Sunday, February 20, 2022

Evil Bong 666 (2017) and How the Evil Bong Franchise Has Changed


Evil Bong was released in 2006. It came from the mind of prolific B-movie producer, Charles Band. I wouldn’t learn about it for another six years or so. I was writing about bad movies (I still am!), I had a bunch of ten-movie box sets (I have even more now!), and I thought that combining the two would be a good idea. Eight years ago, I dove into one of those ten-movie packs and discovered Evil Bong. Then I wrote about it, as one is wont to do.

Since writing about the first movie eight years ago, I’ve gone on to write about the second, third, fourth, and fifth movies, as well as a crossover with The Gingerdead Man. While most of them barely had a story holding things together, there were things that happened in one movie and affected what happened later down the line. Characters would come in and out of the series. Settings would evolve. Bare bones storylines would connect the movies together. And there were crossovers galore. I want to give a sort of overview of the franchise, where it started, where it ended up, and the people who were along for the ride.


It all began with Evil Bong, the first movie in the franchise. It was the introduction of many of the franchise’s main characters. Larnell, Brett, Bachman, and Alistair were the four protagonists of the first three Evil Bong flicks. Larnell was the stereotypical stoner. Bachman was the surfer stoner guy. Brett was a jock, and Alistair was a nerd. Also around were Brett’s girlfriend, Luann, and Larnell’s grandfather, Cyril. Each of these characters would return throughout the first three Evil Bong movies, keeping a world-building continuity. As would Eebee, the evil bong.

Evil Bong also introduced some important side characters into the franchise. Jimbo was Eebee’s previous owner before Larnell and his crew purchased her. He was only in the first movie, but the heroic effort he put in during the climax had a lasting effect upon future events. Rabbit, the guy who delivered Eebee to Larnell’s place, would return for each Evil Bong movie, becoming a main character along the way. Then there were the crossovers. The Gingerdead Man, Jack Deth, Ivan Burroughs, Jack Attack, and Ooga Booga all appeared in bit parts. The Gingerdead Man and Ooga Booga would return later in the franchise, as well.

These characters were the basis for the Evil Bong franchise. They would carry it from one movie to the next, and the next, and any beyond that. The main quartet of Larnell, Brett, Bachman, and Alistair stuck around for the first three flicks, helping it feel like somewhat of a trilogy. Then the main character roles would start to transition. I’ll get to that later. Eebee stuck around through the entire franchise as the primary antagonist, though she sometimes took a back seat to new antagonists through the series.

The other important element that the first Evil Bong brought to the franchise was the bong world. Every Evil Bong movie had some alternate world that the characters were transported to. Eebee, the evil bong, would transport people into her bong world whenever they smoked weed from her. The bong world was pretty much just a strip club populated by many of the crossover characters that I just mentioned. After spending some time in that bong world, people would be killed by Eebee. That was her plan. She wanted to take them to the bong world and kill them. This idea would be remixed through the remainder of the franchise.


Evil Bong 2: King Bong introduced another key character. Larnell got a love interest in Velicity. She would become a main-ish character, going forward. She showed up in the third, fourth, and fifth movies, as well as the crossover with The Gingerdead Man. The other important character introduced in the sequel was the King Bong, who I think was only in this one movie. This new bong was the primary villain of the movie.

The story of Evil Bong 2: King Bong was the result of things that happened in the first film. Larnell, Brett, and Bachman suffered from ailments caused by the events of Evil Bong. They found out that Jimbo (who wasn’t in the second movie, but was the catalyst for it) got Eebee from the Amazon. Took a trip to the Amazon to find cures for what they were going through. Along for the ride are Rabbit, Cyril, and Luann. And Alistair, of course, being one of the main four characters.

The Poontang Tribe was introduced in Evil Bong 2: King Bong. It was an ancient Amazonian tribe that created Eebee. This tribe became an essential part of the Evil Bong franchise for a few installments. They were topless Amazonian women who were all about weed and bongs. In the second film, they were the tribespeople of King Bong. They would later become the topless women within the bong world. The strip club bong world was no more. The new bong world setting was a jungle with topless women, thanks to the Poontang Tribe.

The final thing that Evil Bong 2: King Bong introduced, which would return time and time again, was the story trait of teaming up with Eebee to stop some other evil, before that “enemy of my enemy is my friend” relationship was abruptly broken. The main quartet worked with Eebee to take down King Bong, before leaving her behind with Cyril. It didn’t matter who the main characters were going forward. Whether it was the quartet, Rabbit, or anyone else, they always worked with Eebee for a bit to stop some other evil force. It was never a smart decision because Eebee would typically pull something evil on them.


