Entries Tagged 'Adrienne Barbeau fucking rocks' ↓

I've talked alot about jerks here at Final Girl. Usually I'm referring to people who disagree with my opinions or don't like the things I like or something- you know, Paul Reiser fans and the such. After all, this is The Internet, and therefore anyone who doesn't think exactly as I do is a jerk.

Today, however, I want to focus on horror movie jerks. I've talked about those in the past as well, but never have I written...


Yes, my friends, there are many varieties. I'd like to get a few guidelines out of the way first: first and foremost, I'm talking about the jerks who are essentially a part of the protagonist's posse. It goes without saying that the bad guys are jerks- I mean, they kill people; and sometimes the villains have lackeys who definitely cross from expected bad guy jerkiness into wicked bad guy jerkiness- Mr. Straker, I'm looking at you. In the interests of this guide, however, the discussion is relegated to secondary characters who are purportedly on the side of "good". There, glad that's settled.



I love Annie from John Carpenter's Halloween. Perhaps it was a steady diet of "Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions" when I was young, I don't know...but whatever the reason, I generally love a smart and/or sassy mouth, especially when the person wielding said mouth is cranky (see also: Barbeau, Adrienne - Ed.). Mayhaps it's all rebellion against my 5th grade Social Studies teacher, Mrs. Nickerson, who told me that "Nobody likes sarcasm!" as I was getting in trouble for...well, for having a smart mouth borne of a steady diet of "Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions". I beg to differ, Mrs. Nickerson! I love sarcasm and I love Annie Brackett, even though she's kind of a jerk to her friends and the children she babysits...although I Lindsay kind of deserved it. Wait, what was I talking about again? Ah yes, the jerk you're smiling at despite the jerkiness, and you're kind of bummed when they die.


Friends, this variety of jerk is perhaps the most rare. Moments within their walking onscreen, you can generally tell into which category a horror movie character will fall: The Joker, The Slut, The Final Girl, etc (this is doubly true for slasher flicks). Unless there's a total a-hole making an appearance, The Joker is usually The Jerk. You'd think this was the case with Ted in Friday the 13th, Part 2...but then somehow, the goofy guy ends up not as goofy as you thought he'd be, you realize he's not a jerk at all, and guess what? He lives until the end of the movie. Coincidence? You decide! (the answer is no. - Ed.)


Oh lawd, how I loathe that Harry Cooper! He and Ben bicker throughout Night of the Living Dead- each trying to be Alpha Dog, each has wildly diverging ideas on how the group of survivors should deal with the oncoming zombies. Thing is, Ben is all cool and level-headed while Harry is all sweaty and yell-y and mean to his wife....in other words, he's a jerk. However, his plan- that they barricade themselves in the basement and wait for help- wasn't so bad. In fact, the group's numbers whittle down until it's just Ben left alive, at which time he implements Harry's plan and survives the night (and then the posse of jerks kills him anyway, so who are the monsters? - Ed.). Maybe if Mr. Cooper had been a bit nicer about expressing his ideas, none of them would have become zombie chow. That wouldn't have solved The Problem With Karen, but still.



Like the white trash gross family in Friday the 13th Part V: A New Beginning, this variety of jerk is incessantly annoying. They're loud, or they look like they smell, or they're stupid (or they're some combination of all three), and from the moment they appear you simply cannot wait for them to die so they will just shut the eff up and you will no longer have to look at them. (I like how the teeth of the F13-5 family are only rotten at the gumline. - Ed.)


I think it would probably be misery to hang around with Shelly from Friday the 13th Part 3. Come on- those "practical jokes" would be old before they even start. He's dull and kind of whiny and he's awkward, but I feel bad labeling him a jerk (even though truly, he is one) because he doesn't fit in and he just wants some friends and who's never felt that way at some point in his or her life? (not me, certainly...how dare you insinuate, madame! - Ed.) However, as I start to feel sorry for Shelly, he goes and calls Vera a bitch because she doesn't want to sleep with him, but she was really nice about it and didn't deserve it. Jerk!


