Showing posts with label Millennium. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Millennium. Show all posts

Sunday, 2 June 2024

They Shoot Horses, Don't They?

Sally Dumont :
I read that interview you did. 
Sounds like you felt sorry for him. 


Frank Black :
I feel sorry for Sally Dumont and 
the man who died here tonight. 
I'm just working to find out 
why he does it. 

Why he kills horses

Normally I would say that they were 
used as a proxy for someone he hates... 
A Mother, a Father, an abusive, 
controlling figure. 

Sally Dumont :
"Normally", huh? [snickers

Frank Black :
I just don't think that that's the case here. 
I think the horses are 
An End unto themselves.
 Why do you think he does it? 

Sally Dumont :
Well, for a lot of girls, their 
first love was a horse. 

Frank Black :
You're saying he's jealous
That the horses cut him 
off from women
From sexual intimacy? 

Sally Dumont :
Were any of the dead horses drugged

Frank Black :
No. Why? 

Sally Dumont :
They just stand there and 
let him do this to them. 
They could really damage him. 
They could kill him 
with a single kick. 

But they just stand there
It's because they're reared 
to Trust in Man

I've seen horses trapped in 
the killing box at the slaughterhouse. 
They can smell the blood and 
the death of the animal that 
was in that box before them. 

But despite that, 
they Trust in Man. 

Their Executioner is standing 
above them with a bolt gun, and 
they look to him for help, and 
he fires a steel bolt straight 
into their heads. 

I know why they stand still for him.



Where are they headed? 

Claudia
Slaughterhouse.

Frank Black :
Foals? 

Claudia
Yeah, they're from the P.M.U. Farms. 
We're the only state that still has them.

Frank Black :
P.M.U.?

Claudia
"Pregnant Mare's Urine." 
It's rich in estrogen, which is the main element in hormone replacement therapy. 
It's also the most prescribed pharmaceutical in the united states. 

In North America, up to 80,000 mares 
are kept pregnant, and their urine collected 
so that women can stay healthier longer. 
But each time a mare gets pregnant, 
she has a foal. 

The quickest way to make money off of 
80,000 foals is to kill them and 
sell The Meat to Japan and Europe. 

Frank Black :
The horses that were attacked... 
They were usually mares
How many of these farms are in this state? 

As far as anybody can tell, 
we've got about 15 farms 
in the west end of the state. 

Many of them have shut down. 

There were four in our area. Haverly, july '94. Redner, october '95. Borgsen, december '94 and sandberg, january '95. 

Peter Watts :
Forensics, on the apron, showed 
human sweat and horse urine.
The urine was rich in estrogen.
The guy could've worked on 
any one of these farms. 

Frank Black :
I think he lived on one of these farms. 
Part of the ritual is wearing clothes 
that bring him back to that time. 

Peter Watts :
If he grew up on a P.M.U. Farm, 
his earliest memories would've been of horses 
held captive, foals slaughtered. 

He learned that's how food was 
put on his table, clothes on his back. 
Farm closes, he loses his livelihood
He loses the means to 
gratify his impulses. 

Frank, a lot of people work on these farms. They're decent, ordinary people. 

I'm not talking about decent, ordinary people. I'm talking about one man with a twisted mind. 

First horse attack was in february '95. 
Which one closed nearest that? Borgsen, december '94. Sandberg would have been the nearest... January '95, one month before the first attack. The phone call to you, Frank, came from prefix 774. That's this area. Borgsen.

Saturday, 1 October 2022

The Chris Carter Effect



The Chris Carter Effect :

"If the fans conclude that the writing team will never resolve its plots, then they will probably stop following the work."

Contrast - Fan-Disliked Explanation.

It's said that no one ever went broke underestimating the taste of the viewing public, but sometimes a show comes along that promises stories so complex and subtle that they'll make War and Peace look like "Frog and Toad Are Friends". If it's done right, then this is catnip to a certain sector of the viewing public, who will often give such a show a surprisingly long time to set up its plot arcs before getting antsy for a resolution. 

The Catch for The Creator is that, the longer an arc runs and the more complicated it gets, the more awesome its payoff must be for it to feel satisfying to the fans. It's much easier for a writer to keep kicking the can — piling mysteries on top of mysteries — rather than finish storylines. This trope was invoked in the British TV serial The Singing Detective, in which mystery novelist Philip Marlowe asserts that fiction, like Life, should be "all clues and no solutions."

That said, most audiences are savvy enough to recognise a framing device when they see one. Plots resting on a single Driving Question (Where is The Sunflower Samurai? Who is Mrs. Mosby? Who Killed Laura Palmer? Who Shot J.R.? Will Dr. Becket Ever Leap Home? Where is The Peace Conference? Who's on First? Who is The One-Armed Man? Will They or Won't They?) are allowed some leeway; otherwise, the production team would be out of work and The Story would end. The Chris Carter Effect happens when a work is wholly focused on twists or not building up to a satisfactory resolution, but on the other hand, the plotting sometimes becomes so bloated that there can no longer be a satisfactory resolution (see Ending Aversion). Another contributing effect could be the unsatisfactory resolution of long-running side-plots. At this point, even the most ardent fans will start to feel jerked around, or at the very least channel flip to something else.

Sometimes, the lack of a resolution is not the writers' fault: the network might have pulled the plug early or compromised the original vision by having it focus on more merchandisable elements or to keep adding to or expanding on the author's intended story.

See also Kudzu Plot and Commitment Anxiety. Specifically, the combination of a Kudzu Plot with Webcomic Time can have a similar effect on The Audience, even when a finale is in the works, if the piece stretches out long enough that the fans lose track of the original premise of the series. Arc Fatigue is this trope on a smaller scale, in which just a single story arc goes on for too long without any resolution rather than the entire series. Can be connected to Franchise Original Sin in that the Myth Arc is successful at first before devolving over time into less-successful territory.

If fans doubt that such a show will even survive to finish its story and don't bother tuning in, that's The Firefly Effect. Compare Writing by the Seat of Your Pants, which does not focus on how the audience reacts to it.

Named for Chris Carter, creator of The X-Files,  which some believe to be the godfather of this trope.

It has nothing to do with the former Minnesota Vikings wide receiver, Cris Carter. Note the missing "H" in his name. It also has nothing to do with Beatles DJ and former Dramarama member Chris Carter.

Contrast Fan-Disliked Explanation.