Page 2-Sunday, September 23, 1979-The Michigan Daily The Michigan Daily-Sunday, Septer Hard Nox' BY TERR Y LeBAN Film Rocky horror picture shox I / jji F }9 PLAlT COLU:e£ 1 1 6r c. s3SLco To~D sj.Ijl Iv . , ,. , - y y ti - ; J y i ; , = + - . / ~ ,1 ;. - - r- _ _ .__ 4IL2 AY 2 ''d rNj Vo i-A/EDJ $ S r4EA St S '~r C 1N' br Th T I I '1 .~cr~vvr!&5 - .4 (I ~5'.. / -, /4 4, L ~ . 'vIi . ......... ...... Nw""''' I s r - e _f,) ~ADrES 41* i .7,...x.1 vc - t = ;; . i /''' Yr, y, ' . _ ' /yo-%/dt '' g! - y . +'' _ J '-1 r i . ~~LoNGL/VE~ "ThE k~$'7~FuIVQWTbOH! '3/ I I.- SundaV A CROSTIC PUZZLE i10 F 111iH 1213.133Y14 IN 1, Rt 61 a 62. 11211 131x 1141 F15 __ D17 I 1i1. 11°o 0 1 97 '17 S120 S 1 1V 1 " 145 3 146 4 147 x 123 149 150 151 172 173 d 174 175 197 198 199 BY S TEPHEN J. POZSGAI Copyright 1977 INSTRUCTIONS Guess the words defined at the left and write them in over their numbered dashes. Then, transfer each letter to the cor- responding numbered square in the grid above. The letters printed in the upper-right-hand corners of the squares indi- cate from what clue-word a particular square's letter comes from. The grid, when filled in, should 'read as a quotation from a published work. The darkened squares are the spaces between words. Some words may carry over to the next line. Meanwhile, the first letter of each guessed word at the left, reading down, forms an acrostic, giving the author's name an the title of the work from whibh the quote is extracted. As words and phrases begin to form in the grid, you can work back and forth from clues to grid until the puzzle is complete. The 'Godzila' movies aren't scary in the least. But as an expression of the horror of World War II, of the atom bomb, they say more to me than 'Hiroshima, Mon Amour.' -George Romero, director of 'Night of the Living Dead' WO-THIRTY a.m., a hot summer night, and I'm watch- ing The Manster on the tube for te zillionth time. The story never fails to astonish me with its Sopheclean simplicity: This journalist fellow, kind of like the Raymond Burr of Perry Mason days without the sparkling per- sonality, visits a sicko Japanese scien- tist, who deviously injects him with a super-mega-serum he's been perfecting for the best years of his life. The journalist hits Tokyo and shacks up with some "exotic" Japanese sleaze. Then, things start-to ... happen. His hand gets all rough and hairy, Wolf- man-style. He feels the thump-thumpa- thump of a heartbeat on his right side. He grows a weird eye in the middle of his shoulder! And that's just kid's stuff, cause you know what happens next? He sprouts this other head, which is furry and scuzzy and drools a lot. This guy isn't a journalist,anymore. He isn't even a man. He's-you guessed it-the Manster! The Manster murders a few women and runs from the law, which looks rather funny since his second head is actually a cheesey little hunk of paper mache that wobbles every time he tur- ns around. And during the climax, in which he crawls behind a tree, growls like a rabid dog, and SPLITS APART!, I have my revelation: This movie, this moment, this existential instant of Celluloid Reality, is the MEANING OF LIFE! I can face the world again, and I owe it all to the Manster., that cruel, cuddly beast whose two heads are-and always will be-better than one. Horror movies entice me for a lot of reasons, not the least of which is that the majority of the world consigns them to the aesthetic trash heap. Part of me, of course, is simply a lowbrow elitist. What wicked fun it is for trash connois- seurs like myself to flaunt their love for The Fly or Rodan in the face of respectablility. It's the same perverse pleasure I get telling people I don't like Joni Mitchell because her lyrics don't rhyme. Yet there's more. Contrary to what your English prof may tell you, the unadorned junkiness of most horror flicks has valid aesthetic appeal. There's something pure and beautifully uncomplex about how I Was A Teenage Werewolf evokes the wan complacency of its era. Like the other "classic" Roger Corman cheapies, Werewolf is stripped down to the bare bones of its thoroughly inane story. That story, of course, has social "relevance:" Michael Landon, running around with fangs and a hairy face, is reallynothing more than a monstrous version of James Dean's misunderstood kid in Rebel Without a Cause. Too much alienation, and you start to bite people-nothing strange about that. But the significance of the relevant-theme Owen Gleiberman is co-editor of the Sunday Magazine. .w ,- // v , By Owen Gleiberman formulaic. Th yesteryear's ned: Form (r Always. This Phantasm, a by UCLA Fi Coscarelli, I k this guy take seriously? Do movie?" The; joyous inanit from the ridi Blob ("It slit all over-it's political satir Dead. Watching H parade throu was like sittir long, tedious ts, crabs, and of the