Subpages cleanup: Complete Monster

Billy from the 1979 Black Christmas is no keeper. It's not just that he has mental issues, it's that we know literally nothing about him except for those issues. He's a raving madman with zero identity beyond the disturbing prank calls and rambling, none of which actually elaborates on any excuse or motivation for him.

Actually, it's When A Stranger Calls...the other 1970s horror film of a killer calling from inside the house remade in the 00s

Oh, whoops. That's what happens when you conflate two films built fundamentally from the same trope.

OG killer doesn’t count, as he has mental problems that make him kind of pitiful.

Edited by therealjackieboy on Feb 25th 2020 at 11:17:21 AM

Hey, if it helps, agree with you 100 percent on Billy and I'm sure Black Christmas will be brought up again sooner or later so...

Well we have examples from their remakes so theirs something.

Devilman Monster Reformat is done. I'll request swapping either tomorrow or Thursday.

strange days jinmen's potholes are wonky

Whoops. Try it now.

I recently replayed through Fallout 2 again for fun, and I'm kind of legit confused why deemed the Enclave President a non keeper way back when.

Well doing a search it seems he's never been discussed before. I think his second in command horrigan was up instead who was approved and rewritten.

say if you feel like he qualifies, than EP him

Only reason I could think of that speaks against him, is that he calls his Vice President - who has the mental state of a small child after he volunteered to take an experimental FEV cure – a hero and shows genuine respect for him.

Edited by NTG on Feb 25th 2020 at 1:09:41 AM

Been meaning to do this one for awhile, but the Marvel Comics' character Muse—who I proposed way back when—returned for another arc a little later before being Killed Off for Real, so here's an updated write up for him:

• Muse is a deranged Serial Killer obsessed with sharing his "vision" of beauty with the whole world. First kidnapping over 100 innocent people, Muse exsanguinates them for days, leaving them near-death, and uses said blood his art. Later, after murdering close to a dozen Inhumans and posing their bodies, Muse kidnaps 4 people and plans to torture them to death, then captures Daredevil's sidekick, Blindspot, whose eyes he gouges out as a sick play on the young teen's name. Muse decorates his lair in the butchered corpses of his countless victims during his time as a serial killer, and when caught, tries to kill his 100 blood-drained captives. Escaping from prison and slaughtering a dozen guards in the process, Muse tries to kill two innocent woman who just wanted a picture with him, and then massacres a group of police officers to decorate one of his murals. When confronted by Blindspot—who Muse tries to mutilate once more, this time by ripping out his tongue—over his motives, Muse just brags that killing makes him better, stronger, and more powerful than everyone else, before committing suicide just because he felt he wasn't the "star" anymore.

Edited by Ravok on Feb 25th 2020 at 1:16:50 AM

to Ripple man.

That does legit seem redeeming enough. I'll do some rereading through his text files to make sure I don't miss anything before effort posting him.

Edited by LoreDeluxe on Feb 25th 2020 at 1:20:09 AM

A while ago I looked at the older Fallout games and felt that both him and Big Jesus Mordino would be great candidates for an EP. But alas it turned out that they both had reedming qualities. So it would be great if it turns out that his sympathy for the vice-president wasn’t a mitigating factor at all.

Honestly, after looking at that specific line, I would call it redeeming. If he just referred to the Vice President as a hero for being a "perfect" human, I wouldn't call it redeeming, but he personally considers the man a hero after responding to you insulting his intelligence.

Haruka and Ripple Man.

I rarely post here. Mostly because I have a whole other social life than when I joined this forum two or three years ago.

But I know that no one cares, so I'm just gonna get straight to the point.

I'm Swedish. I watch Swedish shows and movies. Hence why 92% of my proposals are from Swedish media. Most Swedish shows are overly sympathetic to the villains for some weird reason. As in, a villain can be a vile bastard for the whole show, killing and massacring everyone, only for it to reveal that the villain, in fact, has three children who they deeply care about out. Most of the time, it comes out of nowhere. Some shows do it better than others.

I watched a surprisingly good Swedish series recently. It started roughly a month ago and had its last episode (for this season) two or three weeks ago. However, this series has a villain so utterly evil that I felt that I had to write an EP here about it.

What's the Work?