When everyone was healed of their ailments, they headed home. In Evil Bong 3D: The Wrath of Bong, Brett and Bachman opened a smoke shop. Larnell and Alistair were brought in to help Brett and Bachman, who had obtained a space bong. They teamed up with Eebee, Rabbit, and Cyril to stop the space bong from doing its evil space bong thing. The relationships between Brett and Luann, and Larnell and Velicity were also given some time.

The main thing that Evil Bong 3D: The Wrath of Bong introduced to the franchise was the idea of the main characters owning a head shop. Brett and Bachman owned the head shop this time out. Larnell, Rabbit, and some others would also run smoke shops throughout the franchise. After a movie set primarily in an apartment, and a movie set primarily in the Amazon, the rest of the franchise, at least up until the sixth movie, would be set in smoke shops.

Evil Bong 3D: The Wrath of Bong was the final appearance of the characters of Brett, Bachman, and Alistair. It was the only appearance of the space bong. This was the final movie in the original era of the Evil Bong franchise, with things becoming much more fluid in each subsequent outing. That fluidity was apparent in the crossover, but would continue through the fourth, fifth, and sixth prime franchise installments.


Next up was Gingerdead Man vs. Evil Bong, which reintroduced The Gingerdead Man into the franchise. Really, it was a movie that merged the two franchises, rather than crossing them over. Larnell opened a head shop with his girlfriend Velicity. Down the road, Sarah Leigh (the main character from The Gingerdead Man) had a bakery. Larnell visited the bakery to offer Sarah Leigh a partnership. Together, they could conquer the munchies market. The problem was that they each had evil in their lives. Larnell had Eebee, while Sarah Leigh had The Gingerdead Man.

There’s really not much to say about this one. It brought in a couple characters, thanks to the crossover. Sarah Leigh and The Gingerdead Man would stick around. Larnell was still there. Rabbit, Eebee, and Luann were around. Most of the story was devoted to recapping the previous six films. There were three Evil Bong movies and three Gingerdead Man movies before the crossover. The movie made sure that anyone who missed any of the movies would be able to keep up. Storywise, though, there was nothing new being brought to the table. Aside from a possible relationship between Larnell and Sarah Leigh, which would become an issue later on.

It should be noted at this point that there were actors playing multiple roles in the movies. Sarah Leigh was played by Robin Sydney, who also played Luann. She would play Faux Batty Boop in Evil Bong 666. I’ll get to that later. I’m saying that a lot in this post. Mindy Robinson was brought into the franchise as one of the Poontang tribe girls. She would go on to play a slew of other characters, including one of the main characters in Evil Bong 666. Again, I’ll get to that.

Other characters were introduced in Gingerdead Man vs. Evil Bong who would recur through the movies that followed. A couple stoner characters were introduced who would return in almost every iteration. Orson Chaplin always played one of them, though the other one would switch actors after the crossover. An Asian couple was introduced. They would also appear in Evil Bong 4 and 5. Then there was Hambo. He was a character from Zombies vs. Strippers and Ooga Booga who appeared in a few Evil Bong movies, always trying to sell some sort of memorabilia.


You could maybe say that Gingerdead Man vs. Evil Bong was the beginning of a new trilogy of Evil Bong movies. It was the first to feature many of the characters who would appear in the two movies that followed. They were the three movies that featured Larnell and Rabbit as the main characters. Larnell took the crossover, Rabbit took the fourth, and they co-lead the fifth. The problem was that the new trilogy lost the story that the previous trilogy had.

The Evil Bong franchise took a turn in the middle three entries to become more vignette-based than actual story-based. There was a very basic story to each of the movies, but they became more about showing different scenes of people coming into the various head shops and how the main characters interacted with them. There’s not much to say about any individual entry in this part of the franchise. They kind of blended together as the same movie with very slight variations.

Evil Bong 420 featured Rabbit running a bowling alley smoke shop. Mindy Robinson was back, playing one of his employees. Another employee, Candy, would return for Evil Bong: High 5!, having sexual relations with both The Gingerdead Man and Ooga Booga, who returned for some reason. There was a family of rednecks who showed up in both those movies, as well. And there was an appearance by director David DeCoteau in both. They really were a strung-together series of vignettes of people arriving at Rabbit’s bowling alley, and later Eebee’s smoke shop where she employed Rabbit and Larnell. They were essentially the same movie twice in a row with slight variance.


Evil Bong 666 changed things up a little bit, which was a refreshing next step for the franchise. Lucy Furr (Mindy Robinson) re-opened Eebee’s smoke shop from the previous movie. She bought it in a fire sale when Rabbit (Sonny Carl Davis) got out of the business. Her thought was that she could use the smoke shop as a front to murder the patrons in the name of Satan. When she killed her first victim, a rift opened up and Eebee (Michelle Mais) arrived. She had been trapped in Sexy Hell. Lucy Furr worked with Eebee to find more victims to open that rift and meet Beelzebud (Peter Donald Badalamenti II). Rabbit tried to stop them.

