Into the mouth of the Bishop of Battle

A fearsome digital media story from the 1980s is "Bishop of Battle", part of an anthology horror movie called
Nightmares (1983).  Jim Groom offers fine commentary. I'd only add a few points: first, that this is a classic body displacement fear tale.  Other stories from the 1980s do this, from Neuromancer on.  Note the hero's refusal of food and romantic companionship.

Second, that it emphasizes net.fear's generation gap.  It's typical to see in these digital natives days, but nice to detect back then (remember Molly's advice about not getting generation-gapped?).

Third, it's device horror, not networked horror.  Each game exists in disconnection.  When the final battle breaks out, the free-floating game is scary as an anomaly, and only physically batters the other games.

Fourth, there's one light Gothic touch in the game's named character, the Bishop.  He evokes classic British religious horror.  And there's something classically monstrous about his mouthing of the hero at the battle's climax, a nice note of body horror.

It's not a great story.  From that period, one could do much better with John Varley's "Press Enter[]."  But it's a useful document.

Comments

[Jim]

It is a great day when you are referred to in the Infocult. Glad you liked it Brian, I never promised it would be good, but the fact that it is so bad makes it all the more enjoyable for me.

I love the distinction between device horor versus networked horror, hadn't thought of the implications of that distinction before, but not that you point it out it may account for the rise of the grafting of scientific figures like viral (and concepts like memes) onto this media, as a way of finding a figure to explain and horrify the inter-connected outbreaks of connections and potential threats.

Interesting, and a pure side note unrelated, how thinking about this starts me thinking about the differences between monster movies like Godzilla or King King as monolithic cultural figures of monstrosity that are ultimately containable, whereas films from the 70s like Andromeda Strain or Cronenberg's Shivers takes this kind of rash, epidemic approach. Cronenberg's being specifically about the free love/sex push in the 70s , and the dangers of bodily/communal diseases, sex as a dangerous social network that ultiamtely spreads disease(the final scene in the pool is beautiful for this). Big tangent, sorry, but that device vs. networked figure has got me thinking. I mean, about 10 years later Cronenberg films one of the first networked hacks in Scanners, which is very bodily and textured on film. As if the character were communing with the computer. And then there's Videodrome where James Woods physically engulfs the VHS tapes in his stomach, a human VCR.

Ok, must return to Cronenberg, thanks Bryan!