The Monstrefact: Ocron

In this episode of STBYM’s The Monstrefact, Robert discusses Ocron, the masked sorceress in Lucio Fulci’s 1983 film “Conquest.”

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of
My Heart Radio. Hi, my name is Robert Lamb and
this is the Monster Fact, a short form series from
Stuff to Blow Your Mind, focusing in on mythical creatures, ideas,
and monsters in time. Recently on Weird House Cinema, we

(00:25):
discussed Luccio fulci fantasy film Conquest, a gory and dreamlike
jaunt full of stone age combat murderous monsters. In Dark Magic,
the villain of the piece was Okron, a sorceress who
commands a war band of beast men and masked warriors.
She has depicted clad only in a golden chain mail bikini,

(00:46):
and her head is enclosed entirely within a golden helm
until in the film's climax, when our hero destroys the
helmet with an arrow of light, revealing a hideous hag's
face beneath a helm. Now, on one hand, we might
dismiss the details of the character as pure titilation. In
a night Sword and Sorcery film, a genre is pointed

(01:10):
out by Robert A. Rushing in his book, descended from
Hercules that often pitted a hyper masculine hero against a
feminine villain, but the juxtaposition of Hag's face, an exaggerated
monstrous take on aging women, and the body of the
model playing the role in this film, it brings to
mind larger trends in folklore, mythology, and more. As we've

(01:35):
discussed on the show, older depictions of the Greek monster
Medusa were entirely monstrous, but later traditions and certainly modern
traditions often depict her with a monstrous head atop an
otherwise alluring humanoid body. We can also look to the
tradition of yokai and yuri in Japanese folklore, in which
such figures are prone to draw men in and then

(01:57):
frighten them with a shocking reveal. The kuchasaki Ona reveals
the monstrous mouth between beneath her surgical mask, and the
Noperabo reveals the complete smooth flesh absence of a face entirely.
Okron's unmasking either meats or subverts expectations, depending on where

(02:18):
you're coming from. There's also something to be said for
a figure that combines imagery of both a youthful woman
and an old woman, or of the living and the dead.
Consider the Nordic goddess Hell, who is often depicted as
half blue, half dead, signifying her connection to the underworld.
In neopaganism, we have the figure of the triple goddess,

(02:41):
composed of maiden, mother, and chrone archetypical stages of the
feminine life cycle. We also encounter various myths and folk
tales in which an aged witch takes on the likeness
of a youthful beauty, as well as the reverse, in
which a goddess in the form of a maiden or
mother takes on the eyes of a crone or hag.

(03:02):
In some cases, these dueling forms are linked to the
cycle of the seasons and the resurrection or rejuvenation of spring.
Not to say that Okron is directly tied to any
of these ideas, but the convergence of images cannot help
but invoke much older modes of symbolism As an aside,
the young lady or old hag image is a popular

(03:24):
optical illusion. When viewing the illustration, it may look like
either an old woman's side profile looking down or a
younger woman facing away from us. Your brain can see
either image, but not at the same time. Tune in

(03:45):
for additional episodes of the Monster Fact each week. As
always You can email us at contact at stuff to
Blow your Mind dot com. Stuff to Blow Your Mind
is the production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts for my
heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or

(04:07):
wherever you listen to your favorite shows.