5. Varla – Faster Pussycat, Kill, Kill! Tura Satana does what every great villain (or hero) should: race fast vintage cars, pummel yuppie scum, and expose voluminous amounts of cleavage. Damn. She’ll slip your gf a roofie and rob your wheelchair-bound dad without a second thought.
4. Miriya – Robotech: Macross
Mirya is one of the Zentraedi, a Spartan-like race of 50 ft-tall aliens that are really pissed Earth stole their spaceship. Sent by her boss Khyron to kill every human involved, she leads the Zentraedi military in wiping out most of the Micronians (their term for ‘humans’) and maneuvers her alien robot-plane thing like an alien Danica Patrick. In one of the most famous scenes in anime history, she does battle with Max Sterling, and then they have sex and pop out a half alien/half human kid. Never mind the logistics, here’s a great dogfight. Special bonus: the groovy disco/smooth jazz soundtrack.
3. Mona Demarkov – Romeo is Bleeding
A guilty pleasure to watch, Romeo is Bleeding is a mixed bag. It’s sort of half poser film-noir and half frustrated Gary Oldman yelling in his exaggerated Long Island accent. Leno Olin plays Russian gangster Mona Demarkov, and this broad is scary. I think part of it is the shoulder padded suit and the weird accent that isn’t quite Russian. She’s diabolical enough to always have the upper hand on poor Oldman, who constantly thinks with the wrong head. Still one of Oldman’s best performances.
2. Christina Delassalle – Les Diaboliques
Christina is pretty much a tramp from the beginning of this film, involved in a tryst between her abusive boss, Michel, and Michel’s weak and weary wife, Nicole. Despite all this, Nicole and Christina form a bond with one another based on their mutual abuse and plot to kill Michel. Eventually they carry out their plan, get rid of the body, and everything’s going great until Nicole starts seeing Michel’s ghost everywhere. Finally Michel sneaks up on poor Nicole, killing her from fright. Turns out Christina and Michel were in it together to kill Nicole all along. It did for bathtubs what Jaws did for the ocean.
1. Asami – Audition
Recall your worst date, multiply it times infinity, and it still can’t compare to how bad this one is. Aoyama is a grieving widower who decides it’d be a great idea to ‘audition’ girls to be his new wife, and he picked the wrong one in Asami, overcome by jealousy and rage that Aoyama still has any love for his dead wife. Thus follows scenes of torture that could only come from Takashi Miike, the dude who blessed us with Oldboy a couple years later. Here’s a clip from Bravo’s special on The 100 Scariest Horror Moments of All Time, which pretty much sums it up.
Honorable Mention: Evelyn Draper – Play Misty For Me: Jessica Showalter received a Golden Globe for her performance as the psycho fan of DJ Clint Eastwood. You’ll forget entirely about her roles in Arrested Development and PCU after watching the trailer.
Words by Jeff Nau
