032 The Shape of Water Issue Words by Thomas Hobbs

VAL LEWTON Mark Gatiss reveals his love of this Hollywood outsider who created a new type of horror movie.

rowing up in imperial Russia, before emmigrating “He carved this niche for himself,” Gatiss explains. “He as a small child to America in 1909 along tricked you into thinking you were getting a conventional with his mother and sister, legendary horror monster movie but instead presented something poetic producer Val Lewton identified with the role that slowly builds this incredible sense of dread. It was a Gof the outsider from an early age. Working his way up from brave outsider thing to do when you consider how popular small-time author of gothic fiction to right-hand man of Universal’s Frankenstein and Dracula movies were at the legendary Gone with the Wind producer David O. Selznick, time; imitating them might have been an easier route.” Lewton’s fresh perspective quickly caught the eye of iconic A title such as 1943’s The Ghost Ship suggests a film about Hollywood studio RKO Pictures. a haunted boat. However, Lewton created a slow burning The studio, which had put all of its money behind a flop power trip of a movie, all about how paranoia and fear can called Citizen Kane the year before, was nearing bankruptcy. fuel dictatorial lunacy. It’s a film full of technique as well. “If the Therefore, when Lewton was given $125,000 to create a film swinging hook sequence in The Ghost Ship had been created called Cat People back in 1942, RKO was more than happy by Hitchcock, they’d be studying it at every film school,” adds to receive something schlocky so long as it got the tills Gatiss. Meanwhile, The Seventh Victim, released the same ringing. Lewton talked his way into becoming the studio’s year, boldly embraced themes of Satanism, existentialism and new head of horror (on a salary of just $250 a week) and even homosexuality in a way completely detached from the was sternly instructed that showmanship must come in the social values of its era. Sequel The Curse of the Cat People place of Welles’ genius. “I am sure the Cat People they were (1944) is perhaps the best example of Lewton’s subversion. expecting was just The Wolf Man with big cats,” British actor, It is only B movie horror in name, with Lewton instead screenwriter and Lewton obsessive Mark Gatiss tells me. creating a beautiful film about the loneliness of childhood “But instead, Lewton brought all his odd European charm and how sadness haunted wartime America. He fooled RKO to create this new kind of horror, where fear was created by completely and when some of his bosses complained that his what was imagined rather than what was seen.” films contained far too many intellectual messages, Lewton Lewton had a close-knit production team, often using the slyly responded: “My only message is that death is good.” same actors, and he would give the likes of Mark Robson, His film’s reliance on strong, sometimes overtly feminist, Robert Wise and Tourneur their big breaks directing. Despite female characters and avoidance of the tropes of gore this, Lewton was very much the master. “Val would always make them the antithesis to the torture porn horror that write the final screenplay – he was the idealist while I had still dominates the box office. Gatiss rebukes: “The mistake my feet on the ground,” Tourneur clarifies during Martin is you go into a Lewton film expecting something safe and Scorsese’s The Man in the Shadows documentary. “He would anodyne because it’s the complete opposite to the Saw dream up the ideas and it was our job to apply them.” movies. The ambience Lewton creates in I Walked With A Cat People put RKO back on the map, making around Zombie really makes you feel like you are walking through $1m at the domestic box office. Subsequently, RKO offered someone else’s nightmare – it is terrifying!” Lewton complete creative freedom so long as he agreed to When RKO head Charles Koerner died in 1946, Lewton three basic rules: each of his films had a $125,000 budget, lost his biggest supporter and was slowly pushed out of couldn’t run for more than 75 minutes and the men upstairs Hollywood as execs raised their eyebrows at his ‘bizarre’ would create their titles. What followed over the next five European sensibilities. When a disconnected Lewton years was a prolific run, with Lewton creating complex prematurely succumbed to a heart attack just five years masterpiece after masterpiece. This run was defined by his later at the age of 46, some suggested he died of a broken role as the outsider, according to Gatiss, who has lovingly heart. However, I like to think he simply returned to the referenced Lewton’s famous stalking sequences within his shadows he adored, waiting patiently to scare a new writing for Sherlock’s Hounds of the Baskerville episode. generation of filmgoers.

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