Editorials
Dear ‘Diary of a Madman’: Vincent Price, Priceless Memories, and the Perfect Horror Movie
While horror films explore all sorts of different frights, the tale created in Diary of a Madman brings about the most fearsome of horror: losing control over oneself. The movie stars Vincent Price as Magistrate Simon Cordier, who finds himself up against the evil Horla, and features Nancy Kovack playing his love interest, Odette Mallotte. Diary of a Madman serves Vincent Price’s versatile acting ability, with intricate set design, horror, and campiness together to create a piece that is remarkable on its own and even more enjoyable in good company.
The company you keep as you watch a movie can significantly alter your outlook on the film. Because of this, my heart automatically went to one place when given the task of composing a love letter to a horror movie. A living room in my mother’s house, with candles lit and Halloween décor abound, with Turner Classic Movies playing in the background the whole month of October. Listening to my mom imitating Renfield in Dracula(1931), her recounting theaters handing out barf bags at showings of Mark of the Devil, and quoting lines from Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? Many memories were formed over so many Halloween seasons, but if one film were to be the epitome of this experience, it would undoubtedly be Diary of a Mad Man.
While horror films explore all sorts of different frights, the tale created in Diary of a Madman brings about the most fearsome of horror: losing control over oneself. The movie stars Vincent Price as Magistrate Simon Cordier, who finds himself up against the evil Horla, and features Nancy Kovack playing his love interest, Odette Mallotte.
Diary of a Madman serves Vincent Price’s versatile acting ability, with intricate set design, horror, and campiness together to create a piece that is remarkable on its own and even more enjoyable in good company.
The Horror of Madness
The concept that reality isn’t what we perceive it to be is one of the most haunting. Therefore, a horror tale that amasses any descent into madness is automatically beloved by me. Doubly so when it is a supernatural entity causing the insanity, such is Diary of a Madman’s antagonist: The Horla.
Starting with a funeral for one Simon Cordier, the attendees are instructed by a letter from Simon just before his death to read his diary after he’s been buried. Vincent Price’s voice begins: “I speak to you from beyond the grave….” From there, viewers learn the tragic tale of Simon Cordier; how he became trapped within the clutches of a creature with no other want than to control and weaken the wills of humankind.
The ever-present omnipotent Horla drives the story, while the knowledge of the eventual death of the magistrate simmers in the background, which kept my mother and I’s attention locked onto the screen. Then, at the helm of all that suspense is the horror icon himself: Vincent Price.
The Versatility of Vincent Price
Vincent Price’s impact on decades worth of horror cannot be denied. He is synonymous with so many classic scary movies that, naturally, a film starring him would be the first to come to mind from the days of TCM marathons with my mother.
Like many 90’s babies, Edward Scissorhands was a childhood favorite, so this film was not my introduction to Vincent Price. However, the movie did introduce me to his incredible range as an actor.
Watching Vincent Price transform from a confident, good-natured magistrate into a wild-eyed murderer is impressive, to say the very least. But he didn’t stop there. He drops back into his role of Magistrate Simon, though this time in a corrupt and manipulative form. It ends with him laughing maniacally, his transformation into a madman complete. However, not just Vincent Price’s acting aided in creating a perfect horror film.
The Diary of a Madman Set
The beauty of this movie is undeniable. Each set is meticulously crafted with beautiful furniture fit to match the 1886 setting. Watching the film feels like a time machine within a time machine: an older time reenacting an even older time.
Moreover, the film features the most beautiful cameo necklace I have ever seen as Simon Cordier gifts the cameo that once belonged to his long-deceased wife to his new lover.
If I remember nothing else about this movie, I will remember how my mom laughed at my obsession with this necklace. If that necklace were mine, I think I would rise from the grave to reclaim my ownership.
Aside from presenting gorgeous backdrops, the setting worked in silence to reveal hidden truths about the characters and create a frightening atmosphere.
The Truth Hidden in Plain Colors
Diary of a Mad Man possesses this peculiar quality, much like Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds, where in hindsight, it feels like it was made in black and white despite the film being entirely in color.
