Since Tyler Mane is coming to out Detroit area comic book store tomorrow, I wanted to take a moment to talk about Compound Fracture and the fears which the movie will touch upon. It looks like an interesting movie based on a concept which fits into the classic horror market.
Compound Fracture
The Basis of Compound Fracture
Tyler Mane will star as Michael Wolffsen in the 2013 movie Compound Fracture. The character takes his family to visit his estranged and eccentric father (played by Muse Watson) who is building an unassailable compound to calm his on-setting dementia. As the film progresses, the stars will learn of a ghost named William (played by Derek Mears) which haunts the compound as carnage of the characters begins. Escaping the compound will become as much of a menace as the spirit. To find out more about Compound Fracture, please follow this link to the movie’s official website.
You can learn more about Compound Fracture by following this link.
Fitting into Horror Market
Well before I began writing articles and other types of posts about comics, I wrote about the history and symbolism of the horror genre. Compound Fracture fits right in with particular classic trends in the horror genre which I have spent many years studying. By understanding the classic styles, and the fears horror films touch upon, you can have a greater understanding of a horror film.
First off, the sins of the father/ancestors haunting the son/descendants is a horror storytelling tool made popular in gothic storytelling. Dunsany, Poe, Lovecraft, and Bierce all used this type of story to progress old superstitions and religious fears that our precursors might have cursed us with their evil deeds. One classic story using this storytelling tool would be The Case of Charles Dexter Ward by H.P. Lovecraft which was made into the Roger Corman movie entitled The Haunted Palace starring Vincent Price. I am interested to see how it plays out in Compound Fracture.
The Father’s compound in Compound Fracture touches upon the fears of separatism and meeting up with separatists and their particular brands of insanity. Classic horror movies such as Psycho, Deliverance, and Texas Chainsaw Massacre touched upon these types of fears. More modern movies such as House of 1000 Corpses and the Hatchet movie series also delve into these classic fears.
Insanity is also a major part of the Compound Fracture story. Another gothic storytelling tool touches upon what we might do if we were to lose control or what others might do if they were to lose control. A large majority of the works of Poe teach us lessons about how we should keep ourselves from going over the edge. It will be fun to see the lessons discussed and inferred in Compound Fracture.
Ghosts and the paranormal continue to be hot right now, but ghost stories were among the first horrific stories created hundreds (if not thousands) of years ago to scare children into bed or to keep the average peasant in line and away from certain buildings or plots of land. In the modern day, movies such as those in the Paranormal Activity line and all of the paranormal investigation shows on TV help to keep ghosts as current and important in modern horror and as a base for movies like Compound Fracture.
The Essence and the Goal of Horror
The essence of horror is taking a collective fear held by many (if not all) people and exploiting it. The goal is to bring the fear out into the open and address it in the community format of entertainment so that we can have a release which might help us to overcome out fears as a society. Sometimes, those fears use fantastic and fanciful tools such as zombies and constructs (like Frankenstein’s monster) to take our exploration of fear to an extreme that the mind will realize is fictitious. At other times, real fears such as separatism, insanity, and death will be used to trick the mind because separatism, insanity, and death (as in the Compound Fracture movie) are aspects of the world we live in.
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