Oh my, yes. These are the jerks with the guns, or the key to the truck, or something else that gives them the tiniest edge in the fight against whatever horror movie villain everyone's facing. (see also: the security guard in the Dawn of the Dead remake - Ed.) He uses his advantage as a last grasp at power in the face of the coming chaos, torturing and threatening everyone else along the way...sometimes even calling them names! Obsessed with maintaining control, this jerk will often put himself and everyone else in jeopardy with foolhardy actions just because they all said he shouldn't and HE'S THE BOSS. Captain Rhodes of Day of the Dead is such a power-mad jerk that he even tries bossing the zombies around, commanding them to choke on his legs as they eat him.


This douchebag jerk will do anything for a promotion or money. When push comes to shove, they'll push and/or shove you out of the way to get to the lifeboat. Resorting to inhumane behavior to save their own skin, they use allies as human shields (see also: Dr. Crews in Friday the 13th Part VII - Ed.), shut doors in people's faces, refuse to open doors no matter how much the person on the other side screams...they'll do anything to survive. They're the slimy snakes of the world of the horror movie jerk, and I CAN'T BELIEVE I PUT A PICTURE OF PAUL REISER ON FINAL GIRL but Burke is a shining example of Jerk #7, so there you go. (I can't believe you put a picture of Paul Reiser on Final Girl. - Ed.) I hate him with the white-hot intensity of a thousand sunburns like the one I got when I went to volleyball camp in 10th grade. (You went to volleyball camp? - Ed.)


Franklin, Franklin, Franklin. The king of all horror movie jerks- he certainly qualifies as several varieties, no? He's extremely irritating, yet for a few moments here and there you feel bad for hating him: the dude is in a wheelchair, clearly envious of the bipedariffic frolicking of his sister and her friends. ("bipedariffic" is a scientific term. - Ed.) He has a miserable life, but then he chooses to make the lives of everyone else around him- including the audience- miserable as well. Plus, he's sweaty and he clearly smells like sausage.

There you go, a little primer on Horror Movie Jerks. What did we learn today, friendos?

• If you have need of a good horror movie jerk, watch any George Romero or Friday the 13th movie. Jerks abound!
• Jerks always get what's coming to them. So much time is spent making the viewer side against this person that they're practically filled with bloodlust by the time the jerk gets killed. Seriously, when people are rooting for the mass murderer instead of you, you may want to rethink how you interact with your fellow human beings.
• Don't be a jerk!
  

At times, I'm pretty easy to please. Throw the words "TV movie", "1977", and "Lee Grant" into the same sentence and I know I'm gonna be in for a good time. I'll admit, though, I have no idea why the prospect of seeing Lee Grant makes me happy- she's always so damn cranky in every movie, but not in an Adrienne Barbeau delicious sort of way. Grant is just plain scowly and never particularly likable...maybe I like that? I don't know. Maybe she's the female J.R. Ewing for me- I love to hate her. It's very complicated, as you can tell.

Anyway, all those keywords I dig come together to bring me- and the world- The Spell, the tale of an "obese" teenager who strikes back at her tormentors with the mysterious powers of her mind.

Hey, maybe that's it! Maybe Lee Grant has mysterious mind powers, and compels me to watch her films.

The Spell opens during gym class, wear all the leotard-clad girls are picking on the oversized sweatsuit-clad Rita for being a "tubbo" (let's ignore the fact that Rita actually isn't particularly fat, shall we?). The teacher pairs up the girls for a little rope-climbing competition, and while Rita fails miserably at the task, her bitter arch-enemy Jackie has clearly enrolled in Advanced Cirque Du Soleil Theory...or, she moonlights at The Doll House or some such.

While Jackie spins and flips defies gravity and thinks she's so big, the camera repeatedly zooms in on Rita's face to the tune of several musical stings. When Jackie falls to the floor and lands in a broken heap, we can only infer that Rita has eerie mental powers.

Home life is just as much a drag for Rita as is school life. Her father also picks on her for being fat, perhaps as a way to overcome his insecurities regarding his obvious hair loss...or, perhaps, he's simply a dick. Mom Marilyn doesn't pick on Rita per se, but she's not very nice, either; then again, she's played by Lee Grant, so what do you expect? It's difficult to tell when she's not supposed to be a cooch. Rita's younger sister Chris (a little baby Helen Hunt) is pretty and popular though dim, but since looks are all that matter to this family she's the favored daughter. Sorry, Rita, it's tough being 15.