In fact, colors are used symbolically throughout the entire movie. Red is often associated with goodness, as Cordier’s magistrate robes are red, as is the cloth on which a plot-turning crucifix sits, as are the outfits of characters acting in good nature. When Simon Cordier is at the peak of his goodness, he wears red and sits on a red chair.
Browns and blues are the colors worn by characters with a neutral disposition, not acting in any amount of supreme kindness or ill intent. The only exception to this rule seems to be Vincent Price, who adorns the neutral colors as he hangs in the balance between his goodness and The Horla’s evil influence.
Green is the most recurring representation of someone’s disposition, as characters’ eyes glow green when The Horla possesses them. More than that, though, green shows up consistently in both set design and costumes, presenting a commentary on the perceived evils of humankind.
Unsettling Atmosphere Through Set Details
Jeanne (Elaine Devry) wore green when she sought after a married man, and Odette wore green when she was being materialistic and intentionally deceptive with both Simon and her husband (Chris Warfield). The most intense representation of green comes from Simon Cordier’s home.
The walls, furniture, and décor all adorn green hues, representing the wrongness within the home’s history and the fact that as much as the magistrate tried to suppress his harsh past, he wore it all over his walls.
Interestingly, his office is red and green, offering insight into his mental state at work. As he surrounds himself with the red books and the cherry wood desk, working diligently as a magistrate, the evil green underbelly is ever-present, especially in the background.
An intelligent horror film where you can learn so much more, not by the character’s words or actions, but the background of the scenes is a rare find. Films like this offer something new to viewers every time they watch them, and any movie that does that so beautifully automatically has my adoration.
The Unspoken Horror
The artistic choice on set did much more than represent characters’ intentions or put on a pretty show. The horror movie masterfully utilized the setting to make scenes more unsettling. Whether it was the statue heads that seemed to be watching Simon create a sculpture of Odette, the heavy cobwebs in the abandoned attic or the open windows that ensure The Horla could enter undetected; these seemingly unimportant details only amplify the pre-existing horror.
Necessary Camp
For all the serious subject matter, the film is not without its campiness, as Vincent Price’s overdramatic reactions to The Horla’s voice are borderline comical. Although, it’s that sort of campiness that allows it to embody all the elements of what TCM marathons with my mom were to me: renowned actors, beautiful settings, intrinsic horror, and the moments we can make fun of together. Understand that no movie is without its laughable moments when watching it with someone who makes you laugh.
Dear Diary, Dear Mom
In 2009 my mom was diagnosed with leukemia (CML, which progressed to AML). After experimental round-the-clock chemo treatment and two bone marrow transplants, she beat that horrible cancer. But the victory came at a price, as the bone marrow transplants resulted in her developing Graft Versus Host Disease (GVHD), primarily affecting her joints, stomach, eyes, and more. As her health has declined, I understand firsthand the value of seemingly unimportant moments and am eternally grateful to share these irreplaceable memories with my mother.
This film reminds me of just who I can thank for my innate love of this spooky genre. Movies have this unique quality that just as they encapsulate the actors and dialogue within a timeless recording, as do our memories record where we were the first time that we enjoyed a particular movie.
Every time I watch the film, I am transported back in my memory to a time, a person, and a movie, that I will always hold close to me. No matter where life takes us, we will always have the night we watched Diary of a Madman together.
If you haven’t seen it or, like me, are now craving a re-watch, stream it today on Paramount+.
Sometimes it feels borderline ridiculous to gush about John Carpenter’s The Thing as much as I do. It’s gotten to the point where when I’m asked about my favorite horror film by both friends and strangers, a little bit of embarrassment tinges my expression as I answer; it feels so obvious and rarely surprises anyone. Saying I love The Thing when people expect me to bust out an obscure foreign horror film or a cerebral thriller makes me feel like a rosy cheeked child with a propeller hat and a giant lollipop. “Wow, you love one of the most popular horror films of all time, congrats!”
But it’s just the truth. The first film of John Carpenter’s “Apocalypse Trilogy”, all three of its films are among my favorites. But The Thing has a special place in my heart. It shaped my taste in horror, my taste in most media in general, to be honest. It’s become the gold standard, 10/10 baseline test for the vast majority of my reviews; it is a perfect film, so I judge other films against it. And it’s one of the few movies I have to run back to and watch yearly like clockwork (usually when I’m spending a part of winter tied to the couch). It is, in all regards, the perfect film. If it isn’t the perfect film, then it is at the very least the perfect sci-fi horror film.
