10 More Horror Movie Heroes Everyone Forgets About
Robert Morse, Maureen Epps, and Crystal May Creasey ring a bell? If not, it's time to re-watch.
When it comes to horror, there aren't always heroes, but when there are they tend to come out swinging, giving the big nasty a taste of its own medicine and often only narrowly walking away from whatever hellish bloodbath they've had to endure.
But all heroes aren't created equal, at least not in our memories. In fact, some pretty serious heroes from across the years have been sidelined for bigger stars and bigger monsters; others have been buried with their movies in the oversaturated horror canon. They are sometimes underdogs, other times sidekicks, and often the only survivor - but never a face you think of when someone says horror hero.
This is Rod riding in on his blue-light chariot at the end of Get Out, Lex killing an alien queen in AVP, and Ellie making good with her landlady in Last Night in Soho. Whoever they are, whatever they've done, they make an invaluable contribution to the canon and the plot, and - having already covered this topic with 10 Horror Movie Heroes Everyone Forgets About - these further ten characters are more than worthy of recognition.
10. Robert Morse - Alien 3
The unsung hero of David Fincher's Alien 3 comes in the unlikely form of prison inmate Robert Morse (Danny Webb) - and, of all the rapists and murderers among them, he's not even one of the more amenable ones.
After Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) crash lands on Fiorina 161, a wasteland planetoid inhabited by inmates-turned-monks from the planet's abandoned maximum security prison, she is brought face-to-face with her worst nightmare once again as another plague of xenomorphs descends, and the remaining men are picked off one-by-one. Down to a last few inmates, it is up to Ripley and her unlikely companions to ensure the creatures don't get off-planet and back to earth.
Enter, Robert Morse. He's certainly a handful to begin with, full of spite and a self-centred worldview, yet by the end of the film he is instrumental in Ripley's plan, and not only succeeds in keeping the xenomorph out of evil-corp Weyland-Yutani's mitts, but is the last man standing (despite a shot in the leg) as the credits roll.