Coroner’s Corner
by John Bikowski
Scary Slasher Psychos or Why Judd Nelson shouldn’t play a mass murderer
For a slasher movie to work, the psycho must be a truly powerful, fear-inducing loon. Common fact: If I feel like I could put a hurting on the main antagonist, then the movie will not scare me. For example, in Relentless, Judd Nelson (St. Elmo’s Fire et all) goes around killing people. Ha! I would just kick him in the teeth.
Another example of a weak psycho would be Larry Drake in Dr. Giggles. This guy could easily get the old nine-iron-to-the-cranium routine from me. In major contrast, one of the scariest mainstream nuts to come along has to be Robert DeNiro’s portrayal of Max Cady in Cape Fear. Max is no pretty boy. He is cool and calculated, yet completely pissed off. I would not want to be around when this guy went on a ‘roid rage. Check out the scene with the girl handcuffed on the bed – with a tooth-gritted grin, he snaps her arms, bites a bloody chunk out of her face, and then beats her and beats her… I would not even entertain a slight delusion of grandeur in facing this guy. Three bruisers with pipes and a chain beat him senseless for five minutes only to have him get up and put a world of ass-kickin’ on them instead. Yeah… I think I would run real fast for a real long time. Therefore, I feel Cape Fear was a great film. Of course, there are many other aspects that build my opinion; but a convincingly scary DeNiro was certainly one of them.
Another lesser-known, super-savage psycho worth noting is David Hess. In Last House on the Left, he plays Krug, an ex-con who did time for the triple slaying of a couple of nuns and a priest. He has a son, Junior, who he has hooked on heroin in order to control him like a slave. Krug and his buddies escape prison, abduct a couple of teenage girls, and head out to the country roads. The captive girls are made to kiss each other, beat each other, and pee in their pants. To top off the festivities, they are cut up and shot – all to the supreme delight of Krug. Watching this guy, you would have to fear him. He is pure scum – the type who likes to be hit. If you fight back, you only add to his enjoyment. In an ironic twist, the dirt-rag crew wander to a house occupied by one of the slain girl’s parents. Once Mom and Dad catch on to what happened, they exact their bloody revenge via chainsaw, switchblade, and oral castration. Yum, yum.
David Hess also turns in a magnificent performance in House On the Edge of the Park. Here he teams up with his retarded disco buddy as they crash a yuppie party. As a viewer, you know you are in big trouble when Hess is simultaneously graphically raping a girl and strangling her to death – all during the opening credits! Things go downhill from there as Hess and buddy terrorize the would-be partyers with a straight-razor. At the film’s climax, Hess gets his when he goes from victimizer to victim via castration by bullet. The camera focuses in on his tonsils as he lets out a slow-motion, blood-curdling scream. Truly a spectacle to behold. Other hair-raising mutilators can be found in Junior and Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer.
On the supernatural side, check out The Unnameable, The Incubus, and The Grim Reaper.
