The First Bi-Millenial Supporting Actress Awards!
The Suppy Awards™ is the only Eastern seaboard awards program that recognizes Supporting Actress work in The Teen Horror and Suspense Film, specifically in those films falling under the wave of the late-‘90’s young adult slasher and/or stalker pictures. This includes the overcooked but welcome early 2000’s entries and a few bandwagon-jumping teen comedy thrillers. The Suppies™ is affiliated with no religious groups other than the cult of Leelee Sobieski.
Grab your Skechers and Noxzema: It’s time, finally, magically, ecstatically, for a dedication to screaming teen ladies of yesteryear, a decade past. Please, pay no mind to those small, mysterious blonde pubes on the red carpet; Jessica Cauffiel promises to sweep them up after the ceremony.
We have Gushers, ketamine, and Goosebumps books on sale in the lobby, tagged with those little stickers people use at garage sales (i.e. “5—“ means five dollars). And thank you, Universal Studios Backlot, for housing us tonight and donating the Schnapps-infused green slime requested by Tara Reid.
Best Preliminary Victim Who Serves No Purpose Whatsoever
a.k.a. the Who Are You? Award
JACINDA BARRETT as “Lisa,” Urban Legends: Final Cut (2000)
- In her first “high-profile” role since graduating from the Real World: London cast in 1995, Ms. Barrett gets roofied at a nightclub, wakes up without a kidney in a bathtub of ice, and gets stabbed through a window.
JESSICA BOWMAN as “Charlotte,” Joy Ride (2001)
- Charlotte appears on-screen for twenty-five seconds in a cutesy convertible, and then drives away. We don’t see or hear from her until one hour later, when her voice is heard whimpering in Rusty Nail’s truck; she has been brutally kidnapped, off-screen, as a random pawn in the plot.
AMANDA DETMER as “Terry,” Final Destination (2000)
- Hit by a bus, Ms. Detmer’s gore gets splattered all over her more substantial co-stars.
KATHERINE HEIGL as “Shelley,” Valentine (2001)
- Before we even know what the hell this “hottie slasher” is about (eventually we accept the unknown), Ms. Heigl is randomly stalked and killed in a mortuary. (Good!)
NATASHA GREGSON WAGNER as “Michele,” Urban Legend (1998)
- Emerson College alum (holla!) and daughter of Natalie Wood, Ms. Wagner barely gets screen time before an untimely decapitation via axe.
WINNER: JAMIE LEE CURTIS as LAURIE STRODE, HALLOWEEN: RESURRECTION (2002)
- Oh, I’m sorry, who are you? Laurie Strode? Hold on, let me check the chopping block – oh yes, here you are, DEAD ON ARRIVAL. Also, this is sequel is so poor and un-fun, unlike H20 (1998).
Worst New It Girl (TV Starlet) Who Unfortunately Survives
JESSICA ALBA as “Molly,” Idle Hands (1999)
- Alba (from TV’s Alex Mack), a tanned, more “exotic” teen star (read: non-pure, i.e. Charisma Carpenter), smirks, shimmies, and gasps her way through what is otherwise a shockingly fun lil’ flick. Why is she the only character who doesn’t get strangled by Satan’s red right hand?
SHIRI APPLEBY as “Amy,” Swimfan (2002)
- From TV’s Roswell, Ms. Appleby suffers through at least two climactic high school hallway teary-eyed breakdowns, upon realizing the guy from Bring It On doesn’t love her anymore.
ALI LARTER as “Clear Rivers,” Final Destination (2000)
- Clear stinks up the joint as one of the subgenre’s lamest “angsty goths,” a role done well in contrast by ambiguously snide Clea du Vall. Also, six months after getting electrocuted and returning to Paris, she goes blonde. How frisky. Sequel, anyone? Yes, please. I’ll have s’more.
KERI RUSSELL as “Emma,” The Curve (1998)
- TV’s Felicity found her way into this inane and luckily little-known poopshoot thriller about college kids killing each other for good grades. Matthew Lillard‘s in it, but mostly it’s full of Russell’s pouty, feline fanny.
ALICIA WITT as “Natalie,” Urban Legend (1998)
- From TV’s Cybil, Witt was supposedly great, but she truly sucks ass here. I think her skin tone doesn’t match everyone else’s, or something. Maybe it’s her lips. If only they’d have cast Lauren Ambrose. Where would Claire Fisher be?
WINNER: KATIE HOLMES in DISTURBING BEHAVIOR (1998) and TEACHING MRS. TINGLE (1999)
- There may be no stronger repeat offender than Ms. Holmes, in every single film genre: young adult dramas, twenty-something rom-coms, mom-and-girl movies… But she got her start as one of America’s worst actors in Dawson’s Creek and these two snarky shits (both of which are guilty pleasures of mine for being so cheesy, derivative, and downright ridiculous).
Best Psychotic Bitch We Love,
Love to Hate, or Would Love to Kill Again and Again (and Again!)
FAIRUZA BALK as “Nancy Downs,” The Craft (1996)
- Truly one of the most committed performances of ’90s teen horror, Balk plays a modern day witch who literally yells Skeet Ulrich out a window. “Light as a feather, stiff as a whore, light as a feather, stiff as a whore!”
ERIKA CHRISTENSEN as “Madison Bell(!),” Swimfan (2002)
- Throw her in front of a bull-dozer, drop her in a vat of sludge, wedgie her into oblivion, just do something to make this powderpuff idiot SHUT THE FUCK UP! It’s hard to think of another villain’s death as being more satisfying.
ANNE HECHE as “Missy Egan,” I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997)
- In Ellen Degeneres‘s favorite flick, Ms. Heche plays a wild hillbilly armed with a bloody knife and bare feet. She also speaks gibberish and threatens not one but two WB starlets.
