Fan Film Reviews – The Auton Trilogy

As I have searched out and watched these fan films, one of the things that’s struck me is how well they’ve done Doctor Who’s monsters.

The Cybermen in Phase Four, Deconstruction, the Experiment, Trident, Gene Genius and Flight of the Daleks are used as effectively as the classic series ever managed. Then there’s Fire and Ice and the Holly Terror, which manage to do justice for the Ice Warriors, Downtime, which does a terrific job with the Great Intelligence and the Yeti. The Sontarans come off very well in Shakedown, Mindgame, Mindgame Trilogy and the Churchtown Incident. The Daleks in the Millennium Trap.

Why is that, I wondered? I think that part of it might reflect a level of commitment. You don’t get these things at the corner store. A cyberman or a dalek, an ice warrior or a yeti, they represent a serious and painstaking effort to build a really elaborate prop or costume. It’s not done overnight, it can’t be. It takes time and care.

And I think that there’s a lot more personal investment in the series and its lore.  It’s not a question of just dragging out whatever is available or marketing.  If you’re doing a Fan Film and sticking the Ice Warriors in it…. You really really want ice warriors.

Typically, these things are done on a shoestring, so if you’re going to the effort of doing something like that, that’s a huge commitment. You’re inclined to think about it, to work hard at it, and to take it seriously.

Which brings us to Autons, who are a surprisingly popular fan film monster. There’s there’s ‘Plastic Treachery’, there’s Westlake Film’s ‘Auton Diaries’, Planet Productions ‘Unit-Revival’ of course,   there’s a little Cameo in Chris Hoyle’s  Masterplan, and of course, there’s the BBV’s ‘Auton Trilogy’

The Autons are a surprisingly popular monster. They showed up twice in the seventies, leading off Jon Pertwee’s first two seasons – Spearhead From Space and Terror of the Autons.  They almost came back with Colin Baker for ‘Yellow Fever and How to Cure It’, and of course, they were the lead Monster for Rose.

So what is it about the Autons that works? I think it’s because they live in uncanny valley. Humans tend to see human faces everywhere, in smiley faces buttons, on mars, cartoon animals, you name it. But robotocists when they were trying to make robots with human faces discovered something…. People were creeped out. The robot faces were too close to human, but not close enough. The effect was called ‘uncanny valley’ that place between the completely human, and the vaguely human but comfortably nonhuman.

There is something genuinely creepy and off putting about Autons blandly handsome, immobile, blank features. There’s an indifference to them. You see an Auton coming at you, and you know that it could walk on by, or simply feed you into a woodchipper, and do either with complete indifference.

Is a blank mask really scary? Sure. Look at the mask that Michael Myers from the Halloween series uses, it has that same effect, bland, blank, dangerous indifference. To a lesser degree, there’s also Jason Voorhees iconic hockey mask, and all the rest of the slashers with their bags over their faces. No dripping fangs, no snarls, no furrowed muzzles, wild eyes or shaggy brows. Just…. bland indifference. No expression. Simply relentless steady malignance. Come to think of it, the Cybermen share that bland, expressionless quality.

There’s also an engaging simplicity to the Autons. Black suit, blank mask, and there you go. By comparison, just about any other alien – Cybermen, Sontarans, that’s just a costumers nightmare. But Autons can be chugged out in a flash. Never underestimate simplicity. The easier it is on the Actors and Costumers, the better its chances of being effective. Crazily elaborate and complicated costumes tend not to hold up to scrutiny and often are difficult to move in, and therefore difficult to shoot.

For whatever reason, they’ve ended up a surprisingly popular Doctor Who monster.  You’d almost think that if they’d have showed up in the 60’s, when the producers were desperate to find the ‘Next Daleks’ they might have been pushed much harder.

 

Auton 1, or perhaps just ‘Auton’ –  I’m skeptical that a trilogy was the hard plan, is actually quite watchable. It’s a limited production, a handful of speaking parts, what looks like a single or limited set of locations.

Apparently, what UNIT has been doing, is that following all those Alien Invasions, Subterranean Eruptions, Dimensional Hijinks and Mad Scientists, once the smoke clears, they gather up all the leftovers, stick it in crates and then send it off to some top secret warehouse…. Where they promptly forget about it.

That actually makes sense. Not the forgetting about it part, that’s daft. But the notion that someone’s got to take care of all those leftovers and put them somewhere. Anyway, in this case, it appears that UNIT has some low level research division puttering around the thingy’s, and one of the scientists, played by Bryonie Pritchard, triggers one of the things that should have been left alone, loosing the Autons once again.

At this point, Lockwood, played by Michael Wade,  and his clean up crew are summoned in, and the game begins, as they try to figure out what got out, and how to catch it and kill it before it escapes the building. It turns into a classic bug hunt, as soldiers and protagonists play cat and mouse with the monster, handicapped by not knowing what the monster is, or who exactly is the cat and who is the mouse.

Now, we have to swallow the idea that UNIT is so badly managed and its bureaucracy is so incompetent that they can’t properly keep track of or even maintain proper documentation of their alien remains. Ideally, all Lockwood should have had to do was look up a couple of serial numbers, and he’d know what got out. Hell, if the lab rats had been able to look up serial numbers, they’d have known what they were messing with. That’s a pretty big pill.

But if you can swallow it, what’s left is quite an effective little thriller. The direction is tight, the performances are competent. It’s a bug hunt, as I’ve said, but it makes maximum use of its assets – claustrophobic settings, the characters uncertainty as to what they’re dealing with, and the nature of that adversary when it acts, the whole ‘enemy within’ vibe. It’s modest but entirely competent and well done.

It’s all taking place inside a UNIT Warehouse/Research Lab. Everything is indoors. There’s no external shots, no wide angle stuff, no ‘vistas’ or glorious scenes. Instead, it looks like a warehouse, the walls are gray, everything is functional and utilitarian, the living quarters and research lab are drab. There’s a consistency to the look and feel which helps to sell the production.

The standout, however, is the character of Michael Wade’s  Lockwood. He’s everyone’s scary old schoolmaster, the voice of sarcastic authority, merciless, pitiless, judging. Everyone’s run across someone like that. The teacher, the supervisor, the investigator who coldly asks uncomfortable questions and has a sarcastic remark at your answer. …. Plays that part to perfection, probing, dissecting, questing.

But Lockwood is imbued with just enough humanity to make him compelling. He shows enough kindness, enough appreciation and humility, that we like him under his frosty exterior, and he exhibits enough vulnerability that we can sympathize with him. He is an appealing creation, and he steals the show.

Bottom line? Auton is a modest but genuine pleasure. It’s nowhere near the budget or the ambition of Downtime or Shakedown, but it knows its limits and it works effectively within them.

 

Auton 2: Sentinal, is the sequel to Auton. …..


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  5. Den Valdon, I don’t have anything to say on the subject of, um, sport…but I was wondering where to get hold of the fan films?

    Great review by the way.

  6. In the case of the BBV, you might also attempt to locate the company online and see if you can buy or download from them.  Given that the Auton trilogy was made for commercial purposes, I think that would be the fairest thing.

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