The biggest change to the Evil Bong franchise to come with Evil Bong 666 was that Larnell was written out. The fifth movie (technically the sixth) saw Eebee defeated when a bunch of characters were placed in the “nothing head” of Rabbit’s brain. While Eebee and The Gingerdead Man were able to escape through Sexy Hell, Larnell was trapped. It would be too dangerous to get him out, so he was lost forever. That meant that the main character role had to switch, and it kind of went to the threesome of Rabbit, Lucy Furr, and Faux Batty Boop (Robin Sydney).

Another Full Moon franchise was tied into the Evil Bong series in Evil Bong 666. The Gingerdead Man, Decadent Evil, Ooga Booga, Zombies vs. Strippers, and Trancers had already crossed over with the franchise by this point. Evil Bong 666 brought in the Killjoy series, introducing Faux Batty Boop as one of the main characters. That character wasn’t from the Killjoy series, though she was introduced with Killyjoy characters at the beginning, and she spent some time looking for the Killjoy characters. She was also based on Batty Boop, an actual character from the final three Killjoy movies. Killjoy had a big influence on Evil Bong 666.

Evil Bong 666 was a step up, in terms of story, from the few movies that came before it. There was still a slight feeling of vignettes, with the two stoners showing up, and a couple women showing up at the smoke shop for the sole purpose of taking their tops off. That stuff was very reminiscent of the second Evil Bong trilogy. But the thread that brought it all together was a little stronger. It wasn’t simply that the guys had to run the shop until they made enough money to trade for the women. The story was more than the day-to-day operations of the smoke shop. People were being taken to Sexy Hell to be sacrificed to Beelzebud. Faux Batty Boop was looking for some other characters. Beelzebud was trying to bring all the Sexy Hell demons to Earth to take over and make a planetary orgy. Eebee was caught in the middle of it all. There was more to grasp onto.

Also helping to make the story feel more like a story was the newest important character to be introduced, Gingerweed Man (Brooks Davis). He was a creation of Rabbit and Eebee, constructed to go to Sexy Hell and stop Beelzebud. They wanted him to save Faux Batty Boop and Misty (Jessica Morris) from the gross orgy and potential sacrifice. He was a little bit Gingerdead Man, a little bit weed, and a whole lot of fun, new character. I say he’s important to the series because he would end up getting his own spin-off movie. It’s only a matter or time before I get around to covering that one.


Over the course of six Evil Bong movies, many characters have been introduced and written out. There was the trilogy of films where Alistair, Brett, Bachman, and Larnell were the main characters. Alistair, Brett, and Bachman left the series and there was a trilogy of films where Larnell and Rabbit took center stage. The bong world went from strip club to jungle, before being put aside completely for Sexy Hell. Many characters from other Full Moon franchises appeared, franchises that included Killjoy, The Gingerdead Man, Decadent Evil, and Strippers vs. Zombies. The stories transitioned from stopping various evil bongs to vignettes while Eebee and The Gingerdead Man did their thing, to fighting against Beelzebud in Sexy Hell. It was a franchise that was always fluid in its storytelling and characters. People and beats moved in and moved out on a regular basis. It never stayed the same for too long.

I’ve now seen seven different Evil Bong movies for Sunday “Bad” Movies. Six of them were entries in the main series. The other one was a crossover with The Gingerdead Man. There are still two movies to watch, which I’ll be sure to get to at some point. There’s still Evil Bong 777 and the spin-off The Gingerweed Man. Will they continue the trend of fluidity in the franchise? Will they cut that short and do nothing new? I won’t know until I see them. I don’t know when that will be, but it will happen. I can be sure of that.


I can also be sure that I’m putting notes here:

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Monday, February 14, 2022

Say It Isn't So (2001) and Incest in Movies


Before I get into the post, I want to give a warning. There may be some sensitive, triggering material in this post. I won’t be getting too deep into that material. I understand if you choose to avoid the post, however, because I know it can be a sensitive subject. That subject is incest. This post will touch upon familial sexual relations, due to the story of this week’s movie. And I’ll be mentioning other movies that involve incest because, well, I feel the need to point out how the film industry seems to have a strange addiction to incestual stories. Consider yourself warned. Now let’s get into the post.

Over the past couple years, I checked out a bunch of the teen and college movies from the turn of the century. You know, those movies with Freddie Prinze Jr., Joshua Jackson, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Jennifer Love Hewitt, and all those people. There were a whole bunch of movies that fell into that group. Some of them were horror. Some of them were romantic comedies. Some of them were sports movies. There was even a western or two tossed in there. There were the big ones that everyone still remembers fondly, like Scream and She’s All That. There were the slightly off-the-beaten-path ones like Down To You, Wing Commander, and Texas Rangers. Then there were the strange movies, such as Lone Star State of Mind, or this week’s movie.


