It’s Friday…
Ahem…I mean Frightday…
And I have some recommendations for you to enjoy this weekend…
Okay…This Frightday’s theme is…
It’s A Bad Idea To Be A Bully.
In 1976…
Brian De Palma brought to life…
A novel by Stephen King…
That novel…
And subsequently…
That film…
Showed the inherent downside to being a bully, and the inevitable recompense that comes from making the decision to become one…
Sure…
Right now, you might be popular…
Sure…
Right now, those around you might be cheering on your bad behavior…
Sure…
Right now, people are silently suffering through your vitriolic abuse…
But soon…
The day will come…
When your popularity will wane…
Or…
When those who used to cheer you on, have all abandoned you…
Or…
When those who used to suffer your abusive vitriol in silence…
Stand up to you…
And say…
Never again.
So, let’s take a chronological look at the most vengeful, inexorably karmic, and possibly even unknown to you, It’s A Bad Idea To Be A Bully Movies…In the years following Carrie.
Massacre at Central High (1976) – This amazing cult classic tells the story of David, played by Derrel Maury (Hey…I remember him…He was Chachi’s cousin, Mario)…A new student at a school where he is told that he must choose to be either one of the elite bullies…Or one of those being bullied…He miraculously chooses neither…But, after making his own choice to stand up to them, David becomes the recipient of some serious bullying of his own…At the aggressive hands of this trio of entitled douche-nozzles…Once he recovers from their crippling abuse…He strikes back…And one by one the three bullies experience a literal fall from grace…The twisted part of this film comes after the bullies have been dispatched by David…Rather than things becoming peaceful and relaxed in a bully-free zone…Those who were once bullied become bullies themselves, forcing David to take extreme measures once again…The film’s director, Rene Daalder described his film as a prognosticator of events to come…In the novel, We Got The Neutron Bomb: The Untold Story of L.A. Punk, Daalder said that his film “…anticipated punk, Heathers, and Columbine back in ’76…”
Terror Train (1980) – Here’s another delightful cult classic…This one…Directed by Roger Spottiswoode (The Best of Times, Shoot to Kill)…Is a slasher film that had everything you’d need to become an instant slasher classic…A masked killer…Horny young people…And of course…Jamie Lee Curtis…Like Prom Night, her other slasher flick released earlier in that same year…There’s a killer that’s hell-bent on revenge…But unlike Prom Night, it wasn’t motivated by the accidental death of a ten-year old girl…Instead, the killings were payback for a cruel and unusual fraternity prank played on a poor, pathetic pledge, named Kenny Hampson…Three years later…Aboard a train filled with costumed collegiates…Kenny has left his home in the psych ward, and has come back for revenge on those that bullied him…Kenny disguises himself, and that disguise keeps on changing…One by one, he steals the costumes of each of his victims…As he slaughters his way towards good ol’ Jamie Lee, the quintessential final girl.
Disturbing Behavior (1998) – Ahhh…the rare 90’s movie that makes the list…Like a friggin’ unicorn, I tell ya…This one was directed by David Nutter (X-Files, Game of Thrones)…And it’s sort of The Stepford Teens…When Steve, played by James Marsden (HBO’s Westworld), moves to Cradle Bay after his family tries to rebound from his brother’s suicide…He becomes fast friends with the school’s outsiders…Who are a wee bit more than troubled by the “Blue Ribbons”…An elite group of kids that have been subjected to mind control to correct their unruly or awkward behavior…There are some creepy and violent side effects that occur once the Stepford 2.0 software gets installed…And the ever-shrinking group of outsiders is all that’s left to stand up to those attempting to rob every last one of them of their uniqueness, or worse…Their lives.
