Weird Tales 359 by Ann & VanderMeer

Author:Ann & VanderMeer
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: weird tales, horror, fantasy, zombies, monsters
Publisher: Wildside Press
Published: 2012-03-16T04:00:00+00:00

FIVE FILMS REVIEWED BY FRANKENSTEIN’S CREATURE, by Evan J. Peterson

I. LITTLE PINE EYE

Pinocchio, 1911

In Collodi’s original tale, the unborn log feels the burn of the scalpello, crying out. Some endure chisel and adze just to look human. We massage the grain to soften it to flesh, but the termites are already in. The nose dry-rots off of the face. Carpenter ants take off with our lips shared in their pincers. Pray, fantoccino, that some blue, asphyxiated fairy will hear your mulch of tears hitting the earth floor and pity you, grant you mortality. Pray you live long enough to die a man. How many paths to that eternal forest fire? Choking on an acorn or boiling in your own sap, soul divorced from stump, but take comfort. Recall that fire is a miracle, the gift of Prometheus who, like Film, stole light. Fire blasts your shadow into sudden cleansing drama, a flood of shine into a darkened wood.

* * * *

II. ALL THE ELECTRICAL SECRETS OF HEAVEN

Frankenstein, 1931

The lab apparatus goes like a Catherine wheel, slinging its chips of light. This body isn’t dead; it has never lived. Hogwash. Every fragment had its day. Now they rest, waiting. The doctor and his cripple rob the graves. Frankenstein throws his spade of earth in Death’s face. And the creature! A flat-headed numbskull, a droop-eyed ghoul with one sunken cheek. What are the lives of a few rabbits and dogs? Daisies tossed into the lake. The trapper stumbles, mouth slack, presenting his sopping offspring. The toothless mob gathers, calling for death. No wonder at such anger; their sky is but a wrinkled backdrop; their roles but pomp and prop. Strickfaden saves nothing, resurrects everything. Raise a glass to the Hollywood ending. Here’s to a son to the House of Frankenstein. A living one this time.

* * * *

III. CREATURE OF THE NIGHT

The Rocky Horror Picture Show, 1975

I crashed the theater tonight and popcorn flew. I thought I dreamed the picture; it melted like a tab of LSD and everybody loved me. A monster flexed like Flash Gordon in gold briefs. I tore off my disguise and leapt before their screen. I lost my virginity in the back row, my stitches out and all. My girl (I guess she was a girl) sang, “Hot patootie, bless my soul!” so I did. I sucked her earlobes and spluttered cool. By then Sarandon’s eyes were as big as my fists. She made love to the monster! The doctor died for glamour! See—?

You people break the laws of science for love. You slay each other with pickaxes for love. So I’ll make every one of you love me.

* * * *

IV. DYSCEPHALUS

The Elephant Man, 1980

My head, but not my head. A knobby pumpkin spinning on a pole, a Harryhausen puppet. Putty, sticks, and wire. My greatest discovery: the latent medical anomaly: dyscephalus. I coined it myself, “the disorder of extremities in which the subject’s head, seemingly attached, is clearly not the head belonging on that body.” Lately, I’m devising means to shuck it and release this handsome, sweating face beneath.

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