SHOCK takes a closer look at the darker roles of actress Jennifer Jason Leigh.
Love it or hate it (and this writer adored it) Quentin Tarantinos epic, indulgent and malevolent 70mm Grand Guignol chamber drama THE HATEFUL EIGHT offers an embarrassment of unforgettable performances by a slew of solid actors that swirl and spit out QTs rhythmic, endlessly inventive dialogue with fire and aplomb.
But at the center of the films merciless web sits one of the greatest actresses in the history of the moving picture to date, a performer who is often forgotten when having conversations about this very subject, but who Tarantino wisely dragged back to the forefront, kicking and shrieking, where she belongs.
Thats Jennifer Jason Leigh of course, here playing the living, spitting, loathsome gangster-queen Daisy Domargue. A sight to see, with her split lip and black eye, we arent sure how to feel about the character initially but we cannot take our eyes off her. Because even when shes not seething and bleeding and cackling through cracked teeth like some sort of demonic death-dealer, something is just off about her.
Leigh is always an unusual presence.
Even in the bloom of her youth, with her full lips and sweet face and nubile, fearlessly revealed curves, there was always something rather unsettling in her gaze. Like she was sizing you up, figuring you out. In Amy Heckerlings comedy classic FAST TIMES AT RIDGEMONT HIGH, Sean Penns stoner surfer Jeff Spicoli might have been the hook, but Leigh was the soul of the film, a sweet girl whose surface innocence hid something either wounded or calculating. There was an edge to her. A kind of danger.
It was mesmerizing then and just as much so – if not more so – now, as she settles into her middle age.
And because of this, Leighs presence has always lent itself to darker roles in stranger films. While she hasnt been in many pictures that could legitimately be classified as horror by the average fan, she has often brought horror to the imaginary worlds she enters and when she does end up in darker films, shes the secret sauce.
Here then, we look at a smattering of roles in which Leigh plays in a rougher, more phantasmagorical sandbox and uses her natural gifts to sculpt a slew of unforgettable characters.
Jennifer Jason Leigh
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EYES OF A STRANGER (1981)
SHOCK WAVES director Ken Wiederhorn helmed this clever and (in its unrated version) gory slasher/thriller that features a young Leigh in her feature debut. Here she plays a blind and deaf girl who faces off against a madman in the final reel. Leigh has no dialogue in the film and is stunningly physical. A silent film performance nestled in the body of a "talkie".
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FLESH + BLOOD (1985)
Paul Verhoeven's over-the top, almost Ken Russell-esque wallow in medievel sex and death is a masterpiece of excess, with Rutger Hauer as the leader of a gang of pillager's and Leigh his captured lover. Leigh sheds her clothes often in this delirious film and her character is no cut-out. She's a scheming woman in a Lady's skin. Sexual, delicate but dangerous.
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THE HITCHER (1986)
More definitive Hauer-sploitation and another great role for Leigh, though here, she's not a troubled character, nor wicked. She's a nice girl who stands by a man and gets torn in half for her troubles. One wonders, perversely, if Leigh took this role in this kinetic road-horror classic just so she could meet one of the genre's most horrific demises.
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SISTER SISTER (1987)
Another oddly overlooked horror drama, this one from writer/director Bill Condon. It's a smothering Southern Gothic creeper with Leigh in prime unstable mode as one of two sisters (the other played by Judith Ivey) running a Louisiana B&B, deep in the swamp. Once more, Leigh bares all and once more hides some heavy secrets under her skin.
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HEART OF MIDNIGHT (1988)
Wildly underrated psycho-horror film that feels like the best film Dario Argento never made. In it Leigh plays a girl whose perverted uncle leaves her a haunted nightclub-cum-apartment in his will. But is it haunted, or is Leigh just insane? Surreal imagery, sexuality and a Polanski-worthy central turn by Leigh as a woman in the thralls of madness.
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LAST EXIT TO BROOKLYN (1989)
Uli Edel's devastating adaptation of Hubert Selby Jr.'s even more shattering novel is not a horror film by definition, but who cares about definition. This collection of brutal, damaged characters on the skids of working-class 50's Brooklyn, is hard to watch but gelled together by Leigh's unforgettable turn as Tra-La-La, a rough prostitute who secretly pines for some ray of light in the urban hell that is feeding off her. One of Leigh's most alarming performances (and that's saying something), fearless, physical, frightening and heart-breaking.
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BURIED ALIVE (1990)
Ice-cold horror-noir made by a pre-SHAWSHANK Frank Darabont sees Leigh at her most diabolical. Here she's a lovely housewife who is really anything but; rather she's a philandering and homicidal harpy who does the title deed to her poor, unsuspecting hubby (Tim Matheson). A decent TV film buoyed by Leigh's sterling, salacious work.
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SINGLE WHITE FEMALE (1992)
Leigh's signature role, her apex of mainstream madness, here playing a super-ultra-deeply disturbed sociopath who becomes fixated on her roomate (Bridget Fonda) and tries to not only take over her life, but literally become her. One of those 90s thrillers that came and went and came again, SWF is notable not only for Leigh's wild-eyed turn, but for Barbet (BARFLY) Schroeder's ace direction.
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DOLORES CLAIBORNE (1995)
Taylor Hackford's deft adaptation of Stephen King's jet-black morality tale again serves as a showcase for Leigh's talents, here playing Kathy Bates' bitter daughter, who harbors some shattering secrets that she might not even be aware of.
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EXISTENZ (1999)
Leigh's "otherness" finds the perfect home in the world of David Cronenberg in this deeply surreal and lively action head trip. And while its initially hard to buy her as a visionary tech guru, it's a joy to watch her essentially "sodomize" Jude Law with a video game. A strange film. A Cronenberg film!
