing Adriana in a bid to keep her quiet as her mother sat in on Myra’s séance in the next room. Instead, Myra urges William to murder Amanda once she saw his unmasked face. In the same chilling breath, Myra explains how the girl could become Arthur’s playmate. Attenborough’s William is more reluctantly compliant than his literary basis, going so far as to call out Myra’s delusions, and go against his wife’s homicidal wishes. Indeed, Amanda is left unconscious in public, in a place where she would be noticed, rather than outright killed. Nevertheless, the film’s decision to spare Amanda did not require a total overhaul of the novel’s climactic ending. The haunting outcome is even more devastating now. Kim Stanley earned her Oscar nomination for a performance that is excessive in the best way possible.
Séance on a Wet Afternoon muted its own supernatural aspect when compared to the novel, but Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s adaptation aims directly for the ghost. In fact, the unearthliness of McShane’s work drew the Japanese filmmaker to the television project, and along with co-writer Tetsuya Onishi, Kurosawa brought out the story’s horror quality. Kourei (Séance) was shot in two weeks, and then screened at the Rotterdam Film Festival in 2000 before finally airing on Kansai TV the following year. This telefilm does not come up nearly enough in talks about Kurosawa’s oeuvre, yet those who have seen Kourei tend to agree, it is a real hidden gem.
Forbes’ film is not a direct adaptation of Séance on a Wet Afternoon, and Kourei is even less so. Jun Fubuki and Kouji Yakusho, who have each starred in other Kurosawa films, play characters with no initial desire to abduct a child for fortune or prestige. They go about their mundane lives with little to no variation. Junko (Fubuki) is a medium, but she does not originally seek quick fame like Myra. Junko instead goes through more respectable channels to become verified; she participates in an academic study of the paranormal.
Kourei unhesitatingly confirms the existence of the supernatural early on. Junko, who typically deals in psychometry or object readings, receives a rude awakening when she spots an actual spirit at her workplace. Based on her reaction, Junko was not prepared to see this phantom whose eyes and nose are eerily blurred out. The red-dressed ghost, who predated a similar character in Kurosawa’s later film Retribution, was a preview of things to come. This would not be the last time Junko came face to face with a silent and listless ghost. However, reaching the film’s central haunting requires a series of bizarre coincidences.
Junko’s husband Kouji (Yakusho) is a sound engineer who unintentionally crosses paths with the young victim in a recent kidnapping. Without Kouji’s knowledge, the young girl hides out in his equipment case. Unaware of his passenger, Kouji then takes the kid home with him. Kourei starts to resemble, albeit loosely, McShane’s story from here on out. In order to make skeptics believe in her abilities, Junko tells Kouji not to immediately call the police once they discover the girl. The couple ultimately follow the same dark path as Myra and William, although Fubuki and Yakusho’s characters experience a more frightening form of guilt following the child’s death.
Kourei has been and will continue to be lumped in with Ju-On and other obvious J-Horrors, but Kurosawa’s film is considerably more subtle than its contemporaries. This low-budget production demonstrates refreshing restraint in areas that other films would prefer flashiness. The unfortunate child ghost here does not contort her body or unleash guttural sounds to evoke fear; she often appears without warning in the forms of music cues or visual fanfare. And most importantly, there is more sadness to her haunting than outright anger. This is undoubtedly one of the most subdued ghost stories around.
Kourei is not an emotional or exciting film. Fans would describe this as a slow burn. In place of a big payoff and in defiance of the usual genre trappings, Kurosawa offers an artful take on a familiar idea. Like its protagonist, Kourei also seeks control. Junko does not want to be in a situation where she has no authority, such as her random encounter with the ghost in red. She would much prefer a scenario where she has a say in how the dead interact with the living.
While Séance on a Wet Afternoon and Kourei approach their shared source material in markedly different ways, neither film is the inferior adaptation. They both portray compelling stories about mediumship and dangerous ambition. Each film is rewarding on its own, but together they make for a formidable double feature.
Horrors Elsewhere is a recurring column that spotlights a variety of movies from all around the globe, particularly those not from the United States. Fears may not be universal, but one thing is for sure — a scream is understood, always and everywhere.
