Resident Beasts of the Evil Wild: Alice vs. Hushpuppy

Not long ago, a friend of mine was kind enough to drag me to a screening of Beasts of the Southern Wild, a beautiful, lyrical film which reflects on the conceits of  ‘civilization’ and the triumph of the human spirit. Just the other day, I saw Resident Evil: Retribution, an absurd, erratically paced attempt to graft the experience of a video game onto the silver screen. As I watched Milla Jovovich slay one zombie after another with imaginative skill, a strange thought occurred to me. In a sense, these movies aren’t too different. 

That is, if Beasts of the Southern Wild were made by a 12 year-old boy.

On the surface, the two films don't appear even vaguely related. In Beasts of the Southern Wild, the 6 year-old protagonist, Hushpuppy, searches for a way to rebuild her island community after it is ravaged by a hurricane. And in Retribution, the fifth of the Resident Evil movies, an ageless, weaponized clone named Alice confronts the Umbrella Corporation― a.k.a. The Most Evil Organization To Ever Exist― who has unleashed hordes of zombies and terrible mutants upon the world. And yes, everybody knows which movie is more likely to score come Oscar season.

C'mon folks, we all know Milla's due for it.

But under the surface, there are more similarities than one might think. First off, both stories champion individual perseverance and the value of sticking to one's deepest convictions when the chips are down. The word 'quit' is simply not a part of Alice or Hushpuppy's vocabulary, despite the fact that both heroines have plenty of incentive to give in. In Retribution, most of Alice's former allies have turned against her, because all along they were nothing more than disposable products of the Umbrella Corporation (a.k.a. The Most Evil Organization To Ever Exist). On top of that, the world is virtually overrun by a smorgasbord of vile mutant monsters and hungry zombies. But Alice keeps on fighting, knowing that she must somehow preserve humanity. In Beasts of the Southern Wild, the Bathtub, Hushpuppy's quaint island home, is destroyed by a hurricane and state authorities eventually force them to evacuate. But Hushpuppy does her utmost to find herself, on her own terms, and uses that strength to rebuild a community where many people would not choose to live in the first place. 

Say what you want, but the Bathtub is blissfully free of mutant zombies.

The second similarity lies in both films' emphasis on aesthetics. Beasts of the Southern Wild has a consistent plot that is relatively easy to follow, but the story is told through a connection of images and settings. Viewers experience the film through a kaleidoscope of colors and curious sights, be it Hushpuppy running through a blurry night with two roman candles in her hands, her father's boat crafted from a pickup truck bed, or stampeding prehistoric aurochs. Despite often mundane settings, little in the movie appears truly real.

Except for Hushpuppy's blatant disregard for fire safety.

The opening scene of Retribution plays twice, first in reverse, and then, after a voice over/montage recaps the first four movies, the same sequence is played forward. Why? No reason, it just looks cool. The second scene involves Alice as the suburban mom of an adorable deaf girl, who she must protect from a sudden outbreak of zombies. Why? Because, hey, let's put Alice in a totally different situation and see what happens. Then the real plot begins: Alice is imprisoned in a testing center run by the Umbrella Corporation― a.k.a. The Most Evil Organization to Ever Exist― and she can only escape by fighting her way through simulations of some of the world's most famous cities. 

Of all the Resident Evil movies, Retribution most closely resembles the play of a video game. Scenes of direct exposition set the objectives of elaborate action sequences to which all narrative and character development are subordinate. This gives Alice a chance to fight two enormous axe-wielding mutants in an ersatz New York, and lets another group fight a horde of zombie Russian soldiers in a mockup Moscow. 

To an even greater degree than Beasts of the Southern Wild, Resident Evil places the aesthetic above all else. While Beasts' plot moves at a loose pace, Hushpuppy, her father Wink, and the other denizens of the Bathtub all have relatable motives and sympathetic flaws. As a character, Alice has no real flaws. After five movies, she's just a badass who must save the world, which is kind of absurd. And it is also why the movie not only underwhelmed attendees at this year's San Diego Comic Con, but has also garnered meager praise from critics.  Beasts of the Southern Wild, on the other hand, had Oscar buzz as soon as it hit the theaters, and has since been lauded by 120 out of 139 critics.

"Dear Alice, Eat it! Love, Hushpuppy."

