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Buffy at 25: The Agony and The Ecstasy of ‘Becoming’

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25 years ago, Sarah Michelle Gellar’s Buffy Summers was winding down her worst year yet at Sunnydale High—but it was about to get way worse.

Her hot vampire boyfriend Angel (David Boreanaz) lost his soul and went evil because of a curse triggered by one true moment of happiness—and his moment came in the form of him sleeping with our beloved vampire slayer. Her birthday alone that year was a nightmare—she lost her virginity, got told by her newly evil boyfriend that the sex was bad, and then had to pick up a rocket launcher and save the world. Again.

Angel had teamed up with his former vamp partners Spike (James Marsters) and Drusilla (Juliet Landau) to wreak havoc on Sunnydale and the slayer herself. Angel had killed Jenny Calendar (Robia LaMorte), which shook the scoobies and left Buffy’s watcher Giles (Anthony Stewart Head) grieving and not on his A game for the rest of the season. It also gave Buffy the kick she needed to be ready to finally take out her evil ex.

The Buffy the Vampire Slayer season 2 episode, “Becoming,” aired part 1 on May 12th, 1998, and part 2 on May 19th, 1998. The show rarely had any skips, and it always nailed a season finale—but this, this was a TV event. The entire season had built to this finale. We’d watched the scoobies go through it that season—fear, anger, grief, romance, and everything in between. This finale could stand on its own as a movie, but the character development throughout the season earned them the finale. This season, and every other season of Buffy, is an argument for why 22 episode television seasons are good.

The finale starts with Angel watching our slayer and plotting. He’s found Acathla and created a plot to destroy the world. But he wants to torture his ex some more before he does it. The other slayer, Kendra (Bianca Lawson), even comes to town to help. But our slayer fails, and her crew is completely taken out of the picture—Buffy is on her own, and honestly, that’s what sells this finale.

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“The big moments are gonna come. You can’t help that. It’s what you do afterwards that counts. That’s when you find out who you are.”

When Willow (Alyson Hannigan) asks Buffy if she’s ready to fight Angel, she replies, “Yes, I’m ready. I’m also willing and able.” And she is—earlier in the season, she explicitly said she needed time, but she’s had time. She’s ready, and so is the audience–the only problem is that so is Angel.

Buffy Summers is a flawed hero in the best way—she messes up, fails, is emotional, is a good friend, cares too much, can be a loner, is very type A. But all of her ‘flawed hero’-ness is what makes her fail. Part 1 of the finale is all about her failing. It leads to her best friends being hospitalized, her watcher being kidnapped, and her fellow slayer being killed. We get maybe the most iconic shot of the series with her slow-motion running in her beautiful, flowy teal coat to save her friends—and it’s heartbreaking because we know she’s already failed. It feels more real knowing what she’s running towards. It’s not exactly empowering to watch your hero fail, but it’s relatable and only makes you root for her harder. We want to see her pick up the pieces so we can too.

There’s something to be said for watching your hero fail, but still try. And in part 2, she’s expelled from school and kicked out of her house by her mother after she comes out to her…as a vampire slayer. But Buffy never gives up. It’s uplifting to know that if Buffy Summers can make it through all this, then I can make it through whatever non-world-ending shit I have going on in my life.

During the final act of part 2, we see Angel about to stab Buffy with his sword, and he asks her, “What’s left?” as she catches his sword and says, “Me,” before hitting him in the face with his own sword. It’s something I revisit when I’m feeling depressed or isolated. It’s a scene that I channel in my day-to-day. Buffy has no backup, no safety net—she’s in this fight alone, but she’ll be damned if she isn’t going to win this fight.

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When I was grieving over the loss of a very close friend, I’d often put that scene on to feel something. Sometimes it’d make me cry, sometimes it’d motivate me to get out of bed. It’s one of the most empowering pieces of media I’ve ever consumed. She’s got nothing left, but she sure as shit isn’t gonna go down without a fight. I think of her calm, “me” response often—it’s the kind of determination I can only hope to achieve.

Buffy season 5’s “The Body” is a masterclass on grief, but I’d say “Becoming” is a masterclass in what comes next. Life doesn’t stop because you’re grieving. Life doesn’t stop because you’ve been expelled from school the same day your friend dies, and your mom kicks you out. Angel’s evil plan doesn’t wait because Buffy has too much on her plate. In fact, Angel doesn’t even know the full extent to which our slayer is suffering—not that he’d care. She’s facing more than just the Big Bad’s world-ending scheme.

