Virginia Madsen Horror Films

Virginia Madsen is a blond actress, more than reasonably attractive, and nearing fifty.  If you've never heard of her, that's perfectly reasonable.  But its your loss, since she's astoundingly beautiful, even now.  However, there are dozens of astounding beauties in Hollywood - even ones that are years older than Madsen.  What makes this actress special is a two movies she made in the early 90s, which strangely enough happen to be two of the very best horror films in the history of well, ever.  And since I can only fantasize about being even barely tangentially related to even a forgettable film, I have to take a step back and honor Mrs. Madsen, an all-too-brief Scream Queen.

The two movies she happened to take part were none other than "Candyman" and "The Prophecy", which makes her a great transition in order to discuss both films.  Despite being intensely frightening, brilliantly shot, and superbly well-acted, for some reason or another these two horror films just seem to have faded into the wind.  I'm not even sure I can say that these movies truly have faded, since they both got respectable reviews and several far lesser straight-to-home video* sequels.  I'm pretty sure that most horror fans have at least a vague idea what "Candyman" is about.  "Candyman" as a franchise is truly dead, and last year a complete rip-off of "The Prophecy" was released under the title "Legion" and nobody but me batted an eyebrow.  How tragic.  And soon enough a new slew of bad "Halloween" and "Friday the 13th" films are on the way, and the entire world will eat them up.

This will not stand!  The greatest moments of Virginia Madsen's career cannot be forgotten.  So in today's post, we'll now be doing a brief double-review of "Candyman" and "The Prophecy", both of which are hugely worth a rent.  (Plus at least one of them has her naked in two scenes, if you're into that kind of thing.)

Candyman (1993)

If I were to make a horror movie about called "Candyman" it would be a basic slasher flick about a deranged candyman who murders stupid teenagers by shoving oversized lolipops down their throat and other silly candy-themed kills.  Eventually the Last Girl would kill the Candyman, only for him to come back in the dozen or so sequels.  At some point, we'd have to have a parody of Sammy Davis Jr.'s "The Candyman Can".

The actual movie "Candyman" is quite a bit different than that.  Instead, Candyman is a Bloody Mary-esque urban legend, a mythical serial killer who prays upon the poor Black community shoved into the bunker-like affordable housing Projects that are a familiar sight to all of us who live in urban areas.  If you say his name five times into a mirror, he'll appear behind you and then he kills you with his bloody rusted hook for a hand - every great killer needs a cool weapon.  Also he's the ghost of a Black painter murdered for getting involved with a White woman back in America's less enlightened days.  And if that's not enough, he also can summon bees - thousands of them.  As a matter of fact, nothing about this guy's mythology or powers have anything at all to do with candy.  Its never been made clear to me why he's called "Candyman".  I think "Hookman" might be better, or "Beeman" or something.

Anyway, Virginia Madsen plays Helen, a graduate student working on her thesis, which she's writing on the Candyman.  Driven to beat her pompous professor husband (who is probably cheating on her), Helen and her best friend dive deep into Chicago's worst projects trying to uncover the truth behind the rumors.  However, when Helen digs too deep, she uncovers the horrible truth behind the nightmare.

If there's any thing that makes this movie particularly frightening, its Tony Todd as the Candyman. The man has an incredibly deep voice, reaching down to an incredible octave (which is actually hugely important to this film since the entire Philip Glass soundtrack is loud choral moans).  He does not have very many lines, but when he speaks you can feel the hypnotic terror that poor Helen has been shoved into.  Virginia Madsen's eyes fill up with helpless tears, begging for mercy from her supernatural tormentor.  Candyman only kills three people - pitiful for a slasher film - but his atmospheric performance is truly a sight to behold.  And if that's not enough to scare you, let me say that if you have ever been frightened of even just a baby bumblebee, this movie will make you freak right out.

There's also a very slight commentary on racial issues to be found, which I feel is handled quite well, never shoved right into the audience's face.  To the white students at Helen's campus, Candyman is just a silly horror story, no more a threat than the murders you hear about on the evening news.  But to those in the Projects, he is a very real threat, killing their neighbors while the police ignore their calls.  Helen's best friend is African American, but she is more afraid of stepping into the poor areas of Chicago than her blond hair blue-eyed companion.  At one point a character even calls them both "White women".  And of course, Candyman's death only came about thanks to trying to be like the White upper-class he almost was a member of.  I'm not sure if this movie is making any particular calls for action, but it does reveal quite a bit of the issues we best prefer to ignore in our society.