Soon after the New Hollywood generation took over the entertainment industry, they started having children. And more than any filmmakers that came before—they were terrified. Rosemary’s Baby (1968), The Exorcist (1973), The Omen (1976), Eraserhead (1977), The Brood (1979), The Shining (1980), Possession (1981), and many others all deal, at least in part, with the fears of becoming or being a parent. What if my child turns out to be a monster? is corrupted by some evil force? or turns out to be the fucking Antichrist? What if I screw them up somehow, or can’t help them, or even go insane and try to kill them? Horror has always been at its best when exploring relatable fears through extreme circumstances. A prime example of this is Larry Cohen’s 1974 monster-baby movie It’s Alive, which explores the not only the rollercoaster of emotions that any parent experiences when confronted with the difficulties of raising a child, but long-standing questions of who or what is at fault when something goes horribly wrong.
Cohen begins making his underlying points early in the film as Frank Davis (John P. Ryan) discusses the state of the world with a group of expectant fathers in a hospital waiting room. They discuss the “overabundance of lead” in foods and the environment, smog, and pesticides that only serve to produce roaches that are “bigger, stronger, and harder to kill.” Frank comments that this is “quite a world to bring a kid into.” This has long been a discussion point among people when trying to decide whether to have kids or not. I’ve had many conversations with friends who have said they feel it’s irresponsible to bring children into such a violent, broken, and dangerous world, and I certainly don’t begrudge them this. My wife and I did decide to have children but that doesn’t mean that it’s been easy.
Immediately following this scene comes It’s Alive’s most famous sequence in which Frank’s wife Lenore (Sharon Farrell) is the only person left alive in her delivery room, the doctors clawed and bitten to death by her mutant baby, which has escaped. “What does my baby look like!? What’s wrong with my baby!?” she screams as nurses wheel her frantically into a recovery room. The evening that had begun with such joy and excitement at the birth of their second child turned into a nightmare. This is tough for me to write, but on some level, I can relate to this whiplash of emotion. When my second child was born, they came about five weeks early. I’ll use the pronouns “they/them” for privacy reasons when referring to my kids. Our oldest was still very young and went to stay with my parents and we sped off to the hospital where my wife was taken into an operating room for an emergency c-section. I was able to carry our newborn into the NICU (natal intensive care unit) where I was assured that this was routine for all premature births. The nurses assured me there was nothing to worry about and the baby looked big and healthy. I headed to where my wife was taken to recover to grab a few winks assuming that everything was fine. Well, when I awoke, I headed back over to the NICU to find that my child was not where I left them. The nurse found me and told me that the baby’s lungs were underdeveloped, and they had to put them in a special room connected to oxygen tubes and wires to monitor their vitals.
It’s difficult to express the fear that overwhelmed me in those moments. Everything turned out okay, but it took a while and I’m convinced to this day that their anxiety struggles spring from these first weeks of life. As our children grew, we learned that two of the three were on the spectrum and that anxiety, depression, ADHD, and OCD were also playing a part in their lives. Parents, at least speaking for myself, can’t help but blame themselves for the struggles their children face. The “if only” questions creep in and easily overcome the voices that assure us that it really has nothing to do with us. In the film, Lenore says, “maybe it’s all the pills I’ve been taking that brought this on.” Frank muses aloud about how he used to think that Frankenstein was the monster, but when he got older realized he was the one that made the monster. The aptly named Frank is wondering if his baby’s mutation is his fault, if he created the monster that is terrorizing Los Angeles. I have made plenty of “if only” statements about myself over the years. “If only I hadn’t had to work so much, if only I had been around more when they were little.” Mothers may ask themselves, “did I have a drink, too much coffee, or a cigarette before I knew I was pregnant? Was I too stressed out during the pregnancy?” In other words, most parents can’t help but wonder if it’s all their fault.
At one point in the film, Frank goes to the elementary school where his baby has been sighted and is escorted through the halls by police. He overhears someone comment about “screwed up genes,” which brings about age-old questions of nature vs. nurture. Despite the voices around him from doctors and detectives that say, “we know this isn’t your fault,” Frank can’t help but think it is, and that the people who try to tell him it isn’t really think it’s his fault too. There is no doubt that there is a hereditary element to the kinds of mental illness struggles that my children and I deal with. But, and it’s a bit but, good parenting goes a long way in helping children deal with these struggles. Kids need to know they’re not alone, a good parent can provide that, perhaps especially parents that can relate to the same kinds of struggles. The question of nature vs. nurture will likely never be entirely answered but I think there’s more than a good chance that “both/and” is the case. Around the midpoint of the film, Frank agrees to disown the child and sign it over for medical experimentation if caught or killed. Lenore and the older son Chris (Daniel Holzman) seek to nurture and teach the baby, feeling that it is not a monster, but a member of the family.
