'chaotically structured'

Hello. In my opinion a few different factors went into Wikipedia's decision to label the film as "chaotically structured."

The first level of chaos is our, the audience's, ignorance as to what is happening. We don't find out why Dr. Hobbes killed himself and the girl until the film is well underway. Certainly this lack of audience knowledge is one source of chaos, and this is a structural issue because general wisdom in the storytelling world says that you're supposed to reveal information when there's a need for it. Of course mystery storytellers violate this general rule all the time, to the delight of their fans. But it still generates a bit of structural chaos.

Another level of structural chaos comes from the residents of Starliner Towers themselves. These are boring, fairly affluent people who probably consider oral sex outre, and yet by the middle of the movie are engaging in public orgies. So, their trajectory from vanilla middle-class folks to sexual rebels is chaotic. Think of what that would do to society! What if all of us became nymphs and satyrs? What would life be like? Yep, you guessed it: chaotic.

Yet a third level of chaotic structure comes from the cinematography itself. We get several point-of-view shots where Dr. St. Luc is running for an elevator or something, and the camera joggles to mimic his flight. This gives us a sense of the chaos blossoming in his mind.

This excellent film has a fairly sophisticated theme. Basically, it seems to say that man's reason saves him from destruction. It couches this message in the negative, meaning that it makes its point by showing the opposite. For example, it shows Man as being a lustful creature. St. Luc cannot escape (therefore it's a down ending film, advising us on how to live by showing us what not to do), he falls prey to the lust of others. Remember, in the beginning of the film where the hero is eating lunch with his sidekick? In the sidekick's lab we see placards. One of these signs reads: THE ROAD TO EXCESS IS THE PATH TO WISDOM, or something along those lines. These little signs are nifty, cunning ways to express the movie's theme. Bear in mind, this movie gives us the opposite of the theme, so by using a sign to tell us that excess, hedonism, and wanton lustfulness lead to wisdom, they are really emphasizing the fact that chastity and restraint lead to wisdom, because the story people who endorse these signs fail in the end. These people, these sexual zombies, are not creatures of reason. They are creatures of sensation. And their way is death. When you think about it, it's kind of creepy how this film presages the HIV scare. A decade after the movie's release, sex really could kill you.

Personally, and I hate to admit this, but I think a large part of the horror of this movie derives from the fact that, if I had been there, I probably wouldn't last very long. I mean, avoiding Jaws or Jason or Freddy is common sense. Avoiding a woman who wants to screw you to death is not. Therefore, the horror comes from knowing that it would be pleasurable to surrender.

This film is probably one of the smartest and more interesting usages of the parasitic monster archetype ever. It's intelligent and visceral, and it even aroused some of the fight-or-flight emotions that Dawn of the Dead evoked. It definitely outsmarts the majority of more conventional zombie or even (yawn) vampire films. What's with vampires these days anyway? All the critics rave at the "humanization" of the vampire. That sucks. I like my vampires being feral, greedy, foul creatures. That's what they're supposed to be. Maestro Cronenberg succeeds in revitalizing the Parasitic Monster genre. The man's a genius. The thinking man's horror auteur. All hail horror's dark messiah!

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