(Oh, and in case you missed part one, here ya go. Now don't say I never gave ya nuthin'.)
Hollywood Villain Deathmatch - Round 1 (Part Deux)
(Updated tournament bracket - click for larger version.)Femme Fatale Division:
Annie Wilkes (Misery) Vs. Nurse Ratched (One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest)Two very controlling women who want what they want, and will stop at nothing to get it...and each with an Oscar in her back pocket, just for the fuckin' street cred.
When the hankie dropped, Annie came out swinging, and spouting profanity-free epithet after curseless slur. Her sledgehammer described potentially-crushing arcs in the air in front of her. A force to be reckoned with in any context, certainly. But...there was a little problem. Annie, by any account, happens to be nuttier than goddamned squirrel turds. And Nurse Ratched can spot a raving fucking lunatic at 100 paces. Fact is, keeping the crazies in their place isn't just a job for her, it's a raison d'être. She subdues far worse than Annie every single day. Before her coffee, even.
So, via an extremely subtle and practiced combination of calm reasoning, condescension, and calculated authoritarian malice, Nurse Ratched was able to get Annie to drop the hammer, sit down, and talk about her feelings. After about 25 minutes basking in the steely glare of the good Nurse, Annie had laid bare her entire soul. The feelings of inadequacy, the childhood abuse, the unhealthy fixation on the escapism of romance novels...she spilled the whole nine like a cheap bordeaux. Ratched clucked her tongue, and pulled out a hypo of Thorazine. She told Annie that she'd feel much better after a nap. Annie agreed.
Then, while Annie was under, Nurse Ratched slid an ice pick up her nostril. First the left, then the right. After a few taps of her OWN hammer, Ratched's opponent was thus neutralized.
There, there, Annie. Nobody can hurt you anymore. And you can't hurt anyone else, either.
WINNER: NURSE RATCHED
Historical Division:
Emperor Commodus (Gladiator) Vs. The Sheriff of Nottingham (Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves)Each is a malevolent order-barker who may be used to commanding others to fight, but who can still throw down when the need arises. Even so, I knew physical prowess would likely take a back seat to cunning this time out. So I was interested to see what would happen.
Commodus' plan was to enter the arena like a gentleman, and extend his hand to his opponent in the appearance of mutual respect. A hand that, once shook, would deliver a crippling (but non-fatal) dose of nightshade into the Sheriff's palm thanks to a sharply-barbed ring. Then, with the Sheriff in a weakened state, Commodus assumed he'd easily overpower and kill him, but without any pesky appearance of impropriety.
And it might have worked. The Sheriff does like to think of himself as a man of refinement, despite his ink-black heart. Commodus counted on this. He is ENGLISH, after all.
So, the Sheriff took Commodus' hand, shaking it curtly but politely. It was only then that the Emperor realized his plot was for naught. For no matter how hard he squeezed in an attempt to deliver the poison, the point on his ring could not puncture the roughly-tanned and well-used hide of the Sheriff's riding glove.
After a few seconds of the Emperor's increasingly futile clenching, Nottingham sensed a cheat was afoot, and ripped his hand away, taking the ring (and a meaty chunk of the finger it had been on) right along with it. Upon examining the foreign object lodged in the palm of his glove, the Sheriff knew he'd nearly been had, and became enraged. "You treacherous worm!" he spat, and advanced on Commodus, sword drawn.
Commodus, horrified at the sight of his own fresh blood as it ran streaming from the wound on his finger, shrieked like a little girl. Falling melodramatically to the floor, he held up the bleeding hand amid cries for mercy...Even as he reached for the dagger in his boot with the other one.
A pity he wasn't quicker. A pity, indeed.
WINNER: NOTTINGHAM
Evil Genius Division:
Lex Luthor (Superman) Vs. Dr. Hannibal Lecter (The Silence of the Lambs)Fighting style is a force to be reckoned with, certainly. But strategy must never be counted out, my friends. Not ever.
Luthor came into this fight assuming he had a distinct advantage. And, he well may have. "Hell," the thought to himself. "I've held my own against the most powerful man in the universe. How much of a challenge is a strait-jacketed near-septuagenarian lashed to a dolly cart with leather restraints really going to be?"