And that’s life. We have nightmare election cycles, pandemics, dipshit conservatives, homophobes, family issues, and friend issues— they don’t come one at a time. Sometimes if you’re lucky, they’ll come two at a time, but most of the time, these things all seem to happen at once.

And when they do, I remind myself that Buffy Summers still killed her newly ensouled vampire boyfriend to save the world, a world that had taken a big shit on her, a world that had taken so much—but she still saved the day. And while I may not have slayer strength, I try to channel her as much as I can to save myself.

We keep fighting because we have to, because, in the end, we still have ourselves to fight for—just like Buffy.

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Ian Carlos Crawford grew up in southern New Jersey and has an MFA in non-fiction writing. His favorite things are Buffy, Scream, X-Men, and pugs. His writing has appeared on sites like BuzzFeed, NewNowNext, Junkee, and other random corners of the internet. He currently hosts a queer Buffy and Marvel focused pop culture podcast called Slayerfest 98 and co-hosts a horror podcast called My Bloody Judy.

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Unpacking the Black Zodiac: Cataloging the Spirits of ‘Thirteen Ghosts’

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In a recent article, I talked about the legacy of William Castle and the many gimmicks he used to promote his horror films. One gimmick I neglected to mention was the Ghost-Viewer cards distributed for one of Castle’s most popular film, 13 Ghosts. Since the film’s plot involved pairs of “Spectral Viewers” which allowed the Zorba Family to see who and what was haunting them, Castle thought it was only fair to allow audiences to experience something similar. Through careful applications of red and blue filters, viewers could make the ghosts appear and disappear; the red cellophane slit of the cards would make the ghosts that were shot in red more visible as a result, while the blue cellophane would cause them to disappear into the background of the film which was tinted blue.

13 Ghosts, as that article also pointed out, was one of the only remakes made by Dark Castle Entertainment to reimagine Castle’s horror filmography in a new light. And the new light that screenwriters Neal Marshall Stevens and Richard D’Ovidio shined down on the film was incredible. In place of the film’s campier headless men and undead circus lions, horrors were peeled from their purgatory states and trapped in October glass cases. Brought to life by the designs of effects artist Howard Berger, each ghost really came to life (or unlife, I suppose) as they got that weighty physical presence that Beck shunned the use of CGI ghosts for.

Each of the twelve ghosts in this film, dubbed the Black Zodiac, has their own special intricacies and quirks. On top of that, they each have a backstory, recapped as a special feature on the home release of Thirteen Ghosts (narrated by their captor Cyrus Kriticos himself). So today, I’ll be cataloging their origins and ranking all of them. I’ll be ordering the ghosts by the effectiveness of their design, and overall how impactful they are, both on screen and in their story. This isn’t trying to determine which ghost is the scariest, just the one that stands out the most. Beginning with the weakest first…

12 THE WITHERED LOVER

Jean Kriticos, the wife of the film’s protagonist Arthur Kriticos, was the last ghost to be “created”, but not the last to be collected. Her death was as sad as they come: a fireplace mishap set their Christmas tree aflame, resulting in a catastrophic housefire. Though Jean initially made it out, her burns proved too great to heal, so she was lost.

This is by far the worst of the ghosts Cyrus decided to capture, not just on moral grounds but because she’s mostly underwhelming compared to all the ghosts around her. She shows up for a sliver of the runtime, and while the prosthetic work in her makeup is fine, it lacks the feeling of a truly tortured spirit like her counterparts.

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11 THE TORSO

Jimmy Gambino had a gambling addiction. As he fell deeper and deeper into the world of sports betting, he began to live bet to bet. Squandering all his winnings, he eventually followed in his father’s footsteps and became a bookie to keep himself afloat.

Jimmy’s demise was brought on when he was approached by a mobster wanting to put a big bet down on an underdog fighter. Knowing he couldn’t possibly cover it, Jimmy still accepted the deal in a desperate ploy to make some money. As mobsters are want to do, the match was rigged, and Jimmy was sent to sleep with the fishes when he couldn’t scrounge up the cash for his associates. As his name would imply, he didn’t end up making his way to the ethereal plane intact, with his body being just as destroyed in death. Brutal.

The Torso’s backstory does have a lot of humanity to it, which makes it compelling, and the three-piece design of his severed limbs, head, and torso is gnarly. But he gets beaten out by just everyone else because they manage to do the same while being especially visually striking and much more memorable.