It’s Alive takes these ideas to an even greater degree in the fact that the Davis Baby really is a monster, a mutant with claws and fangs that murders and eats people. The late ’60s and early ’70s also saw the rise in mass murderers and serial killers which heightened the nature vs. nurture debate. Obviously, these people were not literal monsters but human beings that came from human parents, but something had gone horribly wrong. Often the upbringing of these killers clearly led in part to their antisocial behavior, but this isn’t always the case. It’s Alive asks “what if a ‘monster’ comes from a good home?” In this case is it society, environmental factors, or is it the lead, smog, and pesticides? It is almost impossible to know, but the ending of the film underscores an uncomfortable truth—even monsters have parents.
As the film enters its third act, Frank joins the hunt for his child through the Los Angeles sewers and into the L.A. River. He is armed with a rifle and ready to kill on sight, having divorced himself from any relationship to the child. Then Frank finds his baby crying in the sewers and his fatherly instincts take over. With tears in his eyes, he speaks words of comfort and wraps his son in his coat. He holds him close, pats and rocks him, and whispers that everything is going to be okay. People often wonder how the parents of those who perform heinous acts can sit in court, shed tears, and defend them. I think it’s a complex issue. I’m sure that these parents know that their child has done something evil, but that doesn’t change the fact that they are still their baby. Your child is a piece of yourself formed into a whole new human being. Disowning them would be like cutting off a limb, no matter what they may have done. It doesn’t erase an evil act, far from it, but I can understand the pain of a parent in that situation. I think It’s Alive does an exceptional job placing its audience in that situation.
Despite the serious issues and ideas being examined in the film, It’s Alive is far from a dour affair. At heart, it is still a monster movie and filled with a sense of fun and a great deal of pitch-black humor. In one of its more memorable moments, a milkman is sucked into the rear compartment of his truck as red blood mingles with the white milk from smashed bottles leaking out the back of the truck and streaming down the street. Just after Frank agrees to join the hunt for his baby, the film cuts to the back of an ice cream truck with the words “STOP CHILDREN” emblazoned on it. It’s a movie filled with great kills, a mutant baby—created by make-up effects master Rick Baker early in his career, and plenty of action—and all in a PG rated movie! I’m telling you, the ’70s were wild. It just also happens to have some thoughtful ideas behind it as well.
Which was Larry Cohen’s specialty. Cohen made all kinds of movies, but his most enduring have been his horror films and all of them tackle the social issues and fears of the time they were made. God Told Me To (1976), Q: The Winged Serpent (1982), and The Stuff (1985) are all great examples of his socially aware, low-budget, exploitation filmmaking with a brain and It’s Alive certainly fits right in with that group. Cohen would go on to write and direct two sequels, It Lives Again (aka It’s Alive 2) in 1978 and It’s Alive III: Island of the Alive in 1987 and is credited as a co-writer on the 2008 remake. All these films explore the ideas of parental responsibility in light of the various concerns of the times they were made including abortion rights and AIDS.
Fifty years after It’s Alive was initially released, it has only become more relevant in the ensuing years. Fears surrounding parenthood have been with us since the beginning of time but as the years pass the reasons for these fears only seem to become more and more profound. In today’s world the conversation of the fathers in the waiting room could be expanded to hormones and genetic modifications in food, terrorism, climate change, school and other mass shootings, and other threats that were unknown or at least less of a concern fifty years ago. Perhaps the fearmongering conspiracy theories about chemtrails and vaccines would be mentioned as well, though in a more satirical fashion, as fears some expectant parents encounter while endlessly doomscrolling Facebook or Twitter. Speaking for myself, despite the struggles, the fears, and the sadness that sometimes comes with having children, it’s been worth it. The joys ultimately outweigh all of that, but I understand the terror too. Becoming a parent is no easy choice, nor should it be. But as I look back, I can say that I’m glad we made the choice we did.
I wonder if Frank and Lenore can say the same thing.
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