Ladies of Horror May-hem: Theodora

~ LobaBlanca

theodora

Here we have another grand dame of the horror genre who can rightfully get away with one name, thank you. Meet Theodora…just Theodora, the avant-garde clairvoyant portrayed by Claire Bloom in director Robert Wise’s 1963 haunted house classic The Haunting.

[Loba Tangent: I know that I have rarely made reference to remakes of many of the movies mentioned in this month’s series, but I’m going to make an explicit exception with this movie. Please, please, please, for the love of everything holy in this horror-loving world, do not watch the remake of this film. It is so terrible that calling it an abomination would be a compliment. Saying that it sucked would be kind. Please. I beg of you. Don’t watch it.]

Again, many lists of horror heroines will include the primary female from this film

Ladies of Horror May-hem: Sadako Yamamura

~ lobablanca

sadako

Want to know how to be heart-stoppingly frightening without ever uttering a word? Look no further than Sadako Yamamura, the young woman of immeasurable power and fury in director Hideo Nakata’s Ringu.

I have already attributed my run-in with Asami Yamazaki as what started me on my Asian horror kick a few years ago. It was a recent re-watching of director Gore Verbinski’s American remake of Ringu that sort of re-sparked this interest and finally urged me to watch the original Japanese version. I have to admit that this was one of those rare instances in which I believe the remake…perhaps isn’t better than the original, but speaks to my Western sensibilities a bit more effectively than the original did.

That being said, when I continued to mull over the original movie, considering its impact based on its 1998 release year, I came to the conclusion that Sadako Yamamura probably would have had me curled into a neat little ball, had I seen this movie when it first came out. As it was, the visuals within the American remake freaked me out so badly that I didn’t revisit it for more than a decade.

Sadako, however, is a stunning example of how many Asian horror directors know how to pervert normal human movement in ways that burn into your brain, only to resurface at the most inopportune times. Like right when you’re trying to fall asleep. Or you need to get something out of a dark closet. Or when you’re alone at night and you need to walk through the room where the television is located…but you just can’t get that image out of your head.

Beyond her visual presence, let’s not forget that Sadako possesses a power so frightening that it defies death…and feeds a rage that can drop you like a bird hit by buckshot. While I admittedly have questions regarding some of her powers and how they manifest themselves, I cannot deny the fact that she is right up there with the likes of Carrie White when it comes to warnings against picking on those who are…differently wired.

Sadako also stands in line with my ongoing belief that sometimes what you don’t see is way more frightening than what you do see. While her American counterpart Samara Morgan came decked out in some rather impressive practical makeup and CGI flash, Sadako’s final appearance is rattling in the starkness of what she reveals. Broken, bloodied nails. Long damask of sable hair that shows nothing of her face. But that eye. That. Eye.

Edgar Allan Poe would have freaked had he seen this movie (literature nerd holla!).

I’m actually going to do something now that I’ve been avoiding up to this point with previous entries, simply because I could have wasted hours looking up video clips on YouTube for my previous ladies. However, I’m going to make an exception for Sadako, because I think it’s worth it to see just what I mean. With some amazing articulation, backward filming, and creative cuts, Sadako’s arrival is one you’d be sure to remember…at least for as long as you’ll have left once she’s finished with you.

//www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/qbj-Ihy3ncQ

Ladies of Horror May-hem: Clara Webb

~ lobablanca

clarawebb

Just when I thought that my belovedly sinister vampires were gone for good, director Neil Jordan comes in and saves them from the brink of sparkly doom with his brilliant 2012 film Byzantium. It’s only befitting that Jordan would save the species for me. He is, after all, the one who gifted me the gloriously campy cruelty I also love in vampires, with his 1994 movie adaptation of Interview with the Vampire.

At first blush, you might think that the focus of this story is on Eleanor Webb, the mysterious young woman who writes her story a thousand times over, only to destroy it as she goes along. It’s a tale she cannot tell, for its revelation will come at an expensive price to her and her mother Clara. To be fair, in many ways, this is Eleanor’s story. But to understand her story, we must understand the one who penned its beginning in the very blood that flows through both their veins.

