Format: Streaming video on various players (Fire!).
When you watch things off a curated list, you end up going in some strange directions and to some odd places. The Shudder list of movie moments contains 100 movies and, inexplicably, 1 episode of a television show, specifically the 8th episode of the Twin Peaks reboot. But, I’m compelled by the list to watch what’s on the list. Since I planned to watch the show anyway (only 35 years late on the original series), I knew I’d get here eventually. And, since the episode is a touch less than an hour long, it qualifies as a short.
While you’re always going to need some background when you jump into a series, this is honestly one of the few episodes that you could watch on its own without a great deal of background. The opening sequences won’t make a lot of sense (honestly, a lot of it won’t make a great deal of sense anyway), but for a great deal of this episode, you don’t need much of the background lore.
Put baldly, this episode is about the nuclear tests at Alamagordo and a Lynchian response. To save the sanity of anyone who didn’t watch the original series, Fire Walk With Me, and the first seven episodes of the newer series, I’m going to jump over all of the parts that require some past knowledge and jump straight to the heart of things, which means that we’re going to start with what is essentially a Nine Inch Nails music video.
The bulk of the show, though, is a very slow, artistic depiction of the first nuclear bomb test, from the initial explosion through the roiling and expanding gases. It is both gorgeous and terrifying, a symphony of death and destruction accompanied by terrifying, discordant music. As it turns out, that music is, appropriately, called Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima. These images of fire and destruction go on for longer than seems possible, and are intercut with scenes that won’t make sense for anyone not familiar with the show and limited sense for those who are. If you don’t know what the Black Lodge is, none of this will make sense.
But then we get the meat—the woodsmen appear, covered in some sort of filth and gravel-voiced, asking people for a light and then summarily crushing their skulls with their hands. One of the woodsmen infiltrates a radio station, kills the DJ, and chants into the microphone, lulling the town to sleep.
So what the hell is this? It’s a fever dream. It’s inexplicable and terrifying because it is filled with horrifying images that don’t make sense. But in a very real sense, it feels like the origin story for Twin Peaks.
I love, genuinely love, that Showtime gave David Lynch a pile of money to draw in all of the old Twin Peaks nerds and Lynch responded with an art film involving nuclear explosions in slow motion, head crushing woodsmen, and small creatures crawling into the mouths of incapacitated people. This is as close as you can come to a nightmare without actually experiencing it—there is a terrible beauty in this that remains just out of reach of description.
I’ve mentioned the BBC Christmas ghost stories before. The Signalman is a short BBC film from Christmas in 1976, adapted from a story by Charles Dickens. Much like A Warning to the Curious, this is a short that isn’t going to be gory, but more about setting a mood and giving the audience something like “the creeps.” As the title suggests, this is a story that takes place near a train track and features the man who tries to keep the line safe.
We are introduced to our signalman (Denholm Elliott) when he is approached by an unnamed traveler (Bernard Lloyd). The signalman seems upset by the presence of the man, and as they talk, it becomes evident that the reason for his disturbance is several experiences he has had in the past.
Twice before, he has seen a figure standing near the tracks, covering its face with its left arm and waving with the right. The first time, there was a train accident in the tunnel. The second time this happened, a young bride fell off the train to her death. When the traveler arrived, he approached in the same way, shielding his face from the sun with his left arm and waving with his right, making him look like the specter that had appeared before.
What we will also learn is that the signalman has had a recurrence of events that seem to indicate a new visitation. He can hear his bell ringing when no one else does, for instance. He has seen the ghost a few times in the current week and is paralyzed with what to do—he is sure there will be a new accident but is also convinced that he can’t tell anyone because he has no proof and will lose his job if he makes a false claim of danger.
The entire point of The Signalman isn’t to gross out the audience or even freak them out that much. The goal here is a lot simpler—to relate a story that has a touch of the supernatural to it, one that tries to evoke the presence of something greater—not necessarily malevolent but certainly not that benevolent—in the world around us. We’re supposed to leave this not thinking that the world is a larger and scarier place, but that it’s one that is unexplained and perhaps unknowable.
The Signalman isn’t the kind of story that is going to make someone lose sleep, but it is the kind that comes back to us now and again and gives us a little bit of pause about what might really be out there. And, honestly, that’s enough.
Over the years, I’ve changed my diet in a number of ways. We as a family went pescatarian for a number of years, and while I now eat plenty of poultry, I eat almost no beef or pork. I don’t eat pork for the same reason I don’t eat octopus—they’re smart, and I feel weird eating them. As for beef, it’s more habit these days than anything else. This is relevant, because Blood of the Beasts (or Le Sang des bêtes) is a film that is very much about slaughterhouses.
When I think of the idea of a horror documentary, I think more in the sense of a documentary about horror as a genre. Blood of the Beasts is a horror documentary in the sense that it is a documentary and it is horrific. The camera is not going to slide away from what is happening. We’re going to get a front row seat to the brutal, casual slaughter of the animals in question.
The casual nature of it is what is most upsetting here. The brutality is horrifying, of course, and there’s no getting around that. But the workers who are using a captive bolt pistol on horses (this takes place in France where horse meat is on plenty of menus) or decapitating veal cows do this as efficiently and emotionlessly as possible. That seems like it would be the normal thing to do—you process what you are doing differently when you can’t get away from it.
We’re going to go through horses, cows, veal calves, and sheep by the time we get to the end. All of it is awful to look at. Animals are killed and allowed to twitch until they stop, then flayed and processed. All of this happens with the same sort of efficiency as an experienced parent diapering a child.
It might be a little time before I eat a lot of meat. Blood of the Beasts is going to have that effect on people. To be fair, it’s the sort of film that should be more commonly watched. We have become detached from where our food comes from and how inhumane so much of it is. This movie doesn’t want us to forget.
Why to watch Twin Peaks: The Return: There’s a limited supply of David Lynch. What are you waiting for?
Why not to watch: You’ve got to get through something like 40 hours of show and lore to get to this point.
Why to watch The Signalman: Little spook tales like this are always fun to watch
Why not to watch: It aims more for genuine terror than a quick scare, and that’s always a crapshoot.
Why to watch Blood of the Beasts: You should know where your food comes from.
Why not to watch: It will make you a vegetarian.
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