In our weekly seriesAnatomy of a Nude Scene, we're going to be taking a look at (in)famous sex scenes and nude scenes throughout cinema history and examining their construction, their relationship to the film around it, and their legacy. This October, we're heading back to Horror Town for a quartet of scary movies with great nudity! This week, poor P.J. Soles shows her breasts and ultimately ends up getting killed in John Carpenter's Halloween, establishing a horror movie trope in the bargain!
42 years ago, John Carpenter more or less created the blueprint by which slasher films continue to operate some four decades later with his smash hit Halloween. While the film didn't create the popular American horror subgenre—most will credit Bob Clark's 1974 flick Black Christmas for that—it definitely helped to establish several of the most crucial tropes that continue populating the genre to this day. Odds are good that if you're a Mr. Skin member, you know the plot of Halloween inside and out, so there's no point in rehashing it in detail, but let's take a tally of the many things pioneered by Carpenter's film.
Perhaps the biggest and most prominent tropeCarpenter established is that of the "final girl," in this case Jamie Lee Curtis' Laurie Strode, whomakes it out of the film's events with her life and her virginity intact. This also, inadvertently or not, helped to improve the position of women in the horror world. Sure, the vast majority of women in these films were murdered, but the last one standing was usually female, which in turn caused many to see horror films as feminist allegories set in a world of violent men.
Another big trope established by Halloween was the mockery of the upper and middle class belief that the suburbs were havens, escape from the wretched violence of city life. The murderous Michael Myers is himself the product of an upper-middle class white suburban upbringing, presaging the real horrors of the late 70s and early 80sSatanic Panic that ran through suburban America.Thereis also anothertrope actually established in Clark's Black Christmas but popularized here by Carpenter: The murderer's POV shot, putting the audience in the shoes of Myers as he stalks his victims.
For our purposes, however, we're going to talk about the most important trope Carpenter created: Promiscuity leads to death.For his part, Carpenter said it was never his intention to create a morality play of any kind with the film, instead attempting to depict what he saw as "normal teenage behavior." However,seemingly every slasher franchisethat came in Carpenter's wake kept this trope intact as well. As the country moved in a more conservative direction starting in 1980, it became very satisfying for audiences to sit down and watch those damn teens actually get their comeuppance while thumbing their nose at societal norms. Sure, you horny teens can drink and smoke dope and have sex, but Michael Myers or Jason Voorhees or Freddy Krueger was going to get the last word.
With only two notable exceptions, most of Carpenter's cast was comprised of unknowns. In the role of Myers' psychiatrist Dr. Loomis, Carpenter case veteran British actor Donald Pleasance, who received the film's highest salary—a reported $20,000. Carpenter also cast a familiar face as one of the three main female characters, but it's not the one you're thinking. You see,Jamie Lee Curtis had done some one-off roles on television shows like Columbo andCharlie's Angels, but was making her film debut and thus an almost complete unknown at the time. Another unknown, Nancy Kyes, was cast in the role ofLaurie's best friend and fellow babysitter Annie, leaving only the horned-up non-babysitting member of the bunch Lynda, played by P.J. Soles.
While Soles wasn't exactly a household name in 1978, she was a familiar face to audiences thanks to her work in two different John Travolta-starring films of 1976, The Boy in the Plastic Bubbleand Carrie. She was also married to up-and-coming actor Dennis Quaid, who was offered the role of Lynda's boyfriend Bob but had to turn it down due to other commitments. Of course, P.J. would go on to steal hearts in everything from Rock 'n' Roll High Schoolto Stripes, but her status as a late 70s scream queen is definitely her most lasting legacy!
P.J.'s Lynda goes with her boyfriend Bob to the Wallace's home, where Annie is babysitting. Annie has already been lured out of the house, brought the kid she was watching over to where Laurie's watching another kid, and then she got killed in the car, leaving the house empty. Lynda and Bob are thoroughly undeterred by the empty house and quickly commence to having sex. After, Bob goes downstairs and meets the wrong end of Michael Myers' knife, leading Myers to pick up a sheet and Bob's glasses to fool poor Lynda into her own demise...
In her 2002 scholarly essay "The Monstrous Years: Teens, Slasher Films, and the Family," published by The University of Illinois Press, Pat Gill suggests that it's not necessarily the fact that Lynda had sex with Bob that led to her death, but rather that she would place it as a priority to her primary job of watching children...
"(Lynda and Annie) think of their babysitting jobs as opportunities to share drinks and beds with their boyfriends. One by one they are killed ... by Michael Myers an asylum escapee who years ago at the age of six murdered his sister for preferring sex to taking care of him."
There are myriad interpretations of Lynda's death and how it fits into the slasher narrative, but such ambiguity would go the way of the dodo as the genre progressed. Soon, the randy teens of slasher moviesbecome so narrowly focused on sex that they have a hard time distinguishing themselves from one another.
So this Halloween, as you settle in with whatever horror movies you choose for the evening, remember to give thanks to John Carpenter for not only establishing so many of these tropes, but for coloring them in shades of grey. The black-and-white morality of the 80s was just around the corner and for one brief and shining moment, we could actually debate whether or not promiscuity was the road to the grave in horror cinema. Now, it's just kind of a given.
Catch up with our most recent editions ofAnatomy of a Nude Scene
—Can We Talk About Linnea Quigley's Barbie Doll Crotch in Return of the Living Dead?
—Innocent BloodFinds John Landis Trying to Get HisAmerican WerewolfMojo Back
—The Insane Japanese Horror MovieHouseFeatures Equally Insane Nudity
—Howard Stern'sPrivate PartsLives Up to Its Titular Promise
—Neve Campbell Wastes No Time Making Her Nude Debut inWhen Will I Be Loved
—Amy Locane GetsCarried Awayfrom Melrose Place to Bang Dennis Hopper
—The Shape of WaterOpens with Sally Hawkins Masturbating in the Tub
—Jennifer Jason Leigh Gets the Drop on Bridget Fonda inSingle White Female
—Monique Gabrielle EnsuresBachelor Partyis an Affair to Remember
—An Entire Generation of Men Saw Bare Breasts for the First Time inCaddyshack
—Maggie Gyllenhaal Holds Nothing Back inSecretary
—Demi Moore Took a Record Paycheck to HeadlineStriptease
—That Time We All Fell in Love with Kelly Preston inMischief
—What Happened with Marisa Tomei's Nude Scene fromUntamed Heart
**Click Here to Read All Past Editions of Anatomy of a Nude Scene/Anatomy of a Scene's Anatomy**