In light of recent posts on other Ladies of Horror May-hem, I would liken Clara, as portrayed by Gemma Arterton, to a combination of Gale Weathers’ opportunistic drive, filtered through the maternal ferocity of Pamela Voorhees. She is raw and pitiless, forged by brutalities etched into her skin from places and people we will never have the opportunity to understand. They have long passed from this existence, but Clara continues, her life line knowing no natural end thanks to her own elemental sagacity.

Eleanor, who possesses a surprisingly compassionate soul in light of what she is, is the antithesis of Clara in almost every way. Her porcelain fragility and cultured mannerisms and speech amplify Clara’s coarse flamboyance, her lower-class vulgarity, the physicality, both sexual and ferocious, of everything she does. However negatively Clara might come across in comparison to Eleanor, you realize quickly that it is this way because of Clara’s fierceness. She has spent a series of lifetimes granting her daughter every opportunity possible, protecting her from every harm and threat…her penance for failing her once. Only once. But the penance she pays for that failure is far greater than even Eleanor can understand.

Just writing about Clara makes me even more appreciative of her brilliant complexity, and makes me wish I had this movie in my collection now so that I could view it again ASAP. It’s been far too long since I was excited by a vampire tale. I relish the feeling.

Ladies of Horror May-hem: Gale Weathers

~ lobablanca

GaleWeathers

And here we have another often overlooked Lady of Horror May-hem…and an even greater counterpoint to the previous two maternal mistresses of mayhem.

Whenever someone comes up with a list of top-notch horror movie female characters, you can bet your Edvard Munch mask that Sidney Prescott, the reluctant final girl from director Wes Craven’s Scream movies, will be included (and rightfully so). However, I can’t help but notice that I’ve never seen one of these lists give kudos to the other final girl from these movies…the one who apparently is sharing those nine lives that Sidney keeps tearing her way through (between the two of them, they’ve now used up eight lives…wonder what this will mean for Scream 5?).

I love Gale Weathers for a variety of reasons, from the fact that she’s played by Courteney Cox (who will always have a special place en mi corazon) right down to the fact that she is unabashed in her desires and her drive, and she makes no apologies for either. Gale Weathers is not interested in being the stereotypical virginal, placating female so often seen fit to survive pre-Scream horror movies. She is not there to comfort you. If you piss her off or slow her down, then she’s going to rip you like you’ve never been ripped before. She is not there to be your friend, and even if she does let you in, she has no qualm using you as a stepping stone if she sees the chance to rise. She does not shy away from using whatever is at her disposal to get the information she needs to put her ahead of her competitors. She is pure in her opportunism, the only attribute she holds above all else, even justice (“Do you know what that would do for my book sales?!”). However, she also navigates by an internal indebtedness that is the closest she comes to loyalty, especially when it comes to Sidney.

Unlike Sidney, however, Gale is not reluctant to embrace her part in the events transpiring around them, plowing straight into the heart of situations that most would want to avoid. Whatever it takes to get the scoop. It’s no wonder that she is the one standing right next to Sidney so many times in that final reel (spoiler!). Both she and Sidney, in fact, flip a hearty double middle-fingered salute to the dated horror tropes of what it means to be a final girl.

In many ways, Gale owes a lot to predecessors such as The Howling’s Karen White or Hellraiser III’s Joey Summerskill, other reporter grrls who put their fear on the back burner in pursuit of that shot of truth their systems craved. Gale has evolved throughout the franchise, but at her heart, she remains devoted to uncovering the last vestige of truth, no matter the peril.

Also, she rocks highlights like no one’s business.

Ladies of Horror May-hem: Diane Freeling

~ LobaBlanca

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What an interesting counterpoint draw to yesterday! Add another mother to the mix with Diane Freeling, JoBeth Williams’s matriarch in Tobe Hooper’s paranormal classic Poltergeist. This time, however, rather than unleashing a franchise of mayhem, our Lady stands against the onslaught of mayhem, unflinching in her resolve (for the most part…but she definitely deserved some of those flinches).

