Screen to Scream: Wounds

Information is readily available at our fingertips anytime we want. With my trusty phone, I can find out everything from what Stephen King’s mother’s name (which is Nellie Ruth Pillsbury King. Thanks, Wikipedia) is to how to change a fuse in a car (thanks, Youtube). That unparalleled access to knowledge was bound to run into the notion of forbidden knowledge that has rendered many Lovecraft protagonists mad. In universes where forbidden texts or spoken spells can open portals and summon demons, there was bound to be someone in that universe who would upload this information on their blog.  How long can secret, forbidden knowledge stay secret when any and all information is just a link away? Nathan Ballingrud’s short story “The Visible Filth” has explored this idea, and the movie based on the story, Wounds, remains surprisingly faithful to the story’s moral about how curiosity not only kills but can drive you insane.

Will is a good guy, a bartender coasting through life. His bartending job and his girlfriend Carrie’s university schedule make sure he has plenty of free time to drink with his friend Alicia, who he harmlessly flirts with (one can debate whether flirting can ever be done harmlessly, particularly after reading this story). All seems well until he discovers a cell phone left by some very young-looking bar patrons. On that phone are images that not only disturb Will but fundamentally alter how he views the universe and his place in it. Much like someone finding a sore in their mouth and who constantly pokes at it with their tongue, the people in this story who come across this phone are constantly drawn back to it and its promise of a peek behind the veil of reality. Will doesn’t do the smart thing: give the phone to the Police, chuck it in the garbage, or set the phone and the room it’s in on fire. He lets the secrets the phone contains slowly erode his relationship and his relatively carefree existence until he not only discovers his life to be empty but goes to some otherworldly measures to fill that void.

The movie surprisingly follows the general plot of the story, something that doesn’t happen often in movie adaptations. It was fairly refreshing to see this faithful an adaption, almost like watching an audiobook coming to life. Armie Hammer portrays Will as older but not necessarily wiser, someone who’s at an age where many other have figured out their place in life. Dakota Johnson displays more range than she typically does in the Fifty Shades movies, going from loving to exasperated to suspicious to disturbed. The director also takes advantage of the visual medium by showcasing snippets of terrifying images as well as the use of cockroaches, which in this narrative, signals the presence of the supernatural as well as the steady decay of the character’s relative safety and security in the real world. The movie serves, all in all, as a great companion piece to the story, meaning that the book can serve as a gateway for Wounds: Six Stories from the Borders of Hell, not only for “The Visible Filth,” but also the many great stories in the collection.