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.