Say It Isn’t So was one of the romantic comedies from that era that didn’t stick in the collective mindset the way that other movies did. Gilbert Noble (Chris Klein) was an animal control guy in a small town. He fell in love with Josephine Wingfield (Heather Graham), a barber who just returned to town after a breakup with her boyfriend Jack Mitchelson (Eddie Cibrian). As soon as they consummated their relationship, Gilbert discovered that his birth mother was actually Josephine’s mother, Valdine (Sally Field). Josephine ran back to Jack in shame as Gilbert lived his new life with the Wingfield family. On the eve of Josephine’s marriage to Jack, Gilbert discovered that Valdine’s real son was Leon Pitofsky (Jack Plotnick). Gilbert then set out to win Josephine back before she could marry Jack.

That may have sounded a little complicated and convoluted. It was. It basically boiled down to this. Two people hooked up, found out that they were siblings, separated, then found out they weren’t really siblings. That was the basis for a wacky romantic comedy. Oh, how strange the early 2000s were. A studio thought that a romantic comedy based around incest was a good idea. They thought that people would want to watch a movie about mistaken incest, which also included a man putting his hand up a cow’s butt, and some very questionable humour involving a disabled man. Woof.


The thing is, the movie business seems to always have an interest in stories that include incest. There’s something about using incest as a form of dramatic tension, whether as a joke, or as some sort of twist, that piques the interest of people making movies. Filmmakers like to sprinkle it into their stories because it will shock the audience. It will make them remember the movie. Incest is a taboo and taboo is a hot topic.

Say It Isn’t So wasn’t even the only teen or college comedy from that time to use incest as a story point. I brought up Lone Star State of Mind a little bit ago. In that movie, the main character was in love with his stepsister. A lot of wacky, dark comedy hijinks ensued before he could finally be with her, in love, happily ever after. That might not technically be incest since they aren’t blood related, but it’s still a weird, borderline incestual situation. Eurotrip also touched on the idea of incest, utilizing it as a joke. Brother and sister twins got a little drunk at a club in Bratislava, Slovakia, and ended up kissing. They didn’t realize for a few seconds and were rightfully disgusted by it when they noticed who they were kissing. One of the other characters made fun of them for it.

One of the more serious teen movies from that era to use incest, or that same borderline situation as Lone Star State of Mind, was Cruel Intentions. The movie was about people being terrible people and manipulating their peers for their own amusement, but that almost incest was at the center of the story. There was a bet about whether the stepbrother could sleep with a specific student. He was offered sex with his stepsister if he was able to do it. Sex between a stepbrother and stepsister. Not blood related, but still weird.


Horror movies have also focused on incest a little bit more than you might think they should. The taboo topic of incest is a horrific concept, so tossing that into horror could make things even more horrific. Two months ago, I covered a movie called Silent Night, Bloody Night. That movie had a twist near the end where all the murders taking place within the house were the result of a father’s incestual love for his daughter. This physical relationship led her to have a child. The child was given away to hide the secret, the daughter was placed in an asylum, and she was killed during a patient uprising. The father was lashing out and taking his revenge for her death.

Another horror movie that touched on incest was Amityville II: The Possession. I haven’t covered that yet, but I will confirm that it will be a part of Sunday “Bad” Movies this year. Anyway, the movie was a fictionalized account of the DeFeo murders, with the names changed, and added supernatural elements. The murderous son, who was possessed by a demon in the movie, had a close relationship with his sister. After being influenced by the demon, he went one step further and had sex with her. It wasn’t just incest. It was incestual rape. All to shock the audience.


Moving on from horror, some movies just use incest as a surprise twist. I’m not going to name any movies because the ones that first come to mind are great movies. One of them involved a man who was imprisoned for over a decade being released and seeking vengeance on the people who kept him captive. The other was about two siblings who sought out their family history following the death of their mother. By the end of their respective stories, you saw that the key to everything was incest. It was the most important part, the twist that brought everything together. A sexual relationship between family members.

The final thing that should be discussed is porn. There is a lot of porn devoted to incest fantasy. I’m not entirely sure how that came to be. There are a lot of son and mother porn flicks, a bunch of father and daughter porn flicks, and many, many brother and sister porn flicks. Obviously, they aren’t real. That would be against the law. But there is a hell of a lot of fictional porn that depicts a sexual relationship between family members. Or between stepfamily members. For whatever reason, that gets people off. Incest is a huge deal in porn.


