This Valentine's Day, it's important to remember that love doesn't have to be just about chocolates and flowers. As these cinematic examples prove, sometimes it's about firearms, knives and the occasional arsenic cocktail. As they say, love makes you do crazy things.
Frank from 'Blue Velvet'
Straight from the twisted mind of David Lynch, 'Blue Velvet' presents the disturbing S&M relationship between brutalized nightclub singer Dorothy Valens (Isabella Rossellini) and her monstrous, nitrous-oxide huffing kidnapper, Frank Booth (Dennis Hopper).
While keeping Dorothy's husband and son locked away, Frank entraps Dorothy in a seedy relationship laced in ultra-violence and sadistic masochism. In his introductory scene he adds numerous dimensions to what you can do with a scissors. With every inhalation in his gas mask, Frank flips from enraged psycho to pathetic sex fiend and back again.
For Frank, sex and violence are one in the same. Yet Frank isn't your normal Roy Orbison-lip-synching psychopathic lover. He's also got a penchant for Pabst Blue Ribbon, but make sure it's cold, because warm beer makes him puke.
'Derek W. Eby
Alex Forrest from 'Fatal Attraction'
Some girls just don't take rejection lightly. Subtle hints'unreturned phone calls, canceled dates, restraining orders'go completely unnoticed, and it takes something really obvious to get them to stop calling. Alex (Glenn Close) in 'Fatal Attraction' is one of those girls.
Beneath the big, crimped blonde hair, the clingy low-cut suits and the seductive exterior is a maniacal woman obsessed with her one-time fling with lawyer Dan Gallagher (Michael Douglas). Unable to forget their nights of passion, she sets about calling his house, stalking him at work, kidnapping his child and attempting to stab his wife to death. It isn't until Gallagher drowns her that she starts to get the hint that he just isn't that into her. But even then, it takes a gunshot from his wife for her to really get that it's over.
'Caitlin Cieslik-Miskimen
Jackie-O from 'The House of Yes'
Parker Posey went neurotic-prep in 'Best in Show' and evilly managerial in 'Josie and the Pussycats,' but never was she as straight psycho as in 'The House of Yes.' Striding around her family's Beltway mansion in her pillbox hat and pink suit, Jackie-O has two main interests: believing she's Jacqueline Kennedy, and her brother Marty (Josh Hamilton), with whom she's had a just slightly closer-than-sibling relationship with in the past.
When Marty returns home with a fianc?? (Tori Spelling), Jackie-O goes into a murderous sexual rage that she tries to deny by declaring, 'I watch soap operas. I bake brownies. Normalcy is coursing through my veins.' Nobody believes it, even before the inevitable conclusion including every filmgoer's three favorite things: incest, insanity and murder. What else does a movie need?
'Dan Wohl
Annie Wilkes from 'Misery'
Who can forget the deliciously violent battle scene which ends, once and for all, the brutal torture of poor, captured writer Paul Sheldon? The movie 'Misery' (1990) had more than a few men glancing, half-frightened, in the direction of the mystery girl they've only just started dating, wary she may at any time start calling herself his 'number one fan.' God forbid any human be taken into the arms of a woman half as psychotic as Kathy Bates' perfectly portrayed Annie: a woman who'd smash a man's ankles to bits with a sledgehammer and then sweetly whisper to him as he lies there, tied to the bed, in utmost agony: 'God, I love you.'
'Tarah Scalzo
Marco from 'The Psycho Lover'
If it weren't bad enough having to listen to a voice in your head that says 'kill, kill, kill,' Marco has another demon to deal with. His psychiatrist, Dr. Kenneth Alden, decides to brainwash him into killing his own wife, Valerie, who refuses to give him a divorce. Marco visits Dr. Alden in order to help curb his taste for rape and murder after having killed two women. One of his carried-out fantasies allegedly involved the strategic placement of a ketchup bottle. Marco's dreams of clown-faced women and belly-dancers and Dr. Alden's shady encouragement keep this 1970 sexploitation film filled with boobs, ass-shaking and lines like 'I'm like the proverbial bloodhound: I can smell him in this room, and the hairs of my ass stand on end every time I catch his scent.'
'Christina Zentmeyer
Lee Holloway from 'Secretary'
If the tagline 'assume the position' does not hint towards a twisted love story, the short skirted, high-heeled, ankle-grabbing 'Secretary' icon will. The two combined only preview the strange S&M romance that is in store. Played by Maggie Gyllenhaal, Lee is a sweet, self-abusive cutter from a slightly dysfunctional family who ends up working for Mr. Grey, played by none other than '80s teeny-bopper jerk James Spader. As Lee distances herself from her family and boyfriend (oh yes, this lovely lady is a cheater), she draws herself closer to a tender harmonious relationship with Mr. Grey.
A relationship that thrives on misogyny, domination, submissiveness and even masturbating to dinner instructions. The couple lures audiences into an unnerving visualization of human sexuality through their displays of affection, which include harsh typo punishments and intense spanking. 'Secretary' is a sexy movie absorbed in secrets, self-destructive habits and scandalous behavior. The cheek-flushing film offers those brave enough to embrace it a new realm of meaning to the phrase 'love hurts.'
'Britta Johnson
Martin Burney from 'Sleeping With The Enemy'
In this early-1990s thriller, Martin (Patrick Bergin) plays the abusive and controlling husband of Julia Roberts' Laura Burney. Infuriated after discovering his wife has staged her own death, he seeks to locate her in her new life. 'You can't conquer your fears by running away from them,' threatens Martin. 'We'll always be together. Nothing could ever bring us apart.'
Bergin's beady eyes and dark features create the perfect image of a compulsive, psychotic husband like Martin. This obsession is what drives him to his death, as his final words are what ultimately destroy him: 'I can't live without you, and I won't let you live without me.'
'Emily Bahr
