just got done rewatching reanimator (1986) for the first time in a while and herbert west’s sheer and continuous inability to think abt the long term consequences of Any of his actions never ceases to amaze me
actually while i’m thinking abt mbv (1981), here are some of my Thoughts and Opinions bc while it is one of my favorite movies, i Do have like two (2) major problems with it and one (1) Hot Take that theoretically addresses them both
(weird rambling under the cut, sorry this got longer than i expected)
okay so first off: the ending twist just…doesn’t work. it just Does Not work.
like axel only makes sense as the killer bc of his backstory, and the problem with that is that we only learn his backstory—and therefore, any reason we might have to suspect him as the killer bc horror movies Love to do the whole “trauma is a direct pipeline to becoming a serial killer” bullshit—AFTER we learn he’s the killer so it just feels tacked-on. and sure, you could argue that the love triangle was a factor as well, but the problem with THAT is that the movie doesn’t really touch on it after the Reveal, outside of like two (2) lines at the end, which would imply that, of the two, axel’s backstory was more relevant to his motive than the love triangle was.
and speaking of the love triangle, that brings me to my Second problem: the main character t.j. is like Actually the fucking worst. like the guy acts soooo creepily towards his ex-gf—says multiple times out-loud in public that he's gonna try and steal her back from her new bf, drags her away from her workplace (presumably during her shift) while refusing to listen to her as she says she doesn’t wanna go, just automatically assumes she wants to come back to him w/o letting her speak for herself, literally just will Not leave her the hell alone, acts guilt-trippy towards her as if HE wasn’t the one who fucked up their relationship, and generally just acts like he’s entitled to her as if she were his property.
the movie does at least (halfheartedly imo) call it out for the shitty behavior it is, which is better than most early 80s movies...but that only makes it all the more infuriating when t.j. ends up with sarah in the end. it’s justifying and romanticizing the notion of aggressively pursuing ppl who’ve already told you no (multiple times, at that). bc sometimes no actually means yes! /s
like yeah axel fuckin sucks too (see how he acts towards sarah during the party) but he at least seems ashamed abt it (see the scene shortly after where he bursts into tears) AND he also isn’t rewarded for his behavior at the end like t.j. is
so here’s my Official MBV Hot Take™️: t.j. would’ve worked better as the killer, whilst Still being the main protagonist.
for one thing, it would be an Actual twist (at least compared to your average slasher movie at the time and even now tbh) bc he’s been set up as the main character, but also wouldn’t be too out of nowhere bc 1.) this movie is structured in such a way that it focuses on t.j. enough to consider him the main character, but it doesn’t follow his every move, 2.) his uh. lowkey concerning tendency to react overly aggressively or even violently when things don’t go his way (dude started a fistfight IN A MINE), and 3.) his creepy ass stalker behavior towards sarah.
hell, there’s your motive right there: he wants sarah back, so he commits this harry warden-esque murder spree—making the valentine’s day party itself a red herring—in order to kill off axel and get away with it, allowing him to win sarah back by comforting her after the fact, which would play into the love aspect of valentine’s day.
(okay, it’s more entitlement than love, but you get what i mean)
it would Also be kind of an interesting contrast to harry’s spree imo? bc harry’s Whole Thing is that he killed these two ppl who not only genuinely wronged him/ruined his life, not only Also got most of his coworkers (who were probably also his friends) killed, but seemingly got away with it both legally and socially to the point where they felt comfortable enough to go to the valentine’s dance the very next year. but he also confined it to Only those two ppl, and that’s it (which is a part of why i hate the remake so much but that’s a whole different discussion). he didn’t go after anyone who wasn’t directly involved in the cave-in. so there’s this morally gray aspect to it all where the murders still aren’t justified, but harry’s a victim as well and it’s very understandable where he’s coming from.
but with t.j., it would be him being fully willing to kill most of his friend group—people he’s probably known his entire life, people who have done nothing to him that would warrant this—and intentionally ripping open this old wound in valentine bluffs that was finally beginning to heal, all bc his ex won’t leave her boyfriend and get back together with him.
well, it’s not the Only reason—he’s been angry towards this whole town for a While now, he’s pissed abt having to come back with nothing to show for it, he’s pissed to be back in that fucking mine again, he’s pissed at his dad, and he’s especially pissed that everyone and everything seemed to move on just fine without him—but it is the straw that broke the camel’s back, just one more reminder of how much of a failure he feels like he is.
and since he doesn’t wanna accept that other ppl (especially sarah) have lives outside of him and can’t just put everything on hold for him, nor does he want to actually work on these feelings of failure (bc that would mean having to admit that a lot of his problems are his own fault and he’s not the victim here), he decides to “fix” things by removing axel from the equation and let out some of the anger he holds towards valentine bluffs in the process.
it’s deciding to take matters into your own hands but for two very different reasons: trauma and a need to correct an injustice driving someone to do something drastic vs. entitlement, an unwillingness to accept fault, and a deep-seated rage towards Everyone And Everything in valentine bluffs finally coming to a head. a victim vs. a victim complex.
also.....there’s something abt the dramatic irony of the mayor’s son of all ppl taking harry warden’s place as valentine bluffs’ town boogeyman, all while being 10x worse than harry warden ever was, that just Feels Right in a narrative sense.
bc it’s valentine’s day and the movie is eternally living rent-free in my head
putting these under a cut bc they Might get long
- initially, harry had planned on killing both the supervisors and mayor hanniger as well. as far as harry was concerned, mayor hanniger shared some of the blame for what happened in 1960, as the owner of the mine & everything. he quickly lost steam after killing the supervisors, though. turns out that killing and cutting open ppl to rip out their organs is an incredibly psychologically taxing thing to do. who woulda thought!
- harry warden was released from eastfield for the second and final time in late 1972. he didn’t return to valentine bluffs; they wanted nothing to do with him (which was, admittedly, understandable) and he wanted nothing to do with them in turn (also understandable). besides, his family had long since moved away from that town, so there wasn’t any reason to go there anyway. just before midnight on february 13, 1975, harry warden died in his family’s home. cause of death? a heart attack.
- patty’s dad was the other supervisor that harry warden killed on valentine’s day, 1961.
- patty’s last name is byrne. hollis’ last name is murphy.
- tommy whitcomb and sylvia were siblings. fraternal twins, to be more specific.
- by february 14, 1980, hollis & patty had just gotten engaged. they had just managed to pin down a wedding date (it would’ve been that following summer) when...well. You Know.
- t.j. and hollis are childhood friends. patty was childhood friends with both sarah and axel, but axel and sarah didn’t really become friends until sometime in high school.
- t.j. and patty Do Not like each other. they Can get along and make nice in public (and often have to, for sarah and hollis’ sakes), but that’s mostly bc they both go out of their way to avoid interacting with each other. t.j. thinks she’s a judgmental bitch that’s trying to get between him and sarah, and patty thinks he’s a bitter creep that won’t leave sarah the fuck alone. they’ve gotten into screaming matches more than once, some that were so bad that one/both of them had to be physically removed from the situation before it became a fist fight.
- related to the previous hc, t.j. and patty actually did end up having a fist fight in high school. nobody won bc they got pulled apart before that could happen. neither of them remember what it was abt.
uhhhh slasher hc i came up with a couple nights ago: jess bradford from black christmas (1974) and t.j. hanniger from my bloody valentine (1981) are cousins
