The Six Shooter: Survivors

Happy Halloween and welcome to the October edition of The Six Shooter. October is always the spookiest month of the year with all the haunted houses, costume parties and the unyielding need to be scared out of our mind. I figured I would take a step outside the usual Bulletproof Action box and talk about some horror films this month.

Horror movies and action movies do have many similarities like blood, gore and body count. But in this edition of The Six Shooter I’m going to focus on another thing both genres have in common… survivors!  It doesn’t matter if they last one movie or a whole series, but horror movie survivors are a CUT above the rest!

6. Tommy Jarvis (Friday the 13th Parts 4, 5 and 6)
The survivors in horror movies are usually the female of the species, so that makes my #6 pick, Tommy Jarvis a rarity. He is a rare male survivor AND he lasts multiple movies. Dude had a good run against the hockey mask wearing machete swinging ghoul, Jason Voorhees, and that is no easy task. Tommy also has the honor of being the protagonist in the first horror film I ever saw Friday the 13th: Jason Lives. That experience was something I will always remember and there is a funny story with a cat, a butter knife and a bowl of cereal that goes along with it. If you see me, ask me about it. Tommy survived an impressive three films He even gets a comic relief appearance in Freddy vs. Jason vs. Ash: The Nightmare Warriors. Well done Tommy but maybe don’t go camping ever again.

5. Sarah Connor (The Terminator)
Now I know what you are thinking, The Terminator isn’t a horror movie, but you have a murderous cyborg from the future hunting you down and you tell me that is not horrifying!  Super hardcore Sarah doing pull ups in a mental institute from Terminator 2 may be the Sarah we all know and love. But if the down on her luck waitress Sarah didn’t survive in the original film, she would have never become the action icon we now know her to be.

4. Nancy Thompson (Nightmare on Elm Street: 1, 3 and New Nightmare)
Nancy is a stand out final girl in the world of horror. And for good reason. She survived the first nightmare with the Dream Demon known as Freddy Kruger. And then returned in Dream Warriors to teach others out to defend themselves against him. I must admit as a kid I was never scared of Freddy so I didn’t appreciate Nancy very much. I was no longer intimidated by Mr. Kruger once he looked like a Stretch Armstrong. It wasn’t until New Nightmare came along that I really started to dig both characters.

3. Sidney Prescott (Scream Franchise)
Like Nancy, Sidney is a creation of the great Wes Craven. And like so many of his creations, the Scream franchise is on point. If you haven’t watched these films in numerical order you are doing yourself a disservice. Sidney Prescott starts out this journey as a insecure girl having a difficult time juggling all of her emotions. By the end she takes crap from no one. You know there are a few times in the series I thought Sidney was weak, but after it is all said and done it is easy to see that Sidney is the very definition of strength. Sure her antagonists were human. but considering who who they were I’d say it took superhuman ability to overcome them.

2. Jamie Lloyd (Halloween 4, 5 and 6)
Poor little Jamie, a little girl who lost her mom (kinda) and dad in a car accident. Now she is just trying to live a normal life with her foster family. All is well until Uncle Michael wakes up. I can honestly say that Micheal Myers gave me nightmares. Halloween 4 was the first of the Halloween films I saw growing up. And I think that is why little Jamie is so high on the list. When I saw this I wasn’t much older than Jamie in the film. Maybe that is why Michael scared me. His whole purpose was to hunt down and kill his niece! What makes the story even sadder is that it seems like Jamie wants her uncle to love her as she even holds his hand just moments before he iss shot down. But all he does is try to pass his evil on to her. Jamie returns mute in Part 5 with a special connection to her uncle and the character (not played by Danielle Harris) has a short cameo in Part 6 where she dies at 15 giving birth. And after that it gets a little wild.

1. Laurie Strode (Halloween 1, 2, 7 and 8)
Laurie Strode, 17 year old baby sitter just trying to find out what boy likes her has know idea what is ahead of her that fateful Halloween night in 1978. The actions that would take place that night with her brother Michael would not only change her fictional life but it would turn the horror world on its ear. Halloween 1 an 2 have to be a favorite to any horror fan. How could you not love the way they did one night with two movies? Brilliant! Sorry getting ahead of myself. Laurie is the end all be all of final girls! In her first encounter with Michael Myers she survived multiple stab wounds. Later that night (Halloween 2) she learned that this maniac that just killed everyone she love and tried to kill her was her only blood relative. Laurie would return in the 7th installment of the Myers saga 20 years later having outsmarted Micheal all this time in what was a screenplay written as an alternate time line to the prior three films. I didn’t like that approach because it deleted her daughter Jamie (see above) and disrupted the continuity of the franchise. Sadly Laurie’s fight comes to an end in Halloween:Resurrection. But hats off to you Laurie, you survived against the one fictional serial killer I wouldn’t want to run into while trick or treating. Well done.

Ok that is all I got for now. Like my picks? Think you have a better list than I do? Let me know in the comments or on the Twitter thing @PlanetWillams.

Thanks for reading and… BOO!