SYNOPSIS

Incident in Lake County is a larger-budget version of The McPherson Tape which originally aired on UPN on January 18, 1998. Despite The Blair Witch Project (our February 27 destination) having been credited with the found footage explosion, Alien Abduction actually predates SaI?nchez and Myrick’s work.

Alien Abduction is presented as a video tape made by Tommy, a teenager in Lake County, Montana, during his family’s Thanksgiving dinner. This week’s 52in52 blog will focus on Tommy and his family’s close encounter with an alien invasion as well as the original mockumentary which is purported to be from the Northwoods, Connecticut U.F.O. Case 77.

THE PSYCHIATRY OF ALIEN ABDUCTION (1998)

Classified as “Alien Beast” on Joss Whedon’s Big Board in Cabin in the Woods (2012), the alien invasion/abduction subgenre captures our culture’s universal fear of the unknown. This archetypal fear can be traced as far back as the 17th-century when Charles Perrault wrote his folkloric tale, Le Petit Chaperon Rouge (Little Red Riding Hood), a prosocial warning not to wander into the unknown. Its alien inclusion occurred in 1938, when H. G. Wells’s novel, The War of the Worlds, was broadcast on radio on “Devil’s Night” (October 30). The beginning of the radio drama was presented as a series of news bulletins reporting the invasion of Martians. Similar to the radio broadcast by Orson Wells, which threw the town of Grover’s Mill, NJ into widespread paranoia, The McPherson Tape also created controversy, as it was created to appear as a genuine home video.

Like the zombie, alien beasts evolve along with a culture’s fears. Therefore, a post-World War II variation of the “unknown” theme includes the idea that “they are among us.” This is depicted in Who Goes There?, a novella by John Campbell that was adapted to the screen as The Thing from Another World (and remade in 1982 as John Carpenter’s The Thing). In Carpenter’s film, members of an Antarctic research station battle an alien life form that was awakened from its dormancy deep within the ice. Since the alien can assimilate at the molecular level, the researchers grow paranoid of each other, any one of whom can be the alien, phenotypically disguised.

This week’s movie also depicts extreme denial best demonstrated by the family’s intention to leave the house – “will you be by tomorrow for breakfast?” – despite just having spotted a gray in their backyard.

Men in Black (1997) merges this ego defense with the above “they are among us” theme: “There’s always an Arquillian Battle Cruiser, or a Corillian Death Ray, or an intergalactic plague that is about to wipe out all life on this miserable little planet, and the only way these people can get on with their happy lives is that they Do… Not… Know about it!” (Agent K).

Another ego defense, dissociation, is manifested by Rene (then the grandmother) when she’s described, “like you were sleepwalking” and doesn’t remember how she got from the kitchen to the door. Interestingly, it is during one of these dissociative episodes that the grandmother attempts to open the door for the aliens (paralleling having to invite a vampire into the home). This scene further pushes the “aliens are among us” narrative forward as it implicates us as an active participant in our own demise (abduction).

The film ends with an announcement to contact 800-555-7070 with any information of the McPhersons’ whereabouts.

Last week’s movie: Leprechaun (1993)
Next week’s movie: Idaho Transfer (1973)

SYNOPSIS

The Crazies is a 2010 remake of the 1973 horror film of the same name by George A. Romero. The film takes place in the fictional Iowa town of Ogden Marsh Township, the “friendliest place on Earth,” and portrays an epidemic caused by the Trixie virus. The town sheriff’s attempts to control the water-borne virus is thwarted by the Ogden Marsh Township mayor who, similar to the mayor of 1975 Amity Island (see our post on July 25), decides the “water stays open on.”

THE PSYCHIATRY OF THE CRAZIES (2010)

The Crazies (discriminatory use of the word notwithstanding) serves as an opportunity to review the case formulation of psychosis, rule-out Schizophrenia. Here, we’ll define psychosis by a) negative symptoms (e.g. flat affect) and b) positive symptoms such as delusions, hallucinations, disorganized speech, and grossly disorganized or catatonic behavior.

In an initial scene, Rory presents with bizarre speech and behavior when he walks onto a little league field in a catatonic state that is described as appearing drunk. After he’s shot, the medical examiner (ME) orders a blood alcohol level (BAL) and toxicology screen to see if Rory’s behavior is due to the direct physiological effects of a substance. This early scene establishes that consideration of a substance- or medication-induced psychosis is integral in the initial work-up of new-onset psychosis.

Soon after, Bill presents to Judy, his primary care physician (PCP), for evaluation of flat affect, disorganized speech (non sequiturs and perseveration) and behavior. Judy’s treatment plan includes a CT scan of the head. Her formulation is accurate in that one must consider an underlying general medical condition (GMC) as the cause of psychosis before attributing it to mental illness (such as Schizophrenia). Unfortunately, Bill’s bizarre behavior culminates in his setting his house on fire.

Interestingly, both of these cases foreshadow the cause of the zombism depicted in The Crazies. The ME’s provisional diagnosis of a substance-induced psychotic disorder is accurate when it’s discovered that the cause is a weaponized virus (toxin-induced). In a similar context, the discovery of the Trixie virus also allows for the conceptualization of a viral syndrome (i.e. due to a GMC) as the underlying cause. After an incubation period of 48 hours, the virus gradually induces a psychotic state in infected individuals.

The original version of The Crazies (1973) demonstrates a deliverance from the counterculture of the 60’s with its depiction of “normal” people from the “friendliest place on Earth” turned into perpetrators of violence. The zombies therefore are not true zombies, but living people turned zombie-like (Vuckovic, 2011). As such, like all zombie films, its message mirrors the theme of the decade also depicted in Let’s Scare Jessica to Death (1972), Shivers (1975), and Blue Sunshine (1977).

Next week’s movie: Halloween (1978)