The fact that Rita is hounded by her father for being grossly overweight when she's not raises a question that pops up in my brain place, especially when friends of mine are expecting: what if you just...don't like your kid? What if you do your best to raise them right, and then they turn out to be racist, or homophobes, or Paul Reiser fans, or they hate everything you like, or they're just plain jerks? Even worse, Rita isn't really any of those things- she simply doesn't fit in with her family. Granted, her dad is a total a-hole - when his wife suggests they send their daughter to a shrink, he responds with "Or a firing squad!" - but still. You can't like everybody, and what if you don't like somebody you're supposed to? It's a depressing thought, and The Spell is probably the most depressing Carrie rip-off in existence.

Rita, meanwhile, starts to become a little more jerky by the day as she gets a little more witchy by the night, sneaking out at all hours in her finest capery to hone her telekinetic skills with the help of her mentor.

When Rita's face flashes on screen, you know that one of her tormentors is about to be on the receiving end of something or other. This is the case when Marilyn goes to visit a friend who silently chokes and spontaneously combusts as Marilyn looks on, more appalled than frightened (again, this is Lee Grant, folks).




This sequence is without a doubt the money shot of the film.

At home, however, Rita smiles serenely as she embroiders her "Hang in there, kitty!" wall decoration and remains preternaturally calm in the face of hideous nightwear.


The hijinks escalate as Chris almost drowns at a swim meet and dad is almost flattened by a car...and although Rita's not present during either incident, Marilyn begins to suspect that something's hinky with her eldest. Soon it's time for a showcase kitchen showdown for the ages!

Okay, so "for the ages" might be a bit of an exaggeration.

Okay, so "a bit of an exaggeration" might be a bit of an understatement. This is a made-for-TV effort that's fairly tame even for its time period. Again, I can be easy to please, and this bargain basement Carrie pleased me. It's little more than a pleasant 70-minute diversion, and what's wrong with that? Dammit...it must be Lee Grant and her witchy ways compelling me again. But how was I to know? It's not like she was wearing a cape!

For a limited time, you can watch The Spell on Hulu and judge for yourself if you're so inclined.

I've let it be known far and wide for a long, long time: I loves me some anthology movies. Just a couple of days ago, I introduced some friends to Creepshow- yes, horror movie fans who've never seen it. It's just. So. Good. I manage to appreciate it more and more as the years wear on, and I can't imagine there'll be a day when I don't love Creepshow. Even if "The Lonesome Death of Jordy Verrill" finally wears on my nerves (if any segment is ever going to, it's gonna be that one), I'll just have to watch 30 seconds of Adrienne Barbeau as Wilma Billie in "The Crate" to fall in love with the movie all over again. After all, she knows all the best stores.

Folks, can't I talk about Creepshow today instead of the movie I watched to fulfill my SHOCKTOBER obligation? Wouldn't you rather I go on about Creepshow rather than Creeptales? No? Well, damn you! Damn you all to hell I say! Siiiiigh...fine.

Yes, I said Creeptales. Surprisingly, it's also an anthology movie. It's available in the same multi-pack as Slash Dance and Knight Chills...and if you've read my reviews of those movies, then you can surmise that Creeptales pretty much stinks. But does it stink in a delightful fashion? That's the real question here.

The wraparound story is one of the most irritating I've ever witnessed: some doofus hunchback ghoul-types set about trying to find a copy of Creeptales, but unfortunately for them the video store is closed. Then they remember that their Uncle Munger was buried with a copy, so they dig it up, then invite all their doofus monster friends over to watch it.


I know- it doesn't sound so bad...a little corny-cute, even. But it dragged on for so long and was so full of irritating doofus chatter, I almost couldn't take it. My finger was even on the STOP button, but then at last the first segment began...in hindsight, I wish I'd pressed the button.