Strangely enough, I don’t think I’ve ever seen Diane Freeling on any list of greatest women in horror. I’m honestly stunned by this oversight. Never mind the fact that Poltergeist holds a special place in my heart as being the first modern horror movie I ever saw all the way through, Diane deserves recognition for being the ultimate defender and protector of her family.

After all, she is the one who bears witness to most of the increasing inexplicable activity and the first adult ultimately to believe that there is something happening that needs to be addressed. Even more importantly, she is the one who enters the other dimension to save her youngest child, Carol Anne, from horrors so fierce that she exits covered in unspeakably disgusting goo and marked with Bride of Frankenstein streaks of gray through her hair. Even with the fraction of horror we and the others in the movie witness coming through that portal, we can never truly fathom what she must have witnessed, all to save her child.

And, of course, it didn’t end there. Diane must fight to save her children once more, this time by herself. Surviving near violation and physical abuse, rescuing her children from a second abduction attempt by the spirit world, and ultimately coming face to face with the rotting corpses of bodies left behind by entrepreneurial assholes, Diane stands tall throughout it all, keeping her wits through the most atrocious encounters and altercations, and keeping her family together and alive through it all.

Ladies of Horror May-hem: Pamela Voorhees

~ lobablanca

mrsvoorhees

Never step between a mother bear and her cubs, and never ever fail to keep watch of a mother’s son, especially when that son is Jason Voorhees.

As pretty much most people who are even casual horror fans know (thank you, Kevin Williamson), the first killer who lit off the Friday the 13th franchise that would stretch for more than two decades was not our hockey-masked machete man Jason…but his loving mother Pamela.

Mrs. Voorhees, as played with disquieting perfection by Betsy Palmer, rained vengeance down in buckets upon our intrepid young camp counselors (the wrong ones at that, but I don’t really think she cared by that point) in retaliation for the failures of horny teens to keep her special boy safe, instead paying more attention to their own natural lust (which always seems to be the undoing of so many slasher movie victims; who knew fellow mother of mayhem Margaret White was the one funding all those teen slashers?).

Even though Mrs. Voorhees didn’t survive that first movie, she set the stage for son Jason to cleave his way through woods and more, ending up in far-flung places like New York City and…yes, even space. And, really, isn’t that all that parents want? For their children to have satisfying careers that take them unique and exciting places? Well done, Mrs. Voorhees. Jason would have made you very proud.

Ladies of Horror May-hem: Miriam Blaylock

~ LobaBlanca

miriamblaylock

I shall never cease in my sentiment about what I want in a vampire: I either want them to be cold and cruel or campy and cruel. They can be sexy and desirous with a purpose, but they must be predatory. They must be brutal, primal, invoking the ancient survival instinct that has flowed from the violating infection of each to its prey since the invocation of the species.

Miriam Blaylock is just such a creature, and one of the characters who helped form my formative ideas concerning what a vampire should be. Portrayed by the impeccably gorgeous Catherine Deneuve in director Tony Scott’s movie The Hunger, Miriam is beautiful, detached, desirous, and, to my recollection, the very first female vampire I ever saw (and remains one of the few female vampires to find her way to the silver screen).

More than that, I remember being fascinated by the fluidity of her sexuality. This immortal creature, to whom time has granted the luxury of experimentation and examination concerning things like companionship and desire. She does not allow societal taboos to constrain her. She has lived long enough to know that external expectations mean nothing in comparison to the internal needs and wants that accompany her throughout the centuries.

Even after all the years that have passed since my introduction to the Lady Miriam, I continue to see her as the quintessential example of one of my favorite iterations of vampire…more so even than her male counterparts. She personifies danger, elegance, and beauty, with a sensuality that hides the unquenchable hunger of her kind.

Ladies of Horror May-hem: Barbara

~ lobablanca

TallmanNight

Just like Madonna and Cher need go by only one name among music fans, today’s Lady of Horror May-hem is a one-name wonder in her own right. She is Barbara, the reluctant heroine of that fateful Night of the Living Dead.

