Here are some of Spuffjockeys favourite movie nut-jobs…
One man and his mother. Norman (Anthony Perkins) runs the Bates motel while taking care of his sick mother who lives in the nearby house. But when Norman’s mother kills a young woman runaway (Janet Leigh) who is staying the night at the hotel, trouble for Norman begins. People come to investigate and they are off’d too. And Norman is really his…Well if you don’t know the ending; you should be ashamed of yourself.
And no, all you post modernists that might be reading this; I do not mean Canadian comic Mike “Austin Powers” Myers. I mean the almighty Myers from the Halloween series. October 31st 1978 was the night he came home to wreak havoc on his hometown of Haddonfield. Looking for his long lost sister Laurie (Jamie Lee Curtis). Up there as one of the greatest movie serial killers.
One of my favourites, he’s been chasing and killing crap teenagers at camp Crystal Lake for years. With his hockey mask on his rotting head, and sharp blood drenched weapon of choice in his hand. By part 6 for the series (Jason Lives) he was basically an indestructible zombie, and a lot harder to dispatch of. But he was eventually dragged down to hell kicking and screaming by part 9 (Jason Goes to Hell) but they’ve some how managed to get him out of Satan’s grip for Jason X, which is out in 2002. And then on to Freddy Vs Jason, which has finally been given the go-ahead. YAY!
Not your average killer, Freddy had a trick up his sleeve, he killed you in your dreams. You’d think the parents of the murdered teens would stop living in denial and finally crack on and move away from Elm Street, but where is the profit for sequels in that? Clocking in at the 7 movies mark counting New Nightmare, Freddy’s legacy is only matched/beaten by Jason, but its up to you to count the number of kills they each have.
When Scream hit the screens in…Actually no, Ghost-face is shite…
See above…
Played by Director Abel Ferrara under the name Jimmy Lane, Reno is a frustrated artist who takes his anger out on the homeless using his cordless drill, while having to put up with the crap punk band that lives next door to him. The film was caught up in the video nastie rampage of the early eighties, more to do with its sleeve than its actual content. The sleeve showed the tramp in the most notorious scene having his drilled in full colour. You don’t see those kinds of covers in the video shop anymore do you? Shame.
Leatherface and his family of similarly deranged stature, live deep in Texas. Killing any nosy folk who come wandering or looking for help. In there spare time they enjoy digging up corpses and making ornaments and furniture out of bones. Spanning 4 movies and battling some tough adversaries (Including Dennis Hopper and Dawn of the Dead's Ken Foree) Leatherface has always managed to stay alive with his chain saw intact.
Burnt to a crisp but severely pissed is ex camp caretaker Cropsy. Who because of a group of dumb kids playing a prank he ends up on fire and heavily scarred for life. Getting released from hospital many years later he returns to the camp to have his revenge, Friday The 13th stylee. His weapon of choice you ask? Good old fashioned garden shears, good for chopping off fingers and basically being an evil bastard. But I was on Cropsy’s side when I first saw The Burning, still am. You’ve just got to look and the poor sods face when he gets set on fire to begin with to feel sorry for him.
This film also contains the greatest scene in Slasher movie history, the raft massacre scene, Cropsy hacks and chops through 5 kids in under 30 seconds, but the watered down UK version of this movie does not do this scene justice. Also, The Burning notable for early film appearances by Seinfeld’s Jason Alexander and Holly Hunter.