Elizabeth goes to stay with her much-older cousin Viola and crippled Aunt after a lengthy hospital stay. Viola has a secret: after she was raped by Elizabeth's father (yes, her own brother) she gave birth to a still born baby, and later went a bit cuckoo nutso. She kills a nosy cop and Elizabeth, then cradles her skelebaby. See? Cuckoo nutso. The end.

It did, however, feature this line, which I'm going to use with regularity whenever anyone starts bitchng at me: "You're making my gallbladder act up!"


A purse snatcher steals the handbag of a "helpless old lady"...but it turns out that the purse is a monster, and it eats him. Brief and sort of cute, but mostly notable because the snatcher is played by Tom "SpongeBob" Kenny.


A little boy is afraid of the monster in his closet. His older brother tries to convince him that there's nothing in the closet, but the monster is real and it attacks the older brother...the end. It took me longer to type this than it took the segment to play out.


Two guys are on their way pick up the sister of one of them, when their car breaks down in Tower Springs. Everyone is a little weird, but nice enough- they invite the boys to a Halloween party, blah blah blah. Their car gets fixed and they split, but on the way out of town they pass a sign informing them that everyone in Tower Springs died due to a horrible chemical spill in 1969. Egahhhhhh!

Though this segment was fairly pointless, the garb of the two guys (as seen above) made me a bit nostalgic for my junior high days. You know, being "punk" but not at all punk, and wearing lots of buttons on a tweed trench coat. Also, when they got in their car, one of them said "Come on, let's rap some more!" and then they rapped...and I don't mean they talked. I mean they rapped.


A bunch of hunters are chasing what one assumes is a werewolf- finally, one of them shoots it with a silver bullet, killing it...but it was all a dream! A man wakes up from this nightmare, all sweaty, and he promptly begins turning into a werewolf. The hunters show up and kill him before the transformation is complete.

Huh?


"Sucker" began with this shot...

...and so I thought I was in for a a music video from the long-lost love child of Bonnie Tyler, Stevie Nicks, and Stockard Channing...but no, it was just a dream wherein a woman shoots her husband with a bow and arrow.

She's awakened by a ringing doorbell, and we see that the woman is not all flowy and ethereal like her dream-persona; actually, she's a big slob. The man at the door is a traveling salesman who gives her a magic dustbuster that she can use for one day to rid her life of all the filth, which she blames on her husband. The only caveat is that she can't point the vacuum at people, and she can't use it for more than 30 seconds at a time, lest there be eeeevil consequences. In the course of cleaning her entire house, however...well, I guess she uses it longer-than-30-second intervals or something, because all of a sudden she's gained 500 pounds. By the time her husband (who's not at all the jerk she's made him out to be, by the way) gets home, she looks like this:

Then she sucks herself into the magic dustbuster, the end.

"Sucker" was probably the strongest of the bunch- the best of the worst- and it felt like it probably could have been an episode of Tales from the Darkside when the show was hobbling along on its last leg. That should give you a clue about this whole affair; I realize I've skimped on the descriptions, but there wasn't much to describe in any of these. Creeptales is a low-budget anthology flick, and the stories are middle of the road at best. The framing narrative was excruciating, and when the film cut back to it between segments, I hit fast forward.

The late Forrest Ackerman was listed as a "Creative Consultant", but I have no idea what that means. As anthologies go, this isn't enjoyably bad like, say, House of the Dead, and it certainly can't hold a candle to Creepshow or the Amicus efforts.

There, now I've written about it, so leave me alone...you're making my gallbladder act up!

Can you feel it in the air? Can you dig it? It's October, y'all! Wait, scratch that- it's SHOCKTOBER! Time to buy your fake eyeballs at the grocery store, time for the crunch of leaves and the rustle of cellophane on the boxes of Ben Cooper costumes.

Okay, so I live on the lower left coast, where the leaves don't change until January (if they change at all)...and Ben Cooper costumes are a thing of the way way past. Just let me have my Halloween-time delusions, won't you? It's the most wonderful time of the year!

The horror blogging community seems to agree, and most everybody's got plenty of tricks and treats in store for your ass this month. Behold...IF YOU DARE!

