The Top-10 “White Sheep”

There is a curious phenomenon in certain horror films that I would like to officially dub The White Sheep Syndrome. In most any film that features a family of killers, or a pack of monsters (or just a general mash of groovy ghoulies), there tends to be, just for balance I suppose, a single “Normal” amongst them; that one person who seems to look like a regular, everyday Joe. The one who dresses in plain clothes, and speaks like a normal human being, but seems completely comfortable living amongst the creatures of the night. These people will invariably also take just as much relish in fear and death as the rest of the their more mutated and monstrous clan, but will bother to dress like the rest of the civilized society.

Aside from aesthetic reasons, I think the creators of White Sheep throw them in for one of two reasons. Either the White Sheep will be there to offer some comic juxtaposition; how funny is it to see a poodle skirt next to a wolf boy? Or they’ll be used for something far more chilling: they’ll be an emissary from the world of darkness they inhabit, sent out into the world to seduce and eat unsuspecting victims who would never suspect this hot chick is really a monster in disguise.

I have brainstormed, and come up with the following list of White Sheep, some spooky, some silly, for us to look at and ponder.

10) Darla

from “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation” (1997)

The fourth in the “Texas Chainsaw Massacre” series made me feel, when I saw it back in 1997, like an empty, ashamed, hollow shell of a man. I’ve reached a point in my life when I can see just about any bad film you have without batting an eye, so it’s rare when a bad film actually makes me feel sad, sticky and depressed. “The Texas chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation,” (also “The Return of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre”) was actually made back in 1994, but shelved for obvious reasons. It wasn’t until its two stars, Renée Zellweger and Matthew McConaughey achieved fame (each about 1996) that the producers decided to release it on home video, hence, it didn’t see light of day until ’97. That’s when I saw it. That’s when I wept.

In the film, we have our expected cadre of filthy, cannibal hillbillies, living in a secret shack, out in the boonies of the Lone Star State, and the poor dejected teenager (Zellweger) who accidentally ends up in said shack’s vicinity. The evil family is run by the maniacal Vilmer Slaughter (McConaughey) who has a robot leg controlled with a joystick. No lie. And, the emissary to the world is a busty, seductive bisexual lady cop named Darla (played by Tonie Perensky), who flirts with our heroine, banters with the locals, and then goes home to gnaw on strips of homemade human jerky. At the outset, she seems like a regular old playful sexual predator. It’s not until later in the film that we learn that she’s part of this family of hicks. If she’s pretty, and can “pass” in the world of the normals, I have to wonder why she bothers to remain in a filthy house full of human detritus. But never mind. She’s most certainly the White Sheep of the family.

9) Boy

from “Little Monsters” (1989)

According to the mythology of the 1989 Fred Savage vehicle “Little Monsters,” the monsters that live under your bed are real, and they use the darkness under your bed and dimensional portals to the monster realm. The monster realm is every 11-year-old boy’s dream: no parents, no rules, free games of baseball, free candy and junk food all the time, free video arcades, and pinball machines that never TILT. The only downside is that if you stay there too long, you become a monster yourself. Monsters, it turns out, can’t live in the real world, as sunlight kills them, and electric light make them turn into dirty laundry. Which is kind of a stupid detail, but whatever.

The monsters are all strangely-colored, be-horned, be-boiled weirdos with fangs and claws. The main monster in the film Maurice (Howie Mandel) has blue skin and two ridged prongs sticking out of his head. As we learn later, though, the leader of the monster realm is an overgrown schoolboy named, simply, Boy (a 26-year-old Frank Whaley). And while he projects an air of authority and dreadful menage, he looks like a regular kid. Boy is only a terrible monster on the inside. On the outside, he could easily pass for a Normal. It was clever of the director to cast a youthful-looking adult in the role, as it adds to the character’s eerie strangeness.

8) Adam Kesher

in “Mulholland Dr.” (2001)

“Mulholland Dr.” is often considered one of David Lynch’s biggest triumphs, seeing as how it grossed millions, and netted a few Academy Award nominations. When coming up with lists of the best films of the ’00s, “Mulholland Dr.” is usually on it. This is especially odd, given that it was a re-jiggered TV pilot, adapted for feature release after a lucky studio deal. The film takes place in a bizarre, well, Lynchian universe, where there is fear and dread hanging in the air. Mysterious human-like being appear often, and dribble out cryptic pieces of strange, strange dialogue. There is a ghost-like cowboy, the tar monster behind Johnie’s on Wilshire, the dwarf-headed studio exec, and the coffee-hating producer. Even the “normals” in this universe seem to behave with a surreal affect; both Naomi Watts and Laura Harring seem perpetually scared.

But then, through all of this surreal chaos comes Justin Theroux, who plays the beleaguered director Adam. Theroux’s acting style is one of natural, sarcastic flipness. He looks as the weirdness around him, and sees it for how strange it is. In a world where everyone is a darkened cipher of human emotion, Adam Kesher seems like the only one who had his feet on the ground. He may not belong to a family of killers, but I think he counts as a White Sheep, merely because he’s the only one who seems to be thinking clearly.