Teeth (2007) – I declared back in March, that this film was a 21st Century Cult Classic…Because…Well, because it is…This film that is hands down the best film about what it’s like to have a toothy vagina…I’m sorry…Vagina Dentata…The young girl, Dawn, is the proud owner of the human female reproductive version of the snapping turtle…And the sexually aggressive boys and men in this film who attempt their various forms of sexual assault…All get snapped…In one way or another…One of the best “snaps” comes when her gynecologist…A slimy, purveyor of sexual malfeasance, tries to grab her by the pus-…Too soon?…Anyway…He tries…And comes up a few fingers short…This amazing film is a “biting” satire with equal parts gore, humor, and social commentary.
Tormented (2009) – Directed by Jon Wright, the man who brought Alcoholism and Alien Invasions together in his sophomore effort, Grabbers…Made his feature film debut with this supernatural slasher that really does an amazing job of showing the extreme measures of cruelty…On both sides…The in-crowd that abuse their fellow students at Fairview High School…And this spectral spook giving this remorseless gaggle of British bullies their comeuppance…The idea of a malicious ghost that can inflict serious slasher-style harm on those it attacks has been something that I always loved John Carpenter for…In films like The Fog, and Ghosts of Mars…His apparitions aren’t wispy little now-you-see-me-now-you-don’ts that float out of an armoire and say “Boo!”… Nope…And just like a classic Carpenter ghost…The formerly alive Darren Mullet carries out his revenge in the selfsame way.
The Final (2010) – Part of the After Dark Horrorfest 8 Films To Die For…This film takes revenge on bullies to another level of messed up…You know…That Hostel level of messed up…Now if you like your bully vengeance with a heaping helping of torture porn…Than this film is just what you’re looking for…Those who have been bullied have hatched a plan to pay back their oppressors…They have invited them all to a costume party…Once there…The bullies partake in some delicious punch which tastes surprisingly like a handful of roofies…When the elite group of teens with a superiority complex wake up…They are chained and surrounded by those deemed inferior to them…For reasons like what they look like, or what they believe in…These bullied ones take their time and brutally torture both the bodies and minds of those who perpetrated their daily doses of abuse.
Unfriended (2014) – Here’s a found footage horror that sort of feels like an I know What You Did Last Summer for the Social Media Generation…The bullies here?…Internet Trolls…I endured my schooling during the 80’s…The closest thing to being trolled, was when someone spent the whole afternoon at the local arcade, trying to take your intials off the High Score Leaderboard on Centipede, and replace them with their own…Seriously…We didn’t do that secret squirrel shit…Our bullies locked you in lockers…Or dumped you in dumpsters…Hell, our non-trolling bullies and their classic moves like The Wedgie and The Atomic Wedgie were clearly the inspiration for the thong…So…For that…You’re welcome…But this film showcases a thing that I like to call Facebook Balls…It’s sort of a phenomenon like in The Massacre at Central High…Where non-bullies behave like bullies…But in this case, the bullying happens while they sit on their pimply asses, in front of screens, in their jammies, in the comfort of rent-free rooms, in houses owned by their parents…And I have to admit…Seeing each and every one of these cowardly internet trolls getting their just desserts…Is quite a guilty pleasure.
The Gift (2015) – This film marks the directorial debut of the immensely talented actor, Joel Edgerton…He also wrote the script, starred in, and co-produced this taut and discomforting thriller…Also starring Jason Bateman, and Rebecca Hall…Edgerton tells the story of revenge served ice-cold…Decades after his character Gordo, had been bullied and humiliated by Simon, played by Bateman, the two cross paths and a frightening game of cat and mouse ensues…The deplorable Simon, and his many misdeeds are slowly exposed throughout the course of the film…And, with each revelation…Another dark dimension of his cruelty is revealed…It’s an awful lot like peeling an onion, only to find a rotten layer within…Despite the good layers…The whole thing is bad, and must be discarded…This intense thriller starts out with the roles of protagonist and antagonist firmly in place…But by the final act…Those roles have been reversed…And the audience finds themselves rooting for the person that they once labeled the villain…Because…That’s how vile the act of bullying is…That when you see someone acting like a creepy, stalkery, serial killer…You’re like…Hey, that’s okay…All is forgiven…As long as you’ve been acting that way…Towards a bully.
The Video Store Clerk 