Cryodome

(Notes: This is an entry in an ongoing series of bringing a new twist to an old story and my 100th post on this blog. If you can’t go big on your 100th, when can you? It was also very time consuming modifying the images to fit within the PG-13 spectrum, but I had fun doing it!)

It is common for a beautiful woman to be in danger within genre-related material. In this setting, there is perhaps a 50% chance that she might survive by the end of the story.

Yet add another pretty lady into this mix and chances of survival have now dropped dramatically! For when there are two beautiful women in the same genre story, one must undergo a transformative demise while the other barely escapes in time…

The simple way to describe this process? Two babes enter, one babe leaves.

Welcome to Cryodome.

After an exchange of e-mails with Dr. Iago Faustus, the proprietor of eroticmadscience.com, here are some guidelines for the Cryodome process:

1. There is a transformative process
2. There is a primary and secondary female character
3. The secondary character undergoes process; end result revealed to the audience
4. The primary character is intended to undergo the same process

Nice theory, but does the Cryodome process work in a real story? For starters, here’s Pretty Vacant, the comic that serves as the basis for this blog’s existence:

Pretty Vacant (2009 Comic Book)

1. From active pro athlete to inactive mannequin "mold"

2. Gigi Gutierrez and Mindy Soong

3. Mindy sedated, plastinated; revealed frozen in cryotobe 

4. Gigi escapes when sedative wears off.

Gigi escapes to live another day. Poor Mindy remains behind, frozen in stasis until the shady Still Life Corporation needs to reuse her body as a mold for a new mannequin line. It’s cruel and unfair, but necessary to the story. With Mindy’s fate, suspense builds as Gigi becomes vulnerable to the same outcome!

Cryodome gets its name from two sources. The first is a female take on 1985's Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome. The cryo-motif from a quirky 1966 eurospy film provides the second:

Kiss The Girls And Make Them Die (1966 Movie)

1. From living breathing spy to frozen femme fatale

2. Susan (Dorothy Provine) and Wilma (the amazing Seyna Seyn)

3. Sedated Wilma placed in chamber; revealed frozen in cryotube

4. Susan is saved by her butler

As one has noticed, the condemned cutie doesn't even have to be dead for the Cryodome process to work. All it takes is a story with two fetching femmes where one character is eliminated in an inspired manner that will be remembered long after the credits roll or the last page is turned.

Special care is given to the doomed damsels in Cryodome, as maintaining their beauty and dignity after their demise is of utmost importance. Most are placed in a state of complete lack of awareness as the process begins; if not, their procedures are at least pain-free.

The Cryodome process is effective in science fiction...

Invasion Of The Bee Girls (1973 Movie)

1. From human woman to bee-mutated female

2. Julie (Victoria Vetri) and Nora (Anna Aries)

3. Sedated Nora cocooned; revealed as bee-mutated female




4. Julie is saved by government agent











... horror...

Turistas (2006 Movie)

1. From breathtaking party-girl to unbreathing organ donor

2. Bea (Olivia Wilde) and Amy (Beau Garrett)

3. Amy sedated then dissected; revealed deceased with stomach cut open

4. Bea escapes when abused henchman switches sides

… any time period…

Doctor Who: Talons Of Weng Chiang (1976 TV Fantasy)

1. From living breathing woman to beautiful drained corpse

2. Leela (Louise Jameson) and Cleaning Lady (Vaune Craig-Raymond)

3. Hypnotized Cleaning Woman enters cabinet; revealed to be empty shell

4. Leela is saved by The Doctor

... and it has no language barrier.

Anatomie (2000 German Movie)

1. From young med student to flayed anatomy model

2. Paula (Franka Potente) and Gretchen (Anna Loos)

3. Gretchen injected with "promidal"; revealed plastinated on display

4. Paula saves herself due to knowledge of chemical reactions

The process doesn’t have to be visual to be effective. Just ask Edgar Allen Poe, Bram Stoker or every author whoever wrote a mystery about a young lady hiring a detective to discover her sister’s fate. Poe himself wrote that it is not the death of the beautiful woman that's important, but how poetic it is to the reader (or audience).

In theory and pratice, Cryodome works, with the audience very receptive to the results! Where else can someone freeze, mutate, filet, distill or plastinate a gorgeous gal and get away with it... once? It’s yet another literary device that a writer can keep in a creative bag of tricks to enhance his/her story.

As we mourn these lovely ladies, remember that the death of beauty is a common theme in these genres. It comes fast and furious. Remember them fondly, and hope that future storytellers are inspired to create even more imaginative ways to give these wonderful women characters a beautiful demise… after all, it is an art form!

*****
Postscript: In an effort to seem a little less biased, I encourage someone to start up a Cryodome column involving two nice-looking men! Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back seems like a good place to begin. I know women who find Han Solo's freeze sequence hot.

Can It Be So? Rumours At 35

Long time readers of this blog know my undisputed favorite album. What they don’t know is that my second favorite album varies upon my mood. I could blog about a number of second favorite cds, but this post is about an album that came out 35 years ago this month…

I was eight when Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours was released. I’m not going to write about the hedonistic lifestyles or personal (not professional) breakups of drummer Mick Fleetwood, bassist John McVie, keyboardist/vocalist Christine McVie, guitarist/vocalist Lindsey Buckingham and vocalist Stephanie “Stevie” Nicks. I don’t really know any of the backstory as the group recorded the album. That just leaves the music.

It has been argued that Rumours is hugely successful (40 million units sold to date) due to the three main songwriter’s songs giving the impression that one was listening to entirely different bands. Fleetwood Mac’s record label certainly believed that, releasing Lindsey’s “Go Your Own Way”, Christine’s “Don’t Stop”, Stevie’s “Dreams” and Christine’s “You Make Loving Fun” as singles in that order from the 1977 album.

Exceptional musicians in their own right, Christine and Lindsey would write songs around their instruments. Christine wrote songs where her keyboards could groove (“You Make Loving Fun”), boogie-woogie (“Don’t Stop”) and gently lilt (“Songbird”), while Lindsey’s song were rife with guitar sounds both electric (“Go Your Own Way”) and acoustic (“Never Going Back Again”).

Lindsey was especially good at crafting the group’s sound. Listen to the guitar playfully bounce around in “You Make Loving Fun” or shimmer in unexpectedly at the 1:44 mark of “Dreams”. Lindsey had the ability to punch up Christine’s trite exclamations of love as well as tone down Stevie’s wildly imaginative musings. Christine returned the favor by having Lindsey share lead vocals on “Don’t Stop”, while Stevie sang her heart out on the background vocals of Lindsey’s “Go Your Own Way”, despite knowing it was a direct rebuke to their relationship.

The signature sound was filled by Mick and John’s rhythm section. Playing together when Fleetwood Mac was a British blues band, they instinctively knew when the beat should be driven forward and when to pull it back. Even though Stevie was the least talented musician in the group, she was equally important. She wrote the albums only number one song (“Dreams”) while giving the band someone to front the group. Her mystical chanteuse image and flower power movements on stage provided the brand for Fleetwood Mac, enhancing the music and giving listeners focus.


So 1970s!  (L-to-R) John, Lindsey, Stevie, Mick and Christine


The song that holds Rumours together is ironically titled “The Chain”. Credited to all five members, “The Chain” combines unfinished songs by the three songwriters while being bridged by the rhythm section (listen for a thumping bass solo by John). If Fleetwood Mac’s members were highly dysfunctional, then the music overcame their faults. After 35 years, shouldn’t Rumours finally be judged by the music and not by the lives of the members?