Fashion to Die For! Who Dressed You, the Killer?
Horror movies prey on our emotions. They want us to feel. Anything. Everything. And often, they are quite crude, unsophisticated, or just plain blunt and obvious when it comes to the strategies they employ to get us to react exactly the way they want. Good scares are not something you think about and ponder, relishing the nuances. BAM! They just happen. They are raw and visceral. They get our heart pounding and our blood racing. And that’s why we love them.
A true enthusiast doesn’t pooh-pooh the jump scare; he lives for it. Remember that scene in Lights Out that got you so bad you tossed half of your buttered popcorn all over your date and ruined her vintage “Mystery Science Theater 3000” t-shirt? It felt good, didn’t it? And she wasn’t even mad because it got her, too – her Coke went in your face, remember? Ice and all.
However, setting us up for jump scares is not the only way that horror films manipulate our emotions. They can be quite effective at making us develop a strong dislike for certain characters – you know, the ones we want to leave the story in a delightfully graphic way. And I’m not talking about the killers. I’m talking about someone like that offensive jerk who crosses the line with the innocent girl so frequently that we actually cheer when the psychopath gets the jump on him and pushes his face into a high-speed belt sander, which graciously sends his teeth and eyes rocketing across the workshop.
Another type of character we secretly hope gets his or her intestines turned into a crimson splatter that would make Jackson Pollock proud is the fashion-challenged. Following are three examples of clothing choices that were so bad Glamour’s black bar across the eyes wasn’t enough. In these instances, we actually rooted for a fatal intervention. Thus, this is not exactly fashion to die for, it’s more like fashion they had to die for!
The Devil Didn’t Make Damien Do This! (The Omen – 1976)
Spoiler alert: Katherine Thorn was not Damien’s real mother. Still, there’s a good chance she could have escaped Satan’s wrath and survived the movie… if it wasn’t for that scarf! Seriously, who wears a scarf while doing housework? You’re just asking for it! It’s totally pretentious. But in all honesty, scarves never really go completely out of style. But how you tie them? That definitely does! Giving yourself a big poofy knot that looks like some disgruntled school marm taught you how to tie it? So 19th century! I bet even a jackal could wear it better! Hence why a tyrannical tyke on a trike was driven to make his “mom” take a painful plummet. Admittedly, it wasn’t as painful as swan dive number two, the one Katherine made directly into an ambulance – through the roof – but still the intent was there. It wasn’t the devil that made him do it, it was the scarf!
Fur Is Murder (Unnatural – 2015)
Quincy and Ella might be vapid, miserable models who agreed to travel to a remote region of Alaska to do a photo shoot in their bikinis, but that is not why they became Bear Chow. Seriously, in the grand scheme of things, exposing all that flesh in subzero temperatures – the kind so cold your spit freezes before it hits the snow – actually makes you admire the unshakable work ethic and the impressive fortitude of these two scantily clad munchables. I mean, everyone else in the movie has about 42 layers on and they are still shivering and complaining about how cold they are! Unfortunately, not having enough brainpower to be able to multitask – the girls obviously can’t pose and comprehend extreme temperatures at the same time – does not a survivor make. Ever hear the phrase “Don’t bring a knife to a gun fight?” Well, the only thing worse than that is wearing fur when facing a scientifically-engineered super-creature… who also happens to be covered in fur! The moral of this movie is “Being apparel-insensitive can be deadly.”
Men in Black (12 Days of Terror – 2004)
We literally trust lifeguards with our life. In fact, that’s what they ask potential employees during the interview: “Can you guard lives? Yes? Great! The gig is yours.” Lifeguards let us know when and where it’s okay to swim. They keep us out of harms way from the multitude of oceanic perils. And, if anything should ever happen to go wrong, we count on them to be the embodiment of grace under pressure. They offer an oasis of serenity for everyone who is flailing about in the floodwaters of hysteria. Furthermore, lifeguards aren’t emo. If they were, the last thing they’d want is a job in the sun! That is why it is absolutely inexcusable to have these paragons of common sense sitting out in the blistering heat of summer, baking for a grueling eight-hour shift while wearing… ALL BLACK! Newsflash: The shark didn’t bite off your legs because you swim so freaking slow… he was just clearing out the gene pool.
Categorized:News Retrospectives