I’m not going to say a whole lot about Barbara, as portrayed in the 1990 Tom Savini remake by actress/stuntwoman Patricia Tallman. If you’ve been a regular visitor here at the lair, then you already know my deep love for both this remake and for Tallman. In fact, I’ve previously written of this movie reinvention of this character:

…it dramatically improves upon the character of Barbara, giving her far more modern sensibilities and turning her into a right and proper bad-ass. I

Ladies of Horror May-hem: Kirsty Cotton

~ LobaBlanca

kirstycotton

I waffled a bit about adding Kirsty Cotton to the pot. After all, she’s sort of an accidental final girl, stumbling upon the whole sordid ordeal between her stepmother and her Uncle Frank and defeating the Cenobites with the Lemarchand’s box more by sheer luck than anything else.

It’s her second appearance in the Hellraiser franchise, Hellbound: Hellraiser II, that ultimately convinced me that she deserved a place in the running, for proving that sometimes an “accidental” final girl can become a right and proper bad-ass final girl when presented a redo.

Actress Ashley Laurence proved to be an interesting choice to bring to life the character of Kirsty. I honestly found her quite forgettable in the first movie (note: this is the second Clive Barker movie to appear this month; he and Stephen King apparently rock my socks when it comes to horrific ladies). It’s not that she was bad in the first movie; she simply wasn’t quite as interesting as the incredibly disturbing things taking place around her. I think this actually played well in her favor, making Kirsty’s survival and return both surprising and a bit exciting. So often, characters fail to make it from one movie to the next when a movie goes franchise, either because they inevitably die or the next movie’s handlers decide to go in a different direction (which is exactly what happens with the third installment of this series).

However, by bringing back Kirsty, the keepers of Pinhead and his Cenobite cronies not only create a logical bridge between the movies (rather than skewing off into a completely bizarre direction like, say, the second Nightmare on Elm Street or the third Halloween), but they also allow this formerly bland character a better chance to shine.

And do things with skin that could have gotten her cast in Silence of the Lambs. Eek.

I know that Laurence returns as Kirsty once more in the franchise. However, I’ve yet to see that movie. I haven’t made it past the third sequel…although once you see Jadzia Dax face off against a Cenobite with a video camera shoved into his head and another that pukes fire…well, there’s not really any reason to keep going. Still, I’d like to see what Pinhead has in store for our intrepid survivor. It must puzzle him to no end that she keeps escaping his attempts to box her in.

Oh, go ahead. Groan. Even I admit that was quite the tortured pun. It’s suffering was legendary, though, even in hell.

All right. I’ll stop now. No more teasing. It’s time to play. Right, Kirsty?

Ladies of Horror May-hem: Carrie White

~ lobablanca

carriewhite

If ever you wanted the perfect spokesperson for why you shouldn’t bully the different kids, then Carrie White could be your golden girl. The bullied will envy the powers she possesses to take care of her adversaries, and the bullies should view her as the ultimate warning: Leave the different ones alone. You never know what you might uncover.

Based on Stephen King’s first published novel, Carrie is director Brian De Palma’s stylized telling of the story of a timid young woman with a religiously fanatical mother who rants and raves against the assumed sins of her daughter’s flesh in the most upsetting ways. Her abusive, sheltered life at home gives her no ability to defend herself against the abuses of her school environment, and neither place gives poor Carrie respite from the perpetual haranguing from all around her.

But Carrie has a secret…and it’s a killer, to be sure.

I suppose some might view Carrie as a horror villain. I don’t. I view her as a caution that, even though most bullied kids might not have the same powers Carrie possesses, they are one small step away from crossing a similarly violent line. Although she might be fictional, Carrie’s tragic tale has resonated loudly and sadly through far too many schools in far too many locations.

De Palma’s 1976 movie also earns pride of place as another one of the best adaptations of a King novel (even if his concept of what a girls’ gym locker room is like is way too Playboy Playmates romp for reality), with Sissy Spacek slamming home her portrayal of this awkward, unlearned, damaged young woman. Spacek’s Carrie is unnerving in the duality of her innocence and power, and when the movie’s denouement rains down upon her, you both feel her devastation and fracturing, and…well, you bloody well root for what’s about to come.