Say It Isn’t So was one of many movies that made me wonder why movies have such a big fascination with incest. The movie was based on the idea that a man may have slept with his sister, not knowing it at the time. It was about trying to win back the woman when he found out they weren’t actually related. People constantly made fun of him for hooking up with a woman they thought was his sister. The whole movie was incest jokes while a character tried to let people know it wasn’t incest. It was one of those movies that showed the movie business was really hung up on one specific taboo.

There’s a strange obsession in the movie business with the idea of incest. Numerous movies tie the idea of sexual relationships between relatives into the story. It could be the story itself. It could be one plot point within the story. It could be a joke, a scare, or a twist. It could even be a sexual fantasy played out on screen for viewers to beat their meat to. Incest has worked its way into much of the fiction people take in. And I find that to be a little strange.


A little less strange are these notes:

  • I brought up Silent Night, Bloody Night (week 472) and Wing Commander (week 394) in this week’s post.
  • Say It Isn’t So put C. Ernst Harth into the five-timers’ club, following his appearances in Space Buddies (week 270), Dudley Do-Right (week 336), Scooby-Doo! The Mystery Begins (week 390), and The Search for Santa Paws (week 420).
  • Richard Riehle was another actor making his return to Sunday “Bad” Movies in Say It Isn’t So. He was previously seen in Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo (week 20), Dorm Daze 2: College @ Sea (week 40), and The Search for Santa Paws (week 420).
  • Lin Shaye had a small role in Say It Isn’t So. She also had roles in Surf School (week 42) and Big Ass Spider! (week 61).
  • Another three-timer was Daniel Boileau, who was in Ghost Storm (week 97) and In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale (week 220).
  • Finishing off the actors who now have three appearances was Jack Plotnick, who was in Beverly Hills Chihuahua (week 70) and Ground Control (week 474) before this week’s appearance in Say It Isn’t So.
  • Colin Foo has now appeared in two Sunday “Bad” Movies. They were Stan Helsing (week 64) and Say It Isn’t So.
  • Brent Briscoe appeared in both Say It Isn’t So and Zombeavers (week 142).
  • Jingle All the Way (week 160) featured John Rothman, who was also in Say It Isn’t So.
  • Eddie Cibrian played Jack, Josephine’s fiancé, in Say It Isn’t So. He also had a role in The Single Moms Club (week 179).
  • Brent Hinkley was in Mom and Dad Save the World (week 186) and Say It Isn’t So.
  • You might remember Chris Klein’s facial expressions in Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li (week 280). He was the star of Say It Isn’t So.
  • Rick Poltaruk was in Dudley Do-Right (week 336) before he made an appearance in Say It Isn’t So.
  • An actor named Greg Kean had roles in both Say It Isn’t So and Black Christmas (week 368).
  • Say It Isn’t So was the second Sunday “Bad” Movies appearance for Robert Musnicki, who was in Halloween: Resurrection (week 413).
  • David L. Lander appeared in Say It Isn’t So and Zoom (week 457).
  • Finally, Henry Cho showed up in both Material Girls (week 467) and Say It Isn’t So.
  • Have you seen Say It Isn’t So? What did you think? Do you think movies have a strange obsession with incest? Do audiences have a strange obsession with incest? Let me know what you thought by leaving a comment, or you can find me on Twitter.
  • I’m always open to suggestions about what movies I should check out for Sunday “Bad” Movies. If there are any movies you think would be a good fit, drop a message on my Twitter feed. Or you could leave a comment. That works too.
  • Instagram is a place where you can find more Sunday “Bad” Movies stuff.
  • Here’s where I give you the reason for the delay on this week’s post. The delay was a matter of my trying to figure out what was going on with next week’s movie. I was supposed to be covering one movie, but I don’t currently have a way to watch it. For that reason, I have flipped the schedule for the next two weeks. I may have to flip another week. It all depends on if the DVD arrives in the mail within the next week. Anyway, the movie I’ll now be covering next week is Evil Bong 666. Yep, I’m returning to the Evil Bong franchise. I’ll see you in a week with that post, and an update on the week after.
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Tuesday, February 8, 2022

Maniac Cop (1988), Maniac Cop 2 (1990), Maniac Cop 3: Badge of Silence (1992), and What Makes a Memorable Slasher Villain


Every story uses the same core building blocks to tell a tale that will capture the minds and imaginations of the audience. Whether the storytelling method is visual, textual, oral, or any other number of ways, those basic building blocks will be the same. There will be a protagonist, or group of protagonists. They will go against an antagonist, which could be a person, but could also be themselves, nature, technology, or society. The protagonist struggles to overcome the antagonist, going through a series of obstacles along the way. That’s it. Those are the basic story elements. Protagonist, antagonist, conflict, and struggle. Oh, and a resolution. You can’t have a story without an ending.

