I never ever thought I'd find another MacReady.

Shortly after being bowled over by Ray Lovelock's turn in the very entertaining Live Like a Cop, Die Like a Man I went in search of images to use at my blog. Finding visuals of a long haired, bearded Lovelock set off a happy little internal alarm. Initially, my reaction to George (like Keoma and disguised Krycek before him) was visual: "Oooh! he's pulling a MacReady!"

It quickly moved past that. As I watched Let Sleeping Corspes Lie (The Living Dead at the Manchester Morgue, Don't Open the Window etc., etc.) it dawned on me that George was reacting in a very similar way to MacReady as the Thing really shows what a threat it was.

Many elements quickly endeared the character to me. First, the proof that he was right and the authoritarian elders were wrong. Second, I personally enjoy the blunt and crass attitude Meaning projects. It comes from his frustration that others seem to pigeonhole him as something he's not. Weary from fighting a lot of battles he shouldn't have to, George ultimately wins anyway-as warped as the outcome is. He is reluctantly heroic, and perhaps the most sympathetic hippy character I've seen in a film. It's rare when the youth culture is proven right and here it's the worst case of 'I bloody told you so!'

Then there's irony, such as George's conversation with the doctor at the Southgate hospital as the practioner tries to cajole George into donating his body for science. George smirks a bit uncomfortably here, but it's a nice note of black humor before the merde really hit the fan. The deepest irony comes from the film's ending, in what Georges becomes and does. Even as a zombie, he emotes a sympathy and a big round of applause from me.

Even with the dubbed accent, Lovelock is acting his tail off through a very subtle performance. He isn't the always angry young man; George is pushed into a corner, forced to act and accept something so horribly fantastic and I believe in his unfolding hell completely. It's a joy to watch the character in varying states of hope, despair and angst. Unlike other characters whose hysteria is often overblown (much like some of the team at Outpost 31), the audience has a character with whom they share this nightmare made real. Lovelock is another expert of body language, his eyes register so many of the feelings and thoughts going on, again these could have been exaggerated, but are handled in a very real way. I flash to the character's unsettling front row seat at the feast of cop Craig, Ray's eye convey the repulsion so clearly, that even if the gore was off camera I would have probably felt the same way.

I would be real curious to a see an Italian print with Ray's voice and English subs (if such a thing exists), because I'm interested in hearing just how he would have performed the dialog. This said, o.t.t. dub works for me because the rest of Ray's performance is so believable, and I happen to like the accent myself (apologies to my British friends but it's true).

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