Kalifat (English: Caliphate) is a Swedish series about terrorism and fundamentalism, more specifically the terrorist organization known as ISIS. It premiered on the 12th of January 2020 but takes place in 2015. The series primarily focuses on three women; Fatima Zukic, Pervin El Kaddouri, and Suleika "Sulle" Wasem.

Fatima is an agent at the Swedish Security Service (SÄPO in Swedish, abbreviated). One day she is supposed to get a promotion, but a mistake from her side ruins it. Instead, the promotion is given to her rival Nadir Al-Shahrani. Her career is about to go down in ashes, and she has to save it.

Pervin and her husband Husam El Kaddouri are living in the caliphate itself. Husam is an ISIS-soldier working for his boss and friend Omar Soudani. Husam is a short and insecure man who barely is able to speak Arabic. He really doesn't fit in with everyone else. Neither does Pervin, who really wants to go back to Sweden. One day, Husam comes home furious. This is because one of his fellow ISIS-soldiers named Ahmed Mohamedi who works for Omar stated that he found Pervin attractive and cute. When Ahmed said that, the two got in a short physical fight. Husam is sure that Pervin finds Ahmed attractive as well and feels inferior. Pervin eventually admits that she used to find Ahmed attractive in their teenage years, which causes Husam to beat her out of fury. Pervin starts crying and her feeling of wanting to get back to Sweden is stronger than ever before. She uses a phone that she got from a friend and calls Dolores Costa, who works at an organization known as the "Network Against Radicalisation" and used to work at Pervin's school as a teacher. Dolores has her get in contact with Fatima, in order to get her back in Sweden. Fatima calls Pervin but Fatima demands information. Lots of information. Apparently, a terrorist attack is being prepared in Sweden. Pervin tells Fatima that they've sent a terrorist known as The Traveler to Sweden, "Al-Musafir". But that's all Pervin knows. Fatima isn't satisfied, she needs more information until she can help Pervin. All in a pragmatic attempt for Fatima to save her career.

Meanwhile, in the relatively peaceful Stockholm, Sulle is a ninth grade-student. She is tired of people not giving a shit about anything. She hates Sweden despite being raised there, which is part of the teenage identity-finding phase that most of us go through. She has seen how the Israeli government treats Palestinians, so she hates Israelis for what the government does. One day, during a class in school, Sulle expresses her opinions to the student assistant Ibrahim "Ibbe" Haddad. Ibbe tells her that she's very mature for her age and very brave for daring to talk about such topics. Sulle states that the Swedish government is inherently racist and actively working against Islam, which is why so many muslims stop practicing their religion the same way as they used to before moving to Sweden. Ibbe agrees with everything she says and praises her for saying it. Sulle comes from a secular muslim Palestinian family, but she doesn't view them as "real muslims" after her talk with Ibbe. She wants to become a real muslim. And Ibbe is going to make her a real muslim.

Unfortunately for everyone, Ibbe isn't a real muslim.

Who is Ibbe? What does he do?

Ibrahim "Ibbe" Haddad is a tall, calm, handsome, and articulate young man. He was born to an Egyptian father and a Swedish mother. He works as a student assistant at a school in the hood and is respected by everyone. He also works for the Network Against Radicalisation that I mentioned earlier. A general good guy, who you gotta love. He's also a cold and calculating mastermind working for ISIS who is currently preparing a big terrorist attack under the codename of "The Traveler".

The day after Sulle and Ibbe's discussion, Ibbe happens to see Sulle's best friend Kerima running around. She asks Ibbe for help. It turns out that she was about to be beaten by her psychotic father, but that she managed to run away from him. Kerima asks if she can stay in Ibbe's house overnight, which he answers yes to. The day after, Ibbe follows Kerima to her actual home after school. Kerima's father asks if Ibbe needs monetary compensation for taking care of her, but he says no. Kerima says "well you're broke anyway" to her dad. He lashes out at her and gets ready to beat her, but Ibbe tells him to stand still. Being 6'4 and all, Ibbe tells him that if he ever touches Kerima again he'll torture him to death, which causes him to stop out of fear.