When it comes to movies, there are a few basic ways that those elements get used. One of the most common is the hero’s journey. It didn’t originate in movies but has become the structure for most modern blockbusters. There’s a hero who goes on an adventure, beats the villain, and grows as a person. Star Wars, superhero movies, action movies… This story structure is common through all of them. It’s not the one I want to write about, though.

There are stories that feature anti-heroes. These people aren’t the best. Where the hero’s journey might have someone like Luke Skywalker or Steve Rogers, a seemingly innocent young hero, positioned as the protagonist, the anti-hero stories go another way. They don’t live in an idealistic world. They may not have the same amount of courage as a typical hero. Most importantly, their morals are questionable. Anti-heroes are a little more selfish. They’re more likely to save their own lives than risk their lives for others. These questionable, relatable attributes are what make anti-heroes more compelling for many audiences. This is also not what I want to write about.

Hangout stories don’t feature the outward struggle that you might expect from a story. They mostly just involve people hanging out for a day or two, while working through some minor personal issues. Consider something like Dazed and Confused where the main character’s struggle was that he wasn’t sure he wanted to sign a letter agreeing to lose his social life for the sake of the football team. It wasn’t a huge conflict. It was kind of just a thread placed upon a story about a bunch of teens hanging out on the last day of school and first night of summer break. I don’t want to write about hangout movies, either.


What I want to focus this post on is a trend through the 1980s and 1990s that, I guess, flipped most of these stories on their heads. There were still the protagonists doing their protagonist thing. Many times, that mattered to the story. It was what made the stories a little more palatable to audiences. But, in the case of these movies, the real star became the villain. The villain was the reason people wanted to see each of the movies. The story was there because there needed to be some connective thread between the villain doing villain things. There needed to be something to get the movie from beginning to end. But the villain was the star. Let’s go through how slashers put the villains first, and what made for an interesting slasher villain.

Slashers didn’t happen overnight. The movie industry, particularly the horror industry, had been building towards it for decades. There were movies that had to be made before the slasher flick became a thing. Different parts of different styles of horror flicks had to be incorporated to create slasher flicks as we know them. There are new influences all the time, of course, but some were much more essential in allowing slashers to take shape.


The first of those influences was the monster movies of the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s. Particularly, the Universal monster movies showed that the villain could become the star of a franchise, rather than the protagonists. When you think back to those movies, the monsters are what you think of. You think of The Wolf Man or The Invisible Man. You don’t normally think of the characters surrounding them. When you think of Dracula, you think of the vampire more than you think of John Harker, Renfield, or Van Helsing. The monsters were the characters who continued to return through the franchises, rather than the more heroic characters. That kind of franchising set the stage for later slasher villains to take starring roles.

The second influence was the Giallo genre coming out of Italy. I wrote about this a little bit when I watched Silent Night, Bloody Night. Much of the Giallo genre involved people being murdered by mysterious figures, frequently wearing black gloves. There were things that didn’t come over to slashers, for sure. The visuals were different, and the violence was different. The mysterious killer, though… That translated to many slashers. As did the black gloves and the shots from the killer’s point of view. Slashers have moved away from that stuff, for the most part. But in the heyday of the early to mid 1980s, those mystery hands were a big thing.

Finally, there were the suspense films coming out of Britain that influenced the slasher genre. I haven’t seen it, but I’ve always heard that Peeping Tom was one of the key movies to the rise of the slasher genre. It was a 1960 flick about a cameraman killing women while using his camera because he wanted to record their expressions while dying. Then there was Psycho, the Hitchcock flick. Yeah, it was technically an American film, but it was Hitchcock, the British master of suspense. It was a direct inspiration on a bunch of slashers and, although I don’t consider it a slasher, it made violent murder more acceptable on American movie screens, allowing slashers to utilize that on-screen violence.


Slasher movies began cropping up in the 1960s, but it wouldn’t be until the mid-1970s that they started to take off. Most notably was the one-two 1974 punch of Black Christmas and The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. Both movies became some of the most influential slasher flicks of all time, showing that the slasher concept could be successful in North America. They didn’t utilize the influences in the same way, particularly when it came to the Giallo stuff. Black Christmas went the mystery killer route, with the audience never finding out who was murdering everyone. All that was ever shown was a pair of hands doing the deeds. The Texas Chain Saw Massacre went the other route, showing who the killers were. What it did take from Giallo, however, was a sense of visual style. It wasn’t the same visual style as Giallo. It was quite the opposite. Giallo was vivid with big colours and stark lights and darks. The Texas Chain Saw Massacre was dirty and almost documentary-like in its visual quality. It wasn’t the same visual style. Yet it was a visual style. It was the idea that a slasher could use a specific visual style to help tell the story that it took from Giallo. The influences were clearly making their mark on the slasher genre.

