SHOCKtober Day 10

 

Over the years, we horror fans have sadly grown accustomed to incredible performances being overlooked come mainstream awards season. Yes yes it's all a load of who cares bunk and personally I haven't cared about (or watched) the Oscars for at least a decade, but as a lifelong movie lover (I refuse to say "cinephile") I admit, to my shame I still retain residual feelings of loving the whole thing and wanting what I like to get the recognition. Sure, horror performances have been nominated on occasion--heck, I always forget that Sigourney Weaver was nominated for Aliens, a horror sci-fi blockbuster of all things--but I'll go to my grave bearing grudges about all the great ones that were snubbed: Toni Collette in Hereditary. Isabelle Adjani in Possession. Lupita Nyong'o in Us. I'm not holding my breath for Mia Goth in Pearl. 

And then there is the most egregious snubbing of them all: Lynda Day George's performance as tennis pro turned cop who goes undercover as a tennis pro Mary Riggs in Pieces! She should have earned all five nominations in the Best Actress category. The winner that year--Katherine Hepburn--wishes (in Heaven) she could electrify audiences the way Lynda Day George did when she yelled "bastard" three times.

Now that that's out of the way, let me continue with my pattern of talking about one character forever and then revealing the character I actually wanted to talk about today, who is...

THAT GIRL ON THE SKATEBOARD IN PIECES (1982)

I've seen many a wild Great Value Slasher in my day, but surely Pieces is the wildest. It starts at 100 on the bonkers meter and ends with the bonkers meter huddled in the corner in a puddle of tears from all the strain. It's got so very much going for it, from "bastard!" to the crazy carnage to the dialogue that will have your finger permanently planted on the rewind button to the treasure chest full of character gems to the fact that none of it makes any sense. And if there's one person who somehow encapsulates all of that at once, it's That Girl on the Skateboard.

Like every other victim in this movie, she exists only to add to the film's body count. But while everyone else is sliced, diced, and slap-chopped right off this mortal coil, she gets Final Destinationed for some reason. Actually no, that's not quite accurate. Final Destination sets up elaborate Rube Goldberg machine sequences to kill people off, whereas this icon has the time of her life and then slowly--and I do mean slowly--skateboards into a giant mirror. She sees the mirror when it's still a good distance away! She could easily just step off the skateboard! Instead she screams and watches as death moves inexorably closer...and death wears her face! *shudder*

I'm sure that has some kind of deeper meaning about the human condition, right? This is Pieces, after all.