fifties hysteria bout like this sum arrival. Bil movie," its c: tle Ben with a mutation ir pany's willfi stream. Now perfectly vali but it's the small-mindec everything fry to North Dall stands at abo N IGHT flacl Dracula, ele is something cover. The st like the Cou middle of a K of course, w fright-fest. A put off by the special effeci Director Rid game plan. first half, A predictable disappointm out to be h visioned a something, nr Space. Gifted ho George Rom are hardly or bring to the bination of bi sharp wit. R the horror fi tsburgh's sl satirize Am the satire is ce, funny hor. In fact, if' achieve anyt tors might c from a scene army of fles the first flo radiating m muzak syste zombies are spastics, stui of some abs Doubtless, somewhere, scene captur and death, o Romero, I'm pure silliness 076 'i 7I'V DRAWING BY LYNNE SCHNEIDER A. Traditional place for pies to cool - 2 4 30 60 82 143 104 126 140 194 171 206 B. Goddess born from the head - of Zeus (Myth) 24 92 130 190 2 182 C. King for whom Poseidon built the walls of Troy;- - - - - - - - grandfather of Hector (Myth) 68 100 199 214 90 78 210 45 D. Devoid of color - - - - - 18 31 49 59 98 106 141 187 E. The Furies (Myth)- 6 154 79 95 169 57 76 F. Freshstart--- 7 39 43 94 105 120 128 134 149 166 189 201 211 197 G. Joyous; gay- 9 75 .58 109 209 89 156 H. Defeat- - - - - - 41273 56 64195 162 184 1. Pricked 32 137 81 21 40 77 51 J.Telepathymedium(Comp) - - 36 38 44 71 62 74 86 99 107 152 172 K. Song of famous mythical musicin- of Throce (2 words) 8 -46 .25 33 55 112 127 148 132 180 L. Doshiell Hemmett mystery (with- "The") (2words) 37 3 93 16 65 157 28 M Son of Zeus known as the messen- - ger of the gods (Myth) 19 83 164 200 217 102 N. Ancient Greek goddesses known as "the kindly ones" (Myth) O. Elf; bugbear P. Son of Agamenmon and Clytemnes (Myth) Q. Botched: maltreated R. Strange: offbeat 15 131 52 67, 85 114 216 145 193 23 185 70 155 188 168 119 176 91 11 175 111 96 115 215 204 5 20 29 63 97 124 167 147 203 219 27 161 177 50 61 72 88 116 183 - - - - - - - - - - - 13 47 103 121 120w 146 150 159 181 170 202 191 186 165 S. Exploring; surveying T. Tropical S.A. creeping plant U. Invisibility garment (Myth) (3 words) V. "The less- we have, the better" Ralph Waldo Emerson W. Beyond reach; locking contact (3 words) X. Greek god of wine (Myth) Y. According to Plato. the man named the wisest by the oracle at Delphi 1 135 218 173 163 178 argument tends to get exaggerated. The best horror is found in the method behind the madness, the tingly fun of the plot, the mingling of simple theme and formal complexity. ORROR MOVIES may not deserve their low status on the cinematic totem pole, but it s easy to see how they got it. Most are low-budget specials (Roger Cor- man's infamous Little Shop of Horrors was shot in two days and a night), the stories thin and linear in design, the characters and events blandly predic- table. Yet the biggest reason is seldom stated: At its essence, the horror movie is a cinema of sensation. The impact is crudely visceral, and while highbrows may experience that impact, and even enjoy it, they deny its value. Horror movies rarely offer the loftier pleasures of artistic "ambiguity." On the contrary, they tend to unify audien- ce response; most eveyone cowers, sweats, and jumps at the same time. But since manipulative sensationalism doesn't fit very well into the "art" category, defenders of monsterdom will wheel out rusty examples of social 4allegory to inject some respectability into their cherished genre. Too often, they end up banging their heads against the wall, or, worse, finding layers of complexity that just aren't there. That's easy to do nowadays, since the seventies have given birth to the most socially conscious horror movies in history. American monsters have long been incarnations of national night- mares. Today's nightmare is capitalism gone crazy, and something like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre depicts American consumer society turned against itself,, teeth bared. In- spired by Chainsaw, a wave of low- budget "shockers" like The Hills Have Eyes and It's Alive echo the same fatalistic message: We've created a monster, and the monster is us. The victims are cut from the same rich, young, WASPy cloth. On their home turf-plush, lazy suburbia-they're safe. Thrust into the wilderness, they're no match for the crazed, demented savagery that awaits. Even Chainsaw, the best of the kill- the-middle-class flicks,. is dreary whenever the horrifying pyschopath Leatherface 'is offscreen. The charac- ters, are, too thin,.the symbolism too 10 53 26 41 69 110 118 144 153 158 22 34 80 87 113 151 122 138 192 208 17 35 125 136 160 174 179 207 117 196 42 84213 54101 66142198 14 205 46 139 133 108 123 212 Look in the space next week for the answer to today's puzzle. L. ,.