It's no secret, sometimes the only reason for continuing an awful, awful horror movie is for watching the lead babe in all her splendor bear through the torture of whatever atrocity is placing her in trouble. The fact that it's a bad movie only adds sympathy to the moment, allowing the viewer to share in the "horror" and the "agony" of whatever bad job said babe may have taken purely for the money. (I'm guessing it's for the money. Granted, maybe it's a fun cast to film with, knowing full well the product is subpar in advance.)
One of these leading ladies that has had the old Doktor salivating whenever she's on screen has been Emmanuelle Vaugier. She's been in such atrocities as the made-for-TV sequel House of the Dead 2, a SyFy channel-produced romp in adjunct to famed miscreant Uwe Boll's original video game adaptation travesty. Ironically, Boll's addition was so terrible that SyFy's attempt didn't look so bad in comparison. (In actuality, it was like comparing an Arby's Beef N Cheddar to a pile of human excrement.) It definitely helped the production that she "starred" in it though, even if her acting is/was dry and unemotional.
One of the more recent atrocities I've seen her in was Uwe Boll's Far Cry, a low, low budget adaptation that's sole high point is that the DVD box managed to look almost identical to the original video game cover. Boosh! However, Ms. Vaugier graced audiences with her presence in this nuclear fallout of a movie, raising the overall bar from 0 to 1.5 out of a 10.0 scale. (Admittedly, she was aided by "co-star" Udo Kier as the "mad scientist" who constantly finds himself listening to Wagner's 'Parsifal' overture. Oh, Michael Pare was in here too... albeit for a brief moment.)
Before I continue, I'm sure you're all wondering what the point in all this is. Why is some ratso pus fuck like ol' Dok nOnsensical here ravin' like a teenage boy about some chick nobody except maybe the readers of Maxim and avid bad movie fans worldwide has ever heard of?
Aha! That's where I've got you! She was in two SAW movies and apparently on Charlie Sheen's now defunct Three and a Half Men as the role of Mia! (The last bit was according to IMDB, as I still reserve the right to say I have never watched that sitcom.)
In all seriousness though, I think it's the result of what happens when one watches too many bad movies. They all begin to run together, and they interface with the human DNA - rewriting and recoding the strands so that cynicism runs deeper, so that a pessimistic outlook of humanity becomes part of the viewer's hardware, destroying any notion that humans may still have good in them. Bad movies are like any other crime. They ensnare the victim and rob said victim of a piece of his or her soul, mining away at this "soul" bit by bit.
It's in times like these, however, that viewers latch on to the only sympathetic character they can - the last vestige of hope on the road to salvation. In my case, it's become Emmanuelle Vaugier, a woman who has been in a Uwe Boll production, a SyFy Channel film, and two SAW movies and lived to tell the tale. She's traveled down that perpetual 'Heart of Darkness' Joseph Conrad envisioned and survived, only to remain as beautiful and awe-inspiring as ever.
For that, I officially nominate her as a recipient for the Nobel Peace Prize.