ROSE MCGOWAN as “Courtney Shane,” Jawbreaker (1999)
- “It’s not like we kill people… On purpose…?” (Not a horror, but crests on the wave of teens-in-peril flicks, and it’s just oh so campy and violent and loud.) If it weren’t for this category’s winner’s notorious bad-ness, Rose would take the cake…
SUSAN WARD as “Brittany,” The In Crowd (2000)
- Pet Semetary director Mary Lambert seriously dropped the ball on this one, featuring model-cum-actress Ms. Ward as a beautiful, dangerous (and (surprisingly lesbian) maniac at a Club Med-like resort. She wreaks havoc, drinks martinis, and still looks rich and slimy and pretty.
WINNER: REBECCA GAYHEART as “BRENDA BATES(!),” URBAN LEGEND (1998)
- Ms. Gayheart made the Horror Hall of Shame with her lion mane of crimped hair, cartoon eyes and hysterical acting as one of the worst villains ever, with one of the most memorable evil villain shpiels ever recorded. See to believe. [I'd like to add Rebecca Gayheart once inadvertently killed a child in a tragic accident, caused by her. Food for thought.]
Most Catastrophic Best Friend or Sibling
BRANDY as “Carla,” I Still Know What You Did Last Summer (1997)
- Alright, here’s some knowledge: if you and your tragically-depressed Final Girl best friend (J-Love Hewitt) “win” a mysterious radio contest that you didn’t even enter in the first place, and, turns out, you answered the question incorrectly and this is all just bait for your gruesome murder, then you’re a bad best friend.
MARISA COUGHLAN as “Jo Lynn,” Teaching Mrs. Tingle (1999)
- If you and your earnest virgin BFF (Suppy Winner Katie Holmes!) kidnap your English teacher and strap her to a bed for a little academic reasoning, and you spend your whole time making a mess over some guy and allowing the teacher to escape, then you’re a bad best friend.
JODI LYN O’KEEFE as “Sarah,” Halloween: H20 (1998)
- If you’re using your role in a Michael Myers sequel as a jumping-off point to star in minimum-wattage teenie pics with Shane West and Freddie Prinze, Jr., then you’re a bad friend.
CARLY POPE as “Tasha,” The Glass House (2001)
- If your willowy, independent best friend (Leelee Sobieski!) just recently lost her parents and has been forced to move across California to live with her secretly abusive new guardians, and she doesn’t have time to call you because she’s busy getting molested by Stellan Skarsgard, and you dismiss her, then you’re a bad friend.
BRIDGETTE WILSON as “Elsa,” I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997)
- If your little sister (Sarah Michelle Gellar, finally we name-drop that nineties gold mine) has been dealing with traumatic guilt for over a year, and she’s being chased by a cloaked fisherman through dark city streets, and you take your sweet-ass time opening the door when she’s screaming for your help with dear life, and then she dies, then you’re a terrible sister.
WINNER: DENISE RICHARDS as “PAIGE,” VALENTINE (2001)
- She’s just a dirty, filthy sleaze. Repugnant.
- Amidst this stereotypical slasher – a who’s-who of ’90s hotties (Jared Leto, Joshua Jackson, oh, God, enough already) – the only “teen” cast member rooted in any original soil is Ms. Harris, iconic for her pint-sized squealing in Halloween 4 and 5. She plays yet another “angst goth” cliche in the canon, but she imbues it with a gross sexuality and a refreshing violence, if you will. Her death, though, makes the others’ pale, and so fittingly.
- Buffy‘s significant not only because she appeared in both mega-Williamson teen horror series (and in the same year, no less) but because she’s sassy and took hold of the late-’90s genre wave with charge. Thank God she doesn’t just cameo in that Scream 2 film class scene – she gets her own eight-minute death sequence! ”Why do you always answer a question with a question?”
- As we all well know, ladies, “the horror genre is notorious for excluding the African-American element,” to quote Scream 2‘s Jada Pinkett (pre-Smith), but when the genre is inclusive, it is almost always shallow or pandering, blindly trying to open the appeal without paying its respects. Rochelle, however, represents the everyday victim of casual high school locker room racism by her Nazi peers, and even better, gets a gratifying vengeance in the showers. One of those tiny, shiny examples of the goods of teen horror movies.
- The greatly gay Chucky series (thank you, Don Mancini) makes fantastic use of campy pop culture references and gruesome, garish deaths, but it also made a hilarious and self-conscious career lifeboat for Ms. Tilly, her voice, her sex appeal, and her breasts. In a stroke of genius, the series begins its resuscitation following her “groupie” character, if you will, turning the series on its ear with a newly feminine perspective. Then she becomes a doll, and it gets even better.
- It all comes back to the beginning, always. Did you really think we’d escape it? I did, maybe, for a second, until I realized how important Rose and her Tatum character might be to the wave of late-’90s horror and all it spawned in the following decade. Hot, but strong; campy, but passionate; our best friend and that Hallway Bitch, Tatum’s got it all. She’s one of those ideal characters who jumps off the screen and into the Fruit of the Looms of little gay boys everywhere, igniting the connection between campy queerness and bloody horror. A+, Rose. Even if a car accident mangled your face.
*This is a fictional fabrication of deranged minds and in no way should be confused or associated with the Saturn, Satellite, Broadcast Film Critics, Golden Globes, Emmy, Grammy, Razzie, or Academy Awards. But one can dream.
Hahaha. I think I agree with just about everything written here. Loved the “Most Catastrophic Best Friend Or Sibling”. Gold. Ah, I miss the 90s.
Great post! I was surprised to realize how many of these movies I’ve actually seen…and some of them I even PAID to watch in the theater!