Showing posts with label Jennifer's Body. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Jennifer's Body. Show all posts

Tuesday, February 28, 2012

WOMEN IN HORROR RECOGNITION MONTH: FEMALE FILMMAKERS




In honor of Women In Horror Recognition Month, I hereby present my top 3 of female filmmakers







MARY LAMBERT
Mary Lambert (2007)
Mary Lambert is known to horror fans for directing the 1989 adaption of Stephen King's novel Pet Sematary (1989), and its sequel Pet Sematary II (1992). This Arkansas born film director is also known for Urban Legends: Bloody Mary (2005), the thriller The Attic (2007) and the upcoming action/horror High Midnight (2012) where a "broken-down sheriff is forced to join forces with an obsessed Victorian vampire hunter to defeat an undead force consuming a small frontier town in 1892 New Mexico".


Other trivia: Mary Lambert stars as herself in the 2009 documentary Pretty Bloody: The Women of Horror. She is also known for directing some of the music industry's most famous music videos, amongst them Chris Isaak's Dancin and Janet Jackson's Nasty and Control. She has also directed videos for Annie Lennox, Mick Jagger, Whitney Houston (RIP), Live, Mötley Crüe, Queensryche, Sting and many others. Her most famous include Madonna's videos Like a Virgin, Material Girl and Like a Prayer.


DEBRA HILL 
Debra Hill
Debra Hill (November 10th 1950 - March 7th 2005) was an American screenwriter and film producer, mostly known for co-writing and co-producing my all time favorite horror movie Halloween (1978). After working with John Carpenter as a script supervisor and assistant editor (of Assault on Precinct 13 in 1975), Debra Hill started further professional collaborations with Carpenter, which also marked the beginning of their personal relationship.

In 1978 Debra Hill and John Carpenter co-wrote and co-produced Halloween. Following its success, they worked together on Halloween II (1981) and Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982). Hill and Carpenter also worked on The Fog (1980) together.

Other trivia: Debra Hill was in 2003 honored by Women In Film with the Crystal Award.




DIABLO CODY
Diablo Cody (2007)
Born Brook Busey, Diablo Cody is an American screenwriter and author. She first became known for her candid chronicling of her year as a stripper in her 'The Pussy Ranch' blog and her 2006 memoir Candy Girl. A Year in the Life of an Unlikely Stripper.

In 2007, Diablo Cody sold a horror script called Jennifer's Body to Fox Atomic. Released in 2009, the horror/comedy Jennifer's Body starred Megan Fox as the title character, a movie which Cody also directed and for which Cody now is widely known in the horror circuit. 

Other trivia: Diablo Cody has been nominated for several awards for her movie Juno, amongst them People's Choice Award during the Toronto International Film Festival, the Golden Globe, Independent Spirit Award, and has earned four Academy Award nominations, including one for Best Picture and won one for Best Original Screenplay.

Thursday, February 23, 2012

WOMEN IN HORROR RECOGNITION MONTH: WOMEN IN UNIFORMS



Honoring February 2012 as 'Women In Horror Recognition Month', I'm kicking off this month's last week with my first post; a top 3 of women in uniforms.






 
On an almost daily basis I wear a dark blue polyester skirt and jacket with a white cotton shirt underneath, accessorized with black ballerina shoes and a multicolored scarf. The uniform is what you would refer to as 'nice'. I know a thousand ways to make it sassier, sexier and above all fit better, but the airline industry has strict policies on both figure, fabric and colors. So what type of uniform would I wear, if I could choose? Here's three sassy uniforms I wouldn't mind choosing from.

"I LOVE A WOMAN IN UNIFORM!" 

 OBS! THIS POST MIGHT CONTAIN SPOILERS!  

THE CHEERLEADER
I haven't seen much of Megan Fox's earlier work, I must admit. And I never really cared for her role as Mikaela Banes, the love interest of Sam Witwicky, in the first two Transformer-movies (Transformers from 2007 and Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen from 2009).
Jennifer in Jennifer's Body (2009)

I did however love the two main characters; Anita 'Needy' Lesnicky and Jennifer Check, in the femslasher Jennifer's Body (2009). This dark comedy horror drama (why stick to one genre?) stars the two BFF's; Needy (Amanda Seyfried) being the impish bookworm Needy and Jennifer (Megan Fox) being the hot cheerleader at school. Their friendship is interpreted by several of their schoolmates as 'lesbian', not the least by Needy's boyfriend Chip (Johnny Simmons).

Moving from the high school pep rally, with Jennifer leading the team in a flag routine, out to a night at the local bar, Needy and Jennifer's life changes over night as Jennifer becomes possessed into a devilish succubus who targets and feeds off of high school boys.

Written by the Oscar winning Diablo Cody, Jennifer's Body isn't scary enough to work as a horror movie. It does however spark some satirical moments and touches on the surface of teen-angst and the ever so debated issue of men's fear of female sexuality. But these elements are left unexplored and as the movie never analyzes the female intuition, the BFF-psychic bond, the angst and the sexuality it point its finger at, we're left with good looking, but only skin deep 102 minutes.

