Stephen Sommers' VAN HELSING, which features every third movie monster ever made, debuted at about the same time as the photos of horrific abuse in Iraq's U.S.-run Abu Ghraib prison. The coincidence prompts reflection on what it means to be a monster.

What do Wolfman, Frankenstein, Mr. Hyde, Igor, Dracula, and his brides and spawn have in common, aside from their appearance in VAN HELSING?

1. They look evil. In physical appearance and obvious mannerisms, movie monsters present themselves, from first sighting, as instruments of destruction. Sommers allows that a rude form may hide a pure heart, as in the case of Frankenstein, but even then the close observer can easily discover the creature's real nature. Van Helsing, and we, can instantly tell good guys from bad guys.

2. The monsters are rogue individuals with no institutional support. At most, the villains have a petty criminal conspiracy with a low level of organization, easily wiped out. VAN HELSING's Dracula, with
centuries to organize, still functioned as a field marshal, directly controlling his minions. Strike the shepherd and the sheep will scatter.

3. There are no redeeming features to the monsters' existences. The monsters can only create suffering, for themselves and for others. One would think that Dracula would husband his human herd, providing them food and shelter, encouraging their growth, perhaps even currying their favor or mollifying their ire with some noblese oblige. To the contrary, the Count seems bent on destroying for the sake of destruction, even against his own interests.

4. Movie monsters' ideology, where they articulate one, is nothing more than naked self-interest.

5. The monsters are discrete from human society, living apart -- where the monsters had once been human, they have since been irrevocably severed from the race by a tragic event -- death or forcible separation.

These are the monsters we understand, the ones that entertain us. And VAN HELSING does a creditable job at making loopy monsters, at giving us the satisfaction of grim-faced Hugh Jackman blasting the cads to Hades. But I wonder if the cartoony nature of the creature-feature doesn't
blunt our thinking about the fine points of monstrosity -- its origins, nature, propagation, and cure.

Certainly, the country saw the removal of Saddam Hussein, a Washington-certified monster, in Hollywood terms. We would drive a stake through the heart of the tyrant who, from his remote castles, had been brutally bullying his own people. The liberating soldiers would be the object of the villagers' adulation. All of Saddam's kingdom would liquidate the moment he was routed from Baghdad. Turns out Saddam did not live so fully divorced from everyday Iraqis, that blood ties and ideological sympathies have kept resistance stoked long after the monster himself has been unquestionably defeated.

Now consider Abu Ghraib. United States soldiers had stripped, beaten, sodomized, electrocuted, posed, mocked, set dogs on, and otherwise tormented Iraqi prisoners entrusted to their care. Those are the actions of monsters. From the families and friends of the accused, we hear a constant refrain, "that can't be right. There has to be some misunderstanding. They must have been under orders. Because, you see, I know this man. I know this woman. And they're not monsters." Because they weren't monsters back home, because they do have redeeming qualities, because they're part of the human race. These aren't VAN HELSING monsters in the shameful photographs.

No, they're not. Real monsters are our best men and women, gradually but continually yielding to their worst nature. Steeped in a belligerent's ideology that lightly regards human life if belonging to the enemy, soldiers have an overwhelming temptation to abuse POWs. That urge grows unchecked inside the no-accountability, opaque, rights-free zone that the current administration has established from Guantanamo Bay to Kabul to Abu Ghraib. I imagine that the abuse started slowly, as decent but haggard soldiers grew impatient with their prolonged stay in Iraq. The guards grew short with their charges. Then started picking fights. Oneupmanship to abuse and demoralize the prisoners broke out. Boredom, absolute power, and national hostility --- the soldiers gave in, inch by inch.

In Medea, Euripides said something about monsters more profound than VAN HELSING and all the pundits' spins on Iraq combined. "The absence of shame is the beginning of tragedy." I'm starting to know what he meant. Would that all monsters wore bolts on their necks. Until then, we ought to endow our prisoners, wherever kept, with human rights, to be monitored and protected by third parties, that we may preserve in their guards a healthy aversion to shameful conduct. A monster's just a self we haven't met.

-- Martin Scribbs

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