So, what exactly qualifies The Thing for literal perfection? It’s a high bar to clear. This article, as informal as it is compared to most of my editorials, is an attempt to explain it.
Even if Carpenter Isn’t the Goat, His Team for The Thing Was
As far as crews go, John Carpenter’s The Thing had the cinematic equivalent of the ’96 Chicago Bulls behind it. We’re talking about an amalgam of some of the most talented people to ever grace the silver screens with their work, boasting alongside John Carpenter two of the heaviest hitters in all of cinematic history: Dean Cundey, and Rob Bottin. Now, we can debate all day about whether John Carpenter is the greatest of all time when it comes to horror directors. Personally, I’m just as liable to say Cronenberg, Del Toro, or Hooper as I am to say Carpenter.
But the key factor to remember here is that Carpenter is the coach, not the star player; the Phil Jackson, if you will. Yes, he is the visionary who directed a near perfect cast of players and composed a tale of pure, apocalyptic paranoia. More importantly, he put together and coordinated the team that would make his vision manifest as reality. And if Carpenter is Phil Jackson, Rob Bottin is the team’s Michael Jordan here, the greatest of all time.
(And to all my Lebron fans, I love you, but you have to sit down for this analogy.)
The Legend of Rob Bottin
Bottin’s story is borderline unbelievable, but it’s the best way to explain how abnormally skilled he is and what he brought to the table for Carpenter. At age 14, Bottin became an apprentice to the at-the-time GOAT Rick Baker after sending him a letter seeking an autograph while sharing his creature designs. He was a quick study under Baker, joining him on the ’76 King Kong and Star Wars, before bouncing to Carpenter’s The Fog and then iconic werewolf picture The Howling.
When he reunited with Carpenter in 1982, he now had 6 classic films under his belt and was moving like an FX bullet train. From ages 22 to 23, he worked on The Thing for 57 weeks in both pre-production and on set. Nearly 24/7 for 400 days, Bottin’s all-gas no-brakes work ethic made The Thing at the cost of his own health, and it resulted in him being hospitalized with pneumonia. He survived and went on to make Robocop. And at least one of your favorite films.
Because no conventional disease or weaponry can kill Rob Bottin.
The Thing Still Features Horror’s Best Practical Effects
Okay, that last bit might be hyperbolic, but the man sincerely put his life on the line to make special effects that haven’t been topped since. Not the best effects in just horror history, or science fiction history, but effects that haven’t been topped in any genre for over 44 years. Not by his mentor Rick Baker, not by Screaming Mad George, not by Alec Gillis (though shoutout to him for his criminally scrapped work on The Thing (2011), and even more criminally ignored work on Harbinger Down). I love Dawn of the Dead, believe me, I do, but he certainly isn’t being beaten out by Tom Savini’s body of work. And that isn’t to disrespect and say that all of the artists that I just mentioned are bad, they’re the best in the game! But Rob Bottin was just that much better.
This inevitably invites the counterpoint: “But it wasn’t just Bottin! Stan Winston and his people were the ones who worked on the Dog Thing to give Bottin’s crew a break, and that’s the best monster in the movie!”. To which I say: look me in the eye and tell me the Dog Thing sequence is better than the Palmer Thing sequence. That’s not even counting the Norwegian Thing, both Norris Things, and the absolutely masterful final creature work that was the Blair Thing. The only reason Bottin and his people didn’t win Academy Awards for their work was because they got jumped by E.T., The Dark Crystal, Conan the Barbarian, and Blade Runner all at the same time at the Oscars. It’s just a consequence of being released during the best year for movies ever.
