30 Day Horror Challenge Strikes Back Day 3: Character you would kill yourself.

This was almost a tie. In my mind there have been two characters in the history of horror that stand head and obnoxious shoulders above the rest as the most odious pricks of all time. Interestingly, they’re both from movies in the Living Dead series. I was seriously considering Captain Rhodes from Day of the Dead. What an insufferable douchebag that guy was. I have a big anti-establishment rebellious bent in me, as does George Romero, so authority figures always rub me the wrong way anyway. When they’re power abusing bullies, however, they’re worse. For the record, it takes all the self control I can muster to refrain from taking any shots at the current United States political regime after that statement. This isn’t a political blog, though, so I’ll stick to the flicks. Anyway, then I realized that the question said it could not be an antagonist. While the zombies are technically the antagonists of Day of the Dead, the most direct threat to our heroes is Rhodes, making him the main antagonist. Therefore I decided to go with Romero’s other magnificent asshole, Harry Cooper.

Harry Cooper has been played twice. In the original 1968 Night of the Living Dead, he was played by Karl Hardman. He seems like a product of his times. He’s stuffy, gruff, and clearly used to being in charge. There are also racist undertones to the character, although they are never explicitly stated. While he is a jerk, you do kinda get the feeling that he is just trying his best to protect his wife and injured daughter. You can almost see where he’s coming from. Plus, I already used the original for day 1.

In 1990, Tom Towles played Cooper in the Night of the Living Dead remake. This is where the character becomes truly hate-able. Towles plays him as such an over the top asshole that he makes your skin crawl. It almost drives you crazy that you can’t jump through the screen just to kick him in the jewels. His smug smirk alone is enough to make you hope he dies. His idiotic insults, like “You Lamebrains!” or “You buncha Yo’Yo’s” just make him that much more ridiculous. He’s a coward too, as is evidenced when he hides in the cellar instead of helping even though he can hear Barbara and Ben upstairs. He believes that they should all go to the cellar and wait it out. Ben thinks they should stay upstairs. Cooper is so stuck on being right that he threatens not to open the cellar if they need to get in. He gets all twinkley eyed, grins, and says “you’re all gonna die up here.” I would have shot him myself that very moment. Not just from a “You’re a colossal dickhead” standpoint, but he is endangering the survival of the group. Later, he tries to steal the guns from Ben and Barbara. He slaps his wife. He almost gets Tom killed when he hesitates to hand him the nails. He shoots Ben when Ben tries to shoot his zombified daughter. Then, after all that, when it all starts going to hell, he runs and hides in the attic. What a complete bastard! This all works beautifully however, since the fate of his character has been changed from the original. I won’t give it away, but it is oh so satisfying.

Perhaps the worst thing about Cooper is that he was actually right. The cellar would have been the safest place. Problem is, no one would listen, naturally, to someone that’s such a complete SOB. Except for Barbara, everyone died trying to find alternatives to going in that cellar with this guy. So basically, in the end he was such a jerk that he indirectly cost everyone in the house their lives. Way to go Cooper. If I were Ben, I would have either shot you myself or thrown you to the zombies.

The character is well written, but would not have been nearly as effective without Towles’s performance. He specializes in these types of performances. This might have something to do with the fact that he plays scumbags and assholes better than anyone else in the business. Come to think of it, I can't remember once seeing this guy play a likable character. Lets take a look at his horror credits, shall we…

Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer – serial killer who rapes his own sister

NOTLD 90 – loudmouthed jerk who tries to kill the hero

The Pit and the Pendulum – lecherous strong-arm for the Spainish inquisition

The Prophecy 2 –idiotic detective

House of 1000 Corpses– small town dickhead cop

Devil’s Rejects – ghost of small town dickhead cop

The Borrower – slimy redneck, later body inhabited by a murderous criminal alien

Werewolf Women of the SS trailer – Nazi officer

Halloween (remake) – obnoxious parole board member who mocks Michael to his face

…and the list goes on. I’m not seeing a likable one in the bunch. Towles excels at making his characters as heinous and reviled as he can. He’s fine with that too. He said in an interview with killerreviews.com “There are goals you set when you accept doing any characters who are not very likable, and I've played only villains almost my entire career. And I really don't mind it, I kind of enjoy it…The objective is to enter into conflict and resolution. If I'm the conflict, why not be the best conflict you can be?” Amen Tom, and you do a hell of a job being a jackass. Your skill at raising the ire of an audience has never been more evident than it was with Harry Cooper. Well done. Prick!

