In last month's issue, we explored horror films that were guaranteed to drive your lady friend from your hearth and home. Now, it's the ladies' turn, as you'll see in...
By DAVE DUGGINS Last month, guys, we kinda stuck our collective foot in it…we featured an article that was blatantly biased toward the male of the species. Renfield and I agree: it should never be said that horror-wood plays favorites. We believe in beating up on everybody! So here, girls, is your must-have list of jerk repellent--perfect for the man in your life who always leaves the damned lid up on the toilet! I always seem to come around to the same films in these articles—my favorites, I guess, spring to mind first. In this case, there are three Brian DePalma films that fit the bill: Carrie, The Fury and Sisters. I’ve written about Carrie before, so suffice it to say that it’s the quiet ones you’ve got to watch…you just never know when they’ll blow up the whole high school on ya. Scene sure to make Johnny go marching home: Carrie having her first period, not knowing what the hell is going on, the other girls teasing her by throwing tampons and screaming "Plug it up!" This is the first scene in the movie, too. Heh-heh.
The Fury is more of the same, in a way, based on a John Farris novel with a similar plot. In this case, there are brother and sister espers, but the focus is definitely on the sister, Gillian. Her shtick is simple, and one all girls should be able to appreciate: if you mess with Gillian, she’ll make you bleed. She pretty much gives equal time to bleeding both sexes in this flick, but the big baddie is definitely a guy. Played by John Cassevetes (who also had a pretty hard life in Rosemary’s Baby), the heavy gets plenty of buildup, and it’s not just your average "what a jerk" kind of thing. He kills people, kidnaps psychics to use in his evil experiments for the government, that kind of stuff. He is also responsible for the death of Gillian’s brother, which of course means cosmic revenge of the nastiest sort. Gillian just sort of stares at the guy, and presto, he’s blind, bleeding from his eyes. After twitching and looking generally uncomfortable for awhile, he just explodes, flying into pieces from about fifty different camera angles. Quality stuff. Just tell your favorite homewrecker that this is what happens to people who leave dirty dishes in your sink or underwear hanging over the shower curtain rod.
Sisters stars Margot Kidder as a woman and her maybe-dead maybe-not Siamese twin. This one’s more of a screw-with-your-boyfriend’s-head movie than a blow-your-boyfriend-into-bloody-little-pieces movie. Sometimes that can be even more fun. After all, if you blow him up, it’s all over; if you mess with his head, he’ll probably be stupid enough to come back and let you do it again. The best way to capitalize on the paranoia factor in this is to pick an appropriately tense moment, look meaningfully at the man you love to hate, and say, "Did I ever tell you about my Siamese Twin?" Follow this up with a menacing grin (chew up and hold a mouthful of plain M&Ms to improve the effectiveness of this tactic), and he’s off. Done deal.
If you want to keep the psychological attack going, follow Sisters up with Play Misty for Me, starring Clint Eastwood in a rare non-Western non-Dirty Harry role as a late night jazz DJ who hooks more than he bargains for in Jessica Walter. She’s a fan of his show … his "number one fan." Watch this one with a butcher knife in your lap and stare at your man’s neck, perhaps commenting on how thin the skin looks over that big vein that pumps blood to his brain… And while we’re on the subject of "number one fans," there’s always Misery, with Kathy Bates hobbling James Caan with a hammer. Ouch. Nothing like a nice long stretch imprisoned by a woman to give a man’s life some perspective.
Or you could always go for the absurd--something so stupid on the surface that you trick the guy into thinking he’s just watching a regular bad movie. Attack Of The 50-Foot Woman could prove quite effective in that regard, with its not-exactly-realistic giant hand reaching down into the café to grab the Evil Man who Cheats on His Wife (before she becomes fifty feet tall, of course). Backfire warning: your guy may actually dig seeing Allison Hayes in that skimpy white bedsheet thing. You can counteract this with a couple of well-timed, well-placed kicks in the shins …or elsewhere, if you’re really heartless. (Check out our profile of Ms. Hayes' fright film career here.)
Of course, the crowning achievement among films designed to give guys the terminal squirmies is I Spit On Your Grave, a charming little exercise in tastelessness guaranteed to make that annoying man in your life run for the door. Here’s the tag line: This woman has just cut, chopped, broken and burned five men beyond recognition... but no jury in America would ever convict her!
Why, you ask? Well, it’s probably because those five men spent the entire first two reels torturing and raping the girl in question! Does she get mad? Hell, no, girls. She gets even. It goes beyond just ugly, let me tell you. My two favorite death scenes in this one are the guy she kills with a motorboat propeller (she tosses him out of the boat and then just kind skims over the top of his head), and the one whose … uh … well, let’s just say that the idea was there long before Lorena Bobbitt thought of it. Alternate titles for this one include I Hate Your Guts and Day of the Woman. Maybe a little shy on imagination, but they do get right to the point, don’t they? There. Now that I’ve restored balance to the universe, I can finally unwrap that widescreen DVD director’s cut edition of Robot Monster and dig in! I can’t wait to check out the subtitles in Swahili… Thanks, Dave, for getting us out of the soup with the ladies! You know, with all this relationship help we've been giving, perhaps we should start an "Advice For The Loveless" column...nah! Cheers! Article copyright Dave Duggins |