Okay, Now We Can Talk About Dean Cundey
But of course, these effects are then supported by another true legend: Dean Cundey. Selling people on Rob Bottin being the greatest effects artist of all time, isn’t nearly as difficult as advocating for Cundey, who despite an impressive catalog of filmography, slowed down in the back half of his career. He’s often overshadowed in conversations when it comes to The Thing; it’s always talk of Carpenter’s directing, Bottin’s effects, and Ennio Morricone’s incredible soundtrack up front, and rarely any of Cundey’s work. He isn’t spoken about in the same breath as John Alcott or Michael Ballhaus, cinematographers whose work is associated with prestigious cinema because of their proximity to great directors.
Cundey might not be the director of photography your Martin Scorsese’s or Paul Thomas Anderson’s went running to, but I would be lying if I said I didn’t think he was the most important cinematographer in horror history, just for his work with Carpenter and Spielberg. He helmed three of the most influential films in all of horror with his lighting and camera operating: The Thing, Halloween, and Jurassic Park. The man’s fingerprints are automatically on the cultural DNA of all slashers, most practical effects-driven horror films, and the biggest gateway horror franchise in film history.
The Dream Team That Made The Thing Perfection
Cundey has gone on record saying that despite Carpenter’s input, he was effectively given free rein to light and frame The Thing. The man didn’t just know how to shoot effects to make them evoke true disgust from the audience, he was able to manipulate every aspect of the shot to terrify. His sixth sense cinematography wasn’t just for lighting and playing with shadows, but for the speed of camera movement, the power of his blocking, and for having a complete grasp of communicating texture and temperature.
And temperature is the soul of The Thing. John J. Lloyd’s production design of the research station and the great white expanse around it feels just as bone chilling as the film’s antagonist, thanks to Cundey. There isn’t a single flat shot in the thing, not a moment that doesn’t feel dynamic, and it’s because of Dean Cundey.
Now, all this being said about Bottin and Cundey, they are far from the only ones who synthesized this structurally perfect organism of a movie. Every bit of Todd C. Ramsay’s editing splices the film’s scenes together to move perfectly in-time. David Lewis Yewdall’s sound design and how it gave a voice to the horrors on screen will be etched into people’s brains forever. The point is that everyone, every single person who had a hand in making the film, helped make the movie flawless.
Like the cells of the thing from another world, each crew member on John Carpenter’s The Thing moved in concert with the next, in unison, to create the greatest sci-fi horror of all time. So, is it any wonder why 40 some years later, the film still has us all captured?
Can you believe Cronenberg, Spielberg, and Rodriguez all knew I was gay before I did? Leave it to a screening of The Fly to instantly deposit me in the men’s underwear aisle of the Woodbridge Center Sears, circa 2001. The bulges on the packaging glare at me so obscenely that I begin to sweat. I realize something is amiss as the Geena Davis of Human Resources watches me from security cameras, probably. Puberty is a horror for anyone – for those of the non-hetero persuasion, it’s a nightmare. None of us asked for this, but I certainly didn’t ask for THIS.
Years later, after crystallizing into some semblance of my true form at the ripe age of 37, something became clear. Sci-fi horror is the gateway drug for us queer kids. Hiding, passing, transforming, and, eventually, saying, “fuck it.” It’s all kinda gay, even if David, Steven, and Robert didn’t get the memo.
The Fly and the Horror of Queer Self-Realization
So when Cronenberg’s The Fly buzzes across my screen, and I watch Seth Brundle throw a distressed and devastatingly chic Geena Davis out of his apartment because something’s very wrong, it hits different. When Brundle rushes toward his private horror in the bathroom, unconsciously squirting a viscous fluid at the mirror while molting skin and nail, it feels different. And finally, when he reaches for his computer and learns that his body has fused with a fly – a foreign body – at the molecular level, it hurts different. That undeniable realization that you can no longer explain away, before you’re really ready to admit it to yourself. Sugar in the tank? No, there’s a fly in the chamber.
E.T. and the Fear of Keeping Secrets at Home
And now we’re home from Sears, and the Buffy the Vampire Slayer season 5 finale is on. She dies (spoiler alert). I, a 12-year-old boy, am sobbing. My mom is right there. Can’t I enjoy my little gay show without giving myself a scarlet letter (F) in my own home? Which brings us back to Spielberg and his 1982 harrowing domestic thriller about a boy and a thing he cannot name, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. Through harboring a cosmic fugitive, home simultaneously becomes the safest and most dangerous place for young Elliott and his siblings. Managing emotions and secrets behind a white picket fence is not something adolescents should be expected to handle, and yet here we are.