Ibbe is manipulating three other people. Two Swedish brothers named Emil and Jacob Johanisson. Emil is retarded and doesn't really understand what he has brought himself into, while Jacob was a petty criminal who was brainwashed into fundamentalism while in prison. The third person is Miryam Kheir, a young Iraqi woman who falls in love with Ibbe. Miryam plants a nerve poison inside of some perfumes in the taxfree perfume shop that she is working at, and although we don't actually see any deaths caused by it, it's pretty obvious what the intent was. While Ibbe didn't personally order this, it's because of his brainwashing that it happens to begin with.

Ibbe has two other identities that he changes between; George Barakat and Mustafa Brahimi. When he's George Barakat, he puts on an afro-wig, glasses and a black suit. Barakat is supposed to be a christian Coptic Egyptian who wants to arrange a meeting together with an organization that fights oppression against christian minorities. He meets with a french man named Duchamp who helps him with arranging this meeting. Brahimi is the identity that Ibbe takes when brainwashing Miryam. He wears glasses, a green coach jacket, and chinos.

Ibbe keeps on manipulating Sulle. During dinner with her parents and sister, Sulle mentions that the people behind the planned terrorist attack at Jyllands-Posten in 2010 were heroes as the newspaper had humiliated Islam. This makes her father, Suleiman Wasem, afraid of what her daughter is starting to become. When she puts on a hijab, Suleiman lashes out and tries to get her to remove it. He eventually has enough and tries removing it himself, but Sulle defends herself and it becomes a shorter physical fight. This also happened because of Ibbe's brainwashing, and following this Sulle refuses to talk with her dad.

While preparing for a terrorist attack, Ibbe has a farmer produce fertilizer for him or he'll have the farmer's mother hurt. The fertilizer is used to produce a bomb.

So far, nothing that horrible. But in the fourth episode, things change. A brutal ISIS execution has just taken place in Raqqa, which was published on the web. The Network Against Radicalisation is having a meeting over the newly published video, as there is one person who participated in the execution that they do not have the identity of. They suspect that he's Swedish though. The man has a removed tattoo, which is the only real feature that they can go after. Dolores Costa and Ibbe go out and eat dinner at a restaurant after the meeting. Ibbe is as charming as always and tells Dolores that a guy there has been looking at her during the entire dinner. She laughs until Ibbe raises his arm. He has the same removed tattoo as the terrorist in the execution video. Ibbe; a murderer. After their dinner, they walk separate ways. Dolores calls Fatima and says that she has some important information, which is what she had just seen, but that she wants to meet Fatima in person about it.

Dolores is supposed to meet Fatima in Fatima's apartment, but just as she is about to open her door, she is stabbed to death. The murder is framed on Fatima, and she has to go in hiding due to being wanted for a murder that she didn't commit. Fatima believes that corrupt SÄPO agents are behind the murder. I'll explain more about that later.

In the fifth episode, Ibbe manages to get Kerima and Sulle to travel to Raqqa. But it's revealed that Ibbe had been manipulating Sulle's little sister Lisha Wasem as well. If you think about it, this would destroy their lives, so it's definitely a heinous act. But in the sixth episode, Sulle and Kerima are saved by Suleiman (Sulle and Lisha's father) and SÄPO agent Calle. Following this, Kerima has become suicidal and tried taking her life after a police interrogation held by Calle. Sulle becomes depressed. Lisha, however, couldn't be saved, and she is currently being prepared for a life in Raqqa.

The thing with George Barakat is revealed to be a preparation of a terrorist attack. The meeting is supposed to be full of christian people as well as people from the organization that Duchamp works for.

In the eighth and final episode, Ibbe's plan comes together. It's the day of the terrorist attack. Let's start with Emil and Jacob Johanisson. They are in Globen Subway Station, one of Stockholm's most central subway stations. There are two entrances on each side of the station, Emil is on the right entrance and Jacob on the left. By doing that, they make sure that no matter what side the bystanders go out on, they'll be shot. Three people or so are about to come out of the station. Emil lifts his weapon.

At the same time, there's a man at an airplane preparing a terrorist attack by blowing up the entire plane. Also orchestrated by Ibbe.

The third terrorist attack is supposed to be done by Miryam. The plan is to kill everyone at the meeting that "George Barakat" arranged with Duchamp, most likely with an explosive. The motive being that christians are unfaithful and shit.

Finally, Ibbe is doing a terrorist attack himself. He has a bomb that he is going to use at an entire apartment building.

