Women In Horror: Evil Queens

I'm comin' at you again straight from Venus with more of Women In Horror Month! In a genre that has been decried frequently as misogynistic and exploitative (for several very good reasons), it is good to step back and appreciate the positive influence of the many Final Girls and strong female characters that seek to combat the deeply rooted sexism of the film industry.

This kind of change always comes about from fringe movements and what is horror if not fringe?

But power goes both ways. Final Girls are a force for good but evil has strength too. Sure, it's terrible to portray women as villains because of some misogynistic reason like "hysteria" or "periods" but in the interest of equality, it is important to explore the dark sides of all human beings: male, female, or otherwise.

It is with that in mind that I bring you the

TOP TEN FEMALE HORROR VILLAINS

#10 Katie (Paranormal Activity, Paranormal Activity 2, Paranormal Activity 3, Paranormal Activity 4, Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones)

Played By: Katie Featherston

What began as a cheap found footage shocker quickly became a genre mainstay on the strength of its ridiculous budget multiplying powers. Katie Featherston, though the protagonist of the original film, has been the only returning cast member to appear in all four sequels (because let's face it, The Marked Ones was a sequel). Her parts are usually in the final ten minutes, aka the scariest and most ridiculous parts. And hence, she ends up on the list! I love dumb horror franchises! Thank you Katie for being compelling enough the first time around!

#9 Kayako Saeki (Ju-On, Ju-On 2, The Grudge, The Grudge 2)

Played By: Takako Fuji

If I had no restraint, this entire list would just be J-Horror ghosts. It's some scary crap, man. And although the Ju-On/Grudge series was frequently haphazard and repetitive, the scare scenes always pack a punch thanks to Kayako, the ghost of a murdered wife who seeks revenge on all who enter her house. I always end up thinking about the final scene in Ju-On at the most inopportune times, like when I'm walking to my car at midnight or climbing up the dark stairs to my apartment.

#8 The Flesh Eating Mothers (Flesh Eating Mothers)

Played By: The Director's Neighbors, Probably

I just had to. Flesh Eating Mothers is one of those terrific bad movies that nobody seems to have heard of, but I think its definitely worth a look for any connoisseur of the form. Mothers are infected with a virus that makes them eat their children in the most hilarious way possible. Check it out. Nobody likes kids anyway.

Maybe they're the heroes.... Something to think about.

#7 Mary Lou Maloney (Hello Mary Lou: Prom Night II)

Played By: Lisa Schrage

Burnt up prom queen? Reminds me of something, but I can't quite put my finger on it.

The one place you'd never expect that plot element is in the Prom Night series, which set off to be a totally run-of-the-mill slasher franchise. However, it was quickly derailed by the gorgeously evil majesty that is the ghost of Mary Lou. She sent the franchise shooting off in a wildly different direction that makes it one of my favorite minor slasher series to this day.

#6 Mrs. Voorhees (Friday the 13th)

Played By: Betsy Palmer

Played to the nines by a woman who only agreed to be in a movie she thought was a piece of crap so she could afford a new car, Mrs. Voorhees is the woman who is responsible for the entirety of Jason Voorhees' career. The original villain of Friday the 13th, she breathed life into a dull third act with her soap opera caliber histrionics and her utterly terrifying schizophrenic taunts and wails.

#5 Angela Baker (Sleepaway Camp, Sleepaway Camp II: Unhappy Campers, Sleepaway Camp III: Teenage Wasteland)

Played By: Felissa Rose, Pamela Springsteen

Psssh. Sleepaway Camp. Obviously a rip-off of my beloved Friday the 13th, right? That's what I thought at least. But it's so much more. I'm not really a fan of anything but the ending of the first one, but the sequels mine some really solid and delirious slasher territory and are fairly unique in that there is never even a shred of doubt about who the killer is. The tension is always about what the hell she's going to do next. And how poorly she will be acted. Good times.

#4 Annie Wilkes (Misery)

Played By: Kathy Bates

You knew this was coming. Kathy Bates has nailed a wide variety of roles, but one of her best is Annie Wilkes, the obsessive recluse who traps her favorite author in her secluded home and forces him to write another sequel. So, basically, what any of my peers would gladly do to J. K. Rowling.

#3 Sadako Yamamura (Ringu, Ringu 2)

Played By: Rie Ino'o

The ghost of a young woman with telekinetic powers who was drowned in a well, Sadako does super cool and exciting things like terrorize people who watch her magic tape and crawl out of TVs. I love J-Horror, you guys. I have yet to see it, but I'm very excited to watch Sadako 3D, where she haunts YouTube. Sounds like a good time for the whole family.