But in all fairness, these are two very different kinds of films, and both meet the objectives they set for themselves. Beasts of the Southern Wild is a touching, thought provoking film that defies Hollywood formulas. But still, the fight scenes in the latest installment of Resident Evil movies are exciting and visually engaging, never mind that the plot fails to explain who exactly is doling out the titular 'Retribution.'  Then again, Alice and co. hauled in over $21 million their first weekend, whereas Beasts of the Southern Wild's lifetime gross is only slightly larger than half that amount.

"And take it from me, kiddo. Like it or not, capitalism always wins."

 

B-nalysis Edition: Prowl

Prowl could have been a better movie. Not an “A” movie (that’s a thing, right?), though it had “B+” movie potential. But ultimately, its an object lesson in how a workable idea gets marred by sloppy storytelling. How sloppy is it? It's so sloppy, that Manwich has an Executive Producer credit. It's so sloppy, every scene transition makes a squelching noise. It's sooooo sloppy  that…

This joke has been censored because- dammit- we have to draw a line somewhere.

So what went wrong? Well, we can't get there without some major spoilers. If you’re itching to see this movie, go and buy an anthology with one of my short stories instead of reading the rest of this review. If you’ve already done that…Well, thank you, and here’s a video of a cat.

Here’s the story: Amber is a small-town girl. She’s bored, restless, and her love life is only slightly better than mine was at her age (in othter words, about as bad as it can get for someone who’s 18, single, and kinda hot). She longs to escape from her one-shoe town of Famfield to a new, exciting life in Chicago. “I won’t be happy,” she says, “until I spend my first night in the big city.”

"And if your vagina is the 'big city', then I'd like to spend a night there, too."
(Not actual dialogue from the movie)

By the Conventions of Horror Movies (last ratified by the "Saw" Treaty of 2005), Amber convinces six of her friends to drive her to Chicago so she can put a deposit on an apartment. Of course their car breaks down.* But never fear, because a creepy trucker offers to let them ride in the trailer of his semi, except it turns out that the trucker gives them more than they bargained for.

Nope. Wrong Movie.

Almost 30 minutes, one third of the entire movie, elapses before this, the first major plot point. Mind you, the trailer tucks away all of Amber's small-town angst within the first 30 seconds, leaving the remaining 3/4 of the time to advertise the actual horror part. In an approximately 90 minute movie, the difference between 1/3 and 1/4 is in the neighborhood of ten minutes, which can pack in a lot stuff. Cloverfield's long, awkward setup seems graceful in comparison to Prowl, whose story unfolds like paper in the hands of Parkinson's patient with a heated disdain for origami.

The trucker won't let them out until he drops them off at an abandoned slaughterhouse. And in the next 10 minutes, every one except Amber and her best friend Suzy are killed off by blurry, hard-to-see vampires. We know they are vampires because they a) have sharp teeth and b) tend to go for the neck. Suzy disappears after a few more minutes, too. Seriously, the attrition rate of this movie is like Saving Private Ryan with Mina Harker instead of Matt Damon.

Sorry, General. Nazis are the worst things I'll fight.

But we do learn a couple of things in the process. The trucker is paid by the vampires' matriarch, Veronica, to bring in prey so her brood can learn to hunt. Amber also manages to pin a vampire, who tells her that usually the trucker brings them junkies; y'know, people that no one would miss.

Because once you do drugs, no one ever remembers you.

 Amber runs away from the vampires for a while longer, and then comes the Big Twist.

Amber does not just survive by the grace of the Conventions of Horror Movies. It turns out she's a vampire, too. Whether or not Prowl violates the Conventions is currently under investigation by the Voorhees Tribunal in the Netherlands. But seriously folks, no. It doesn't defy convention, though it's still a workable idea.

Laying subtle clues for a Big Twist is one of the coolest tricks of story telling. The makers of Prowl deserve points for trying, except their clues are, well, sloppy. To the filmakers' credit, the clues aren't too obvious, but that's actually the problem. Throughout the movie, Amber has visions. In fact, she has two separate visions of her running. Early on, it seems they symbolize her urge to escape, but after the Twist you just kind of think it means vampires are really good at cross country.

No, really. All this blood in my locker is just an illegal performance enhancer.

Amber also has visions of being attacked by vampires, which doesn't seem to make much sense because she's also a vampire. Why would she dream of being attacked by her own kind? Maybe its denial. Actually, it makes sense after thinking about it for a while, but that makes it a clue with rough seams. There are other clues, too. She's lost interest in the taste of food. She also works at a butcher shop and obviously doesn't mind blood. And her lush of a mom lets slip that she's adopted.Overall, the clues add up well enough but that's faint praise for something that's supposed to be a startling revelation.