10 THE TORN PRINCE

The only other teenage ghost aside from Susan Legrow, Royce Clayton was on a fast track to a number of college scholarships thanks to his natural talent for baseball. Still, Royce was a risk-taker who stylized himself as a greaser. This involved taking on dangerous car races, and in the exact turn of events you would expect, things went bad. A rival cut his car’s brakes, and the ensuing accident sent him to the afterlife with his baseball bat and all.

He is a greaser, he is a ghost. He’s a greaser ghost.

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Not a whole bunch going on in the way of a backstory either, but still aesthetically appealing enough with his whole baseball bat and greased hair schtick.

9 THE FIRST-BORN SON

The simplest of the specters, Billy Michaels’ origins can be summed up in two sentences: Billy loved playing Cowboys and Indians until a neighbor boy decided to up the ante by using a real bow and arrow. Billy didn’t win the quick draw.

A bleak fate for the youngest ghost in the gallery, but certainly not the most painful. Billy does at least get the nasty wound, creepy kid factor, and a cool era appropriate outfit to make him stand out, so he gets one spot above Jean, Jimmy, and Royce.

8 THE ANGRY PRINCESS

Definitely one of the bolder ghost designs in the film, though the surface level risqué of her look has a heartbreaking origin. Suffering from extreme body dysmorphia and some form of PTSD due to her numerous violent partners, Dana Newman wrestled with her sense of self and body image her entire life. Despite having supernaturally good looks, it simply wasn’t enough.

So when she landed a job as a receptionist at a cosmetic surgery clinic, she made arrangements to be paid in surgical procedures instead. Eventually, Dana attempted an impromptu surgery to fix a nonexistent issue with her eye, but only blinded herself in the process. The resulting failure caused her to take her own life.

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The Angry Princess is probably the design that got burned into most people’s heads because of the juxtaposition between beauty and grotesqueness she embodies. Personally, I feel like her backstory carries that design and gives it some real life that, out of context, would be just a kind of cool horror movie villain.

7 & 6 THE DIRE MOTHER AND THE GREAT CHILD

A packaged deal, these two ghosts are a mother-son duo who share backstories. Margaret Shelburne, who would become the Dire Mother, was born with dwarfism and spent her whole life being ridiculed and abused for it. With nowhere to turn, she joined the circus as a sideshow attraction. She eventually had a child by one of her abusers who worked alongside her, naming the baby Harold.

Overly protective and unwilling to let him grow up, Margaret overfed Harold and kept him isolated from the outside world the best she could, “babying” him until he grew to monstrous proportions with an infantile mind. When her fellow circus performers accidentally killed her in a dangerous prank that involved trapping her in a bag, a mentally stunted and emotionally damaged Harold went on a rampage and killed the entire circus. He was eventually taken down by a mob led by the circus’s ringleader, and reunited with his mother as spirits, where they formed two more pieces in Cyrus Kritico’s master plan.

There is a shock value to these two when you first see them in the film, and their designs make you ask the question every designer wants people to ask about their characters: what’s their deal? They pique curiosity while balancing between the frightening and sympathetic; a perfect haunting duo.

5 THE BOUND WOMAN

A beautiful young prom queen with a promiscuous streak, Susan Legrow’s life was one of many trysts and flings as the town’s heartbreaker. Eventually, Susan’s chronic infidelity would trigger the psychotic reaction of her then-boyfriend Chet. He would seek revenge by killing the man she cheated on him with, torturing and binding Susan, and burying her under the school’s football field.

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There’s a very palpable discomfort that comes with looking at all the ghosts in the top five, and Susan’s state of eternal distress is particularly bad in a way that is almost worse than a ghost who can straight-up attack you. With the exposed bone and choked expression that Laura Mennell subjects viewers to, The Bound Woman has some serious nightmare fuel potential that rounds out the frights of the other eleven ghosts perfectly.

4 THE JUGGERNAUT

Born with gigantism, Horace Mahoney was seemingly the strongest of all the phantoms in Cyrus’s collection, and the one that proved the most trouble in capturing. Ostracized by others, Horace grew up deeply maladjusted, with the only person who accepted him being his father. The two worked alongside each other in the family’s junkyard for the remainder of his life.

But with his father’s passing, Horace’s true nature was unleashed: he became a notorious serial killer known as The Breaker, who would systematically break every bone in his victim’s bodies. His killings were eventually stopped by police, who had to shoot him upwards of 50 times and lost several officers in their attempt to apprehend him. He certainly ended up living to (and dying by) the name.