But that's not EXACTLY how it went down. Not at ALL. I wish I could even tell you how it did happen. But I'm just not sure. I mean, yeah...Lecter WAS lashed to the hand-cart. Strait-jacket, mask, all of it. Even I couldn't help but think at first that this seemed like a really unfair match-up. But then I rang the bell to start the round, and the little hammer I used to hit it with fell out of my hand from the vibration of the strike, and rolled under the table. So I bent down to get it.
By the time I got back up into my chair, Dr. Lecter was sitting cross-legged on the floor with Luthor's freshly-severed head right there in his lap. Luthor's twitching body lie fifteen feet away, and the heart was still pumping hard enough to be feeding a quickly-growing puddle of hot, sticky blood that was pooling around the stump of his neck.
My jaw dropped, and I gaped back at Lecter. It was only then that I realized that the top of Luthor's skull had been neatly sliced off all the way around, and that Lecter was chewing thoughtfully, with a sad, faraway look in his eyes. He spoke before I could.
"How terribly disappointing," he rumbled through gore-streaked lips. "I'd always hoped the grey matter of a genius would have a richer flavor."
It was over in less than 15 seconds, and I never heard a sound.
WINNER: LECTER
Slasher Division:
Freddy Krueger (A Nightmare on Elm Street) Vs. Jason Voorhees (Friday the 13th)I know what you're thinking. "Dude. That was totally a movie already. I totally saw it." And that's true. But if you saw it, you know that it was fucking pants. Reason being, in order to placate both sets of fanboys, the producers left the ending ambiguous. There was no clear winner. And that, my friends, is bullshit. I demand satisfaction.
Neutral ground was required for this battle. So, the lake and the boiler room were both out. Instead, our combatants were given an abandoned warehouse.
Jason showed up first, lumbering down an access corridor, machete firmly clenched in one rotting fist. But as he reached the main floor and paused for a moment to assess his surroundings, Freddy leapt down from a shelving unit, drew up behind him, and plunged his sinister claws right into Jason's spine.
"Looks like I got the DROP on you!" hollered Freddy, cackling maniacally.
Problem was, that was the only reason Jason even knew he was there. And as Jason wheeled around in an attempt to discover the source of the sudden noise, he banged Freddy's still-attached form into the shelving unit, knocking him loose...but leaving the glove still firmly lodged in his back.
Thrown for a loop, Freddy struggled to regain his feet for a moment. When he did, Jason was at his elbow. Which, to be fair, only remained HIS elbow for about another eighth of a second, as Jason's machete came whickering down, severing Freddy's arm, and turning over possession of it to the floor.
Freddy howled in pain and anger as he crumpled to the floor, clutching at his shoulder-stump with his other arm. But after a moment, his howls of agony turned to howls of laughter. "You're gonna have to do better than that, you lump of leeches," he told Jason, grinning. "It's not like this is an arms race."
With that, he leapt directly at Jason's knees, and slid deftly between them. Jason hacked wildly at Freddy's legs as he dove through, and managed to deliver a deep slice to one calf. Unfortunately, despite the wounded leg, Freddy found his feet much faster this time, popping up behind Jason again like nothing so much as a nasty jack-in-the-box.
"You have something of mine," hissed Freddy, plunging his remaining hand back into the glove. The blow came with such force that he suddenly found himself wrist-deep in Jason's lumbar region. Sensing an opportunity, Freddy squeezed tightly, grasping several of Jason's vertebrae in his iron fist. For his part, Jason flailed madly at his unseen assailant, groaning loudly and doing himself considerably more damage with his wildly hacking blade than he managed to deal to his nemesis.
"Whoopsie!" giggled Freddy. "Looks like I have to take the back...right out of your comeback." Then, tightening his grip even further, he pulled. HARD.
And as the dust settled, a battered but triumphant Freddy stood raggedly gasping over his opponent's lifeless husk, his remaining hand clutching a significant percentage of Jason's spinal column.
"See?" he shouted at the corpse. "I know you could show some backbone. All you needed was a little hand from an old friend."
WINNER: KRUEGER
Yowza. I didn't see THAT one coming.
Tomorrow: stolen souls, unfortunate spandex, and bringing a knife to a gunfight. See you then.
UPDATE: Click ahead to Part Tres.
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