The rest of the movie deals, in short shrift, with Amber coming to terms with her vampirism. Naturally, she doesn't want to stay with Veronica and co. They try to force her to feed on a still-living, battered Suzy but she, instead, rescues her friend by taking advantage of a big, accidental explosion. If that's not enough of a deus ex machina for you, a rapey hobo attacks Suzy, which gives Amber a chance to lose control and drink some human blood before the credits roll. And now that I've used the terms "rapey hobo" and "deus ex machina" in the same sentence, I can scratch another item off my bucket list.

Yet 'Make Out with a Hobo' keeps mysteriously reappearing on my bucket list.

Telling a good story is difficult, and there are far worse movies out there than Prowl. Actually, it could have benefited from being about a half hour longer. Making the protagonist a vampire toward the end of the movie is a nice idea, and Amber's vampirism- and its obvious impact on her friendship with Suzy- are issues worth exploring. But ultimately, these were missed opportunities that show how the movie doesn't live up to its potential.




*As stipulated by the Scoobie Accords of 1969, which were renewed in 1997 with the added provision that all events from the previous summer must be recorded and reported in a timely manner to a dude with a hook for a hand.

'In the Franchise of My Mind' Edition: Blade:Trinity

Blade: Trinity is kind of a delirious mess of a movie, which is really one of its best features. It’s also a pop culture goldmine, and in my imagination, it could have spawned some great things.

By design, though, Blade: Trinity is a high octane supernatural action flick. Written, produced, and directed by David S. Goyer, who also scripted The Dark Knight, it brims with stylized settings, physics-defying violence, and propulsive fight sequences. Here is a brief plot synopsis: Blade is the ‘daywalker', a human/vampire hybrid who kills a lot of regular vampires. Tired of being hunted, the vampire queen Danica Talos (played by Parker Posey…and yes, you read that correctly) unearths Dracula to convince him to kill Blade. But in this case, Dracula isn't Gary Oldman with crazy hair; he's an ancient, nigh indestructible beast who can take human form. Also, instead of Dracula, he's now called Drake. For his part, Blade enlists the help of a younger, ‘hipper’ group of vampire hunters, and they all fight it out until somebody wins. I’d tell you who, but I don’t want to spoil the surprise. 

Rotten Tomatoes scores the movie at 26%; only 43 of 163 critics liked it. Compared with a score of 55% for the first Blade movie and 59% for Blade II, Trinity is widely considered the worst of the Blade Trilogy. But I say, "Screw the critics." This movie is a lot of fun. Wesley Snipes is arguably better as Blade than he is in any other role. The vampire hunters use all sorts of cool gadgets, like UV lasers and decoy plastic infants that spew garlic. There’s also a scene where Dracula goes into a vampire-themed novelty store, becomes angry when he sees (among other things) a box of Count Chocula, and kills the sales staff. 

I will not turn your milk brown!

So, yeah, its a pretty ridiculous movie, and there are a few things about it that just plain make no sense:

• If Dracula is stronger in his original form as a big, spiny demon-monster, why does he wait until the end of his showdown with Blade to change?
• This movie came out in 2004. So if Ryan Reynolds' character is such a hip vampire hunter, why do all his pop culture references sound like they're from 1996?
• When Parker Posey sees Dracula feeding on a pile of corpses, why is she so disturbed? She's a vampire, too. That's what they do.
  
• And why, seriously, why in the holy moly fuck is Parker Posey in this movie? What's more, why does she spend half of her screen time looking like an evil Oompa Loompa?

C'mon, Wonka. You gotta control your minions.

Honestly, I love this movie. No, it is not the best of the trilogy. That would be Blade II, which was directed by Guillermo del Toro. But Trinity is loads of fun to watch. It also had tons of potential. Here comes the 'Franchise of My Mind' part, where I think about what this movie might have spawned in an alternate universe. 

First off, this movie poised the pro wrestler, Triple H, to be the next Richard Kiel.The man looks good in metal teeth. Would it be untoward to try and convince somebody to put a Jaws-like character in one of the new James Bond movies?

I'm looking at you, Daniel Craig.

Next: Did you know that Blade: Trinity was the third movie in four years to simultaneously feature Parker Posey and John Michael Higgins? The first two, of course, were two of Christopher Guest's delightful mockumentaries, Best in Show and A Mighty Wind.And this is what I think is the greatest wasted potential of this movie. 