John De Santis is one of Hollywood’s quintessential “Big Guy” character actors. He’s been in so many projects over the years, and still, his work as The Juggernaut will be what he is remembered for. He really slipped into the role of the shockingly violent and surprisingly creepy phantom like a glove, so he deserves all his flowers for his portrayal here.

3 THE PILGRIMESS

The ghost with the worst luck on this list is curiously the one with the best luck as well. She is also the oldest of the spirits, as she’s one of the earliest English colonists of the Americas. In life, she was known as Isabella Smith, a woman who didn’t curry much favor with other colonists for being “an outsider”, presumably of a different religious background than the others.

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After a string of livestock deaths and the passing of the town’s preacher, her fellow pilgrims accused her of being a witch, and eventually set a barn she was in on fire. When she survived the fire completely unscathed, either out of sheer luck or actual witchcraft, she only suffered a much more prolonged demise: she was locked in a pillory, stoned, and starved to death over the course of weeks.

This might be an odd pick for the #3 spot, especially ahead of The Juggernaut, but I think these three ghosts could carry their own films. There is an undeniable charm in having ghosts from beyond the 20th century in this film too, which makes it feel like a proper old campfire story. The Pilgrimess is a perfect example of a persecuted person from another time, dragged screaming and locked up to the future, trapped in a never-ending prison. There’s double the dramatic irony as well, since she is both trapped in her pillory and simultaneously trapped in Cyrus’s machine; extremely rough, extremely cool execution.

2 THE JACKAL

The most feared ghost by fans of the film, The Jackal is also one of the most tragic due to the origins of his distinct look. Abandoned as a child, Ryan Kuhn became a listless serial killer who targeted young women and prostitutes. Despite his bloodlust, Kuhn was aware of his sickness and even tried to cure his compulsions by voluntarily submitting himself to an asylum.

No matter how strong his restraints were, Kuhn would escape them, until eventually, his doctors had a cage placed over his head along with his straitjacket to prevent him from savaging anyone with his teeth. He succumbed to a fire that consumed the asylum, being the sole victim; Cyrus mentions in his notes that Kuhn’s death was most likely voluntary as well, assuming he would get some peace in death. He was sadly very wrong.

The best physical acting in the film, Shane Wyler made the Jackal the face of Thirteen Ghosts, and he deserves all the credit in the world for it. He’s just so kinetic and charged up with every moment he’s on screen, and that torn-open cage is a really nice inversion of the classic masked monster that shows you all the fine detail in his face. It’s an ideal design, with an ideal portrayal.

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1 THE HAMMER

A spirit from the 1890s, George Markley was originally a gentle giant of a man and a blacksmith on the American frontier. However, being an African American in a predominantly white town, Markley and his family were far from welcome by the townspeople. After he was accused of theft, both of his daughters and wife were killed by an angry group of bigots.

George would go on to avenge his family with extreme violence, killing the man who had accused him of theft and his cohorts with a tool of his trade: a hammer. George was killed by an angry mob in turn, who impaled him with hundreds of nails and railroad spikes, before replacing his hand with the head of his hammer in a final attempt to defile him and his legacy. However, Markley’s vengeance never ends.

Now this, this is the one. If that Thirteen Ghosts television series ever comes to fruition, this is the one ghost I would want to see the most of. He has a classic ghostly backstory, his design conveys a painful and torturous death, and the makeup and numerous pieces of prosthetics meld perfectly, it all just synergizes to make the perfect spirit. It reeks of someone who has unfinished business sticking around to get revenge, and moreover, a ghost you can root for.

Some might consider it over-designed with the abundance of moving parts, but it is just the right amount of insane for me to match Markley’s backstory and make the best of the twelve.

***

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Do you agree with the rankings? Do you have a favorite ghost from Thirteen Ghosts you’d like to see in the TV series? Or do you have thoughts on the movie in general? Be sure to tell us in the comments on Instagram, the replies on Twitter, and anywhere else you can find us under the tag @HorrorPressLLC! And for more articles like this one, stay tuned to HorrorPress.com for the latest in everything horror this season!

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CONTINUING CHUCKY: Syfy Series Cancellation Begs the Question: Is a Movie Even Enough?

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We are gathered here today in memory of our dearly departed. Joining his brothers and sisters in the great syndication run in the sky, alongside the likes of Blood Drive and Haven—the good who died young. We are here to mourn the renewal of the SyFy original series Chucky. But more importantly, we’re here to ask: so how is this even going to work?