7) Georgina

from “The Murder Family” featured in Dork Comics (1993)

This one wins the obscurity prize this week.

Evan Dorkin, some readers of Geekscape may know, is the violent-minded comics author behind such underground titles as “Milk & Cheese,” and “Hectic Planet.” When he writes, he seems to be giving vent to his basest, alcohol-fuel violence fantasies. Even when he works in the mainstream (as with the “Bill & Ted” comics, or Marvel’s one-shot “Fight Man” in 1993) his sensibility is still a little warped. He is also known for contributing material to “Space Ghost Coast to Coast,” so you can see where he’s coming from.

One of the features in his long-running “Dork” title was a one-joke sitcom spoof called “The Murder Family,” which featured violent punk rock types, and angry aerial killers getting into wacky, comic situations, complete with intentionally lame plotting and intentionally corny jokes (Dorkin even wrote in a laugh track). And while the family all typically looked like dangerous killers (sometimes even hauling around severed limbs with them in public), the youngest of the family, Georgina, looked like Little Orphan Annie, complete with round, empty eyeballs. She was only in elementary school, and seemed to be in a perpetually good mood, even when she was faced with the violent atrocities committed by her family. She also wasn’t above occasionally taxidermying the teachers than threatened to call the cops. In a house of murderous hicks, Georgina was an angel.

6) Willow

from “The Wicker Man” (1973)

They live on an island. They’re up to something. They insist that the missing girl never existed. They are guarded. They worship some strange unseen deity and, as anyone who has seen Robin Hardy’s 1973 classic knows, occasionally make sacrifices to it. These are the natives of a tiny, rarely-visited British isle who have lived in cult-like isolation for decades. It’s terrible to be stuck in a house with a family of killers, but an entire island would only make things spookier. And pay no attention to the notorious 2006 remake (you’ve likely seen the clips online). This one is actually rather scary.

Edward Woodward plays a cop who is investigating on this island. His central opposition is the creepy holy man Lord Summerilse, played by Christopher Lee. As is typical of films of this ilk, all the people he meets are evasive and obtuse. They wear blank expressions, and sometimes seem a little too polite for their own good. The only person who seems to get Woodward’s attention is the curvy and gorgeous Willow, played by famed Swedish sexbomb Britt Ekland. And while she does give off a creepy vibe, you do get the impression that she’s often sent into the real world to lure people back there. And who could resist, really? The film is notorious for a nude dance scene where Ekland gyrates her buttock on the other side of Woodward’s bedroom wall (although, if you look closely, a body double was used for a few of the shots). What better way to conceal your psychopath status than to be a world-famous Swedish model?

5) Cotton Johnson

from “Pink Flamingos” (1972)

The Johnson family currently holds the title of Filthiest People Alive. It is unclear who has given them this appellation, but it is well known in the Filth community, and envied by other reprobates. Babs Johnson (Divine) is a fat transvestite-looking woman who fellates her son, steals meat, kills cops, and eats both human flesh and dog shit. Her son, Crackers (Danny Mills), rapes women in the family chicken shack and simultaneously kills the chickens therein. The matron of the family, Edie (Edith Massey), is a gross weirdo who lives in a crib and obsesses about eggs. When it comes to horrible families, they don’t get much more horrible.

The White Sheep of the family seems to be Cotton, played by John Waters regular Mary Vivian Pearce. Cotton is a cheery and pretty blonde who, when compared to the depravities of her family, doesn’t seem to do much. Sure, she may hook on the side, and do the horrible chores of her mother, and she may talk at the end of “Pink Flamingos” about shaving her head and becoming a bull-dyke, but she’s seems to be merely amused by the antics around her. Were it not for her unstaunched interest in the utterly depraved, it’s likely she would just be a Normal herself.

4) Francesca

from “Mad Monster Party” (1967)

This film seems to have slipped in obscurity in recent years, so I would like to bring it up, just to give it some more limelight. “Mad Monster Party” was a feature film made by Rankin and Bass (the people behind the famed 1964 TV special “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” and, later, animated classics like “The hobbit” and “The Last Unicorn”). It was released in theaters to capture the Halloween audience the same way that their TV special had the Christmas audience. It wasn’t as big a hit, but, thanks to heavy TV rotation in the mid 1980s, many people my age saw this little curio as children. The result is a small but passionate cult following of grown geeks like myself, who insist on declaiming it a classic. You would do well to watch it this year. With your kids or by yourself. It’ll get the Halloween juices flowing.

