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(Created page with "Howdy! I hope y'all are well! So I'm back with a new proposal much sooner than usual and it's because there's a villain that I've had on my mind for a while now with regards t...")
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[[Category:Pure Evil Proposals]]

Revision as of 00:39, 28 April 2021

Howdy! I hope y'all are well! So I'm back with a new proposal much sooner than usual and it's because there's a villain that I've had on my mind for a while now with regards to them qualifying as Pure Evil after noticing they had the category. And that villain is Mary Lou Maloney from the Prom Night series. After giving it much thought, I came to the conclusion that I think she qualifies so let's get into this proposal for Mary Lou Maloney.

WHAT IS PROM NIGHT? WHAT'S THE WORK?

Prom Night is a film series consisting of 5 slasher films that originated with Prom Night, released in 1980. The film was financially successful, which lead to multiple sequels released thought the 1980's to the 1990's. The original Prom Night, the fourth film, Prom Night 4: Deliver Us from Evil, and the loose remake of the original also titled Prom Night released in 2008 all followed the traditional slasher film formula. But the second and third films in the series, Hello Mary Lou: Prom Night 2, and Prom Night 3: The Last Kiss were more supernatural and had such elements. Those 2 films were also the ones that introduced recurring antagonist Mary Lou Maloney to the series, who is the topic of this discussion.

WHO IS MARY LOU MALONEY? WHAT HAS SHE DONE?

Mary Lou Maloney, as stated, is the main antagonist of the supernatural Prom Night films. She originated from Hello Mary Lou: Prom Night 2, as the title would suggest, but returned as the main antagonist of Prom Night 3: The Last Kiss.

Hello Mary Lou: Prom Night II

In Prom Night 2, the beginning of the film shows her backstory; Mary Lou became the Prom Queen at her school, but after her significant other Billy found her cheating on him with another boy, Buddy, with Mary Lou outright admitting that she was just using him due to her lust and greed, Billy tries to get revenge on her by dropping a stink bomb on her while she is being coronated. What he didn't anticipate however, was the bomb setting her aflame resulting in her death. Mary caught a glimpse of Billy before her dimse, realizing he was the one responsible.

30 years later, a teenager named Vicki opens a chest containing Mary's spirit as Vicki was searching for a dress to wear to the upcoming prom being held at her school. Her friend Jess shows up and takes a gem from Mary's old crown while Vicki is absent, with the removal of the jewel causing Mary's spirit to lash out and kill Jess.

With Mary's soul free, Mary begins to haunt Vicki, causing her to suffer constant nightmares and hallucinations. She seeks assistance from Buddy, the same Buddy that she cheated on Billy with, as he's now a local priest. Mary ignites Buddy's bible, which causes him to realize Mary's spirit is running amiss. Buddy consults Billy, who is now the principle of the same high school him, Mary, and Buddy all attended back during the prom, as well as the father of Vicki's boyfriend, Craig, but Billy doesn't believe Buddy, causing more complications in the debacle.

While Vicki is in detention due to a physical altercation she had with another student, Mary successfully possesses Vicki's body. In Vicki's body, Mary kills Buddy, Vicki's friend Monica, and she incapacitated Craig after seducing him, using him to taunt his father Billy, also revealing her identity in the process. Billy brings his son back home and knocks him out to prevent him from getting involved in this situation, fearing Mary will kill him. Mary then seduces Vicki's father while still in Vicki's body and kills Vicki's mother, all while preparing for the prom.

A boy named Josh is tallying up the votes to determine who will be prom queen, and was about to rig it in favor of a girl named Kelly after she did him a favor, before Mary kills Josh to ensure her victory. Billy shoots Mary, despite Craig pleading with him not to, which leads to Mary transforming Vicki into Mary's charred corpse. Mary restores herself back into her original form from the night of the prom 30 years earlier, only barring a few burn marks, and kills Kelly. She chases Craig into the school's prop room, and Mary attempts to banish Craig to the underworld. Billy arrives and presumably puts Mary's spirit to rest by placing her crown back on her head, returning Vicki to normal.

The three of them drive off, but it's revealed that Mary possessed Billy during the chaos, leaving Craig and Vicki's fates unknown, but Mary killing them being most likely.

Prom Night III: The Last Kiss

Mary returns to earth after being sent to heck sometime after the events of the second film, and kills a janitor she recognizes as one of her former lovers from when she attended the school in life.

Afterwards, she begins to haunt a boy named Alex, constantly seducing him and getting him to cheat on his girlfriend, not unlike what Mary used to do. Mary improves Alex's grades, helps him join the football team, and constantly hooks up with him, all while killing people who wrong him in brutal ways. The relationship is quite unhealthy though, and Alex constantly feels guilty about cheating on his girlfriend, Sarah. Alex brakes it off with Mary which infuriates her.

In an attempt to turn over a new leaf, Alex asks Sarah to prom, with Sarah telling him she's going with someone else. Mary then kills Alex's best friend Shane, and threatens to kill Alex's family, which leads Alex to rush home to protect them. Mary successfully framed Alex for the killing, resulting in his arrest. After Mary arrives and kills two police officers, Mary offers to release Alex and join her, or she will terminate Sarah. Alex refuses to go with her, and after Mary leaves, Alex manages to escape his cell and rush to the prom.