As most of you have already seen on social media in the past week, SyFy has not picked Chucky up for a fourth season. The show had been in renewal limbo for long enough that it felt like the writing was on the wall. This didn’t temper our disappointment when the word officially broke from Chucky mastermind Don Mancini himself on Twitter on September 27th, confirming an article published in Deadline three hours prior.

Despite everyone (including myself in another article on Horror Press) demanding the shows continuation, and despite the hashtag #RenewChucky seeing thousands of devoted fans storm social media to go to bat for the killer doll, SyFy has left the show behind. Since then the fandom has pivoted to a #SaveChucky movement, which is carrying the same speed and fervor as its predecessor.

While some shows have been brought back from the brink of cancellation, the extended bout to renew the show makes it seem unlikely we’ll be getting that fourth season (or a teased episode helmed by Joe Lynch) now.

Which puts the future of the franchise in an awkward place.

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CAN A NEW CHUCKY MOVIE FIX THINGS?

Assuming Chucky’s rights aren’t entangled too deeply in SyFy’s affairs, and that the series can continue independent of them, the road forward might suggest a Chucky film in the future that carries on from the point we left things off at. But balancing a film like that seems like more of a nightmare than any of the murderous dolls we’ve seen so far.

While the show may have begun with Jake’s fateful finding of Chucky at a yard sale, the series has thus far relied on an ensemble cast to drive much of its plot. Between Jake, Devon, Lexy, Caroline, Nica, and of course, Chucky & Tiffany, the number of plotlines and character arcs left to close up are far from easy to juggle from a writing standpoint. And even if hypothetical endings were plotted out for each character cleanly, as suggested by Mancini’s petitioning for a fourth season, bringing them all to a satisfying conclusion is nearly impossible in any shorter format.

THE FORK IN THE CHILD’S PLAY FRANCHISE ROAD

So, that leaves only two feasible options if the Chucky team moves forward with a film. The first is to pick up directly where things left off in a film and pull off the miracle of wrapping up a season’s worth of television in under two and a half hours. While I have faith Don Mancini has at the very least a dozen more great Chucky movies in him, continuing from Season 3’s sort of bummer ending wouldn’t only be difficult, it would really alienate anybody who hasn’t kept up with the previous 24-episode saga.

Imagine having to satisfyingly explain how the last season ended with Chucky going to the afterlife, meeting Damballa, coming back as a White House ghost, and eventually luring all of the protagonists to be trapped in dolls…in under 2 hours.

There would then be option two: ignore all the other characters in the Chucky series, or ignore Chucky outright, and pickup with the deranged killer couples’ newly renewed spree. Maybe you could lower the scope down to a select few characters, with Nica, Andy, and Kyle leading the hunt this time as they try to figure out a way to save the Hackensack Trio from eternity as marionettes. But I feel like that would then only serve to alienate fans who have pleaded for months to save the show and have grown incredibly attached to the Hackensack trio.

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WHO COULD #SAVECHUCKY?

In an ideal world, Chucky would see an eleventh-hour hail mary from a television network footing the bill on production and letting it live to fight another day. The likelihood of this isn’t so fantastic, as many fans will remember the reason for its unique simultaneous release on SyFy and USA Network, which resulted from a split between the networks to fund the show. So that leaves mostly streaming services. Then who could #SaveChucky?

Shudder seems like the obvious answer thanks to its horror slant, fueling shows like The Boulet Brothers’ Dragula and the upcoming The Creep Tapes. With AMC having regained stability compared to previous years, which saw layoffs and a significant drop in Shudder staff, I would say it certainly holds water theoretically.

Peacock’s previous connection with Chucky, however, leads me to believe they’re the more likely option. Despite its streaming platform seeing an abundance of technical issues, NBC’s Peacock has been a leader for the past few years alongside Amazon and Hulu when it comes to pumping out new original programming. A steady flow of new miniseries and runs at prestige television makes me believe that money-wise, they’re the network to keep an eye on, and the ones I’d bet have the highest chances of giving the series a second wind.

This all may seem like wishful thinking, but I see it as cautious optimism. Don Mancini is still at the helm, all of the cast have shared their full-throated support for renewal, and certainly, stranger things have happened in the TV landscape than a show finding a new home.

So however the future of the Chucky franchise comes to pass, I have a strong feeling the journey there won’t disappoint.

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What’s your current theory on the future of the Chucky franchise? Would you want another season, or a new film? Let us know on Twitter and Instagram @HorrorPressLLC! And for more articles on everything horror in movies, television, and more, stay tuned to Horror Press!

 

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