30 Day Horror Challenge Day 17 - Your favorite horror film remake

I’m probably gonna catch some flack for this one, but that's ok, everyone's entitled to my opinion. A lot of people hated the 1990 remake of Night of the Living Dead. I absolutely love it though. Before you say anything, let me say that I cannot state loud enough how much I love the original. If this had been a butchering of that classic I would revile it with the same passion that I loathe the Nightmare on Elm Street remake with. What NOTLD90 (that’s gonna be my shorthand for the title from here on out) does is the same thing that some of the best remakes, like The Thing, The Fly, and The Body Snatchers, have done. Instead of completely trying to reinvent the wheel, they took the premise of the original, stayed true to the spirit of the original, but updated the attitude to fit the culture of the time it was released.

One thing that I think contributed to NOTLD90 staying so true to the immortal 1968 film is the fact that the filmmakers were so closely associated with the source material. George Romero wrote the remake’s screenplay and was one of the executive producers, along with his co-writer of the original, John Russo. Tom Savini may not have had anything to do with the original flick, but due to his effects work on its sequels he is arguably the second most important figure behind the Living Dead series after Romero. I can’t think of anyone better to take the directorial reigns of this flick. The fact that it wasn’t just some studio taking advantage of a license they own with no respect for the original (I’m looking at you Platinum Dunes) gives this film a lot more credibility than these wholesale “reboots” we’re getting from the current remake-mania.

While the basic plot and character list are the same as the original, there are definitely changes. While there is more gore and violence in the remake, I am kind of surprised that there wasn’t messier zombie mayhem with the notorious special effects master in the director’s chair. The most obvious change, though, is the strengthening of the female characters. Romero has said that he regrets writing the character of Barbara as absolutely useless, hysterical, and semi catatonic in the original. He remedies that here, turning her into a Sigourney Weaver/Linda Hamilton style ass kicker. After her initial scenes of well deserved freaking out, she becomes the most level headed one of the group. They never quite explain just how she became such a great marksman though. Hmmmm. Anyway, even Cooper’s wife is much more forceful in the remake.

What a cast they assembled for this one too! The always on point Tony Todd plays Ben. He had some mighty big shoes to fill, playing a role originated by Duane Jones, but he does admirably. He plays the character just as take charge and forceful as Jones did, but hives him vulnerability and a touch of sensitivity. The man, no matter what his role, has a commanding screen presence. The scene near the end of Ben, sitting in the cellar as the zombies invade the house and bursting out laughing when he finds those damn gas keys is one of my all time favorite movie moments. There’s also a great inside joke shot involving a crowbar that is a riff on another Todd role you may remember. Tom Towles plays Cooper. In the original, you hate Cooper. In the remake, you loathe him. In Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer, Towles was a magnificent scumbag. In NOTLD90, he’s a magnificent dickhead. His job is to make us despise Cooper, and he pulls that off in spades. Patricia Tallman (Army of Darkness, Monkey Shines, various Scifi TV series) is great as the tough as nails Barbara 2.0. Johnny, her brother, is played by genre legend Bill Mosely. It’s a very small part, but you can tell he’s having an absolute blast.

To be fair, this movie does have its faults. Remember when I talked about the female characters being stronger in this version? Judy is the exception. She basically shrieks for the entirety of her time on screen, which is REALLY annoying. Had I been in that farmhouse, I would have fed her to the zombies. Near the end, Barbara, watching the redneck zombie rodeo, throws out the line “They’re us. We’re them and they’re us.” The film is not so much Romero’s usual social commentary as it is just a commentary on mankind’s violent nature, but that was as subtle as a headshot. I think they should have left that unstated; the subtext was obvious enough without them beating us over the head with that line. It also contains the single dumbest thing I have ever seen a horror character do. When Tom and Judy go to refuel the truck, they find that it’s locked. Tom decides to use his trusty lock pick, AKA double barrel shotgun. In the original, Ben blows the lock off with a .22. That was stupid enough. Now, I realize that in horror movies, sometimes the only way to advance the plot is for people to act differently than most people would in real life. I cannot, however, imagine a person ever being stupid, panicked, or drunk enough to think that the best course of action in any situation is to SHOOT A FREAKIN’ 12 GUAGE AT A GAS PUMP!!! Come on now. What did you think was gonna happen?

The successes in the remake of Night of the Living Dead far outweigh the faults though. Savini and Romero manage to retain much of the claustrophobic atmosphere and sense of dread that made the original so great. They completely changed the ending, which in many remakes is a big mistake, but this new ending is brilliant. Overall, this is what a remake should be, everything you love about the original with a modern facelift. Two severed thumbs up. Nathan says check it out.

30 Day Horror Challenge Day 15 - Your favorite horror film involving serial killers

Rated X for “disturbing moral tone.” That, my friends, is the epitome of effective film making in the horror genre. Anyone can pack a flick with too much gore for public consumption. Only one motion picture has ever managed to just be too disturbing to release. That was the magnificent Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer. The filmmakers were even told by the MPAA that there were no cuts they could make to get an R rating. The gore isn’t extreme by our modern standards. There is some pretty gruesome stuff, but it wasn’t even excessively gory by 80’s standards. The whole tone of the flick was just too much. That’s because it is the most realistic look into the world of the serial killer ever made. I heard someone once say that the August Underground trilogy is the most realistic portrayal of a serial killer ever made. That person was an idiot. I’ll get into that some other time though, ‘cause we’re here to talk about the masterpiece that is Henry.

