#but the main villain has entered the stage and he is psychologically torturing and breaking thomas down

[cosmic-walkers]

I think the best way I could describe this episode is 'fear'. The absolute fear that Thomas feels after Jane's death when reality begins to weigh on him. The complete devastation in his eyes when Mary told him that Stephen had returned, the way that his relationship around Henry is different. Henry isn't a friend to him, he's a dangerous person, but now he realizes he's stuck. The way he accidentally let it slip that he would retaliate against Henry, in front of Risley, and the cold fear that we see in his face.

Thomas is genuinely terrified. I don't think he believes death, is looming in the air, but he knows that something is going to happen. And i mean, the fear he is feeling was enough to get him sick, and nearly die. It brought back his Italian fever but this time, it was worse, much much worse.

He can't even talk straight, he can't walk straight, he can't think. Thomas, a man who has been nothing but brave and resilient his whole life is finally being broken down, and finally succumbing to fear. Which is something he truly, truly, never thought he'd be able to feel fully.

What did Anne say in the first season, "Fear can unmake a man" , and well...it's happening.

[robbyrobinson]

Stephen King Villains: Most Evil to Least Evil

Stephen King is considered the master of horror best known for his prolific writing career that in itself takes place in a multiverse of sorts. Besides monsters and supernatural beings, there are also very, very evil humans that also antagonize the protagonists. 

Most Evil

Most Evil would go to Randall Flagg. He is probably the closest thing to the Devil that exists in King's works, though Nyarlathotep is also said to be one of his many titles. He appears in several of King's novels sowing chaos wherever possible. He was apart of many violent tragedies such as race riots, lynchings, you name them. In The Stand, he sets himself up as some sort of god for those who also had penchants for violence. In The Dark Tower series, he works alongside the Crimson King and gets into even more acts like destroying a city and driving a woman insane by having a dead man recount to her what he had seen in the afterlife. Ultimately, his plan is to topple the Dark Tower itself which would spell destruction for the multiverse. 

 Bronze goes to It. An ancient, primordial evil, It was originally from the Macroverse before crash landing to the area that would eventually become Derry, Maine where it establishes a cycle of awakening every 27 years to kill and devour Derry's children even though it is implicated that It doesn't need to consume the flesh of its prey as it could live off their fear alone. But it is their fear that makes their meat tastier to It. It is an egotistical, narcissistic being who views itself as being superior above humans and its archenemy Maturin the Turtle. It is first defeated by the Losers Club back in the 1950s after it had killed the young brother of Bill Denbrough only to return 27 years later to settle the score.

Silver...it's a tough one, but I ultimately decided that William Wharton from The Green Mile earns this spot. He is not the most powerful being in the books nor is he anywhere close to the first two's level. Simply put, he is a disgusting piece of human garbage that should've gotten fried to death in the electric chair for what he had done. He is first taken to the Mile after killing two people, one of which was a pregnant woman. When he arrives, he pretends to be in a near-drunken state only to then attempt to strangle one of the wardens. That in itself is bad, but what pushes him further is the fact that he was the one who raped and killed those two girls that John Coffey is being sentenced to death over. He used the sisters' love for each other to coerce them not to scream lest he kill one of them before leading them out of their house.

Patrick Hockstetter. A pure solipsistic psychopath, Patrick was a member of Henry Bowers's gang but he was especially nasty. He took perverse delight at killing animals but that is not his main claim to infamy. As a solipsist, he believes that no one exists aside from himself...essentially the world revolved around him. When he learned that his mother had given birth, Patrick felt threatened. So much so, he smothered the baby to death with a pillow.

Norman Daniels, the main antagonist of Rose Madder. A corrupt cop, he domestically abuses his wife Rose and in one instance sexually assaulted her and later caused her to suffer a miscarriage. When she leaves him, Norman pursues her, murdering and torturing those in his way his preferred method being biting them to death. 