But, fortunately, SÄPO had been aware of the terrorist attack all along. I'll explain later how.

So every single attack that day managed to be stopped. Not a single person lost their life, except for Jacob who died from SÄPO fatally shooting at him.

Ibbe's own terrorist attack is stopped by officers surrounding the apartment building and vacating it. But Ibbe himself cannot be stopped. He's too smart. He decides to knock at a random door in the apartment. An old woman opens. Ibbe states that he lives downstairs and wants to look if there's a water leak in her house. She lets him in. He coldly stabs her to death, shaves his facial hair off, takes her coat, uses her makeup, wears her wig. Boom; totally new person. He escapes the building before activating the bomb. No people were in the apartment except for the old woman who already was dead.

Ibbe manages to successfully escape and has to go into hiding. The series fast forwards some months. Kerima is still in love with Ibbe. Sulle is starting to get a more normal life. Kerima arranges a meeting with Ibbe. They meet in an apartment. Ibbe shows her how to use a gun. He then tells Kerima that he and Sulle have "big ongoing projects", and that it's best for Kerima not to know what it's about. Ibbe introduces Kerima to a bomb that he is preparing on using. It has a lock on it that can't be unlocked. He calls it a "Baghdad Boomer". Eventually, Kerima says that she wants to do it. Ibbe does say that he doesn't recommend that she participates in it, because "she's not ready to die". But he ends up thinking pragmatically and has her do it anyway. And the place he has chosen for her to do it is even worse; a concert full of teenagers. She does it for him and Sulle. She eventually starts texting Sulle with strange messages. "IT'S TIME TO DIE! SEE YOU IN HEAVEN!!!!". Sulle calls Kerima. During their emotional call, we find out that Ibbe lied to Kerima and said that Sulle was at the concert and was going to do a suicide bombing as well. So they would die together. Ibbe said that he was going to suicide bomb himself too, which turns out to be false. Kerima, upon realizing this, tells everyone to run out of the building. Sulle and Kerima have a final conversation before we see Ibbe holding a phone. In the final scene, it's implied that Ibbe blew the bomb, but not confirmed. We just see Ibbe press some button at his phone and then the screen turns black.

Mitigating Factors

Ibbe doesn't care about Kerima the same way she does for him. He is using her for his own fanatic goals. Sure, he does say that she isn't prepared to die so she shouldn't do the suicide bombing, but then again he straight-up lied to her to begin with so that she would be more tempted to do the attack for him. The thing with Kerima's dad was a way of winning over Kerima more than he already had done so that she later would trust him. Which he succeeds in. And let's not forget that Ibbe has another "lover" in Miryam under the identity of Mustafa Brahimi. Ibbe is an intelligent psychopath, love really isn't his thing.

As for his motives being that of a Well-Intentioned Extremist? Not at all. Ibbe is a fanatic. A Knight Templar at absolute best. There's nothing well-intentioned in his ideology and goals. He doesn't care about other muslims. Especially evident when he downright kills one for being "unfaithful".

Heinous Standard

Let me get this clear; this season is full of villains and antagonists. Ahmed who I mentioned earlier rapes Pervin after finding out that she has a phone which isn't allowed, but she kills him in self-defense after that so he doesn't anything else (plus he has a wife).

The murder of Dolores Costa wasn't actually committed by Ibbe but by Jacob Johanisson as revealed in the final episode. Fatima was spotting Jacob and Emil in order to find information about them, but Emil saw her and started shooting. Jacob ran away and Emil followed him, but Jacob saw the registration number of Fatima's car on their way back. He wrote it down. Jacob found Fatima's apartment and waited outside until she would come home. When Dolores came, he thought that it was Fatima and stabbed her. Now, he could have counted as he's heinous enough due to low resources (keep in mind that he also does a terrorist attack that could have killed at least ten people) but he does care about his brother Emil.

Omar, Husam's boss, may or may not be directly involved in the terrorist attacks that Ibbe orchestrates. It's implied once but I don't think it's implied enough to be a fact. Other than that, Omar finds out that Pervin had been talking to the police in the final episode and shoots her to death upon finding out, and then tries to kill Husam. He is shot before he can do anything though. Not heinous enough as it isn't confirmed that he's involved in Ibbe's terrorist attacks.