The film is based on the supposedly factual exploits of real life serial killer Henry Lee Lucas. I’m not going to get into the plot too much for the benefit of those who haven’t seen it. Henry is living with his old prison buddy Otis. Becky, Otis’s little sister, comes to live with them and develops a thing for Henry. Otis has a bit of a thing for his sister. Otis, by the way, is a magnificent scumbag. One night, Henry and Otis pick up some hookers. Henry kills them, and Otis decided that he wants to kill someone too. Henry sets about tutoring Otis in the fine art of serial killing. Eventually, situations arise between Henry, Otis, and Becky that will change some of their lives forever. I’ll leave it at that.

These days, when people talk about a “documentary like” approach to filmmaking, all too often it just means that they’re going to shake the camera a lot. This movie is truly documentary-like in a way Michael Moore would do well to emulate. It does not make any moral judgments at all; it only lets the events play out in front of the camera in a naturalistic way. It doesn’t elicit sympathy for the characters, nor does it condemn them. Even Henry has a certain code of ethics, skewed as it may be. He kills with no problem, but violently reproaches Otis for trying to feel up his sister. Did I mention that he’s a magnificent scumbag? Anyway, Henry doesn’t have a cute catch phrase. The deaths aren’t glossy or stylized, nor are they sanitized. There’s really not even any dramatic music or sweeping camera moves or any of the tricks Hollywood uses to add emotional gravitas to a scene. The carnage just is. Pure and simple. This is murder as real as it gets.

It is this moral ambiguity that the MPAA and many audiences at the festivals it screened at had such a big problem with. No moral judgment is passed on these characters or their actions, and there isn’t a happy ending. In fact, there really isn’t a resolution at all. Throughout the film, the murderers are not portrayed as monsters. They’re humans. The murders are shown for what they are, not dressed up in Grand Guignol style. It is the twin factors of the non-sensationalized characters and violence and the emotional and ethical neutrality that make the film so disturbing and powerful. This is not harmless, fun entertainment so much as it is a thought provoking look into the heart of darkness.

The other thing that makes this film so affecting is the acting of the three principal players. Michael Rooker as Henry is the best portrayal of a killer I’ve ever seen. He is at the same time charming, friendly, odd, and scary as hell. There are moments he just seems like another guy going about his daily life. In the next scene he’s brutalizing a family. His portrayal manages to be subtle and incredibly intense at the same time. You really do believe him. I’m sure Michael Rooker is a nice guy, but after seeing this movie I’d be a little skittish if I ever met him. He’s that convincing. Next to Henry, the other great cinematic serial killer roles, such as Hopkins as Lector, Perkins as Bates, Spacey as Doe, or Theron as Wuornos, seem over the top and campy. Even Benoit Poervorde’s outstanding performance in Man Bites Dog pales in comparison. The only other performance as a serial killer I have seen come close to this kind of complexity and skill was Peter Lorre in M. Tom Towles (NOTLD remake, House of 1000 Corpses) is great as Otis. He seems likable for a moment, and then turns into a slimy, sleazy, creepy, despicable character the likes of which are rarely equaled. In case I haven’t mentioned it, he’s a magnificent scumbag. Whereas Rooker plays the killing scenes with all the excitement of a junkie getting his next fix, Towles plays Otis’s discovery of murder with the slobbering glee of a 13 year old seeing his first pair of boobs. It’s truly terrifying. Rounding out the core cast is Tracy Arnold. She’s the only one the audience really feels any empathy for because as soon as she enters the picture we have a feeling it’s not going to end well for her. She’s fresh out of a bad marriage and is intrigued by Henry. Tracy plays her with a naivety, vulnerability, “trying too hard” bravado, and unwitting self destructiveness that will remind everyone of someone they know. I once read a review that described her as “an open wound of a woman.” I couldn’t have said it better myself.

Originally meant to be released in 1986, this movie languished on the shelf for 4 years before someone grew a pair and decided to release it unrated. Henry Portrait of a Serial Killer is a low budget wonder, and the most effective character study in the history of horror cinema. It has a heart wrenching ending that you can see coming a mile away, and it STILL gets you right in the gut. That’s skill right there. Michael Rooker got a lot of critical buzz from this movie, and rightfully so. Oh, and for the record, the 20^th anniversary 2 disc set is full of great extras and well worth owning. No, they didn’t pay me to say that, although they can if they want. Two severed thumbs up. Nathan says check it out.