by Jason Adams
One of the instigating factors in me deciding to do this here "Great Moments in Horror Actressing" series at The Film Experience was the chance to write up performances that wouldn't normally get this sort of attention. That's not to say that Nathaniel doesn't encourage coverage of a wide-ranging, sea to shining cinematic sea, sort -- he's as fond of trash as I am, bless his heart. It's just I know for a fact -- I did a search! -- that today marks the first time the name Patty Mullen or the film Frankenhooker (which just celebrated its 30th anniversary last week) have been mentioned here on this site, and when those names rub up against something classy like the "Supporting Actress Smackdown" well, I get a buzz.
Cue trailer voiceover dude intonation -- Imagine A World where Patty Mullen's name, like a purple bolt of lightning, zapped oh let's say Mary McDonnell's name off of Oscar's Supporting Actress line-up of 1990...
I do. I am imagining it right this second, and it's bringing me tremendous joy. Before anyone suggests it no, I am not a lunatic. I know such a thing wasn't even microscopically possible then and it remains just as wildly unlikely now. (I mean if Toni Collette couldn't even get a damn nomination for Hereditary... WTF, WTF. Sorry still not over that.) But one dares to dream of such an alternate world. Keep hope alive! It keeps us going. And I know I'd rather watch Frankenhooker a thousand times over before I suffered through Dances With Wolves one more time, that's for dang sure.
There is a perfectly fine case to be made that Horror, like Queerness, should stick to its disreputable roots -- it's punk, it's meant to shock and disrupt the status quo. It's a down dirty dog rolling around in something that darkens a field, something that doesn't smell quite right. I don't entirely to-the-Nth subscribe to that as far as Horror or Queerness go, I say welcome all kinds, but that doesn't mean I don't feel electrified tossing a Frankenhooker shaped stink-bomb into the Serious Conversation.
Because, the thing is, it and Mullen are worthy. The film... and you really don't need me to offer a plot synopsis, right? Man has Woman, Man loses Woman, Man uses parts he gathers from Times Square Prostitutes to bring Woman back to life -- it's a tale as old as time. And the thing is the film holds up. It's riotously funny, knowingly perverted and deeply offensive trash, and is actually ultimately kind of shockingly feminist to boot? Let's just say that the joke ends up being on the Man half of the equation.
Patty Mullen, a former Penthouse Pet, has just two films to her entire filmography -- there's the entertainingly lousy slasher Doom Aslyum from 1988 (which also mars, excuse me marks, the screen debut of Sex and the City actress Kristin Davis), and then there's Frank Henenlotter's horror-comedy masterpiece (I said what I said) Frankenhooker two years later. And yet Mullen has four character roles to her name, because strangely, inexplicably, both of these films had her playing dual roles. She's twice as nice! My based-on-nothing theory is they got her on set and realized they didn't want to let her go. If you watch the interview with her on the Frankenhooker blu-ray you'll see what a loose and charming firecracker she still is, even here three full decades of no-work later. In that chat she explains she quit the biz because she moved to Florida and had a kid -- it's our loss. Truly.
Because her work in Frankenhooker is naturally, hysterically funny. She has It. Spark, wit. She's a terrific comedian. Stuck under a slutty update of Elsa Lanchester's fright wig and wrangled into a purple two-piece, tottering around on platform boots with her lip yanked up as if by an invisible wire as she screams, "WANNA DATE?" at Henenlotter's typical parade of strange perverts roaming Times Square, she is, in the hooker parlance, showing us a good time. A great time. She's the Carole Lombard of Crack Cocaine Comedy. Patty Mullen I say yes, for you I will always and forever WANNA DATE. Let's get Frankenhooker 2 going already!
