Okay, so this is a stupidly ambitious and longterm stab at a thread, but here it is. I’m starting the Chewer Alternative Cinema Icons Top 100 here, as a place for us to craft our own off-kilter list in the style of the main page. We each can post one choice per day, and any choice can be ruled invalid if it’s objected to by five or more Chewers. These don’t have to be ultra-obscure characters/performances – just stuff that generally goes largely unheralded, be it because of genre or a more lauded element in the same film or whatever. I think we should aim to hit 250 before whittling down to a top 100-hopefully this takes off and we can do that. I’ll start the ball rolling:
1. Donald Pleasance as Dr. Sam Loomis, the HALLOWEEN series (1978 – 1995): given that Carpenter’s original is widely credited as establishing the ground rules for the slasher genre, it’s weird that possibly the most fun element of HALLOWEEN is also the only key component to avoid being repeated en masse in its numerous rip-offs. Sure, there are survivor girls and the occasional Tommy Jarvis making their way through multiple films of other franchises, but nobody as established, engaging or consistent as Dr. Loomis. Pleasance is such a delightful old ham that he’s good value in anything but he takes it to another level here, providing many moments of hysterical OTT fearmongering that serve as a tasty counterpoint to the slow-burning scares. Maybe those filmmakers that appropriated much of Carpenter’s iconic movie realized that to try and duplicate Myers’ Ahab would be an exercise in futility.
1. Donald Pleasance as Dr. Sam Loomis, the HALLOWEEN series (1978 – 1995): given that Carpenter’s original is widely credited as establishing the ground rules for the slasher genre, it’s weird that possibly the most fun element of HALLOWEEN is also the only key component to avoid being repeated en masse in its numerous rip-offs. Sure, there are survivor girls and the occasional Tommy Jarvis making their way through multiple films of other franchises, but nobody as established, engaging or consistent as Dr. Loomis. Pleasance is such a delightful old ham that he’s good value in anything but he takes it to another level here, providing many moments of hysterical OTT fearmongering that serve as a tasty counterpoint to the slow-burning scares. Maybe those filmmakers that appropriated much of Carpenter’s iconic movie realized that to try and duplicate Myers’ Ahab would be an exercise in futility.
