My Fat Sheriff

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“A Brief Study of the Effectiveness & Culpability of Overweight Law Enforcement in the Slasher Film”

or

“My Fat Sheriff”

The slasher film, in general, is ruled by its formulaic elements. There is the Final Girl, the mysterious prologue, and some sort of remote or isolated location, sexual byplay and ineffective law enforcement. The purpose of this article is to examine the last of these elements in some detail. How effective is the law enforcement in slasher films? Also, how responsible are the aforementioned “Fuzz” for the events that occur? As there are many slashers with some kind of law enforcement in them, the current writer has chosen three Sheriffs who all share a common denominator: they are all what is euphemistically referred to as “big boned” or, to tweak the term slightly, “fat boned”. We will be examining the characters and actions of three corpulent cops as they relate to the previously mentioned points.
The three I have chosen are: The Sheriff from “Don’t Go In the Woods”, Sheriff Avery from “House of Death” and the character of Sheriff J. Chism from “Offerings”. All three are fairly standard offerings from the 1980’s with the last of these being a less stylish/ scare free retelling of “Halloween” set in Oklahoma.
For the benefit of those who may not remember the basics, here are brief plots for each. “Don’t Go…” is set in the mountains of Utah where a large hairy man with beads on his face is slaughtering groups of campers. Includes the classic scene with Dick and Cherry. “House of Death” takes place in a small North Carolina town at the end of summer. A killer attacks a bunch of 20-somethings (?) who are partying after the carnival comes to town. Features Susan Kiger from “H.O.T.S.” and a grown man-boy named Diddle. “Offerings” is about a young asylum inmate who escapes and, returning to his hometown, begins to kill the kids who picked on him when he was young. The “offerings” are given to the only girl who was nice to him. They consist of an ear, a finger and so forth.
We will begin with The Sheriff from James Bryan’s “Don’t Go In The Woods”. The Sheriff is in charge of county business, which implies that his jurisdiction is the woods where the killings are occurring. With the help of his noticeably lanky deputy, they set out in search of the big killer.
Before discussing effective and/ or culpable behavior, let’s have a quick look at the Sheriff and his character. The first time the viewer sees the Deputy he has been warned that the Sheriff is “busy and asked not to be disturbed”. However, the Sheriff is playing golf in his office. The first thing a viewer thinks upon seeing the golfing sheriff is “Those are the largest pants I’ve ever seen” and this could be a true statement.
The Sheriff is presented as a man who is rather dismissive of the reports that come his way. “Another missing person’s report…It’s the freakin’ call of the wild!’ But, he does investigate including a ride in a small plane, which he seems to teleport into, as they don’t show him climbing in. The trip involves this plane flying over the huge mountains while the Sheriff yells, “I’ll bet he’s not even down there! All in all, it seems a mite ineffectual. However, when proof is presented to him, he forms a posse and gets all the gun totin’ hicks he can to help him find the maniac.
The Sheriff is seen to investigate. He makes that plane ride. He does the manhunt. None of which is, frankly, effective. The disappearances occur in the woods but, until proof arrives, the plane ride is all he does. Perhaps if they had gotten closer to the ground earlier in the movie things may have worked better.
The manhunt is expansive. It lasts for 2 full days. The men, led by the Sheriff, scour the trees. The Sheriff gets off some of his best sweating here. He also is able to shift all the weight of the hunt from “Killer” to “Killer and mental case” when Peter (one of the lead campers) heads back into the woods to rescue a friend. This scene can be seen by choosing Chapter 23 “When’d and how’d it happen, Maggie?” on the Special Edition DVD.
But, in the end, even though all this man hunting is occurring, the two leads, Peter and Ingrid, find the maniac and kill him. The Sheriff and friends show up to point guns around when the killer’s dead. This may not be actually ineffective as the others happen to find him first but it certainly doesn’t mean the Sheriff succeeded. Possibly more men or, as we shall see, a more considered approach.
It is implied that the maniac has been killing for some time but the Sheriff either has been able to do nothing or done next to nothing. Frankly, it looks like the latter. He sweats, he hefts his pants and he mops his brow but doesn’t do much until the manhunt. None of which rate him low on the culpability scale.
The strangest moment here is during the manhunt. (Not counting when the first day ends and the Sheriff says everyone will come back in the morning because there’s “…not but one more place he could be.” (?)) The Sheriff tells the Deputy that he’s “going to the cabin”. Indeed, the Sheriff is seen strolling through the woods to the cabin where the Maniac lives. Oddly enough, he doesn’t say “Holy Cow! A cabin! What’s this doing here?” He yells “Hello in the cabin!” and approaches it. The implication to the alert viewer is that the Sheriff knows of the cabin, knows it’s inhabited but doesn’t seem to connect it to anything. Does he not know who lives there? As the Sheriff shouldn’t he know? Is the mortgage under the name “H. Wildman”? Frankly, the Sheriff should have immediately come here and questioned the owner. Surely, if they wanted to catch the killer, a mailman could have been sent with a package needing a signature. When the madman came out to sign, they could have grabbed him. It’s this sort of thinking that would have saved lives here. (By the way, he finds a body in the cabin but somehow the manhunt never really picks up.)
People seem to like this Sheriff but it must be because they think he’s jolly. One can see his tactics are ineffective (of all three discussed here, he gets the most screen time) and lead to more than a little (indirect) responsibility for some of the mayhem. But, it was this sort of character that prompted Turbot Tribune movie critic Cyril P. Drathmoor to say “[quote withdrawn]” His prayers were answered.