Thursday, February 12, 2009

Thursday's Ways Not To Die

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I'm righting a wrong here. There's a distressing absence of online gratuity here where there ought to be an over-sized amount of appreciation (unless you're Pax, in which case you rock). Tom McBride, who played wheelchair-bound Mark seen above getting the face-chop, never gets the credit he is due for being the hottest guy in all of the Friday the 13th movies. Tomorrow Padalecki will be swooping in with his chiseled pectorals trying to claim that honor, but I think we need to remember the classic, the time-tested best. McBride owns.

Which is why it always sucked so hard that Mark got such a dreary send-off. He didn't even get to get laid, for god's sake. He's sitting there waiting for his lady to return when whammo, an outta-nowhere machete to the face. And then to add insult to injury he comically flops down like twenty stair-cases never to be seen or heard from again. Sadness.

Mark deserved more than that. He deserved a soapy bath scene; a speedo scene; a post-coital shirtless roll-around... something! Tom McBride actually died in 1995, so this role is his lasting horror legacy. There are far worse lasting legacies to have as far as I'm concerned. In remembrance, I grabbed a slew o' stills. It's probably a little excessive seeing as how the dude's only in like fifteen minutes of the film, but he deserves his moment documented. He rolled right into my heart, he did.


Love you, Mark!

I've done a pair of Friday the 13th deaths for this series before, so if the new Friday the 13th film out tomorrow has got you waxing nostalgic check those out by clicking on the images here below:


Viva la Voorhees!

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Previous Ways Not To Die: I Did It For You, Faramir -- Summertime In The Park... Of A Pedophile's Mind -- A Vengeful Elevator God: Part 3 -- Strung Up With Festive Holiday Bulbs By Santa Claus Himself -- A Vengeful Elevator God: Part 2 -- A Vengeful Elevator God: Part 1 -- Decapitated Plucked Broiled & Sliced -- Head On A Stick! -- A Trip To The Ol' Wood-Chipper -- Pointed By The T-1000 -- Sucking Face With Freddy Krueger -- A Pen-Full Of Home-Brewed Speed to The Eye -- Motivational Speech, Interrupted -- A Freak Ephemera Storm -- When Ya Gotta Go... Ya Gotta Go -- Hoisted By Your Own Hand Grenade -- Having The Years Suction-Cupped Away -- Criss-Cross -- Turned Into A Person-Cocoon By The Touch Of A Little Girl's Mirror Doppleganger -- Satisfying Society's "Pop Princess" Blood-Lust -- Done In By The Doggie Door -- Tuned Out -- Taking the 107th Step -- Rescuing Gretchen -- Incinerated By Lousy Dialogue -- Starred & Striped Forever -- Vivisection Via Vaginally-Minded Barbed-Wire -- Chompers (Down There) -- Run Down By M. Night Shyamalan -- Everything Up To And Including The Kitchen Toaster -- Sacrificed To Kali -- Via The Gargantuan Venom Of The Black Mamba Snake -- Turned Into An Evil Robot -- The Out-Of-Nowhere Careening Vehicle Splat -- "Oh My God... It's Dip!!!" -- Critter Balled -- Stuff'd -- A Hot-Air Balloon Ride... Straight To Hell!!! -- Puppy Betrayal -- High-Heeled By A Girlfriend Impersonator -- Flip-Top Beheaded -- Because I'm Too Goddamned Beautiful To Live -- By Choosing... Poorly... -- Fried Alive Due To Baby Ingenuity -- A Good Old-Fashioned Tentacle Smothering -- Eepa! Eepa! -- Gremlins Ate My Stairlift -- An Icicle Thru The Eye -- Face Carved Off By Ghost Doctor After Lesbian Tryst With Zombie Women -- Electrocuted By Fallen Power-Lines -- A Mouthful Of Flare -- Taken By The TV Lady -- Bitten By A Zombie -- Eaten By Your Mattress -- Stuffed To Splitting -- Face Stuck In Liquid Nitrogen -- Crushed By Crumbling Church Debris -- Bitten By The Jaws Of Life -- A Machete To The Crotch -- Showering With A Chain-Saw -- In A Room Filled With Razor Wire -- Pod People'd With Your Dog -- Force-Fed Art -- Skinned By A Witch -- Beaten With An Oar -- Curbed -- Cape Malfunction -- In The Corner -- Cooked In A Tanning Bed -- Diced -- Punched Through The Head -- Bugs Sucking On Your Head
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8 comments:

Ross said...

We did a Friday the 13th marathon last weekend (just the first three) and I was struck by how many of the male counselors looked like hustlers. Just look at those pictures of Mark and Paul - replace the woods in the background with Castro Street and they're turning tricks.

timothy grant said...

I agree. I had me some fantasies of riding in that wheelchair when I was a wee lad.

McBride was also the Marlboro man for a while. They did a doc called "Life and Death on the A-List" (http://www.wringinghands.com/A-List.php) about the last two years of his life that I have been trying to locate as a rental to no avail.

Jason Adams said...

Ross, I'm trying to get a post together for tomorrow on the other guys of the Friday series, and yes, they all looks like rough trade. And who knows, a lot of them don't have many other credits........

dtownla, I've wanted to see that doc forever too. Let me know if you ever find it anywhere!

Ross said...

Don't forget Steve from the first one - shirtless, mustached, and sporting a red bandanna tied around his neck!

Glenn Dunks said...

He was a dish, wasn't he?

What was it with wheel chairs in horror movies for a while though? Like... really?

Antaeus Feldspar said...

You know, even though he only gets fifteen minutes of time, Mark has something that I can't remember any of the other characters in any of the other films having, that makes his death all the more poignant.

Hope.

He's got something to hope for: that someday he's going to walk again. He doesn't know how; he knows the doctors say it's impossible, but hey ... he's still got hope.

That's why I think he lingers in the memory (well, at least in mine): his death isn't just the ending of a life, it's the ending of a dream.

Anonymous said...

I LOVE MARK OM MCBRIDE FREAKIN WHOOPS ASS I HATED HIS DEATH, I CRIED

Anonymous said...

I know this article is about "Mark" yet I just can't contain myself after seeing "Paul" in those jeans!! Yeah baby! This is why I miss the 80s, men today can't pull off the tight jean and sexy/hottie look like Paul and they don't make jeans like that anymore :(