Yeah Muthas!"Stanley"(1972)'s Most Colorful Villain

We'll be putting William Grefe's 1972 horror film,"Stanley", under the microscope at a later date.Today's focus is on the memorable antagonist,Psycho Simpson,as portrayed by Paul Avery,who went on to play a tv cameraman in "Superman:The Movie"(1979),and television cameos in "Three's Company","Soap",and "Tales from the Darkside".When Thomkins(Alex Rocco) decides to take his vendetta against Tim(Chris Robinson)to the next level in Grefe's cult classic,he adds "Psycho" to his enlisted goon squad.

Psycho grooves on heavy drugs.
His background,as related to the viewer by another goon,is that "he hates snakes,and the only thing he hates more than snakes is Indians".Yeah muthas!Looking like the bastard child of Will Ferrell and Captain Sensible of punk band,The Damned,Psycho is one crazy cat with an outrageous wardrobe:a pink shirt,striped hip huggers,stars and stripes socks,red,orange and green shoes with white laces,tinted hippie shades,and a Billy Jack hat with Indian design around the brim(!).As he snorts the contents of an inhaler,Psycho has obviously blown his gourd,and could care less what the other two goons do or say.When they tell him to sit tight and guard the vehicle for a couple of hours while they poach snakes,he flips them the bird,and repeatedly says...you guessed it.

Dig that crazy outfit,muthas.

Psycho says "Yeah muthas!YEAH MUTHAS!"
When we return to Psycho later in the story,he squashes a tree crab against the bark of a tree where he is squatting.The groovy violence blows his mind,and he exclaims...

Psycho hates snakes,Indians, and tree crabs.Yeah muthas!
He stumbles off,hallucinating, into the everglades and happens onto Tim's place.Upon entering,he notices the various cages full of snakes,and the makeshift crib Tim has built for Stanley's brood of baby rattlesnakes.Still zooted on goofballs,Psycho uses the butt of his rifle to pulverize the baby rattlers on camera,then shoots and kills Hazel,Stanley's mate.Yeah muthas!

Psycho and Indian Tim in a battle to death,muthas.
When Tim returns to his place,he sees Psycho stumbling out the door, clutching his rifle and a limp,dead Hazel's body in his hands,causing Tim to snap.Psycho,focusing his drug-laden eyes on the charging man,realizes Tim is an Indian.It's on,muthas!He tries to shoot Tim,but his rifle is empty,so he decides to throw the gun at the rampaging redskin with both hands!The two men wrestle in the mud,and before Psycho can dice the native American into bits with an outboard motor,Stanley rescues his owner with a well placed bite to Psycho's neck,causing him to freak out and run into the swamps.

Psycho really hates snakes now.
For the record,there's no real reason for any of this,I just enjoy over-the-top villains in films,and let's face it,you'd be hard-pressed to find anyone more over-the-top in ANY film than Psycho Simpson.Good stuff.

YEAH MUTHAS!