FINAL GIRL explores the slasher flicks of the '70s and '80s...and all the other horror movies I feel like talking about, too. This is life on the EDGE, so beware yon spoilers!

Oct 16, 2011

SHOCKtober Day 16


Ms. Pickman (In the Mouth of Madness)


Sayeth the chooser:

"First of all, you can't help but love Frances Bay, perfectly cast as she is, but although all her little touches are great wherever they are needed (such as the pan down to her husband handcuffed to her ankle) what really gets to me, my favorite horror movie moment of all time, is when Trent runs to his car, looks back and sees her/the monster standing in the glasshouse.

The build up has been great, with the picture in the hallway mutating and the nasty basement scene, but then all of that is dwarfed by Trent pausing in his steps. Seeing Ms.Pickman axing her husband to pieces in the shadow and then watching Trent getting hurled through a door by Styles, all that happens in a flash, no time to catch your breath, for either us nor Trent.

This is horror for me, horror isn't gunning away at the bad guys. Horror is realizing that something you depend on for your reality to function isn't what it used to be."

Beef (Phantom of the Paradise)


4 comments:

Dave said...

Beef!

I missed the submission deadline for this countdown, but I'm hoping someone else thought to recommend Casey, the cheerful floozy next door in "Basket Case". Just finally saw that movie for the first time the other night and she was a riot, as is her special feature on the DVD.

Anonymous said...

lol Beef! So awesome!

AndrewKach said...

I am constantly in disagreement with how horror is defined (to me, horror = supernatural horror), but I commend the “chooser” of Ms. Pickman. I think that’s a great definition! Perhaps that best I’ve come across.

Plus, that’s one of my all-time favorite movies and she rules! “Come on ya old bitch!”

Colleen said...

Ah, yes, chooser, Ms. Pickman is a scary piece of work just like the movie she is forever a part of. Someone asked me recently what my greatest fear was, and though tempted to say the standard "spiders" I decided to dig a little deeper and said "going mad" because, really, what's scarier than that?