Growing Your Own: Monsters from the Lab and Molecular Ethics in Posthumanist Film

Abstract

Test-tube monsters escape from the lab to the screen as science locates and isolates then modifies the smallest particles of life. Research projects to genetically engineer such posthuman monsters are either funded by government bodies or private clients. The mad scientist, gothic avatar of alchemical researchers into forbidden knowledge, has been generating cinematic monsters from Frankenstein (J. Searle Dawley, USA, 1910) to Godzilla (Gareth Edwards, USA, 2014). In Casshern, a Japanese tokusatsu (live-action) film directed by Kazuaki Kiriya (2004), the population of Zone 7 are persecuted for their ‘terrorist’ opposition to the Federation and used for secret experiments to regenerate the aging junta generals. The project leader is Dr Azuma (Akira Terao), a contemporary mad scientist who places research above personal ethics when he accepts the junta’s offer of unlimited funding support for his project. In a tank of severed limbs, the ‘neo-cells’ extracted from this ‘primitive’ ethnic group are mysteriously animated by a lightning strike to grow zombie-like entities. Identifying themselves as ‘Neo-Sapiens’ (Neoroids in the US subtitles) these genetically modified monsters unite to seek revenge.