Mary kills Sarah's prom date, and pursues Sarah. Alex arrives and confronts Mary, but he complies with Mary's demand to join Mary so Sarah can be safe. The both go to heck, but Sarah follows them, wanting to stop Mary and save Alex. Sarah makes Alex her prom king, as the underworld is identical to the high school, and tries to kill him. Sarah arrives, and, using a handmade stick of dynamite, briefly defeat Mary. Alex and Sarah get in a car and drive out of the underworld, but when they try to run over Mary, the three of them are warped to what seems like the real world.

They are at what appears to be the parking lot of a diner, but when they are about to go to a payphone, Mary reappears and rips Sarah's heart out, killing her. Alex runs up to other cars, but the people in them are frozen in time and can't hear or help him at all, and he can't leave. It seems that Mary has trapped him in some sort of time loop with no chance of escaping, with Alex screaming out and admitting that Mary has one.

MITIGATING FACTORS? REASONS MARY CAN'T QUALIFY?

The first thing I want to address is a potential argument that she did care about Billy. She did not. She didn't even care about him before she got killed; she cheated on him and even admitted she was just using him. And later on, even when she had the chance to be redeemed by him, she possessed him anyway, which also proves she wasn't redeemed at all, not to mention the fact that she tried to kill his son and taunted him about it. As for Buddy, nope, she didn't care about him either; she was simply using him as well, and killed him even though she did nothing to him. As for Alex, she didn't care for him either; she was just obssesed with him, and considering the fact that almost every single time she encountered him she just had sex with him, that was most likely all she wanted from him, which is supported by the fact that later on, when Alex is trying to find out more information on what's happening to him, it is described as a "sexual haunting" by a book he reads. And again, Mary killed his loved ones, tried to kill him, and trapped him in some sort of time loop where he could most likely never escape from. That is definetly not genueine love or care. She pretty much doesn't care for anyone but herself. And while she did technically help Alex with some things, she was just doing it to manipulate him and earn her trust which was, again, out of obsession, not because she truly cared about him or wanted him to be happy.

And then there's the argument she's tragic. I don't think what happened to her justifies what she does. She wasn't even a good person before she got killed; she constantly cheated on people and used people to get what she wanted and continued to do so after death. It also doesn't excuse all of the people she killed, most of which did nothing to her. And she enjoyed doing so. Her getting killed just doesn't excuse that at all in my opinion.

Lastly, I could see someone arguing that she insecure about not being prom queen. In my opinion though, she wasn't really insecure about it per say, it just seemed like she wanted to satisfy her own ego, to the point where it was more like an obsession. And even when she did become the prom queen in the underworld, she still wasn't satisfied. And again, when Billy gave her the crown back and gave her the opportunity to rest in peace and get over being prom queen, she possessed him anyway, showing that, again, she still wasn't satisfied with what she had.

FREUDIAN EXCUSE?

I sort of already addressed some of these points, but her getting killed and wanting to be prom queen again doesn't excuse what she did at all, including killing people that did nothing to her and enjoyed it, not being satisfied with being prom queen, and in general her death might explain why she is the way she is, even though she was still a manipulative adulterer before she died, it isn't meant to be a geinuene freudian excuse.

NO SYMPATHY?

Again, despite what happening to her not being exactly ideal, she is certainly not played for sympathy, and the films make it clear that she is a complete sadistic psychopath with a large ego.

STORY TYPE?

The Prom Night films are horror films, but they certainly aren't just pure shock value/exploitation meaning they do have stories and the violence and gore aren't the main focus.

And while the third film is more of a horror comedy, the entire movie isn't played for laughs and serious moments, including Mary's worst actions, are played completely seriously.

HEINOUS STANDARD?

Yes, she is probably the most heinous villain in the series. First there's Alex Hammond (not Alex from the third film) but he was geinuenly played for sympathy and had a rather strong feudian excuse. Then there's Father Jonas, who really had no personality and was a pretty typical slasher villain with a much smaller body count than Mary. And lastly there's Richard Fenton, who is a complete psychopath and is irredeemable, but again, he has a much smaller body count than Mary. Not to mention he's from the remake, so I'm not sure if the heinous standard would apply either way. Overall, I do think she stands out in the series and again, is probably the most heinous.

As for general standards, I also think she's heinous enough in sense too; in life she constantly cheated on people and manipulated them just to get what she wanted, after death she killed several people and took sadistic pleasure in it, including people who did nothing to her, she just killed them for fun, took over Vicki's body and forced her to kill people, went out of her way to kill anyone in order to become prom queen, forced Vicki's body to seduce people including Vicki's own father, possessed Billy anyway even when he gave her the chance to rest in peace and presumably killed Vicki and Craig in Craig's father's body, she killed anyone who got in the way of her obsession with Alex, killed Alex's friends, killed Alex's girlfriend, and trapped Alex in a time loop to trap him forever. All of that makes her exceptionally heinous even for a slasher villain.

SCREEN-TIME? DO WE SEE MARY'S ACTIONS?

The only thing she does off screen is kill Vicki and Craig at the end, but other than that all of her heinous actions are on screen.

MORAL AGENCY?

Sure she's a ghost, but considering she still keeps her manipulative, vindictive, seductive, and sadistic nature after she died, I highly doubt she lacks moral agency, and it's also never implied that she's made of evil at all.

FINAL VERDICT?

After alot of thinking before making this proposal, I think she qualifies, but i'm interested in the thoughts and opinions down below. And as always, thanks for reading and have a great day!