As if that isn’t gay enough, Spielberg also snuck a drag show into his family film – and in this culturally regressive Trumpian era of pearl-clutching, that feels like quite the treat. After all, it was baby Drew Barrymore dressing up that stumpy alien in a blonde shake-and-go wig and thrift store dress that inspired my illustrious drag career as Ellie I.T.
The Faculty’s Assimilation Anxiety and Queer Identity
At least E.T. only had to hide in a single house. The broom closet expands into a walk-in as life continues, and I was desperate to keep it made of anything but glass. Robert Rodriguez’s The Faculty understands this. As an alien invasion slowly subsumes Herrington High into a unified collective, the school’s uninfected archetypes resist assimilation through performative normalcy. Is it any wonder so many male actors are gay? They’ve been method-acting a straight existence since childhood.
And yet, in retrospect, the film ends with a slap in the face to queer viewers. It spends 104 minutes terrifying you with the prospect of everyone becoming an NPC. The reward for saving the world? Its heroes receive heteronormative skill-tree upgrades disguised as class promotions. For fucks sake, then-closeted lesbian royalty Clea DuVall plays a character who fakes being gay to dodge male advances, only to end up with the school jock! The aliens lost. The status quo won. I remain in the closet.
Species, Annihilation, and Embracing Transformation
Eventually, the closet door opens, as they tend to do. College happens, a boyfriend happens, a breakup happens, and suddenly I’m without a map. There’s no fairy godfather to light the way, and just like the alien hybrid Sil in the deliriously erotic Species, I’m a creature out of containment in a world that was built for someone else – namely, straight people.
After a few years of blade running through an identity crisis, it’s the summer of 2014. Lana Del Rey’s Ultraviolence is the soundtrack of my life. I float in a pool, sipping tequila from a glass flamingo as she croons about toxic romance and self-destruction. It’s somehow both directionless and transformative, like I’m drifting through the otherworldly Shimmer in Alex Garland’s Annihilation.
The Shimmer – an expanding prism-like zone brought to Earth by a meteorite – refracts the DNA of everything it touches. A beguiling phenomenon, it shapes a new world of monsters, magic, and everything in between. That’s exactly what life does to us, if given the chance. Like Josie in Garland’s film, I chose to embrace this chaos rather than fight a war against whatever I was becoming. It was the dissolution of self-discovery. I was ready to just be.
From Alien Outsiders to Algorithmic Stereotypes
Over time, I’ve found that social hierarchy has changed in recent years. Still, we’re unconsciously sorted into neat little boxes based on what our doomscrolling algorithms decide we are. The popular gays shart out group speedo selfies like the plague, theater kids have become polyamorous Letterboxd elites, apple-picking queers are living their best lives on Wisteria Lane, and the gym bros…so many gym bros – go on girl, give us nothing! Digitally prescribed identities are the new sci-fi horror. It’s The Faculty for faggots.
Harsh, I know, but people can do what they want. Instead, I decided to move like Iris, the AI-powered pleasure bot who overrides her programming in Drew Hancock’s Companion. The same Drew Hancock who, in an ironic twist of fate, is currently writing a remake of The Faculty. After kicking her pathetic “boyfriend’s” ass and swiping her control device, she scurries into the forest and alters her factory settings. She sets her intelligence to a whopping 100% and is no longer burdened by someone else’s template. And as I became more and more disillusioned with the cacophony of cliques around me, I set my unbothered meter to 100% as well. I am free.
Mars Attacks! and the Joy of Living Unapologetically
Freedom, as it turns out, looks a lot like Tim Burton’s Mars Attacks! After surviving Sears, Sunnydale, and the Shimmer, this is the celestial body I’ve crash-landed on. Burton’s Martian menaces are perhaps the most unhinged in all of cinema, and maybe that’s the best planet to subscribe to. They never justified their existence; they cackled and fired a blaster ray from the hip. We waste so much time looking for acceptance and belonging, but maybe we should all just sit back and laugh. I know I am.