Just imagine more movies in the Blade series that feature actors from Christopher Guest's movies. Don't call it a crossover, because who wants to watch Fred Willard's vulgar cornball of a band promoter from A Mighty Wind feast on the blood of virgins? Actually, I kind of do, but he's the exception that proves the rule. 

I love blood but that doesn't make me a hemo-sexual.

Look at it this way, Jane Lynch will never take a break from being awesome, but why doesn't she try being a creature of the night for a spell? Or better yet, I have four words for you: Eugene Levy, Vampire Assassin.

Humanity's days are numbered. 

But here's the problem. The only vampires who survive Blade movies are generally the ones Blade doesn't know about. This means there are no recurring vampire characters. Even Parker Posey's Danica Talos meets a grisly end. There's also reality. Blade: Trinity's box office haul was only so-so, which gave the producers plenty of incentive to end the series at the magic number three. Add that to the fact that Wesley Snipes criticized David Goyer for putting too many extra characters in the film and then sued him for more salary, the film franchise was probably dead before it made it to DVD. I also think the fans of the original comic books might object to this change in direction.

Alas. Yet I hope this article has created an alternate timeline. One where a fanged Catherine O'Hara lures an unsuspecting Michael McKean into a dark alley in Blade 4...and maybe Jimi Hendrix is still alive, too. Yeah, that would be pretty cool. 

"It's All Just Symbolism": The Dead Travel Fast by Eric Nuzum

Things are well in Sanguine Diaryland. For one, I am now (sort of) celebrity endorsed. After posting my essay on Patton's Oswalt's "Zombie, Spaceship, Wasteland" on his Facebook page, I received this notice:

Pardon the lousy screencap, but I'm still pretty excited.

Now that I'm done bragging, here's my next review:

"It's All Just Symbolism": The Dead Travel Fast by Eric Nuzum

A few years ago, journalist Eric Nuzum knew next to nothing about vampires, but he couldn’t help noticing that they were everywhere—on cereal boxes, in common figures of speech, and, of course, in countless movies, books, and TV shows. His book, The Dead Travel Fast: Stalking Vampires fromNosferatu to Count Chocula, is the culmination of his efforts to understand this phenomenon. And while his answers are not too surprising, the lengths he is willing to go to find them are so amusing that his conclusions are almost beside the point.

Nuzum’s commitment to his quest is admirable. He begins by trying to watch every vampire movie ever made, but only makes it through a paltry 216 out of 605 titles. He also tries to drink his own blood, and then promptly vomits. After that, he takes a tour of Romania, where Butch Patrick (a.k.a. Eddie Munster) is literally paid to sleep in the back of the bus. Finally, he tries to turn himself into a vampire through a vain ritual involving eggshells, chicken livers, and vinegar.

Along the way, Nuzum disinters an impressive amount of historical information. His biography of Bram Stoker is insightful, but his account of the widow Florence Stoker’s fight to preserve exclusive rights to Dracula hints that the rise of the vampire movie—and thus the vampire’s place in popular culture—was far from inevitable. Madam Stoker successfully sued the producers of Nosferatu and had the the original print destroyed. The film only survived via bootleg copies until it was restored after her death. Tod Browning’s iconic version of Dracula, starring Bela Lugosi, only saw production after protracted legal wrangling. Had Mrs. Stoker’s lawyers won the day, some other creature may have just as easily become the quintessential thing that goes bump in the night.   

The vampire movie’s near miss with obscurity raises the larger question that The Dead Travel Fast tries to answer: why are vampires such a big part of our culture? Nuzum comes to the mundane, yet no less believable conclusion that vampires are “a channel for desires, fears, biases, anger, and longing that would be taboo otherwise.” Over the years, the vampires change styles without losing their fundamental qualities because “our Draculas [are] molded for our times.”

It’s hard to dispute Nuzum’s thesis, but it still raises another question: why don’t other monsters have the same impact? Werewolves, witches, and ghosts occupy meaningful posts in our culture as well, but they don’t have as much cachet as their cape-and-fanged cousins. Zombies get a lot of media presence, too, especially within the past few years, but the fact remains that Dracula has been more frequently portrayed in film, TV, and literature than Sherlock Holmes.