Leland Gaunt of Needful Things sets up a novelty shop in Castle Rock where he has his victim's greatest desires in stock, but they had to pay a sum and additionally stage a prank. A magical charm that drives the residents to madness one instance being when two women killed themselves in a madness-inducing stupor leading to a young boy killing himself. 

Rose the Hat. A little lower on the list. A True Knot (quasi-immortal vampiric beings), she feeds on steam, as in the dying breath of children who have "the Shining." This is of course done through torturing children to death. Despite committing serial murders, plausibly in the hundreds depending on how long she and her clan were operating, she nevertheless greatly cares for her fellow True Knots and becomes increasingly incensed by Danny Torrance and Abra Stone killing them.

Going to King's first novel Carrie, we have several trash. Chris Hargensen bullies Carrie White relentlessly climaxing in her staging a terrible prank where she drops a bucket full of pig's blood on Carrie's head at the prom after forging fake votes for Carrie. Following her is Margaret White , Carrie's mother. An insane religious zealot, she emotionally and psychologically abuses her daughter as she saw it as her fault that Carrie received telekinetic powers because of her perceived mistake. After the massacre, Margaret attempts to kill Carrie.

The Overlook Hotel. At first it seems odd that I would include what is basically an inanimate object. But in the book The Shining, it is made apparent that the hotel is alive and is greatly evil. It drives those who visit it to madness ultimately resulting in them killing their families and then themselves. Once it completely possesses Jack Torrance, it fully has its malevolent intentions out in the open. 

The Shawshank Redemption. Kind of more leaning towards the film adaptation, but here goes: Samuel Norton is the warden of the Shawshank prison. Initially coming off as a kind man with that rich Southern Christian rhetoric, Norton is truly a greedy man ruling Shawshank with an iron fist allowing rapes and other evils to happen on his grounds. He uses the prisoners for cheap labor in a money laundering scheme which he forces Andy to assist him with. Unlike in the book, when Tommy has information proving Andy's innocence, Norton sends for Captain Byron T. Hadley to kill Tommy. 

Next would be Bogs Diamond. The leader of a group of men called The Sisters, he enjoys violently raping his victims one of his favorite being Andy. But it isn't because he's gay, but more because he derives disgusting glee from raping them when they were at their lowest state. 

Henry Bowers, the secondary antagonist of It, is a racist, Anti-Semitic, misogynistic, fat-shaming lunatic who graduates to murdering his own father before deciding to go to kill the Losers Club when they enter the sewer system to face off against It/Pennywise. But it is shown that his father was abusive and he likely learned a lot of his prejudices from him. But he also stands as a trope of King's where you have insane bullies.

Lastly, we get to Percy Wetmore the secondary antagonist of The Green Mile. Somehow coming off as more reprehensible than the real villain of the book, Wetmore is a low-functioning sociopath who primarily came to the Cold Mountain Penitentiary to watch the death row inmates die. 

Especially despising Delacroix, he kills Mr. Jingles by stepping on him out of spite, and he later deliberately leaves the sponge dry leading to Delacroix's excruciatingly botched, prolonged execution where he literally cooks in Old Sparky. He's kind of lower on the list mostly because of his film counterpart looking horrified. Something tells me that he probably was only thinking that by not wetting the sponge it would give Delacroix a little more pain, but he wasn't anticipating for the events to ensue the way they did. Though him being forced to watch is cathartic as was what became of him in the ending.

Least Evil

Cujo takes the first spot. All he wanted was to be a good boy, but all that changed when he was bitten by a rabid bat. Now he kills those that he miscontrues as being responsible for his pain. 

Carrie White was the protagonist of Stephen King's first book. Born with telekinetic powers, Carrie was bullied by her peers; mistreated by her fundamentalist mother...ultimately she was driven insane when that horrible prank at the prom befell her. She committed horrible acts, but ultimately, it is understandable. It was only a matter of time for her to snap. 