Alternative candidates: Baby Firefly in House of 1000 Corpses (2003), Alison Wentworth in Cheerleader Camp (1988) and Amber in Spirit Camp (2009).


THE FRENCH MAID 
The 1975 film adaption of the British rock musical stageplay The Rocky Horror Show, is a parody of B-movies, science fiction and horror films from the late 1940's through the early 1970's. The Rocky Horror Picture Show is the first film from a major Hollywood studio to be in the midnight movie market, and still 36 years after its premiere it has the longest-running theatrical release in film history. 
Magenta in The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975)

The Rocky Horror Picture Show soon became one of my top favorite movies after watching it for the first time when I was about 15-16 years old. As mentioned before, I'm a strong advocate for the role of music in movies, believing it plays a significant part when it comes to creating character and atmosphere. The Rocky Horror Picture Show is filled with up-beat, dance-friendly sing-along music and amazingly quirky characters to go with it. My favorite being Magenta - a domestic


Played by Patricia Quinn (Mary Horror and the upcoming The Lords of Salem) the Usherette/Magenta is the best Transylvanian maid you could happen to meet on the whole planet of Transsexual! She's fierce, sassy and one hell of a singer/dancer. Being the maid of the castle she wears a black dress, with a white little apron over it and a little white hat.


Alternative candidates: Moira in American Horror Story (2011).


THE SCHOOL GIRL
And not in a perverse Catholic way. More the prep boarding school way.

On Halloween in 1963, Michael Myers murdered his sister Judith. In 1978, he broke out of the mental institution where he was held to kill his other sister, Laurie Strode. He killed all of her friends, but she managed to escape. A few years later, Laurie fakes her own death to prevent Michael from ever finding her again.

Molly in Halloween H20: 20 Years Later (1998)
It's October 1998 in Northern California, where Laurie Strode is living under the assumed name 'Keri Tate', working as the Headmistress at Hillcrest Academy High School. Still haunted by the events 20 years later, 'Keri' is adversely affected professionally, but also personally as a mother to John (Josh Hartnett) and girlfriend to Will (Adam Arkin). Fearing that her dear brother, Michael Myers, is still alive and will return 'Keri' has a hard time letting her son out of her sight, for fear of loosing him. When she finally agrees to let him join the rest of the students for a n from joining the rest of the students for a getaway weekend to Yosemite National Park, for the fear that not having him near during Halloween. When she finally  Instead, John, his girlfriend Molly (Michelle Williams) and a couple of other students stay behind to have an intimate Halloween Party in the school basement.

Michelle Williams is an actress that has been growing on me during the years. From her adolescent appearances as the high school student Jen Lindley in the classic Dawson's Creek (1998) and the college student Ruby in Prozac Nation (2001), to her strong role as Alma in the amazing Brokeback Mountain (2005) and the portrait of female insanity Dolores in Shutter Island 2010), she's bound to make an impressive role in the newly released My Week With Marilyn. In Halloween H20: 20 Years Later, she plays the sweet, but ugly duckling character Molly Cartwell, with her boarding school uniform and her black boots.

Halloween H20: 20 Years Later (1998) is the 20th-anniversary sequel to the groundbreaking horror film Halloween (1978) presents some bloody good scares and the impeccable acting skills of Jamie Lee Curtis. One you speculate whether it was a good idea to produce a seventh installment in the Halloween franchise, but ignoring Halloween III: Season of the Witch (since it has no connections to the other films and is not considered to be a part of the Michael Myers-storyline), and skipping Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers, Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers and Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers, this is actually a direct alternate sequel to Halloween II.

Alternative candidates: Bonnie in The Craft (1996) and Tomoko Ôishi in Ringu (1998).

Thursday, October 27, 2011

HALLOWEEN TOP 10: GIRLS WITH ATTITUDE

Here's one for the mean girls and the girls with attitude in horror!

#10 - Andrea blames Dale for taking away her choice to die in The Walking Dead (S02E01, 2011)



#9 - Girl on girl drama when Debbies kills Tara and Sookie shoots Debbie in True Blood (S04E12, 2011)



#8 - Psycho Jill Roberts mutilates herself in Scre4m (2011)



#7 - The Queen, Sophie-Ann LeQlerc, lashes out at Eric Northman in True Blood (S03E01, 2010)



#6 - Eun-joo, the evil stepmother in A Tale of Two Sisters/Janghwa, Hongryeon (2003)



#5 - Aunt Mei's fetus stuffed dumpling cooking in Gaau Ji/Dumplings (2004)



#4 - Mandy kills Chloe in All the Boys Love Many Lane (2006)



#3 - Lynda gets pissed at ghost Bob and then stabbed to death in Halloween (1978)



#2 - Needy confronts Jennifer in Jennifer's Body (2010)



#1 - Norma, Sue and the others pour pig's blood over Carrie during the infamous 'prom scene' from Carrie (1976)