Nadir at first seems to be a corrupt SÄPO-chief that works for ISIS and is directly involved in the terrorist attacks. In the final episode though, it's revealed that he only faked working for ISIS and was playing both sides. He had an informant, Abu Jibril, the boss of the bosses when it comes to ISIS. Abu Jibril ordered the attacks in the first place, and since then SÄPO and Nadir have been fully aware of everything that was going to happen due to Abu Jibril being their informant. This was a way of weakening ISIS power in Sweden, and the plan was to capture Ibbe with the help of Abu Jibril. It doesn't really go as planned considering Ibbe managed to escape, but they still managed to capture four other terrorists.

Overall, with an attempted body count up in the hundreds or possibly thousands, Ibbe definitely stands out here. No other villain even comes close.

Conclusion

I'm gonna say .

Edited by MenInGreyToBlak on Feb 25th 2020 at 3:22:47 PM

Yes to Ibbe.

Yes to Ibbe.

to Ibbe.

to Gessler

Edited by G-Editor on Feb 25th 2020 at 4:04:02 AM

Lighty and I are doing another team-up on another old, classic movie actor...this time, probably my personal favorite black-and-white movie star. Conrad Veidt, probably best known as the Nazi villain from Casablanca (the man himself as actually so anti-Nazi he had to leave his homeland for safety, and broadened awareness of Nazi atrocities by playing them as villains in movies) has a few that've probably gone overlooked.

What's the setting?

Wilhelm/William Tell is an old Swiss folk hero who reputedly in the 14th century led a rebellion against the invading Austrians who were annexing their land and brutalizing the peasantry. Tell has been adapted a few times—notably as an opera in the 1800s and as a TV show in the 50s—but our focus today is the 1934 silent film under the name The Legend of William Tell. Our villain is Governor Gessler.

Who is Gessler? What has he done?

Hermann Gessler (historically Albrecht Gessler, so far as a folk tale has historical basis) is the local Austrian baliff in charge of the nasty occupation and annexation of the Swiss lands. Played richly by Conrad Veidt (who plays the villain in both the German and English versions of the movie, and Gessler in the silent adaptation of William Tell from a decade earlier) Gessler wastes no time abusing the local Swiss population of the country, whom he very well looks down upon.

Gessler starves the peasantry, taking almost all of their food while ordering a series of oppressive rules demanding persecution or even death to those who would disobey. Gessler enslaves the populace into labor for his benefit and lets his Austrian thugs run rampant on the peasantry, where they torch houses, rape women and terrorize the common folk at their own leisure. One old man even has his eyes put out a with red-hot poker under Gessler's orders for refusing to betray the location of his rebel son. Gessler himself luxuriates in his power, at one point overseeing the construction of a massive tower via the cheap labor of hundreds of oppressed Swiss. Gessler, on a whim, orders that the plans for the tower be made ever higher and the dungeons even deeper to provide "the best playground for [the rebels'] game of freedom."

Naturally, none of this sits well with Tell himself. Gessler pettily demands, one day, the people he lords over pay tribute to his helmet under penalty of death. When the villagers, led by Tell, laugh him off, Gessler decides to show them he's not kidding. Gessler sees Tell is a crack shot with an arrow and makes him prove his skills by shooting an apple from a hundred paces...on top of his young son's head. Tell thankfully avoids hitting the apple instead of his son's own head, but Gessler isn't happy and forces Tell to reveal why he has a second arrow hidden away. Tell reveals this arrow was meant for Gessler in the event he hit his son, and Gessler uses this as motivation to have Tell arrested and shipped off for execution. Thankfully, Tell manages to escape and ambushes Gessler later, fixing the evil bastard's heart with the arrow he promised him.

Any mitigating factors?

Gessler isn't exactly packing with personal villainy, but the film goes to lengths to show that his rule is a horrible, brutal one and that Gessler himself is a wicked tyrant with zero redeeming qualities whatsoever. I admit my knowledge of other adaptations and their incarnations of Gessler are lacking, but Veidt brings a very distinct menace to Gessler in the 1934 version and I think the onscreen rapsheet carries him across, particularly when Gessler stoops to the level of endangering the life Tell's kid over a bruised ego.

Conclusion?

The first—not the last—for my favorite classic film actor.

Yes to Gessler.

to Ibrahim and Gessler