Jack Torrance: While he tries to kill his wife and son, part of it largely falls on the Overlook corrupting him. He was abused by his father ultimately becoming an alcoholic who unwittingly dislocated Danny's arm. At the least before the Overlook's destruction he had a moment of clarity. 

Christine: A sapient possessed 1958 Plymouth Fury vintage vehicle who acts like a envious girlfriend when it comes to its owners. Worse, it is fully able of numping people off if need be.

The Wendigo: In Pet Sematary, it is a wendigo that is responsible for the cursed grounds that whatever was buried in its soils, an evil, undead version arises. This happens to Church the cat and especially to Gage. However, the Wendigo is presented more as a force of nature than truly evil.

Annie Wilkes: After saving Paul, it seems at first Annie was a kind woman...at least until she found out that Paul killed off her favorite character and becomes hellbent on forcing him to rewrite the ending where she was alive again. She holds him hostage and even breaks his legs as punishment (though it's much worse in the novel). Worse, it is revealed that Annie is a serial killer with a body count in potentially the 70s with multiple infants dying under mysterious circumstances while under her care. More patients end up dying but they were mostly ignored as the patients were already deathly sick prior. But with all that being said, Annie does have severe mental issues to the point where she is unable to discern reality from fiction. 

[gibelwho]

Western #6: A Fistful of Dollars

Inevitably, there comes a time when tradition is subverted and a fresh voice throws convention out the window. For the Western genre, this came in the form of Spaghetti Westerns - Italian filmmakers who adopted the Western genre tropes in their own upstart style. A Fistful of Dollars (1964), directed by Sergio Leone and introducing Clint Eastwood in his first starring film role, was the first commercially successful Spaghetti Western and thrust Eastwood into star status. In this tale, there is no gallant hero that sides with right and defeats villainy; rather, a man plays both sides of a corrupt town in order to reap their money. The sixth film in this Western Marathon ushered in a new era of Westerns that moved beyond the Hollywood studio systems stable fare, led by a team of international filmmakers who co-opted the American West to tell their own tales.

The Man With No Name enters a town surrounded by wilderness and infested with corruption. His welcome to the town - “You will get rich here, or you’ll be killed.” The Stranger becomes determined to achieve the former and immediately proves his talent as a sharpshooter, easily killing four men from the sheriff's posse in a gunfight. He then decides to pit the town’s rival families - the scheming Rojos and the corrupt Baxters - against each other, playing each side with half-truths that create a false sense of trust, which then initiates situations that begets violence. While the family gangs focus on fighting, the Stranger searches for stolen gold and also helps an imprisoned family escape the town. Eventually, the gangs realize the game the Stranger has been playing and he is captured and tortured by the Rojos. He escapes and recovers just outside of town. The rival gangs have descended into all out warfare, with the Rojo family setting fire to the Baxter home and killing their entire family, while also capturing and torturing the Strangers only friend in the town. He returns to town, confronting the Rojo’s gang leader in a one on one shootout in the middle of town. In a race to reload empty guns, the Stranger shoots the Rojo’s leader first and finally takes his leave of the devastated town.

Spaghetti Westerns describe an offshoot branch of the Western that was produced in Italy, beginning in the mid-1960s. The new sub-genre featured international cast and crews, widescreen cinematography, and Roman Catholic iconography. The troupes of the Western, covered in this Marathon’s overview, were either exaggerated or inverted; for example, the villains are portrayed as more hyperbolic, while the heroes are transformed from the white hat sheriff in the mold of John Wayne to become black hat loners in the ground-breaking mold of Clint Eastwood. Finally, the films have a focus on ostentatious violence and nonstop action. Most of these traits were defined in the first commercially successful Spaghetti Western, A Fistful of Dollars, and then the number of productions rapidly expanded for the next ten years, finally slowing by the end of the seventies. Now, only homages to the sub-genre, such as Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained (2012), are produced, but the effects of breaking open the genre tropes are still felt today with modern Western storytelling and production design.

