8/26/2023 0 Comments Parasite eve project eveParasite Eve, meanwhile, takes one of the tiniest building blocks in the universe and makes us terrified of that. ![]() Lovecraft’s own horror writing was ludicrous (cosmic “God”s with octopus faces? Really?), but worked because we all know that space is a great unknown and what we do know of what’s out there – black holes and the like – is enough to give us nihilistic nightmares of incredible, unknowable monsters that would consume us in a heartbeat. In fact, in many ways, it’s the horror foil to Lovecraft. It’s a genre where the best works are about suspending belief, and the structure of Parasite Eve allows for that to happen. However, deep down we know all horror isn’t happening. Deep down, we know that our cells aren’t going to rebel against us (you could argue that cancers, auto-immune afflictions, and other afflictions are a kind of rebellion, but not a sentient one). It’s a ludicrous premise… except that all those scientific descriptions and the overall textbook dryness of the book lend it a sense of authority and authenticity. When he describes in great detail how a scientist, apparently mad with grief after his wife dies in a horrible car accident, preserves his wife’s cells by extracting them from her liver, we feel a little creeped out by the guy’s reaction, but more than that, there’s a kind of detached sympathy for the character, combined with a detached fascination for the scientific process itself.īut slowly we’re made aware that the mitochondria are sentient, angry that its species has spent so long subservient to humanity, and ready to take humanity’s place at the top of the food chain, and that’s when the horror kicks in… just how do you resist, or fight back, against a revolution being waged in your body by rebellious cells that have little interest in your survival? At first, as Sena describes the evolution of mitochondria – basic building blocks of biology and an inescapable part of who we are (they’re literally components of our cells) – we feel lectured to. It’s not a slow start, however, but rather a methodical one, because Sena finds his horror through that near textbook-cold approach to storytelling. That doesn’t inherently mean that the work is horror. The vivid descriptions of what is going on through these scenes are certainly not for the squeamish, but that’s true of any particularly vivid description of medical matters. For that first third of the book, you would be left wondering if Sena – himself a pharmacologist – was simply showing off. The first third of the book is almost textbook-like in the way that it discusses both scientific research and a medical operation. The book sat alongside the likes of The Ring and kickstarted a new wave of international interest in Japanese horror when it was new (and indeed was the first winner of the Japan Horror Novel Award), and has, in the nearly 30 years since, cemented itself as a modern classic. ![]() That’s the genius of Sena Hideaki’s seminal masterpiece from 1995, Parasite Eve. So imagine the horror of having our own body rebel against us at the very cellular level. ![]() Related reading: Our retro review of Parasite Eve 2. ![]() From the unkillable brutes of stalker horror, to the unfathomable nightmares of Lovecraft’s cosmic horror, and the literally untouchable ghosts of haunted tales, so much effective horror strips us of our ability to resist. Those things that go bump in the night are portrayed as being beyond our ability to resist, combat, or even comprehend. The goal of a lot of great horror is to leave us feeling disempowered. She would be able to create a daughter of Her own will, a life form even more perfect than She. She was the mistress, nuclei Her servants.
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