By Ashley
Last week, Andreas posted his first five favorite horror movie characters and now, after a brief setback, I’m happy to present my own!
25) The Dancing Corpse (Evil Dead II: Dead by Dawn [1987])
Because why the fuck not? Seriously though, what is better than the decapitated corpse of Ash Williams’ girlfriend rising from the grave to treat viewers to a macabre pseudo-ballet? When Linda’s giggling head joyfully rolls back onto her neck and she starts pirouetting around, the movie is very knowingly walking the line between horror/comedy and self-parody. Up until this moment, Evil Dead II is just a remake/reminder of Evil Dead I but then BAM, a corpse is dancing and it really sets the stage for the bizarre comedic set-pieces that follow. And it’s damn fine stop-motion to boot!
24) Rhoda (Patty McCormack in The Bad Seed [1956])
The Bad Seed was one of the first maternal madness movies I ever saw and it struck a major chord with me (obvi). Rhoda terrified me—all blond pigtails, wide eyes, and murderous rage. I was totally sucked in by her precocious psychosis and how effortlessly she manipulated the adults around her. Why is this little girl the very embodiment of evil? The best explanation the movie gives us is some shoddy science: Rhoda’s maternal grandmother was a serial killer and this tendency skips a generation. Ultimately, Rhoda gets bitch-slapped by the heavy hand of morality; as my dad quipped darkly after she was struck by lightning, “God got her.”
23) Lynda Van Der Klok (P.J. Soles in Halloween [1978])
I’ve discussed, at length, my love for Lynda Van Der Klok. It has very little to do with Lynda’s character and everything to do with how fucking much I love P.J. Soles; she has the amazing ability to breathe charismatic life into dim-witted, shallow, catty characters. She helps these characters become more than your typical horror movie meat-bags. Lynda Van Der Klok is self-centered, vain, vapid, and isn’t apologizing for shit, and goddammit, I love her for it.
22) Rhonda (Samm Todd in Trick ‘r Treat [2007])
You know, sometimes you’re just down for some good old-fashioned revenge. I watched Trick ‘r Treat for the first time in the beginning of October and it was perfect. It was so goddamn perfect that I wanted to punch it for being too good. It was very hard for me to pick just one character from this movie because, God, they’re all so fucking awesome. But Rhonda holds a special place in my heart: the sweet savant who gets cruelly tricked by her little bitch classmates. And then, when real scary shit goes down, does our girl Rhonda take the moral high road and prove herself better than her classmates? Fuck no. In true Carrie style, she leaves them to be eviscerated by a horde of zombie children. My favorite part is how incredibly calm she is about it: she doesn’t sneer or glower or spell out to them what she’s doing or why. She just looks at them with a clear, patient face that says, “You deserve this.”
21) Uncle Charlie (Joseph Cotten in Shadow of a Doubt [1945])
I’m not shy about my all-encompassing (at times indecent) love of Joseph Cotten. There is nothing I do not love about this man. Joseph Cotten, like Jimmy Stewart, often plays characters who are superhumanly warm and good-natured. And so, just as with Jimmy Stewart, when he’s playing a decidedly unwholesome character—like the bluebeard Uncle Charlie—it brings an added chill to the table. Especially because Uncle Charlie is a deceitful mix of gentle, wholesome family man and cold-blooded murderer; Cotten switches between the two in an instant with little more than a look or a gesture. It leaves me feeling deeply unsettled because just like his ever more suspicious niece Charlie, I love Uncle Charlie. I admire him and want him so badly to be good. It’s a film that fucks hard with our feelings toward its charismatic villain.
So, boys and ghouls and those off the gender spectrum, keep your eyes peeled for the rest of our favorite horror characters! The next five from both of us should be up later this week!
