JA from MNPP here, once again doing a next-day brief-riff on my most recent Thursday Ways Not To Die post over at my blog, this time on Alex Proyas' 1998 film Dark City.Dark City is a film that's an amalgamation of many parts before it - a big steaming dose of Metropolis of course, with some of Blade Runner's future-noir sprinkled on top, so on and so forth, ad infinitum... and nowhere is this more evident than in the design for The Strangers, the evil group of beings that seem to be controlling whatever it is that's going on that's making out main characters so confused and dour all the time:
Bald and pale and clad in black... I just know I've seen that somewhere before! Did you know that Dark City's Strangers influenced Joss Whedon's idea of what The Gentlemen, his villains in the terrifying 4th season episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer called "Hush", would look like?
Yes, he basically admitted he ripped Dark City off. But Dark City's Strangers were rip-off's themselves! Oh "rip-off" is such a cruel word. Influenced by, of course, is what I mean. So I just thought it'd be fun to point out the top five influences that came to mind when I thought of things that must've, in turn, influenced the design of The Strangers. Why five? Because random lists are fun!
1) Judge Doom from Who Framed Roger Rabbit?
2) The Cenobites from Hellraiser
3) The Borg from Star Trek
4) Nosferatu, duh
5) Slugworth from Willy Wonka
2) The Cenobites from Hellraiser
3) The Borg from Star Trek
4) Nosferatu, duh
5) Slugworth from Willy Wonka
Got any others? Tell us in the comments. I can think of several more, but sadly limited myself to five... them's the rules of finite lists!
And we all know what this entire post comes out to mean: Bald is evil. Evil!!!
Fun fact! Did you know that the lovely actor David Wenham, aka Faramir in The Lord of the Rings, played one of The Strangers in Dark City? Well he did:
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