By the way, to this very day I can't bring myself to say "Candyman" into a mirror five times.  You can try for me.  Tell me how it turns out.

The Prophecy (1995)

The Archangel Gabriel descends to Earth from heaven to fulfill a mission in which he tries to reopen Heaven for human souls while combating a plot by Lucifer.  Guess which one of these characters is the main villain of the story?  Maybe these hints will help you:  Gabriel is played by Christopher Walken, uses the near-dead as zombie minions, and goes around calling humans "monkeys".  But don't worry, Lucifer (Viggo Mortensen) is pretty evil too, just that he happens to be on the same side as the human heroes.

For thousands of years, Heaven has been at war, with Gabriel leading the battle against God out of jealousy that He loved humans more.  For some admittedly contrived reason, the key to opening the Gates of Heaven is a soul of an American soldier and war criminal which ends up in the body of a little Indian girl.  So Gabriel comes down to Earth to hunt down the girl and in the process destroy humanity.  Ultimately the hopes of the universe end with up with a failed-priest detective (played by the guy who shot House at the end of Season 2) and a school teacher (Virginia Madsen) to save the girl and stop Gabriel.  These two characters have to confront a new world of good and evil and find away to save the girl... and themselves.

"The Prophecy" would have been a great horror movie only if its basic premise - "what if an angel went evil and attacked humans?" - but its such a deeper film than that.  I mean, I love the irony of creatures that are traditionally benevolent turning evil (one day there needs to be a Nymph horror film), but I wouldn't be recommending this if it were just that**.  Christopher Walken lights the screen on fire as Gabriel, bringing a complete disdain for humanity along with a sadness that can only come from thousands of years of separation from your creator.  He doesn't go around killing people left and right, instead he simply moves forward in his mission, no matter what needs to be done to complete it.  As sure as the "Resident Evil" film series will never die, neither will he.  Angels aren't human, they have no souls, on a very fundamental level they are different from us humans psychologically.  Add that in with some very human emotions such as envy, abandonment, and murderous rage.  Viggo Mortensen as Lucifer has a very small role, but what a truly epic one.  He's charming at first, but beyond it all is only a monster filled with insane jealousy and a desperate plea for your love - a brilliant take on Christianity's biggest bad guy.

Plus the entire movie takes place in a land that I truly do believe is heaven on Earth:  the American Southwest.  The bizarre rocky landscape and mesas make for an amazing stark yet beautiful backdrop for an ultimate celestial clash - this is why "Legion" stole that visual aesthetic full cloth, along with everything else in that movie that didn't suck.  But more than that, this is a story of finding one's faith again.

(Bullshit philosophical note:  There might be a vaguely Calvinist twang to this film's theology.  The main character, Thomas, has to find his faith in God even while being confronted by all the lesser mythical beings of Christianity.  Perhaps this is all a message that beyond the complex and often frightening trappings of standardized orthodox religion, ultimately it is all just a relationship between you and your God.  Or maybe the creators simply thought that angels were scary.)

Virginia Madsen is in this movie, and her role is fairly important, but I don't really think she's the star.  However, this is still a Virginia Madsen horror movie, so it counts for this double review that I'm doing here, which is just about to be wrapped up.

Now as awesome as those two movies were, Virginia Madsen did do a third horror movie, but this one was much later in time.  In fact, it came out just last year.  It was known as "A Haunting in Connecticut" and was absolute trash.  Its tragic to see an actress who was in two such brilliant and original horror films end up in something so darn forgettable.  So if you're in your local Blockbuster or something today, don't grab "A Haunting" off the walls just because its recent - get the real Virginia Madsen horror.  These movies are awesome.

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* I can't call them "straight-to-DVD" since at the time these movies were released straight to VHS.  I think some of the later "Prophecy" sequels actually are straight-to-DVD, but whatever.  I always feel warm inside thinking of VHS.  You can't help but miss those big black cassettes we shoved into our videotape players, can you?  If Blu-ray overtakes DVD (big if actually), I won't give a damn, but I'll always miss VHS.

** Just like I can never recommend "Leprechaun" or any of its sequels.  I can't tell if "Leprechaun" is legitimately trying to elicit the fear emotion or is just a big joke.  Just like most Rule 34 porn, come to think of it.