Happy Valentine’s Day! We’ve sent you a year’s supply of human eyelashes in the mail, along with a mix tape consisting entirely of cover versions of “I Want You To Want Me.” Do you love us yet?
No? Well, what are we supposed to do? You won’t answer our calls, you change your number. We mean, WE’RE NOT GOING TO BE IGNORED.
Yup, the stalker movie. That’s what we’re here to talk about today. It’s funny, but the kind of obsessive adoration that would have made for a classic Victorian romance novel is just plain creepy today. Times change, and building your whole world around a romantic or sexual fixation on another human being doesn’t fly anymore. Movies like Fatal Attraction popularized the frightening notion of someone not taking “no” for an answer and going to extreme lengths to get you back. It’s a great set-up for a thriller, playing directly into our massive egos and also our fear of losing all sense of security because someone you have no interest in has an implacable interest in you, and rejecting them only keeps making it worse. Eventually even violent.
But the stalker movie also takes advantage of a terrible double-standard. Many romances, even healthy ones, begin with one person being more interested than the other, and in movies those people tend to make dramatic pronouncements to make their point. Lloyd Dobler serenaded Diane Court with a boom box in Say Anything… but if she hadn’t been attracted to him in the first place the whole situation would have made her incredibly uncomfortable. The type of romantic behavior we see in movies is heightened for comedic and/or dramatic effect, and sometimes the only difference between what these fictional people think is romantic and honest-to-goodness creepery is the existence of a mutual attraction.
Maybe that’s why so many “proper” stalker movies cast incredibly attractive actors to play the dangerously lovelorn antagonists. Audiences are supposed to understand the temptation to sleep with these people, and when the hero does so it only makes them implicit. In short, they brought this on themselves. But come on… there’s an alternate draft of Sleepless in Seattle out there where Annie Reed’s cross-country stalking of Sam Baldwin ended up with an image of Tom Hanks tied up in a basement somewhere and missing at least a couple of toes.
But the attractiveness of these movie stalkers, whether they are supposed to be innocent or malevolent, sends audiences a mixed message. They’re hot, damn it, and sometimes that’s enough for some people. So we’ve put together a list of The 18 Hottest Movie Stalkers (because you shouldn’t even be considering this unless they’re at least 18), and ranked them based not on hotness – that’s too subjective – but on how much they’d be worth the trouble. How much does their hotness make up for how crazy they are? The answers might surprise you.
And since we’re an equal opportunity website, both men and women are eligible. Have a happy Valentine’s Day, folks. Please use your best judgment.
William Bibbiani is the editor of CraveOnline’s Film Channel and co-host of The B-Movies Podcast. Follow him on Twitter at @WilliamBibbiani.
The 18 Hottest Movie Stalkers
They're dangerously insane... but we can live with that.
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Audrey Hepburn in 'Love in the Afternoon'
Young cellist Audrey Hepburne falls in love with Gary Cooper, a man nearly 30 years her senior, in Billy Wilder's Love in the Afternoon, building a creepily elaborate backstory as a femme fatale to hook a man who should know better.
Danger Level: 0. She's weirdly obsessive and way too young for you, but she wouldn't hurt a fly.
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Faye Wong in 'Chungking Express'
Snack bar worker Faye Wong has a crush on hunky young police officer Tony Leung (hey, who wouldn't?), and expresses those feelings by keeping his girlfriend's breakup letter from him and breaking into his apartment over and over again to clean it.
Danger Level: 1. She's duplicitous, not dangerous, but she's also really hesitant to seal the deal when the opportunity actually arises. Do you really need that?
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Kyle Maclachlan in 'Blue Velvet'
What does Kyle Maclachlan do when he finds a severed ear in the park? He tracks down the owner's wife, Isabella Rosselini, gets his date to help him break Rosselini's apartment, lets her molest him, watches as she's molested, and lets that be the basis for their sick, twisted relationship.
Danger Level: 2. He's not dangerous, but he is attracted to danger. If you're dating him then there's a good chance that you're the really damaged one.
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Audrey Tautou in 'Amelie'
Audrey Tautou plays an adorable but lonely eccentric in Jean Pierre Jeunet's Amelie, performing acts of creative, random kindness for strangers. Her crush on ripped-up photograph enthusiast Matthieu Kassovitz leads to a bizarrely elaborate game of cat and mouse.
Danger Level: 2. Tautou isn't afraid to exact vengeance on others, but never resorts to violence. That said, with all those schemes she's probably really high maintenance.
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Isla Fisher in 'The Wedding Crashers'
Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn have the curious hobby of crashing weddings and sleeping with the bridesmaids, but Vaughn gets more than he bargained for when his latest conquest, Isla Fisher, becomes obsessed and makes him her sexual bitch whether he likes it or not. Eventually he likes it.
Danger Level: 3. Handjobs at her parents' dinner table? That kind of behavior is going to get you in trouble eventually, but Vaughn is right... it's totally worth it.
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Katherine Hepburn in 'Bringing Up Baby'
Ditzy debutante Katherine Hepburn falls for mild mannered paleontologist Cary Grant and follows him to the ends of the Earth, with a leopard in tow (!), sabotaging his engagement, jeopardizing his career and landing them both in jail.
Danger Level: 4. She'll get you in trouble, but she'll also get you out of it. That might not seem so bad, but she'll break our brontosaurus, dude.
