Ghouls on Film

Kill Me I'm Italian

It’s tough to decide which is a better title for Sergio Martino’s 1971 classic: “The Strange Vice of Mrs.Wardh” or “Blade of the Ripper?” But who really cares when you’re looking at Edwige Fenech. While Barbara Bouchet comes to many a mind when someone says Giallo girl, it will always be Edwige for me.

Fenech is an actress of numerous talents. Two in particular have been highlighted over the years. As arresting clothed as she is unclothed, I can’t decide how I like Edwige best.

Is it when she and her turban are running from her so-bad-he’s-good ex, Jean?

Or when she loosens up, loses her necktie, and spends some quality time with her naked neighbors in “The Case of the Bloody Iris?”

Or maybe enjoying a raucous party with Italy’s answer to Elton John?

Whatever the place, whoever the slasher, Edwige knows how to wear a mini-dress and knows how to take it off. The lady and her nippelettas cannot be contained.

During the days of her courtship with shock-rocker, Marilyn Manson, Rose McGowan became something of a B-list goth icon. While she makes appearances in her then-beau’s music videos, the film that solidifies her status is the 1999 dark comedy, “Jawbreaker.” Rose McGowan’s own set of “jawbreakers” take center stage in the film, helping to define the overly-sexual aspect of her villainous prom queen character that makes any one of the “Heathers” seem John Hughes-wholesome by comparison.

Portraying the ultimate mean girl, Courtney Shayne, McGowan’s character is dubbed “Satan in heels” by the film’s narrator — gawky wallflower Fern Mayo (Judy Greer in an early role) — who discovers that Courtney accidentally killed the most popular girl in school via a birthday prank gone awry. Courtney and her cohorts kidnapped their friend, Liz Purr (AKA — “the Princess Di of Reagan High”) on her 17th birthday, gagged her with an over-sized Jawbreaker candy in the back of the trunk, intending to treat her to a pancake breakfast before tying her to a flagpole in her bra and panties.

Well…That didn’t work out so hot. Liz accidentally choked to death on the killer candy in the trunk of the car. Oopsies! While sweet, sweet Julie (Rebecca Gayheart) and Marcie “Foxy” Fox (Julie Benz) feel varying degrees of remorse, Courtney coldly and calculatingly assembles an elaborate cover story. She’ll be damned if she’s going to be put in the hot seat for “being sweet enough to pull a thoughtful birthday prank on her girlfriend.” She pulls out all the stops to cover her tracks: Impersonating Liz’s mother, falsifying a rape/murder crime scene, and — the cherry on top — blackmailing a horrified Fern Mayo with a popularity makeover to buy her silence.

Courtney Sticks It To Them

Sporting a candy-colored wardrobe akin to the titular (“tit”ular?) Wonka favorite, Courtney’s tight bustiers and fitted retro tops put the “sweater” in “sweater puppets.” She smiles like a piranha at allies and enemies alike and even goes so far as use her passive-aggressive sexual proclivities to bend others to her will through sheer terrorism. She attempts a posthumous character assassination on Liz by attempting to pass off her own strange kinks as a contributing factor to Liz’s death: “They’ll believe it because it’s their worst nightmare: Elizabeth Purr, the very picture of teenage perfection, obliterated by perversion.”

Using the persuasive power of her pert n’ perkies, Courtney picks up a sleazy dude in a bar (Marilyn Manson in a non-speaking, leisure suit-wearing cameo) to obtain a certain, uh, “substance” to paint her dead “friend’s” bedroom with “evidence.” Courtney could care less that an otherwise innocent perv would be blamed for the girl’s murder.

Courtney's Killer Dress

In “Jawbreaker’s” final minutes, Courtney gets her crown — and her comeuppance — as she’s made prom queen. In a twist of fate equally cruel as Courtney Shayne herself, Julie, her drama club member boyfriend, and Fern play back a recording over the P.A. of Courtney’s cocky confession that she killed Liz and the “teen dream” along with her… “Deal with it.”

The students of Reagan High don’t take too kindly to Killer Courtney’s confession, pelting her with corsages and other debris. Tears spill down Courtney Shayne’s face as her cleavage spills over the top of her sublime silver prom gown, and she has a mascara-running meltdown to the tune of “Young At Heart,” presumably before being hauled off to the hoosegow.

Superwomen! Belted, Buckled and Booted!

“While violence cloaks itself in a plethora of disguises, its favorite mantle still remains… Sex.”

The opening narrative of Russ Meyer’s classic exploitation flick, “Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!” sets the stage for wanton violence, emphasis on the wanton. Yet, for all its grand displays of serious boobage, Meyer’s magnum opus offers a twisted brand of female empowerment. This isn’t the sort of “girl power” that the Spice Girls were talking about. It’s embodied in the form of “Pussycat’s” lead character Varla. To this day, no one has ever filled out a black, low-cut jumpsuit in quite the same way as the uber-voluptuous Tura Satana.

Described as a “velvet glove cast in iron,” Varla is the ultimate alpha female. She delivers snarky one-liners to everyone from the gas station attendant to her femme fatale cohorts whom she holds in check. On stage, she’s front and center with best go-go dancing gal pals, Rosie and Billie. Off stage, she smokes clove cigarettes, drives dudes in fast cars off the road in her even faster car. And oh, yeah, she kills. Rather than wielding a .38, she uses her 36D’s to lure her victims, hypnotizing them with a serious swath of cleavage that would make them think she’s incapable of ever doing any harm.

Not so, my friend.

This Is How We Do It

First she bests young, all-American racer Tommy in “friendly” competition before killing him with her bare hands by karate chopping him into submission and breaking his back. Then, Varla ups her body count after she tittie-slaps her girlfriend, Rosie, demanding her knife so that she can lob it carnie-style at go-go gang defector Billie’s back. After offing the creepy, old paraplegic wannabe-rapist and mangling his jacked-yet-dimwitted Neanderthal spawn, Varla ultimately meets her end before her milk wagons ever see the inside of a paddy wagon for her crimes.

The best part: She does it all while still looking fierce and snarling snappy retorts to the bitter end.

Don’t believe? Watch this:

For Whom the Boobs Toll

What happens when an undead “Dancer” gets angry?

I was watching “Zombieland” the other night, for the third time, and thoroughly enjoying the way in which the opening slow motion sequence sets up the world of “Zombieland.” Milkshakes gone bad, hungry brides, and a deadly three-legged race. It’s a great mix of humor, blood, and brains.

For the most part, “Zombieland” isn’t that gory. There are a few gnarly parts that involve the splitting of bones, one a compound fracture, the other a woman enjoying what Tallahassee refers to as a “Manwhich,” but nothing super gratuitous. Not when compared to say “Dead Alive” or something Fulci got his gooey fingers on.

Actually, there is one part I would put in the gratuitous category – a moment that mixes the triumvirate seen in the most popular of horror fare – boobs, blood, and sex.  This time, the topless woman in question isn’t the victim, she’s doing the killing. And, oh my god, that’s what it looks like when a topless zombie stripper wants her two dollars, and it’s pretty fantastic.

It reminded me that there are many other women out there who are full of wrath and have a killer rack. Gals who look hot, but don’t mind getting their hands dirty. We’ll explore more of that later, watch this clip of the zombie stripper for now: