Mar 04 2009
Stacie Ponder - C’mon Horror Hacks, Put the “Care” Back in Character!
About ten minutes into the recent remake of Friday the 13th, as I sat munching some popcorn, I had a couple of deep, deep thoughts. First, I questioned why I was eating the popcorn, since I can barely tolerate the stuff (answer: It was free). Then I wondered if all of the characters in the movie were going to be unlikable jerks, as seems to be the trend in modern horror (answer: Yes). I don’t expect deep, rich characterization in all of my horror movies — certainly not in a slasher flick — but I don’t see why, lately, these movies are so riddled with jackasses — characters I can’t wait to see die so I’ll be rid of them forever. I miss that little twinge of sadness that comes when a character in a horror movie meets the business end of something pointy or fangy or evil ghosty and shuffles off his mortal coil. At the risk of sounding all “When I was a girl, bread only cost half a ha’penny,” let me ask — whatever happened to characters we could root for? Characters we wanted to see live to the end credits? Characters like the following, whose deaths gave me a serious case of the sads?
Eleanor Lance - The Haunting (1963)
Poor Eleanor (Julie Harris). She never had a life of her own, first caring for her invalid mother, then, after her mother’s death, moving into her sister’s living room. She answers a letter to participate in a study of paranormal activity at the very bad, very haunted Hill House and she finally feels like she belongs. She’s been selected! She’s expected! Her life, finally, is her own… until Hill House subsumes what little life she’s found — literally. Though her inevitable death is simply a sad end to a sad existence, Eleanor is, perhaps, happy at last, joining the spirits that roam the halls of the haunted house on the hill.
Carrie White - Carrie (1976)
Another heartbreaker! Another sad end to a miserable life! Carrie White (Sissy Spacek) just couldn’t get a break. The fact that she was raised by a cuckoo nutso mother who instilled nothing but fear into her and made her spend many hours praying in the Jesus Closet simply didn’t prepare Carrie for the brutality of high school. Endlessly picked upon by virtually all of her peers, Carrie found one small moment of happiness as Prom Queen right before that bucket of pig’s blood came crashing and splashing down on top of her, exposing the moment as nothing but a cruel joke. After unleashing her burgeoning telekinetic powers and destroying the school, Carrie goes home and is finally comforted by her mother — but even that moment of solace is revealed to be a lie when her mother stabs her. Nope, she couldn’t get a break, which is really too bad… with her powers she would have been a sweet addition to the X-Men.
Mrs. Kobritz - The Fog (1980)
Characters who get killed in horror movies should be horny teens, not sweet old ladies in cardigans. Killing grandma-types should simply be outlawed, and there should be a scene edited into The Fog where Mrs. Kobritz (Regina Walden) answers that ominous knock only to find Girl Scouts selling cookies instead of mean, leprous ghost sailors who wield pointy implements. Poor Mrs. Kobritz.
Dick Halloran - The Shining (1980)
If there was ever a character who deserved to bark out a “Are you kidding me?” upon his own death, it’s Dick Halloran (Scatman Crothers), chef at the Overlook Hotel. It’s sweet, the way he takes young Danny under his wing during their brief time together, giving him ice cream and teaching him all about “the shining.” But Halloran really deserves a medal for answering Danny’s mental SOS, sent out after Danny’s dad went more than a little mad. Dick leaves the warm climes of his vacation spot to return to the snowed-in Overlook, traveling for hours by plane as well as Snowcat to reach the boy. Within minutes of Halloran’s arrival, Jack plants an axe firmly in his back, putting an abrupt end to the noble rescue attempt. I always make sure to shout out an “Are you kidding me?” in his honor.
Laurie Strode - Halloween: Resurrection (2002)
I want to like Halloween: Resurrection. Really, I do — it’s got everything going for it that screams “so bad it’s good.” It stars Busta Rhymes and Tyra Banks. It’s about reality television. One of its working titles was michaelmyers.com. But Halloween: Resurrection squashed — and I mean squashed hard — any chance at love with me in its opening moments with the death of Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis). See, Laurie was one of those very rare horror movie characters who had a lifetime arc. We meet her as a good girl babysitter enduring the worst Halloween of her life, as she finds the dead bodies of all her friends before she’s chased incessantly by a masked psycho who, it turns out, is her brother. Twenty years later, in Halloween H20, we see the result of those nights on her life: She’s a barely-functioning alcoholic pill-popper plagued with constant nightmares and worry that Michael will find her again. He does, but she manages to finally kill him, and we hope that maybe Laurie will find some peace at last. Then along comes Resurrection to tell us that nope, Laurie killed someone else. And now Laurie’s crazy. And now Michael is back… and now she’s dead. It’s cheap, it’s infuriating, and no amount of Busta Rhymes could ever make up for it. A pox on your house, Halloween: Resurrection!
Help me out here- modern horror characters can’t all be jerks, can they? Who’s out there for us to care about? Whose death do you lament? Tell me — unless it’s someone swathed in a cardigan all grandma-like… then I really don’t wanna know.
A fan of horror movies and scary stuff, Stacie Ponder started her blog Final Girl so she’d have a platform from which she could tell everyone that, say, Friday the 13th, Part 2 rules. She leads a glamorous life, walking on the razor’s edge of danger and intrigue.
Source - http://blogs.amctv.com
