Subpages cleanup: Complete Monster

No to the Damien quote.

Yes to the Man and the Woman. Surprising, but looks like they fit well. Yes to Rais and Lighty's other two, too.

Everybody from Nahiki to here.

Now for the next Dying Light candidate who I'm less sure on but he still sticks out as someone warranting a mention.

Who is Salim? What has he done?

Salim is the main villain of the sidequest "Where's my Mother?"

A creepy man who sells tools and is known throughout the city of Harran for buying chains and restraints regularly, always asking about how durable they are and if they could hold a human being, Salim stalks his neighbors, leers after young women and children, and is overheard by his neighbors making very loud noises in his basement.

In this sidequest itself, Salim has obtained a supply of Antizin, and when a young mother and her child daughter show up desperate for the cure for the latter, Salim says he'll give the cure if the two will become his "puppets". When the mother, Aida, sends her daughter running after realizing what the man means, Salim attacks and drags Aida into his basement.

When Kyle Crane is asked by Aida's daughter and son to find their mother, Crane tracks down Salim. In response to Crane's inquiries about Aida, Salim sets off an alarm he has installed to attract zombies, in an attempt to kill Crane.

Crane defeats the zombies and confronts Salim, who attempts to murder Crane while gleefully proclaiming that afterwards he's going to track down Aida's children and feed them to a pack of zombies. Crane ultimately kills Salim and then, entering his home, follows a blood trail into his basement.

Inside, he finds Aida, chained up, clothes torn, and abused. Several dried blood stains are spattered over the walls, there's a bucket for excrement, and, most notably, there are markings all over the walls of tally marks that span for months and months, revealing that Salim has had other prisoners.

Crane frees Aida and brings her family to the Tower to be given proper treatment, for both the zombie bite on Aida's daughter and her own experience with Salim.

Does Salim have a Freudian Excuse or other mitigating features?

None, he's just portrayed as a creepy kidnapper.

Is Salim sufficiently heinous?

This is where I'm slightly unsure about him. He's heinous, kidnapping Aida and trying to turn her into his slave, attempting the same with her daughter, plotting to feed her children to zombies and being confirmed to have more victims (tally marks, dried blood stains all around, etc), but his lack of a confirmed victim count makes me hesitant. He has the barest minimum of resources, even less than the Fan Zone Killer, and no other villain gets up to the whole "slaving women and young children for abuse" schtick, but whether that's enough is dependent on the person.

Final Verdict?

I think I will lean

Yes to Rais and Whateley. Reading the EP of Rais... I'm starting to disagree a bit on Newton's points regarding Ayaka and possibly wanting to make a bit of a case on Takahito from Gakkou Gurashi but eh... Not sure if it will work.

Edited by ElfenLiedFan90 on Mar 30th 2019 at 5:00:30 PM

Rais.

I'm thinking Salim JUST makes it.

Switching to yes on Rais after some thought. Also a weak yes to Salim.

Sure to Salim. Looks like a pattern is well established.

Salim

Yes to Salim

Yes to Salim since a pattern's clearly established

So, Machete Kills is the 2013 sequel to Machete, and like the first, the Big Bad is the first villain role for a Real Life asshole (Steven Seagal in the first, Mel Gibson here).

Who is Luther Voz and what has he done?

The film opens with Machete and ICE agent Sartana busting an arms deal between US military officers and a cartel on the Arizona-Mexico border. The Cartel kills the military, before an interruption by an even more powerful faction, who kills the cartel. Machete and Sartana take on this new group, with Machete killing one by holding a guy with one hand and jabbing his machete into a power outlet or something; he's unaffected (yeah, that kind of movie; with Machete himself Made of Iron).

The leader of said faction (revealed later to be Voz) kills Sartana when she discovers a missile. He's about to kill Machete, when the cops arrive.

Machete gets hanged...without dying...and the racist sheriff gets a call from the President (played by Carlos Estevez—yeah, that kind of movie ). He needs Machete to stop Marcos Mendez, a revolutionary threatening to destroy DC unless the US invades Mexico and destroys the cartels.

Machete finds Mendez has a Dead Man's Switch which will set off the bomb if he dies.

After some stuff happens, Machete finds that Mendez isn't as bad as he seems. Poor guy was an undercover Mexican agent, but wanted out. His corrupt supervisor and the cartel killed his wife and daughter while he was Forced to Watch, and he snapped, becoming somewhat of a WIE. He has several personas now.:

• Split Personality: As it turns out, Mendez had at least three personalities: the calm and reasonable revolutionary, the evil and batshit insane cartel leader, and the badass secret agent. When Machete asks how many personalities he has, the Agent says "That's classified."

Machete and Mendez cross the border, but are met by Voz's men. Mendez is killed, Machete shot multiple times.