Vampires do not hold exclusive rights to channel our taboo fears and desires, either. Looking back, one has to wonder why Anne Rice didn’t strike it big with “Interview with a Specter”, or why there was never “Buffy the Werewolf Slayer.” Think about this for a second. Sure, the alternatives seem odd, maybe even absurd. Sookie Stackhouse would never enter a love triangle with Godzilla and Mothra. Maybe that wasn’t the best example, but you get the point. Other monsters matter, but vampires are the rulers of Spookytown.

While Nuzum can’t explain vampires why vampires have more status than other monsters, he does hit on another interesting point. Most vampire enthusiasts seem unable to articulate the cause of their passion. When asked why, most people effectively reply “Oh, I just like them.” The one person he doesn’t ask, however, is Jeanne Keyes Youngson, founder of Vampire Empire, a fan club for vampire media and research. Despite describing her as “ground zero for vampires”, Nuzum doesn’t draw much from her expertise. He could have asked academic scholars of vampire literature as well, but he doesn’t. Still, you’d think a lot of the people he did ask could supply some sort of rationale, even if they hadn’t given it much thought until that moment. But maybe the mystery is part of it.

Vampires are the most sophisticated of our monsters. Zombies can’t throw a baroque dinner party. Werewolves change form in a grotesque fashion and, once they’re changed, they’re basically aggressive dogs. Ghosts are generally incorporeal and usually return to the beyond once something’s resolved. Witches are the outlier, especially because of their roots in American history. My guess is that, since witches are almost exclusively women, several centuries of sexism have marginalized their power as villains.

Vampires evade all of those qualifiers. They look like us, can take practically any personality, and they pretty much do what they want. They are simultaneously strange and relatable. The vampire’s power—immortality, wisdom, strength, charm—are things we desire. But their animalistic nature is also something we acknowledge, and fear, in ourselves. Vampires are enough like us that we can see ourselves, our desires and fears, but different enough to separate ourselves from. Other monsters can’t pull off this trick.

One place Nuzum visited in his quest was a gathering of the Court of Lazarus, a group of avid vampire ‘lifestylers’ who get together at a New York burlesque club to dance, drink red cocktails, and dress like vampires. Nefarious Wrath, the group’s leader, opened the festivities with a ritual to call upon Satan, and the night closed with a dance routine involving two lovers pantomiming with a knife. Nuzum was a little weirded out by the whole affair. At the bar, he asked a guy in white contact lenses and a trench coat if he thought the Satanic references and violent theatrics were a little much. The guy just chuckled and said, “It’s all just symbolism.” A good trick, indeed.   

Zombie, Spaceship, Wastland, Vampires?

Not much new to report in Sanguine Diaryland. I’ve submitted two stories for publication, so now I just have to wait. I still have two other projects in the works. More on that later.

For this week’s entry,  I’m going to talk about a funny, interesting essay by the brilliant comedian, actor, and nerd extraordinaire, Patton Oswalt. If you’ve never seen or heard him do anything before, watch this clip:

Ok, good. Now you can read my essay, Zombie, Spaceship, Wasteland, Vampires?

“Are you a Zombie, a Spaceship, or a Wasteland?” So begins the eponymous essay of Patton Oswalt’s book, Zombie, Spaceship, Wasteland. Growing up, Oswalt and his friends devoured movies like Night of the Living Dead, Star Wars, and Road Warrior. As time passed, zombie, sci-fi, and post-apocalypse movies became part of his creative DNA, and he found the same thing applied to his friends as well. Therefore, he argues that creative people’s tend to adapt the characteristics of the genre that influences them the most. Here are the three categories Oswalt identifies, and what makes them unique: 

Zombies Simplify: The Zombie narrows the world to a “microcosm of archetypes, fighting for survival against the undead hordes.” The implication of a tight-knit community aside, the Zombie is a nihilist. The infrastructure of their world is still intact, but ultimately “Zombies can’t believe the energy we waste on nonfood pursuits.”

Spaceships Leave: For them, “it’s easier…to build a world and know its history or, better yet, choose the limited customs and rituals that fit the story.” They tend to work with computers and make good parents (“a good captain knows how to treat his crew”), but skim over the surface of the world, deflector shields up.

Wastelands Destroy: They have no interest in building a community of survivors, and “zooming off in a spaceship…smacks of retreat.” So they’re loners, wandering across a desolate world populated by mutants, who’re basically “variations of the human species grown amok.” But they are also “the most hopeful and sentimental of the bunch. Because…they conceive stories in which a core of humanity…survives and endures.”

Each category is interconnected. For example, Oswalt points out that “Darth Vader is, essentially, a Zombie, born in a Wasteland, who works on a Spaceship.”