The story follows a Jimmy Stewart-like nerd named Felix, who is called the Monster Island by his long lost uncle, Dr. Frankenstein. Frankenstein, you see, is the head of a league of monsters which includes famous beasts like Dracula, the Wolf Man, the Invisible Man, the Creature from the Black Lagoon, and a sassy Bride (played by the legendary Phyllis Diller). And while Frankenstein seems to have entire teams of zombie slaves (including a Peter Lorre lookalike), his only real invaluable assistant is a curvy redhead named Francesca. It’s Francesca’s job to send out invitations, organize, and keep things copacetic between the monsters. She’s the executive assistant of the damned. And while she does come up with evil plots to kill Felix, and teams up with Dracula to do him in, she comes across as a mere hardworking office wonk with a nice paycheck to keep her in hot, clingy dresses. She seems unfazed by the fact that there are supernatural beasts around her. In a world of Mad Monsters, she’s a sane, put-upon secretary.

3) Baby Firefly

from “House of 1000 Corpses” (2003)

I was one of maybe 15 people who managed to see Rob Zombie’s horror pastiche “House of 1000 Corpses” in theaters. The film was a mish-mash of all the horror films that Zombie watched on late-night network TV growing up, and contained some genuinely original spooky crap as well; Dr. Satan the killer cyborg anyone? The film wasn’t fun, and only seemed to hint at the talent Zombie would later display in the film’s pseudo-sequel “ The Devil’s Rejects” two years later. “House” seems to be most closely modeled on “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre,” as it featured a dangerous family of ignorant hicks who would lure unsuspecting college-age travelers into their pits of torture and doom. But not before stitching them to fish or dressing them in bunny costumes or some other damn thing

Like Darla up at the head of the article, the family (jokingly calling themselves “Firefly” after Groucho Marx’s character from “Duck Soup”) seemed to have a token babe they would send out into the world to seduce Normals. This was Baby, played by Rob Zombie’s real-life wife Sheri Moon, a real-life stripper. Baby was a cruel and horrible person, to be sure, and had a great time cackling at people as they writhed in pain (her “evil baby” voice is horrible and grating), but she also seemed to know how to dress, how to put on makeup, and put aside her more murderous instincts when out in public. Her family seemed addicted to making flesh masks and wearing creepy clown makeup. Baby was, on the other hand, capable of disguise. She was also hot, in a country-western-death-metal-Goth sort of way.

2) Debbie Jellinsky

from “Addams Family Values” (1993)

She was actually an interloper, that Debbie Jellinsky (Joan Cusack), forcing the Addams Family’s beloved Uncle Fester (Christopher Lloyd) to leave the beloved family mansion, and live in *choke* domestic bliss. She was, as it was eventually revealed, only after the Addams fortune, and had a secret plan to do them all away. This made her a horrible monster that was only out to murder a family of being that was already obsessed with pain and death. But y’know, in a fun way. I so very much love The Addams Family in all its incarnations, so I was a little taken aback in 1993 to see a wicked woman try to take them out.

What earned Debbie a spot on this list is not only her milquetoast, blueblood first name, but her look. She was always dressed in 1950s housedresses, bulletproof hairdos, and impeccable makeup. Her greed, however, led her to commit some horrible atrocities, just so she could be considered part of the family; for instance, she dug up a corpse just to pilfer the ring on its bony finger. She could have passed as normal, were it not for her murdering. Here’s the irony: the very death wish that drove her out of the family was the very morbid interest that would have had her welcome into it.

1) Marilyn Munster

from “The Munsters” (1964 – 1966)

Inferior to the Addams Family in just about every way (expect for, perhaps, their awesome theme music) The Munsters were a sitcom version of the famed Universal monsters. Frankenstein’s monster was now a big lovable galoot named Herman, and his bride was a doting housewife. Their son was a wolf boy, and grandpa was a an old Dracula-type. Even the housepet was an unseen dragon who lived under the staircase. I did watch reruns o f”The Munsters” as a kid, so I have a certain nostalgic affection for the show. It’s been kid of a relief that they’ve never been pilfered for reboots or remakes. Never. THEY NEVER HAVE.

(i.e. If you bring up “The Munsters Today,” I will burn your house down)

But the one odd an most creative conceit of “The Munsters,” and, indeed, the inspiration for this list, was the strange inclusion of a pretty bikini model named Pat Priest to play the family’s White Sheep, Marilyn. Marilyn was, for all effective purposes, a typical, wide-eyed co-ed, interested in malt shops, dating boys, sock-hops, and that new-fangled rock ‘n’ roll music. She was like a bland extra from a “Gidget” movie escaped into a Halloween-themed alternate universe. As far as I can tell, Marilyn was the first use of the White Sheep, and, hence, all the people on this list owe a debt of gratitude to her.

Also, from what I understand, Marilyn was the source of many a Gen-X childhood crush. It’s likely your father conceived you while thinking of Marilyn Munster. There’s a little ultra-creepy image to go out on.

Witney Seibold is a Green Sheep living in Los Angeles with his wife and his old books. If you’re at all interested, you may read his film reviews on his ‘blog Three Cheers for Darkened Years!, or listen to his weekly rantings about movies on The B-Movies Podcast on Crave Online.