Strange Horror Bodies, Part I

How many horror movies can you name where the villain and the hero are embodied by the same character?

If you sit and have a think, you can perhaps come up with one or two, but this villain-hero character type is certainly unusual. 

And it is definitely a change from the victim-hero or 'Final Girl' type that exists particularly in slashers (see Carol J. Clover's Men, Women, and Chainsaws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film).

It's also quite different from the victim-villain, like one might note in films like The Exorcist (1973):  Regan, an innocent little girl who becomes possessed and wreaks havoc on the lives of clergy members and her poor mother’s friends and nerves (though one might also consider the gender politics at large as blurring the distinction of ‘good’ and ‘evil’ even further, but we won’t dwell on that here). You might even recall Linda Williams’ argument which likens the helpless victim to the monster figure – an interesting point to consider, though not quite the same thing here (see Williams’ essay, ‘When the woman looks’ ).

But let's focus on the villain-hero type. This is a character who is initially positioned at one end of an imagined 'Good and Evil' spectrum and, over the course of the narrative, converts to a position at the other end of the spectrum, effectively being both a villain and a hero (or vice versa) in the same narrative.

In some ways, the lead in the Carrie films mixes the two types: she seeks a brutal revenge against the horrible school bullies that may deserve to be put in their place. Perhaps you might consider – **SPOILER ALERT** – the character of Helen Lyle in Candyman (1992), who inevitably becomes the villain she is trying to overcome; the same goes for Leon, in The Midnight Meat Train (2008), for that matter. But alas, this character type is not without issue.

Of course, there is evidence that many cinematic characters possess the ability to be both good and bad. Norman Bates, a plucky, helpful yet pathetic sort (albeit troubled by a broken mind and a split psychosis), is an example of a character whom is not outright evil, and yet is one we can hardly deem to be genuinely good, either.  A character such as this exists within the ‘grey zone’ or middle area of the 'Good and Evil' spectrum, as a vague entity that troubles us as audience members. 

Granted, most viewers of the Psycho films have a clear idea of what to expect of Norman, since word-of-mouth has generally taken the punch out the story’s ending. But one might also consider Marion Crane, a good-natured character who, in a flash moment of greed and spontaneity, makes off with a hefty sum which she was supposed to deliver to the bank on behalf of her boss. In this particular case, we might simply saw that Marion is a good character that does a bad thing, and the facts that she (a) recognizes her act as ‘bad’; and (b) reasons that she must return the money, further prevents her from any solid classification as a ‘bad’ character. For that matter, what does ‘good’ and ‘bad’ really entail? And what is the distinction between ‘bad’ and ‘evil’?

Let's set aside these ambiguities for a moment.

Consider the character, Mia, in Fede Alvarez’ Evil Dead (2013).

**SPOILER ALERTS TO COME** Though she enters the narrative later than the other characters, Mia steals the spotlight when she reconnects with her estranged brother, David. The plot embellishes Sam Raimi’s original storyline by adding a drug intervention that is soon waylaid by the dripping oversaturation of unrelenting gore and dismemberment. But it is unmistakable: Mia is a character at the centre of it all.

From the time she willingly arrives for a secluded treatment at the hands of friends and what remains of her family, Mia is in effect submitting herself for consideration in the role of the villain-hero. Her transformation into villain is brought about by an encounter with the essence of evil that is reawakened by Eric, the likeable bookish friend whose pursuit of knowledge brings life to the ‘curiosity-that-killed-the-cat’ trope (or ‘cats’, for there are many dangling from the rafters in the cabin’s eerie basement). Soon after, demonic-Mia is terrorizing the group with a giggle eerily evocative of another possessed female (whom I will return to shortly).  She is the first to become a ‘Deadite’, a slow, sweaty, quivering mess of a transformation that sees her attacking her friends (and erupting strange bile all over one – now where have I seen this before?) and brother before being locked in the cellar.

But the basement barely contains her evil; she spectates from a gap in the cellar hatch and lures the doe-eyed Natalie to her doom with false whimpering cries. Mia’s grotesque tongue mutilation and ensuing wagging further recalls Regan, even down to the crude expletive she utters. Now, given that she is technically possessed by an evil spirit (like that of Regan), one may dispute whether Mia’s nature of being is actually evil: she is a victim who is taken over by a demonic spirit that is evil. On the other hand, it is with her body and through her actions that terror is raised (poor Grandpa the dog will attest to that, or at least he would if he weren’t a mangled corpse).

Over the course of the film, Mia’s insidiousness is allowed to prevail, under David’s guilty inability to do his sister further emotional harm. But eventually he is driven to performing a live burial, a bag ineffectually tugged over his demon-sister’s head; she taunts him from beneath the plastic as he dumps hesitant shovelfuls of mud onto her. Somehow, he succeeds in diffusing the demon-Mia threat. He quickly unearths his beloved sister and – miracles among miracles – he revives her and she is saved! They embrace and all is well!

But wait.

We can all breathe a collective sigh of relief at this false ending. While Mia does not convert back again into an evil form and chew apart her endearing brother, she instead assumes a role of power. As all hell rains down (and then climbs up from the muddy bowels of the earth), who is it that wields the infamous chainsaw, in all its sputtering, roaring glory?

Mia.

Who somehow manages to halt the ravaging beast of the apocalypse with a few determined ripping digs of said chainsaw?

That’s right.

Mia.

(sigh) My villain-hero.

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