The most important influence, the one that plays most into what I initially wanted to discuss, is the monster movie influence. Following the success of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, as well as Halloween four years later, many slashers would pick up on the importance of having a memorable villain. They would notice that the villain was what stuck with people. The villain was what kept bringing people back to the theater time and time again. A good villain could help a franchise go a long way.


So what is it that makes a good villain, particularly for slasher films? That’s tough to say, exactly, because so many different factors can contribute to a good villain. If you think of the most popular killers in slasher movies, villains like Freddy Krueger, Jason Voorhees, Leatherface, Ghostface, Michael Myers, or the many other ones out there, there are a few things they have in common. There are certain elements that can be seen through many, if not all, of the villains.

I want to use the Maniac Cop movies as a reference point for some of these slasher villain elements. For one, they are the movies that inspired this post. I’m going to need to get into them at some point. But the villain, Matt Cordell, perfectly encapsulated many of the things that make slasher movie villains as memorable as they can be. Larry Cohen wrote a character that William Lustig realized with many of the trappings of a classic, traditional slasher villain. Before I get into how he fit that framework, however, I should explain what the movies were.


In Maniac Cop, people were being brutally murdered around New York City. Lt. Frank McCrae (Tom Atkins) was the detective on the case. Things got more complicated when the wife of Officer Jack W. Forrest Jr. (Bruce Campbell) was murdered while he cheated on her with Officer Theresa Mallory (Laurene Landon). He was the prime suspect. McCrae soon learned that Officer Matt Cordell (Robert Z’Dar) was committing the murders, after being sent to prison and seemingly killed in the prison shower. He was out to get revenge on Commissioner Pike (Richard Roundtree) and Captain Ripley (William Smith) for putting him there, as well as anyone who got in the way.

Maniac Cop 2 saw the reign of terror continue from Officer Matt Cordell (Robert Z’Dar). Officer Forrest (Bruce Campbell) and Officer Mallory (Laurene Landon) were in therapy with Officer Susan Riley (Claudia Christian) due to the trauma they suffered. Nobody would believe them about Matt Cordell still being alive. When the murders restarted, Lt. Sean McKinney (Robert Davi) began to listen to their claims and went head-to-head with Matt Cordell, who was trying to get to Deputy Commissioner Ed Doyle (Michael Lerner), another officer who helped put him behind bars.

Then there was Maniac Cop 3, which was messier. After being cleared of the charges that put him behind bars, Matt Cordell (Robert Z’Dar) was laid to rest in the cemetery. That rest wouldn’t last long. A voodoo priest brought him back to life. Officer Katie Sullivan (Gretchen Becker) was shot during some sort of hostage not hostage situation in the back of a pharmacy, and was left brain dead in a hospital. Lt. Sean McKinney (Robert Davi) saw a report that framed Katie as a police officer using excessive force and wanted to clear her name. At the same time, Matt Cordell killed a bunch of people on his way to Katie, who he wanted to resurrect to be with him. Sean McKinney investigated the murders with Dr. Susan Fowler (Caitlin Dulany) and once again came face-to-face with Cordell.


Now that that’s out of the way, let’s get to how the Maniac Cop movies showcase a good slasher villain by hitting on many of the common attributes that the memorable villains have. I’m not saying that having these attributes automatically make for a great slasher villain. All I’m saying is that they’re a starting point. They can help to build the foundation of what people want to see in a slasher villain, and can improve the chances of audiences remembering the movie and wanting more.

Matt Cordell was the villain of the Maniac Cop movies. He was a violent police officer sent to jail for… Something. I’m not entirely sure what that thing was. Maybe I should have paid closer attention. Maybe they didn’t say. Oh, okay. Just looked it up. So he wasn’t violent. He was set up as violent by a corrupt police force when he was close to uncovering the corruption. He was a good guy all along. In jail, he was attacked and killed. Only, he wasn’t killed. He was pronounced dead because he was braindead. That didn’t last. He would come back for revenge, through a series of violent murders.


The first thing I want to hit on is that Matt Cordell had a motive for why he was doing what he was doing. He was out for revenge because the corrupt New York justice system had put him away to cover up their corruption. He was killed while locked up. When he was alive once again, he targeted the people responsible for putting him away. The police commissioner, the police captain, the mayor, and a few others were on Cordell’s hitlist. He was unstoppable until his entire list was crossed off. Metaphorically. He didn’t have a physical list.

This idea of motivation behind murders has been a big part of many slasher films. Michael Myers, depending on the timeline, killed because of family relations, because of his desire to return home, or because of the Cult of Thorn. Jason Voorhees frequently went after camp counselors who would drink, smoke, and have sex. The reasoning was that he drowned because the counselors at his camp were too busy doing that stuff to notice him having trouble in the water. He also had mother issues. The Leprechaun killed for his gold. The Djinn from Wishmaster killed to get enough souls to open Hell and let djinns rule the world.