#2 La Niña Medeiros ([REC], [REC] 2)

Played By: Javier Botet

Unfortunately, this terrifying vision was played by a man so she doesn't quite deserve the top spot despite being the single most terrifying thing I've ever seen in the most terrifying scene of my favorite horror movie in the entire universe. But she couldn't not be here, as anyone to whom I have shown [REC] (which is everyone) could attest.

#1 Drusilla (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel)

Played By: Juliet Landau

The Medeiros girl had to be bumped, but there's nobody in the world who could take her place but the magnificent Drusilla. Played to the ends of the Earth by Juliet Landau, Drusilla is an utterly sympathetic character driven to insanity by Angelus, the dark side of Buffy's hunky vampire boyfriend. And despite being lovably addled, Drusilla is made of white hot evil, even more pure than her punk boyfriend Spike. She ends up dominating every episode she stars in, so much so that they had to get rid of her lest the show solely revolve around her exploits.
Word Count: 1065

Census Bloodbath: A Nightmare at Hamilton High

If you're new to Census Bloodbath, click here.

Year: 1987

Director: Bruce Pittman

Cast: Wendy Lyon, Louis Ferreria, Lisa Schrage

Run Time: 1 hour 37 minutes

MPAA Rating: R

This movie exemplifies why I love the Prom Night series. A solid seven years after the original, which was a fairly solid but bland slasher, Hello Mary Lou: Prom Night II comes screeching into the mix, throwing around a myriad of paranormal incidents and downright bonkers effects sequences that are completely 100% divorced from the idea of Jamie Lee Curtis' friends being picked off one by one.

Whereas Prom Night was more of a riff on Halloween, Hello Mary Lou owes just as much to A Nightmare on Elm Street as it does to Carrie. It just goes to show that after Wes Craven came along to put in his two cents with his phantasmagoric special effects masterpiece, all the big slasher franchises made wild right turns to follow suit.

The only character from the original that returns is Hamilton High School (Although it is played by a different building. The original let fame get to its head and had an outrageous asking price.), which we revisit during Prom Night 1957. Don't you dare forget that. 1957. 1957. 1957. It's 1957. There. You have just experienced the written transcript of the first scene. 

Mary Lou Maloney (Lisa Schrage) is a maneating vixen and has no qualms about leaving her prom date, Billy, in the dust to go make out with Buddy Cooper behind the stage ("It's not who you come with. It's who takes you home." - Literally the only tie-in with the original aside from the name of the high school). Billy gets jealous and decides to get even by releasing a stink bomb from the rafters as Mary Lou is being crowned Queen of the 1957 Prom.

Unfortunately things go awry and Carrie White Mary Lou accidentally burns to death before she can wear her crown. Cut to Vicki Carpenter (Wendy Lyon), an innocuous Hamilton High student, thirty years later. Although there is no title card to tell us that it's 1987, her hair gets the job done.

Thanks for the heads up.

Her mother is a devout Christian woman who doesn't tolerate such heathen things as motorcycle boyfriends and brand new prom dresses, the former of which Vicki has, and the latter of which she wants.

When her mom puts her foot down (she can't get money from her dad because he cosigns checks with his wife like a fool), Vicki goes to search the prop closet of the school drama department. Instead of finding an assortment of battered cutlery, an out of tune piano, and 800 trench coats like you would if you searched my high school drama department's closet, she finds an old trunk with memorabilia from PROM 1957 !!! !!! !!!

When her friend Jess (Beth Gondek) breaks one of the jewels off of the crown, she unwittingly releases the ghost of Mary Lou Maloney, who promptly strangles her with a prom cape (this is a thing in Canada maybe) and makes it look like suicide. Oh, and Jess is pregnant. Yeah, that happened. Things just got real.

Now that she's out, all Mary Lou wants is three things: revenge on the man who killed her, who is now the principal (Michael Ironside, an actual actor! What?), the title of Prom Queen, and a brand new body to celebrate in.

Poor sweet Vicki is slowly going insane with hallucinations of Mary Lou as she tries to possess her body. She is becoming more rebellious against her mother as the downright sacrilegious (and F-bomb spewing) Mary Lou starts winning the battle.

Also Vicki's friends die sometimes because this is a slasher movie after all.

Real quick, here's the Meat: Kelly (Terri Hawkes), who has a valley girl accent, pastel eyeshadow, and a mean demeanor (I was super confused, because in the previous film I kept mixing up Kelly the bland one with Wendy the evil one. As soon as I got that straight, this was thrown into the mix. Not cool, guys); Monica (Beverly Hendry), Vicki's best friend who laments not finding a date to the prom in the middle of shooting down a boy; Craig (Louis Ferreria), the motorcycle-riding principal's son who is also Vicki's loving boyfriend; and Josh (Brock Simpson, who played Young Nick in the original Prom Night), the lovable A.V. nerd.

