Sunday 8 February 2015

Top 7 Horror Protagonists


Ok, honestly, preambles to this kind of list is pointless, you read the title, you don’t need extra context, just read the list.

7
 Mia
   Evil Dead (2013)

The 2013 remake of Evil Dead really played with your expectations of who the hero was, placing different actions done by the original hero, who you’d be a fool to think won’t come up, over various characters at various points. Who will the hero be? The really boring brother? The Johnny Depp looking teacher guy? The helpful nurse? That other chick who’s also in the movie? Or the most interesting character to watch in the rest of the movie, despite being the main villain so far? Glad they went with the last one. Her heroic turn at the end is so satisfying because all that she went through, drug withdrawal, tree rape, demonic forced self-harm, attack from nude demon monster person, and dismemberment, she finally literally says “I’ve had enough of this shit” and solves everything in 60 seconds.


6
 The Brave Little Toaster
   The Brave Little Toaster (1987)

I think we can all admit that this is the equivalent of a horror movie for children. I found it terrifying as a kid and even as an adult, it’s unsettling. From the threatening, more up to date technology, the Jack Nicholson impersonating air conditioner that angrys itself to death, to parade of cars singing about their life achievements to choir chanting “worthless” as they get sit on a conveyer belt to their death, to that one scene (you know the one), to the song actually comparing the situations in the movie to a horror movie, this movie is just filled to the brim with creepy and it’s time that it gets acknowledgement for that. As for the actual protagonist, it’s great to see a group leader type character who, despite loving and caring about all her(his?) friends, is actually really annoyed by them. Yeah, he(she?) doesn’t take any bullshit.

5
Erin
 You're Next (2011-ish)

If you haven’t seen this movie, then you should probably stop reading after the next time I say the word, word. By that I meant the one you just read, you probably shouldn't have read the word that followed, because the real joy of this movie is discovering that, through being surprisingly skilled at fighting back, the hero slowly works up a higher kill count than all of the killers combined. Erin stood early on by being the only likable person forced to attend a dinner with a family of assholes but the sudden barrage of danger didn't faze her whatsoever, quickly coming up with solutions and eventually creatively offing all of her potential murders.

4
 The JAWS Trio
  JAWS (1975)

This one is seemed like a bit of a stretch for me because I see Jaws as kind of two separate movies, the first half, shark attack, horror movie and the second half, shark hunting, adventure movie. Brody, Hooper and Quint all shine during their bonding time on the boat in the second half of Jaws, so much so that it would feel wrong to just give this spot to Brody. Were I ever to make a list of best group of badass buds loaded with comradery, rest easy knowing this would top it. It’s a good thing that they’re not all unlikeable assholes like in the book, because that book is shit.

3
 Laurie Strode
   Halloween Series (1978-1998)

Laurie Strode is the original slasher survivor but her first appearance isn’t really why she’s on this list, the real reason is for coming back twenty years later, launching Michael Myers out of a truck and cutting off his damn head, most revenge action movie heroes don’t have that kind of devotion.

2
Ashley Williams
   Evil Dead Trilogy (1982-1992)

In the first Evil Dead Ash doesn't really have much of a personality, just some hammy reactions and flusteredness but in the sequels, like many aspects, they took this and rolled with it. Ash is just an average, down on his luck dude pushed further and further into insanity, not actual insanity as much as looney tunes insanity, which everybody knows Bruce Campbell nails.

1
 Ellen Ripley
   Alien Series (1979-1997)

I almost don’t want to justify this one, just saw “Ripley’s the best and you know it” to emphasize how much she obviously deserves this spot but I can’t help it, I have to go into it. One of the things I love about the first Alien is not knowing who’ll make it to the end, if you had no knowledge of the movie or its sequels you’d think killjoy, rule following Ripley, who wouldn't let her crewmates back on the ships wouldn’t make it but she did, oh she did. She didn't stop there either.

She does some cool shit in later, shittier, movies but I think her achievements can be defined in one line from the end of the second movie, “Get away from her, you bitch.” Why? It embodies Ripley's journey up to that point. At the beginning of the second movie her head is fucked with nightmares of the alien on the Nostromo, it takes a lot of convincing to get her to go to LV426. Also, she's a woman out of her time, she found out that well she was gone her daughter lived a full life and died (well, in the director’s cut because it’s awesome). She's an empty shell of a human being that her psyche filled with fear.

Then on LV426, she meets Newt, and Newt went through the exact same shit as Ripley (Rapist aliens and the death of everyone she knows). Ripley takes Newt and as her own and they slowly gain an admiration for each other followed by the love that is shared by a mother and a child. Also note that when Ripley saves Newt from being face-raped Newt doesn't scream 'Ripley' when jumping into her arms, she screams 'mommy'; Newt as fully accepted Ripley as her mother, as with the vice versa but Ripley shows the extent of this at the end.

Remember, on LV426 Ripley experiences her nightmares on fucking steroids, it's her own personal hell with her own personal devil, the alien queen. The alien queen is Ripley's personal fear, the xenomorph, combined with every possible primal fear she already had. Now, this beast has followed Ripley to her spaceship, ripped her robot buddy in half and she's trying to get her hands on Ripley's daughter. Ripley, who by instinct should do nothing but run from this monster has no choice but to get into the power loader, the only thing she can drive on the ship.


This is the moment where she says it. In this moment Ripley is facing the embodiment of her fear but she is not afraid, not in the slightest. Ripley is pissed, she does not care what happens to her from here on out, all she wants is to save Newt. She shows her lack of fear with a line that embodies her anger, desperation, and confidence, as she even manages to insult the beast. Ripley's powerful "Get away from her, you bitch!" echoes everything she became. That’s why I almost left this unsaid, she earned this fucking shit.

1 comment:

  1. Keegan you have made a list of some of the finest horror and thrill movies of their times. I've seen all of them and never get tired of seeing them again.

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