by Jason Adams
Impetigore's Tara Basro (L) as "Maya" and Marissa Anita (R) as "Dini"
The concept of the "Funny Best Friend" is nothing new, but I always tend to think of the role in the context of the Romantic Comedy. Think Laura San Giacomo in Pretty Woman, who gets to be so hysterically vulgar and dumb, all the better to make Julia Roberts seem in turn like the classy and smart one. That's what these roles are there in the script for -- these Falstaffian sidekicks, who throw our lead characters' highs and lows into contrast.
But Horror Films have a storied history with these roles as well and this week Shudder premiered one of the best I've seen in awhile -- Marissa Anita playing "Dini" in Indonesian director Joko Anwar's latest fright flick Impetigore. You can drop Anita right down alongside Rose McGowan in Scream, Greta Gerwig in House of the Devil, Paula Prentiss in The Stepford Wives -- she's that terrific.
We meet Dini right at the start... during the film's legitimately terrifying opening sequence, which introduces us also to our main character Maya (Tara Basro) -- the two are toll booth workers, collecting money from passing cars, and they are chatting as they work via cell phone from two totally different locations. Dini immediately has all the hallmarks of the Funny Best Friend -- she gets all the good lines, she tweaks her more serious friend for being a "clueless virgin" and the like, and most importantly she's also immediately aggressively protective.
That latter instinct of the Funny Best Friend character is the one that's always brought to the forefront vis-à-vis this Horror Film setting -- it's there in the rom-coms too (they only want Mr. Right for their friend, no less) but it's far more pronounced in the Horror Film Funny Best Friend, presumably because the Horror Movie Leading Character is in, you know, legitimate life-or-death danger. They're the ones telling their friend not to go to that Horror Place, not to trust those Horror People, and they're the ones who tag along to play protector which, sadly for the Horror Movie Funny Best Friend, hardly ever works out in their favor.
Because it turns out that the Horror Movie Funny Best Friend's most vital role in the proceedings is to alert the Horror Movie Lead Character that the danger is real, and that they should really be afraid... very very afraid. And they give our leading person something to grieve, to be scarred by, to fight for.
Which is to say... it hardly ever works out well for these sidekick characters. Impetigore is new enough that I won't spoil the details -- it's a successfully creepy film and I very much recommend seeking it out -- but Marissa Anita in particular crafts a funny, warm enough presence with Dini from the film's very first scenes that even just the tension of playing with her being dragged into danger's eye-line is enough; her scenes, because of how wonderful she's made Dini, become excruciatingly tense. And she more than earns her place in that Horror Movie Funny Friend Hall of Fame.
Who are some of your favorite Horror Movie Funny Best Friends?