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Jennifer Aniston in 'Horrible Bosses'
Charlie Day's "horrible boss" Jennifer Aniston goes beyond sexual harrassment into full blown obsessive behavior when she goes to ridiculous lengths - including blackmail - to get him to have sex with her.
Danger Level: 5. You'd probably just go for it, since she's psychotically unethical but not a physical danger (plus she's hot as hell), but the woman is just plain not to be trusted. Do you want to be skeptical of every other one of her employees forever?
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David Bowie in 'Labyrinth'
Goblin King David Bowie wears tights, an enormous codpiece, plays with his balls in public and kidnaps an infant just to romance a teenaged Jennifer Connelly. But the dude can dance (magic dance), and man, that codpiece...
Danger Level: 5. He'll take you really literally, abduct your relatives and threaten your friends with The Bog of Eternal Stench... but he has no power over you.
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Chris Pine & Tom Hardy in 'This Means War'
When CIA agents Tom Hardy and Chris Pine both accidentally fall for the same girl, Reese Witherspoon, they use every spy tool at their disposal to stalk her and sabotage each other's romantic plans.
Danger Level: 6. Their intentions may be good, but they're dangerously irresponsible and have no qualms whatsoever taking advantage of their high-tech gadgets to trick you into falling for them. Plus, you're gonna get kidnapped. It's just a given.
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Ali Larter in 'Obsessed'
Ali Larter has a crush on co-worker Idris Elba (hey, who wouldn't?), but takes it way too far with roofies, attempted suicide, vandalism and kidnapping. Obsessed ends in an epic catfight between Ali Larter and Beyonce Knowles, playing Elba's wife.
Danger Level: 6. Larter doesn't do anything especially evil until the final scenes, and even then she directs all her rage at Elba's wife. So as long as you're faithful, you two should be aces.
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William Baldwin in 'Sliver'
One of those "other" Baldwins owns an apartment complex and keeps secret spy cameras in every room, occasionally doing good, sometimes doing very bad, and using the information to seduce Sharon Stone into joining his life of voyeuristic, amoral hedonism.
Danger Level: 7. He's a creep. Sure he's a sexy creep, but he's a creep with shaky morals who won't stop a murderer until it's likely to get him laid.
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Robert Pattinson in 'Twilight'
Robert Pattinson is an over 100-year-old vampire who looks at least 18 but goes to high school anyway where he develops a fixation on a teenager, seduces her by saying their love is all-powerful but can never be, then uses the dangerous situations he gets her into as an excuse to make her agree to marry him right out of school. Yikes.
Danger Level: 8. He'll play with your mind, he'll nearly get you killed over and over again - hell, he'll make you try to do it yourself - but the sex is amazing after you commit to a serious relationship with him for literally all of eternity after only dating him for a year or so. On-and-off, no less.
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Alec Baldwin in 'The Juror'
Alec Baldwin plays a mob enforcer who threatens Demi Moore into swaying a jury in the 1996 thriller The Juror, but he refuses to kill her afterwards because he's totally got the hots for her.
Danger Level: 9. Baldwin may have difficulty killing you, but he'll have no problem killing your best friend (FYI, your best friend is Anne Heche)... after he sleeps with her of course. Double betrayal.
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Gary Oldman in 'Bram Stoker's Dracula'
Icky old age makeup Gary Oldman transforms into a younger, dashing Gary Oldman to seduce Winona Ryder into a life of Satan worship and blood sex because she looks like the woman he's been obsessing over for centuries. Oh yeah, he's a keeper.
Danger Level: 9. He won't touch a hair on your pretty little head, but he'll kill everyone else and damn your soul to Hell just for a shot at boinking you. I mean, you'd be flattered, but eventually you know he's going to drop his guard and go all Mr. Burns or bat monster on you, so you should probably just pass.
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Alicia Silverstone in 'The Crush'
Alicia Silverstone, in her film debut, plays a teenager with a crush on new neighbor Cary Elwes. When he rebukes her she wrecks his car, erases his computer and attacks his girlfriend with a swarm of wasps. Oh, and her last crush? He died under "mysterious circumstances."
Danger Level: 10. She's bad news. And she's underage, you perv.
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Mark Wahlberg in 'Fear'
Young, hunky Mark Wahlberg seduces the virginal Reese Witherspoon (again, Reese?), gives her a handy on a roller coaster, then pimps out her best friend Alyssa Milano, carves her name on his chest, kills her best guy friend, does fucked up things to the family dog and gets his buddies to assault her house.
Danger Level: 10, but oh, those pecs...
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Rose McGowan in 'Devil in the Flesh'
Rose McGowan has a crush on her new high school English teacher Alex McArthur, but when he rebuffs the advances of this schoolgirl whose parents died under "mysterious circumstances," let's just say people die. A lot.
Danger Level: 10. She's a murderer and she's underage. Don't do it, dude. Again, we implore you, don't be that guy.
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Christian Bale in 'The Dark Knight'
Batman has always had a few screws loose, and we're pretty worried about that cosplay fetish, but in The Dark Knight he uses his billions to ruin his ex-girlfriend Maggie Gyllenhaal's date, then support her new boyfriend's political bid so she'll break up with the guy and come back to his cave.
Danger Level: 10. It's not technically his fault, but we all know what happens.