“Every teen outcast who pursues a creative career,” he declares, “has, at its outset, either a Zombie, Spaceship, or Wasteland work of art in them.” And this opus usually stems from the nadir of adolescence. Oswalt finds that he is a Wasteland. During his freshman year of high school, he wrote two epic tales of post-apocalyptic antiheroes (apparently, they were both garbage). More importantly, comedians live on the road. They drift from town to town, living off cheap booze and nachos, “pointing out [to audiences] how so much of what we perceive as culture and society is disposable waste.”

Each category makes a lot of sense, and the essay does a great job explaining the personal roots of creativity. But Oswalt makes no grandiose claims here. His views reflect his experience, and his experience alone. He even goes so far as to explain, “I think this chapter is more for me than for you.”

Still, I really identify with what he says here. I was a teenage outcast, and I had varying levels of experience with those three genres. I grew up on Star Wars and, as a child of the nuclear ‘80s, watched my share of post-apocalyptic movies. There were other genres, too, most notably James Bond movies. But in my late teens and early twenties, I conceived of a wasteland-ish epic about a dystopian America, led by a dictator that waged a fierce, exterminationist war against fundamentalist christians. By my mid-twenties—which counts as one of the various nadirs of my adolescence—I had refined this story to the point of view of a soldier in said war, focusing on the grim choices she had to make to fulfill her ideological commitments (Thank you for your time, Mr. Spielberg. Really, there’s no need to call security).

But as much as Oswalt’s essay speaks to me, I still feel it’s incomplete. Where are the vampires? This is, after all, an essay written by a man who played a scientist who gets killed by vampires in Blade: Trinity. Granted, a reasonable person could say, ‘Well, maybe vampires weren’t that big a part of his childhood.’ But in the preface of Zombie Spaceship Wasteland, he confides that “Nosferatu looms over and lurks under everything I’m writing about here, and in this book.” Yeah. So there.

I won’t second guess Oswalt too much. I’m sure he had his reasons for sticking to those three tropes. But nothing is stopping me from adding my own experience to his model.

Vampires Detach: Unlike Zombies, they appreciate the complexity of the world around them, and they have no desire to zoom off in a Spaceship. Nor are they exactly solitary wanderers.  Vampires interact with other groups, but they tend to be disconnected and secretive. There are three basic kinds of vampire subcategories: decided vampires, self-conscious vampires, and people who kill vampires. In each case, the main character does not, can not, fit into society.

The detachment, the sense of seeing the world in a way that is irreconcilable with a proverbially normal life, often comes with a conceit of superiority. The decided vampire views people as edible playthings. For all their moping, self-conscious vampires are often compelled to show off their power as they divulge their awful knowledge. The vampire hunter protects the world from an unseen threat, so the very nature of their work makes them an outcast.

Look at it this way, Stoker made Dracula as much an anathema to all that is good and decent as he was hard to resist. Anne Rice’s Louis was sensitive and wise, but he was also so deprived of companionship that he wrestled with his turbid lust for Claudia, a vampire in the body of a prepubescent girl. Blade is skilled at killing vampires because he’s half-vampire, so he doesn’t have too many friends.

The Vampire’s alienation is rooted in their own capacity to be a monster. This is the final, deepest layer of the Vampire burrito. This is also why I know I am a Vampire. Teen outcast? Sheesh, I was socially awkward well into my thirties. So I spent a lot of time alone, usually in a room full of people. As a recovering alcoholic, I am also well aware of my ugliest capacities.

Without AA and multiple, daily entreaties to my Higher Power, I am a selfish, self-destructive douche who thrives on chaos. Left to my own devices, I’m the guy who shows up sloppy drunk to your party, presses your guests about the worst details of their lives, and assumes you won’t notice that I’m leaving with half of the beer from your fridge. It’s not as sexy as hypnotizing virgins and drinking their blood, but basically I can be about as white-knuckled over my appetites as Edward Cullen, Stefan Salvatore, or any other pretty-boy vampire who’s afraid to bite his girlfriend.

So that, my friends is my addition to Oswalt’s model. It’s not perfect, but no less so than the original. And like the original, it is strengthened by its overlap with other categories. For example, Buffy Summers is a Vampire slayer, who also fights her share of Zombies; her hometown of Sunnydale sits on a Hellmouth, which threatens to open and turn the world into a Wasteland; and at one point her mother is tormented by a Demon who crashed to Earth on a Spaceship.  So there.