I can hear it now. For the inaugural induction into the Ruthless 80’s Action Hall of Fame, you choose some marginal figure, while ignoring Charles Bronson, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Sly Stallone? All worthy candidates, of course, and they’ll get their time at the dais. But I ask you: in an era teeming with death, destruction, and just about everything on fire, who else sent his prey to Jesus while completely naked?
Exactly, my friends, no one. When death came calling, our Warren Stacey stripped to the buff, grabbed his blade, and got to carving. All while maintaining the greatest sheen ever seen on an ass cheek. Hell, the man barely broke a sweat. Even better, at no point does anyone – cop, social worker, lawyer, or doctor – attempt to explain Warren’s unique absence of attire. It just is. It was that kind of decade.
Because Warren drives a VW Bug, and hates women with a near-fanatical bloodlust, we are (I assume) to believe he’s the second coming of Ted Bundy. Handsome, yes, and smart as a whip. Coulda been a contender had the stars aligned. But he deliberately dumbs himself down, earning his keep as a fixer of typewriters, or some such nonsense. Still, it’s a job that gives him unfettered access to females. One by one, he asks them out, is turned down, then resorts to creepy calls to remind them he’s still watching and waiting. When the calls stop having the desired effect, he resorts to murder. Can’t be helped, I’m afraid. They had their chance at love and went elsewhere. In the end, it’s out of Warren’s hands.
What makes Warren so special is that in addition to his nudity, he focuses on nurses. Not exclusively, but enough to also make him a close relative of Richard Speck. Yes, Bundy and Speck. No other 80s Action madman tapped into two cultural icons, even as they slaughtered entire villages. But Warren is an ambitious sort, and he’s going to leave his mark on a decade near drowning in larger-than-life personalities. I admire his pluck. I even admire his methods.
Take his initial murder. Not only does he know that the chick from the office is going to fuck in a van in some lonely patch of woods, he also sets up an airtight alibi that makes it virtually impossible to see him as a suspect. He’s methodical, wise, and enough of a jerk to ensure that when witnesses are called, yes, they remember the prick from the movie theater. So many criminals (especially killers) are just stone fucking dumb, often getting caught within hours of the crime. After all, if you buy a $1 million insurance policy on your wife, with a double indemnity for a slashed throat, perhaps wait more than a week to plunge a meat cleaver into her carotid. Warren plays the long game. He scopes out the territory, listens intently, and covers every goddamn base imaginable. We half root for him to get away with it. The honest among us do it fully.
And who else in the 80’s Action canon employs so many wonderful devices for his craft? Spanish? He can speak it, and he’s not above a harassing phone call to keep the ladies on edge. Hookers? He’ll hire them, but not for anything so lowbrow as sex. No, they must be drugged and used to lure obnoxious policemen off his trail. He washes his knives with fanaticism, knows where chicks hide their diaries, and attends funerals to pick up the latest intelligence. He’s always a step ahead, though it’s not hard when your greatest adversary is Wilford Brimley. Typically, Captain Diabeetus couldn’t make charges stick if he had a crystal-clear video of the crime itself. But Warren lords above them all. And he’s put in the work. Hell, didn’t Bronson himself have to resort to shitting on the Constitution in order to bring his ass before a Judge? Warren is that careful.
So yes, Warren Stacey is a genius in a time of fools. May have had a sequel or two had he not been shot in the skull. Sure, he’s all too typical of the genre in that he’s clearly impotent, hates his mother, and soaks his skin in a steaming bath of obsessive compulsion, but he’s no slave to cliché. He’s nimble and nuanced, and even seems to regret a murder or two, especially when it’s a case of mistaken identity. He hates when a well-crafted plan goes awry, and his fits of frustration are almost child-like in their authenticity. He’s a true Hall of Famer; devoted, passionate, and committed to excellence. The Al Davis of Death. A worthy opening salvo for the Cooperstown of 80’s Action.
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