They’ve Re-Created a Monster (or Two)

Bolstered by psychic dreams and primal screams, the horror film may be shifting from the physical to the psychological, but don’t count out those scary monsters--they’re coming back in droves to haunt the new millennium.

Not only is Universal Pictures reviving its classic monster franchise with digital wizardry and fresh spins (thanks to the runaway success of “The Mummy”), but there’s also renewed competition from rival studios with the same idea.

Next up for Universal in 2001 is “The Mummy II” and the much anticipated animated version of “Frankenstein,” using computer-generated imagery (CGI) and co-starring the always formidable Wolf Man. Then, if all goes well for Universal, look for a futuristic live-action “Bride of Frankenstein,” a comic sci-fi version of “The Invisible Man,” computer-generated renditions of “Dracula” and “Creature From the Black Lagoon,” and “The Phantom of the Opera” in some form or another.

None of these will hit screens before “The Hollow Man” next summer, with always provocative and controversial director Paul Verhoeven pushing the horror envelope. Mad scientist Kevin Bacon shows just how destructive the angry white male can be when he becomes invisible, as he stalks ex-girlfriend Elisabeth Shue and his other colleagues in a nuclear bunker.

This marks the third time Sony Pictures has abducted a famous monster from Universal (following “Wolf” in 1994 and “Bram Stoker’s Dracula” in 1992). Just the sight of Bacon’s transformation should prove frightening, judging from Andrew Marlowe’s script and descriptions from CGI effects creator Sony Imageworks: “Layers of flesh [liquefying], the muscular system [dissolving], leaving a struggling skeleton stuffed with the major organs, the organs going, leaving only a skeleton, howling in pain until it evaporates into nothingness.”

On a much lighter note, Disney and Pixar will unleash “Monsters, Inc.” in two years. This CGI comedy goes well beyond toys and bugs. It concerns a race of motley creatures from an alternate world that has lost its frightening touch. So in steps a knowing little girl with new ways of saying boo and making things go bump in the night.

Speaking of animation, that’s what Fox has in store for its own version of “Dracula” sometime in the near future. There’s no word yet on how spooky that will be.

But Universal seems unfazed by the competition, probably because there’s no competing with the real thing. Plus the fact that “The Mummy’s” worldwide gross of more than $400 million persuaded even the skeptics in the new regime to give the franchise another fighting chance.

“You need a reason to go back into the library and remake something--a new take, an unbelievable performance by a new actor, a new technology,” says Universal chairman Stacey Snider. “This is an exciting marriage of new technology and mythic storytelling.”

“New technology” is right. It’s the driving force behind this monster revival, taking terror to a whole new realm of imagination. “We are moving toward synthetic movie-making with the crossover of live-action and digital animation,” says John Swallow, Universal’s senior vice president of production technology. “It’s not about replacing actors but about creating synthetic characters that go beyond photorealism.”

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Death and rebirth. What an appropriate time for the revival: the end of the century and the anticipation of a new millennium. “These are creatures who die and do not die--modern living myths that are a part of our culture,” explains horror film authority David Skal, who’s made several documentaries that accompany Universal monster classics on DVD.

Of course, purists missed a sense of horror and menace in “The Mummy” remake while lamenting the adolescent camp. At the moment, monster fans are cringing about “Frankenstein” becoming more kid-friendly with each script revision and CGI tweak by Industrial Light & Magic.

Snider counters that there’s just no way the franchise can compete on the same horror level with contemporary witches, boogeymen, ghosts and demons. “These monsters are so familiar that they are almost benign. A guy walking around in rags isn’t scary. Frankenstein plodding away is beautiful, gothic, heartwarming, full of rage--but it’s not spooky today. It’s hard to get the same jolt.”

Actually, the phenomenal success of “The Sixth Sense” and “The Blair Witch Project” bodes well for Universal. These two films have gone back to the basics, utilizing the power of the imagination and a less-is-more strategy, precisely what Universal did in the 1930s.

“These were more anxiety movies than horror movies,” Skal adds. “They gave us a mood of dread that clicked with people who had no safety net during the Great Depression. Dracula was a mysterious draining force, and Frankenstein was a proletariat figure--a mute reflection of everyman abandoned by their industrial masters.”

During such prosperity, though, these folk tales must reflect a different mood of dread, such as fear of violence, confusion about our identities and anger over the prevailing spiritual abyss.