• Arbogast on Film will once again delightfully deconstruct 31 screams in 31 days
• Things that don't suck include 31 Days of Horror at Things That Don't Suck
• Cinema Suicide is posting a month's worth of Halloween trivia
• It's Shocktober Classics time at Classic Horror, new reviews every weekday
• The Vault of Horror is exploring the Naughtie Aughties year-by-year
• Get in the mood for the season with Day of the Woman as she explores the bits and pieces that add up to Halloween
• Fascination With Fear will be gettin' its quote on all month long
• Countdown to Halloween with a sweet-smellin' potpourri of bloggers at...umm...Countdown to Halloween
• Cinema Fromage is running a serialized horror story all month: Long Harvest
• There's more counting down with countdown participant The Drunken Severed Head
  

As for moi, I'm heading back to my SHOCKTOBER roots and watching & reviewing a movie every day for the duration of the month- the caveat being that I'll only feature movies I've never seen before. Old stuff, new stuff, great stuff, bad stuff, B & W, cullah, stuff I should've seen long ago but lamed out on...it's all up for grabs. I'm really excited to dive back into the daily madness. I've even got a few of my famous (to me) butt-numbing marathons planned. And other stuff.

Whether you're a brother or whether you're a mother a reader or a blogger, there's not doubt: SHOCKTOBER is the best time to be a genre fan!

Okay okay okay...you guys...I had the best dream last night. See, it was about Jack the Ripper, right? Well, in a way it was. Okay, so, the cops were chasing him across London Bridge...and I know that London Bridge isn't anywhere near Whitechapel, but it was a dream, so gimme a break! Anyway, the cops were chasing him and they shot him and he fell into the Thames...only on the way down, this, like, big rock from the bridge came loose and it, too, fell in the river. And yes, I know that Jack the Ripper was never shot, but again...dream. I mean, I've never met Madonna either, but this one time I had a dream that we sat next to each other on the bus, so clearly in Dreamworld anything goes.

Then, all of a sudden, I was in freakin' Arizona! And it was 1985! Dreams are so crazy, lol. Soooo, there was this, like, recreation of an English village or something, except it wasn't very English-y...you know how it is when, in your dreams, you know it's supposed to be something even though if you were awake you'd be like, "Okay, this is not at all like it's supposed to be!"? It was like that. What I mean is, the English village had a gift shop with severed wax heads which, as I said, isn't very village-y, but I remember seeing a sign so I guess it was a village- or at least the Arizonian concept of an English village. But I'm getting off track!

Okay, so London Bridge ended up in the Arizona fake English village. Like, they shipped it over stone by stone...which seems like a really stupid idea, I know. And you're all "Okay, now I know it was a dream!"...but dudes and dudettes, the whole bridge thing really happened. I remember reading about it on The Internet, which I guess is how it leaked into my dream. Weird, right? But it gets weirder!

So, remember that stone that fell into the Thames alongside Jack the Ripper? Yeah, well, the next thing you know, it was found, brought to Arizona, and put in place on the bridge. Next thing you know, someone's bleeding on it- I know, kooky!- and I remember, like, a puff of smoke or fog or some shit and POOF. Jack the Ripper was alive again, in Arizona! I know, it totally doesn't make sense, but there you go.

The best part about this dream, though, was that there were so many cool people there...like Clu Gulager and Rose Marie and Randolph Mantooth and Stepfanie Kramer of television's Hunter and Adrienne freakin' Barbeau! The last time I had a dream featuring all those people, it was like I was a contestant on some game show that was like a cross between Hollywood Squares and Press Your Luck. I was about to win BIG MONEY, but then I woke up. I hate that! Last night, though, my dream went on and on AND ON...and David Hasselhoff was there, and he was a cop who was all "troubled" because he shot a kid who'd robbed a store- Hoff thought the kid was carrying a gun, but it turned out he was actually holding a can opener. Ha ha, dreams be so crazy!

Anyway, the dream was exceedingly boring and stupid and not scary and most decidedly NOT a nightmare, but right before I woke up David Hasselhoff got into a fist fight with Jack the Ripper, so I guess that was cool. Plus, I was sleeping anyway- and what else is there to do while you're asleep then have stupid dreams?

Oh God...that was no dream...that was really happening!