A moment of silence for the death of the A.V. Club. Apple has ruined high school for us all.

That was a lot of words. Here's a picture of a scary horse to spice things up.

I'm sorry I'm still on plot summary, but this movie endlessly fascinates me.

Mary Lou finally accomplishes possessing Vicki through a variety of special effects setpieces (including a Water Fountain of Blood, a weird cockroach-filled dystopian lunchroom, a whirlpool chalkboard, and Evil Volleyball.) and the new Vicki spouts 50's slang and oozes sexuality.

Maybe this is a good time to mention her four minute nude scene. Maybe not. OK, I'll wrap up quick. Mary Lou and Billy are trying to kill each other, and Craig is trying to save Vicki and get rid of Mary Lou for good. 

Things get super weird and Mary Lou kills a series of people and rigs the election, but before she can be crowned Bill shoots Vicki's body, at which point Mary Lou's corpse bursts out of her skin to attack the prom and kill Craig but his father shows up to give Mary Lou the crown and they make out and she fades away and then her grave explodes and then there's a tacked on shock ending.

Whoops, spoilers.

Ain't no thang.

Do I even need to mention the performances are mostly bad? I haven't been noting that in these reviews, I just figured that was a given. Likewise, the directing has lost its personality and spark. Although there is a clear predilection for looming shots of buildings, the forces behind the camera feel mostly anonymous. Fortunately, it's what's in front of the camera that's important.

Like this little beauty.

Watching the film over again makes me wonder if I should include A Nightmare on Elm Street in my body count calculation because this film clearly murdered that one and rifled through its pockets. Vicki is attacked by bedsheets, Mary Lou scrapes her nails against a locker like Freddy's claws, the hanging scene is exactly like Rod's prison cell, and the plot is also eerily similar to the sequel, Freddy's Revenge in which Freddy takes advantage of a boy's burgeoning sexuality to take over his body and murder people.

The clincher? The science teacher is named Mr. Craven.

Right through the heart.

With the religious undertones of Carrie and the everything of Nightmare, this film could easily be a ripoff but it has so much energy and kooky charm that it plays it off perfectly.

Although there are spurts of post-Jason Lives meta comedy (a Linda Blair reference, a funeral sermon mentions the negative impact of violent movies), this movie plays it straight, much to its benefit. It is so much more fun when your stupid movies spend more time being stupid than making fun of their own stupidity, although I do love myself some meta humor.

It's cheesy, it's fun, and Schrage eats it up despite her limited screentime. There's a scene where she goes to confession and it's honestly one of my favorite cheesy movie scenes in the entire world. She's gorgeous and hammy and perfect, embracing - and embodying - how loopy the whole thing is and when I said Hello Mary Lou, I had to say Goodbye Heart.

It's a Prom Night I want to remember forever.

Cassidy: "Why does something have to blow up at the end of every 80's movie?"

Killer: Mary Lou Maloney (Lisa Schrage)

Final Girl: Vicki Carpenter (Wendy Lyon)

Best Kill: A girl hides in a locker, but is crushed into a jelly. A wop bop a loo bop, a lop bam boom.

Sign of the Times: Ladies and gentlemen... Jess.

Scariest Moment: This freaking rocking horse

Weirdest Moment: Vicki (possessed by Mary Lou) makes out with her dad.

Champion Dialogue: "She looks like she's in a fashion coma."

Body Count: It's hard to tell because the ending is a little wonky, but I can feel pretty confident saying 8, counting Mary Lou.

1. Mary Lou burns to death at her prom.
2. Jess is hung by a prom cape.
3. Buddy is stabbed in the face with a crucifix.
4. Monica is crushed inside a locker.
5. Virginia is blown through a glass door by telekinesis.
6. Josh is electrocuted through a computer.
7. Kelly is impaled by a falling light.
8. Principal Bill is possessed by the spirit of Mary Lou. 

TL;DR: Hello Mary Lou: Prom Night II is weird and wonderful.

Rating: 7/10

Word Count: 1477

Reviews In This Series

Prom Night (Lynch, 1980)

Hello Mary Lou: Prom Night II (Pittman, 1987)

Prom Night III: The Last Kiss (Oliver/Simpson, 1990)

Prom Night IV: Deliver Us From Evil (Borris, 1992)

Prom Night (McCormick, 2008)