One of the first indications that the viewer is experiencing a new and different type of Western comes in an early scene, where the Stranger recognizes that he must prove his gun skills to the entire town - so he approaches the men who have taken his horse. The camera is set at Eastwood’s back, with his gun hand framed in the lower left corner and his opponents in the near distance. In an incredible display of quickness and brutality, he draws his weapon and takes down the four men in the sheriff’s posse, without an editing cut nor a hint of remorse from the hero.

It now is made clear to the audience and the town that Eastwood’s portrayal of The Man With No Name is one of an anti-hero, whose mission is to play both sides of the town against each other for the potential individual profit, blurring any sense of the traditional Western’s emphasis on morality and ethics; the viewer, however, still roots for the Stranger to win, as he does some redeeming acts and he is a hell of a lot better than the rest of the gangs in the town. For example, he reunites a family that had been torn apart by the gangs, giving them some money and enabling them to escape the frontier town with the hope for a better life. When questioned why he took this action, he response: “Cuz i knew someone like you once and there was no one there to help.” Was this his mother? Someone important from his past? The script doesn’t deign to answer, only deepening the audience’s interest in this protagonist. In addition, this anti-hero relies on cunning and improvises his way out of situations, as when he hides in a coffin to escape the town in order to recover from his wounds. This type of ingenuity and cleverness in the protagonist was a refreshing element to see in a Western flick.

Another way the film subverts the traditional Western genre tropes is in the final shootout. While a lone man does appear in the center of the town and his final showdown is against the story’s main villain, both familiar elements from the baseline genre, the film takes both to new levels. Eastwood makes a dramatic entrance, as mists from a dynamite explosion clears and reveals his presence in the street. The Stranger has used his smarts to upgrade the battle with armor and uses psychological warfare to taunt the Rojo brother into playing his game. He challenges the man to a deadly race of loading an empty gun to see who can shoot the other first. This shootout isn’t about force of numbers or watching the good guys prevail over the outlaws - this is a one on one battle of skill and daring, one that the Man With No Name easily wins. He puts his life on the line for revenge, confident in his skills, but when the other Rojo brother takes deadly aim, the Stranger’s two friends in the town come to his aid. The film seems to be making a grand message about the lone man, but he is constantly needing help from friendly faces in the town.

Perhaps because the story was written and the film produced outside of the United States, away from the institutionalized racism and sexism that is typically part of the Western genre, the film has different ways of portraying the Mexicans and women in the town. First off and very notably, the Man With No Name does not have a love interest at all; he does not pursue any of the women he comes across, he isn’t in the town looking for love nor a woman’s companionship - he is there for money and nothing else. He encounters a woman who is basically enslaved and helps to free and reunite her with her husband and young son, which is his one admirable act. He also negotiates with the sheriff’s wife, who is also Mexican, when he begins to play the two families against each other. She makes the final decisions in their tete a tete, even though her husband arrives to witness the discussions. In her final moments, after the Rojo gang has destroyed her family, her husband, and her home, she still makes an impassioned speech, defying her killers in her final moments. She is a strong, independent, and feisty woman, exceeding the stock figures usually found in Western fare.

The cast of the film is also quite diverse, and while many Hollywood studio system Westerns did cast Hispanic actors in bit parts, these actors take on more prominent positions in the story, as would be realistic on the actual frontier. The audience is not presented the Rojo family as stock villains; rather, as the Stranger is housed in their compound, their inner life and complex relationships are revealed, showing a more robust portrayal of Mexican culture than is usually displayed on screen. This advance, however, is undercut by other aspects of the film. The Rojo family refers to white people as “Americanos,” an interesting linkage between the fledgling American country and the people who populate it, with the language suggesting that the Hispanic families in the town are separated from the new country. The film also attributes significantly more violence to the Rojo family than the Baxter family; for example, when the Rojo gang steals from the US Government, an incident referred to as the “Massacre at Rio Bravo,” the filmmakers focus on the ruthlessness nature of the attack, positioning the camera behind a machine gun in order to visually capture the spray of bullets that mercilessly mows down the surprised men. This trend continues in the final showdown between the rival families, where the Rojo posse has set the Baxter’s house ablaze, and the gang rushes out of the flames, only to meet their deaths at the hands of the Rojo’s bullets. The camera frames closeups on the Rojo’s faces, displaying the laughter and glee as they shoot down their enemies, and is sustained for a significant period of time, highlighting the cruelty of the men. For a film that is more diverse in its casting and portrayal of women and minorities, it still positions brown men as overly violent towards white people.