Motivations could also be revealed at the end of a slasher flick, if the story was based around the mystery of figuring out who was killing people. The first Friday the 13th was a mystery where the ending revealed that Pamela Voorhees killed camp counselors as revenge for her son’s drowning. The Scream franchise has relished in mystery reveals for the killers, with some of the reasonings being the death of a loved one, the separation of a family, and fame. Sometimes, as in the case of Black Christmas, the killer and motivation are never revealed, which makes the deaths even spookier. The killer could be anyone for any reason. Motivation, or lack thereof, is key to having a successful slasher villain.


Matt Cordell also struck on the physical appearance side of slasher villains. He was a large cop. If you know Robert Z’Dar, you know that size comes with casting him. Cordell dressed in a police uniform, but it was like a formal attire sort of thing with the white gloves and all that. His face was covered in scars, becoming more scar-riddled as the trilogy went on. It was an imposing figure in an imposing uniform with scars that showed he had been through some shit. It was a look that made Matt Cordell stand out from many of the other slasher villains that were out there at the time, and many that have come since.

Having a distinct look can be very important to a slasher villain. Leatherface had the skin on his face. Ghostface had the mask and the robe. Jason Voorhees had the bag on his head before switching to the hockey mask. Freddy Krueger had the scars, the hat, and the striped sweater. One of the more amusing ones was Michael Myers, who wore a painted Captain Kirk mask and coveralls. That look became so iconic that some of the future installments had to shoehorn a scene in where he got that costume again, just to make audiences happy that they were getting the same Michael Myers. Slasher franchises have their iconic looks that make their villains stand out.


Another thing that makes slasher villains stand out is their weapon of choice. Along with a unique look, most of the classic slasher villains have an iconic weapon of some sort. Or, if it isn’t iconic, it has become synonymous with that villain. Matt Cordell was a police officer who had a seemingly very police officer weapon. When he approached people, he held a police baton. That seemed par for the course for police. They would either have a baton, a taser, or a gun. The difference was that when Matt Cordell approached with the baton, he would reveal that it was the sheath of a giant dagger. His weapon of choice was a dagger cloaked in a police baton. That made it stand out that much more.

Most of the villains in horror movies have had weapons associated with them. The weapons went from the mundane, like Michael Myers frequently opting to kill people with a kitchen knife, to some slightly more unique ones. The villain from My Bloody Valentine used a pickaxe, while the villain from I Know What You Did Last Summer utilized a fishhook. Getting into the even more unique weapons, Freddy Krueger had a glove outfitted with knife fingers, and the villain from Slumber Party Massacre II had a guitar with a drill on the neck. Most classic slasher villains have weapons as iconic as they are.


The final thing I want to toss into the slasher villain mix is that, many times, they end up with supernatural abilities. If the villain didn’t begin with some supernatural power, they would be sure to pick one up later in their franchise. Assuming that they would be around for a franchise. Look at Matt Cordell, for example. The first Maniac Cop flick relished in the fact that he felt cold to the touch and wouldn’t die, no matter how many times he was shot. He was practically unstoppable. By the time Maniac Cop 3: Badge of Silence rolled around, he had been resurrected by a voodoo priest, making him one of the undead. That’s pretty darn supernatural.

Lots of slasher villains have gone the supernatural route. There have been the animate inanimate objects possessed by the spirits of serial killers like Chucky, Jack Frost, and The Gingerdead Man. There was Jason Voorhees being resurrected time and time again before his spirit began jumping from body to body. Freddy Krueger controlled dreams, Michael Myers had super strength, the Leprechaun was just plain magical, and the Djinn could corrupt wishes. Even movies like Puppet Master and Demonic Toys brought small figures to life to kill people. There is a lot of supernatural stuff going around in slasher movies, even though the idea of a slasher just comes down to someone killing a bunch of people.


A slasher villain can be a lot of things. A good, memorable slasher villain is tougher to find. Given the number of slasher flicks that come out on a regular basis, many of the villains fall through the cracks and aren’t all that memorable. The ones that are, however, use some, if not all, of these elements to strengthen the character. The filmmakers know that they need to hit on certain character traits to make their villain stand out. They need to give reasons for the villains to stick around in people’s minds.

Slasher flicks have come a long way since they first broke through to the mainstream in the mid 1970s. They took inspiration from the horror that came before, and used that inspiration to create many villainous icons that people still talk about today. The movies might not always be great. Most of them might actually be pretty bad. But people keep talking about them because there are some iconic villains killing people through movies that have elements of Giallo, monster movies, and suspense flicks in them. People eat it up. I eat it up. And I wouldn’t have slashers any other way.


That was a long post, but it’s going to get a little longer. Here are some notes:

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