Machete wakes up in a healing pool at Voz Tech, where Luther introduces himself, saying he invented the Dead Man's Switch and gave Mendez the missile, yet says he's not a bad person (BS). He says Voz Tech is "the world's premier space technology and weapons manufacturer."

Voz plans to go into space, and take anyone he wants to with him.

As a side note, he kills a servant just because that servant was going to spill some wine. When Voz went into space years ago, he gained the ability to see the future.

He wants Machete to be a prototype for cloned Super Soldiers, but that pales in comparison to his ultimate plan:

After some stuff, the missile to DC is stopped, while the President says the others were also disarmed, but Voz encases Luz in Carbonite (big Star Wars fan ) and goes into space, while Machete gives chase. Cue Sequel Hook.

HEINOUSNESS?

He plans to destroy DC (and other cities). No issues at all.

DISQUALIFYING FACTORS?

No Freudian Excuse.

The film page has him as Affably Evil, but considering he kills an underling and laughs when he tells his men to not let Machete kill too many of them, I think it's Faux.

He offers Machete a We Can Rule Together, but that's Pragmatic Villainy.

He has followers, but they hadn't been aware of the fact that HE would be responsible for the destruction; kind of like a cult.

The movie itself is...well, the President is played by Charlie Sheen, but Voz's actions are played seriously enough.

There IS supposed to be a sequel (which I've called), but considering it's been over 5 years, I think we're okay for now. Even though apparently Trejo DID confirm it's still happening.

CONCLUSION?

My first film CM I hope, even though I've more or less wondered about him for over 4 1/2 years ; keep in mind, that post was nearly a year before my first official effortpost.

BTW, while Mel Gibson the person is loathsome, he's CLEARLY having fun hamming it up.

Now, Scraggle was so kind as to allow me to do this, so in return I'll turn it over to him, as there was something else Machete-related he wanted to add.

Incidentally, both this and the original are not classic cinema, but they're both a LOT of fun.

Edited by ACW on Mar 30th 2019 at 6:39:21 AM

Salim and Luther Voz.

Sure to Voz.

@ACW Still working on the Generations!Darkseid EP no?

Nah, that Darkseid can go back to Scraggle, or anyone else if they want it.

Voz

Ah, yes. Yes to Voz.

Anyways, with that said? Torrez from the first movie needs to go:

• Mexican drug lord Rogelio Torrez, the only villain who doesn't get any redeeming qualities, commits his heinous crimes purely out of a combination of greed and cruelty. In the first five minutes, he has kidnapped a girl who has info on his drug ring, brainwashed her so she'll turn on Machete when he tries to rescue her, and then blows her brains out for her loyalty. He brings in Machete's wife and chops her head off, and casually notes he also killed his school-age daughter on the way there. Torrez doesn't want to give Machete what he considers an honorable death by cutting off his head, so instead he sets the building on fire and leaves Machete for dead. Later in the film he just chuckles at seeing Booth strangle one of his minions to death in front of a computer screen. He's soon revealed to be the mastermind behind the evil plan to expel all the Mexican immigrants from the US, as Torrez wants a monopoly on the drug trade by controlling the border. Even his death scene just manages to make him more disgusting rather than admirable; when Machete impales him he doesn't want to admit he lost and go out in a blaze of glory, so he just drives it in further so it can be said only he himself was able to kill him in the end. Even his female bodyguard walks off in disgust at that point. He used to be Machete's partner in the Federales, so he actually was a good guy at one point before he decided to become a drug lord.

I've rewatched the movie, or what I need to rewatch. The enormity of Voz's scheme blowing him and every other villain of the first movie out of the water aside, Torrez only really stands out by virtue of having no redeeming qualities... he only indicates he'll kill Machete's daughter, and the rest of his onscreen murders don't bring him up to par. His compatriots murder a pregnant woman and her husband, crucify priests, murder innocents and they're all equally in on the "expel all the immigrants" plan out, to the point where they all start trying to betray and murder each other.

The standard of the first movie is an utter mess. Torrez doesn't stand out, especially with Voz being so clearly worse than the lot of them. I say cut.

And agreed. Hell, it's debatable he passes the BASELINE for the genre. Even besides that, he's no worse than the others. And resources aren't a true factor either, as even the cartel in the second movie (that killed Mendez's wife and daughter) are possibly worse onscreen (too much of a group to count, plus not seen enough).

But yeah, for the second, basically everything is due to Voz; Mendez wouldn't have the missile without him.

The only other villains are henchmen and assassins.

I'll write up Voz tomorrow and when I submit the batch just request he replace Torrez.

Edited by ACW on Mar 30th 2019 at 6:54:05 AM

And a yes to all the examples I've missed.

Voz.

Cut Torrez.

Oh, and a small crime of Voz I missed: He uses Mexicans as slave labor, and takes the Network members into space to work as slaves.

Welp. Bye bye Torrez.

to Salim and Voz.

Dear GOD Its been busy sense last night. to Those I missed.