Then again, when you’re making an event picture with a lot of special effects, you can’t afford to be too disturbing. “I could’ve made ‘The Mummy’ a lot scarier,” says writer-director Stephen Sommers. “But we would’ve gotten an R rating and grossed $15 million. You need that PG-13 to be profitable. We did so well because expectations were so low. Everyone expected some guy wrapped in bandages. We gave them something different: the exotic, the adventurous and the romantic.”

That’s not to say that Sommers is immune to the changing marketplace. So look for a few new wrinkles in “The Mummy II,” including new monsters, scarier thrills, less silliness and different locales such as London.

Meanwhile, as Sommers completes the first draft of his sequel, he’s busy rewriting “Frankenstein,” providing a creative face lift inspired by “The Mummy.”

Which means more action-adventure. “The original script was very dark and creepy--it was no kiddie movie,” Sommers says. “We’re opening it up. The look is unlike anything you’ve ever seen--hyper-real, gothic horror.”

But that doesn’t mean “Frankenstein” is being eviscerated. “The monster is bigger, badder, meaner and stronger,” Sommers contends.

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The remake actually melds “Bride of Frankenstein” with “Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man.” It involves the efforts of Dr. Praetorius, the weird scientist from “Bride,” to revive the monster with the aid of the Wolf Man, who can’t resist battling the big guy, as well as a gnome called Novo, who has evolved over the course of the project from repulsive to Disney-like. But he won’t be cuddly.

At least the filmmakers plan on retaining the frightening introduction to the monster from the script’s first draft. After Praetorius locks Novo in a box with him, we suddenly see a hand move from this mud-encrusted, reanimated corpse. But we don’t glimpse his face.

And that most famous of all monster faces continues to be a secret. Yet one thing is certain: It won’t resemble the immortal Boris Karloff, since Universal was unable to reach a financial agreement with the late actor’s daughter, Sara Karloff Sparkman.

It shouldn’t be too much of a shock--the monster will still contain those familiar scars, electrodes and flat head. “It’s actually turned out for the better, creatively, now that we’re not confined to Karloff’s likeness,” Snider says.

Universal is also being secretive about the precise look of the film. Swallow likens it to “bringing an Andrew Wyeth painting to life. It’s not grotesque, but it’s very stylized, with a Jules Verne-like lab that’s futuristic and retro.”

There’s no such worry about “The Hollow Man” being too scary, although with Verhoeven, there’s always the fear of the dreaded NC-17 stigma. However, the Dutch director of “RoboCop” and “Basic Instinct” has shown surprising restraint midway through production, no doubt a further influence from this past summer.

For instance, a rape involving the invisible intruder and a voluptuous neighbor has been toned down considerably from the script. Verhoeven hopes the implied terror will be more effective, with the tilting of a mirror while the neighbor is undressing for bed replacing the more explicit and somewhatbizarre struggle on a bed.

“It’s straight horror; very cold and contained and claustrophobic--what I would call modern gothic--but you can only go so far with an invisible man. You don’t want it to look silly,” Verhoeven says.

He says it’s all about the hubris of invisibility, a theme that goes as far back as Plato’s “The Republic”: “You start out with an arrogant scientist and you turn him into a maniac. It becomes a haunted-house story. I like the extreme unity of space, time and plotting.”

Which forces Universal and Imagine Entertainment to go in the opposite direction with their “Invisible Man,” a “Men in Black”-like comedy about a government researcher who accidentally uncovers an old network of invisible spies.

“We started out with a character-driven comedy, but this sci-fi spirit really needs size and scope where the whole world is involved,” says Imagine chairman Brian Grazer.

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There won’t be anything funny or campy about the new “Bride of Frankenstein.” Universal and Imagine are planning straight horror with this remake. She’ll be a sexy and scary monster (designed by makeup whiz Rick Baker) who’s reanimated in the early 21st century with the latest biotechnology. And she’ll be full of post-feminist rage about her contradictory emotions, caught in a love triangle with her maker and his girlfriend.

“This is not a post-apocalyptic future, but one we will recognize as being slightly accelerated,” explains Imagine Films co-chairwoman Karen Kehela. “She’ll be a fresh monster. She won’t have that stitched look. She won’t have scars and bolts. She’ll be a sympathetic monster like King Kong, but one that must be destroyed.”

Co-producer Jim Jacks (who also worked on “The Mummy”) admits the pressure is greater with this remake. “On ‘The Mummy,’ we were tinkering with a classic character, not a classic movie. This is different. This is a great movie, so the creative choices are more complicated.”

Bill Desowitz is a regular contributor to Calendar.