Sergio Leone gained renown for not only breaking open standard storytelling in Westerns, but he also was a talented filmmaker. His awareness of physical space and then creative choices in camera placement elevated his films from pulp fare to sophisticated filmmaking. For example, in A Fistful of Dollars, he frequently utilized buildings, fences, and furnitures as framing devices, employing the rules of thirds, and also depth of field for multiple planes of staging and action. This type of framing is much more sophisticated than the shots in a Hollywood studio system Western.

There are so many visual setpieces that deserve highlighting, such as when the Stranger is on the run from the Rojo gang. Their leader is jumping about on a building porch, yelling for his men to disperse and find the fugitive, and, unbeknownst to him, Eastwood’s anti-hero has buried himself under that very porch to hide. Not only is this very clever storytelling, but delightful choreography from the director. Another great sequence is when the Stranger has quietly stolen back into town to rescue his friend from the Rojo’s torture. The camera follows Eastwood as he carefully climbs his way across a barn’s crossbeams, with the audio of his friend’s misery overlaying the images. Leone doesn’t abandon all Western visual tropes in the movie, as he does include scenes of horses on full on gallops racing through the desert landscape.

Not all elements of the production were top quality and some techniques that were common at the time don’t hold up well in retrospection. The opening title animations are presented in stark black and orange flat colors, horses running across the screen, and incredibly cheesy bullet sounds fire when a credit is introduced. This title sequence doesn’t quite set the viewer up for the serious and dramatic tale they are about to witness, so expectations are set far afield from the actual tone of the film. Additionally, the filming technique in Italy at the time was to not capture sound during production, but to to dub the film later with the actor’s voices. This produces a mismatch between the actors lips and the line reading, which distracts from Leone’s brilliant staging and Eastwood’s serious acting. One particular sequence where the Rojos and the Baxters are facing off at a cemetery has just awful night lighting. And finally, despite some excellent makeup on Eastwood to show how terribly he has been beaten by the Rojo gang, the movie’s design team just couldn’t quite realistically capture the essence of blood. It often looks chunky and doesn’t quite flow like the real deal. The film holds up as a classic despite these quibbles over production quality.

In order for a complete analysis of the film, one must consider the fantastic score from composer Ennio Morricone, who went on to be an influential voice in film and television music. The main theme is a rich tapestry of sounds, a coordinated cacophony of voices and instruments that conjures visions of outlaws in the dry desert. Morricone didn’t have the budget for an orchestral score, so he relied on stripped down instruments and sound effects such as whip cracks, shots firing, and voices chanting phrases such as “we can fight!” The main theme features guitar strums taken straight from the Old West that combine with the piercing flute, floating the melody over bell chimes and fluttering chirps that cascade down the scales. Morricone continued to collaborate with Leone for the rest of the Dollars trilogy, with his score for the final film (The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly) considered as the crowning achievement of the series.

Overall, this film was a welcome break from traditional Western films. The inventiveness of the writing, camera placement, and score imparted fresh life into a worn down genre, infusing it with new character archetypes and interesting stories to tell.  Clint Eastwood’s film debut was a staggering performance of restraint and ruthlessness, positioning his anti-hero as far from John Wayne’s cowboy hero as possible. These aspects have placed it close to the top in the rankings of this Western Marathon and, with only two more entries to consider, we move next to Anthony Mann’s 1950 collaboration with James Stewart in Winchester ‘73.