The Paperboy (1994)

First of all, in order to avert any possible confusion, IMDB lists this Canadian chiller as The Paper Boy (note the space). I’m not sure whether this reflects the proper Canadian terminology for a person who delivers newspapers or if the original story was in fact about a young man made out of paper and along the way some fat-cat Canadian producer butchered the screenwriter’s original vision beyond recognition, changing it into the story of an eleven year old boy with a paper route who occasionally murders people. I can only speculate, but I will say that the story of a boy made out of paper has far greater potential for thrills than those contained in the ninety-odd minutes to which I have recently subjected myself.

He couldn't possibly be a killer with a charming, old-timey font like that!

The Paperboy starts strong. I was expecting a slow, Canadian build, but within the first two minutes our villain with the sing-song silly name Johnny McFarley (Marc Marut) has dispatched an elderly woman by suffocating her with a plastic bag. From his idyllic Canadian neighborhood we cut to a stock shot of the Boston skyline and from there into the classroom of the attractive Ms. Thorpe (Alexandra Paul). It isn’t long before we realize that the murder is a cruel ploy concocted by Johnny McFarley to draw Melissa Thorpe northward to her Canadian homeland to deal with her mother’s estate.

Beauty, thy name is Ms. Thorpe.

Johnny is a considerate killer, if nothing else. He does Ms. Thorpe the service of suffocating her mother on the last day of classes, so that she can enjoy an extended stay in her mother’s home without it interfering with her teaching job. Ms. Thorpe brings her daughter Cammy along for the journey (I can only assume she’s named after her mother’s favorite lace camisole). We learn through a conversation between Cammy and her cousin that her mother is divorced and that her father lives in Italy. “Where’s that?” the cousin asks. “On a map,” Cammy replies. This is only one example of the three or four gems of sharp dialogue strategically placed throughout the film.

"'Lo, mum. Johnny McFarley's me name!"

From here the plot unfolds at a breakneck pace. Johnny, the perfect archetype of the smarmy Fauntleroy that instantly fills one with disgust and admiration, quickly ingratiates himself into the family by putting on the guise of a helpful, caring little twerp. (“The eagle scout has landed,” quips Ms. Thorpe’s sister at Johnny’s sudden appearance.) There is a genuinely creepy moment at the funeral as Johnny, in a phony show of bereavement, leans over the corpse and kisses it on the cheek, only to be pulled back by Ms. Thorpe.

Grody to the max!

Johnny seems to inhabit the house next door alone. We learn that his mother passed the year before (I’m sure it would shock you to learn that there is some mystery surrounding her death) and that his father travels a lot, selling “golf stuff.” I wondered if in fact Johnny had also offed his father until, somewhat later in the film, his dad drives up to the house with a trunk full of . . . golf stuff.

We've all heard the old saw, "You can pick your friends, but you can't pick your family." Well, Johnny McFarley's not having any of that noise! Johnny’s plan becomes clear rather quickly. He is trying to piece together the perfect family, with Cammy as a sister and Ms. Thorpe as his attractive-yet-nurturing mother. Enter hunky, bearded Brian (William Katt, of The Greatest American Hero fame) a high-school football star who dated only cheerleaders back in the day (though, he confesses, Melissa’s debate club stylings were not of such dowdy magnitude to keep him from harboring a crush on her while he nailed every girl on the pep squad). Brian is quick to pick up on Johnny McFarley’s ulterior motives and the wedge he drives in the relationship between Johnny and Melissa results in two broken plates with hissy fits to match. I should note that whenever Johnny gets angry, the pre-pubescent tone of his voice is ramped up to such an extent that it would be utterly comical if not for its fingernails-across-the-blackboard quality.

"I may have traded in my cape and tights for a modified argyle sweater vest, but I still kick ass!"

Johnny soon embarks on a killing spree, offing anyone who stands in the way of his plan to recreate his idea of the perfect family. Some of his plots are rather ingenious: He deprives the elderly Mrs. Rosemount of her inhaler, then stages a traumatic experience in order to trigger a fatal asthma attack. (But here, as an asthma sufferer, I must digress. Why is it in movies that asthmatics are over and over again portrayed as sickly individuals walking around with their inhalers constantly clutched in their hands? What’s even more ridiculous is that they are puffing them in every shot in the movie, thus giving themselves a massive dose that goes far beyond the boundaries of safety. It just seems cheap and lazy to me. In some instances it’s used for comic relief--asthmatics are nerds, we get it, ha ha. And I must admit that in this movie it’s a valid plot point . . . But, still, it’s overused. I’ve been told by doctors that if you’re using your rescue inhaler more than once a week, you really should be seeking some other form of treatment. Establish that someone has asthma, sure, but don’t have them sucking on their inhaler every time they’re on camera. Christ, I keep expecting an onscreen o.d.!)

Keep suckin' it down, granny.

Where was I? Oh, yeah. Johnny’s murders. For every ingenious murder he commits, there are two that are just plain sloppy. Poetic justice aside, Johnny offs his father by giving him a solid whack on the head with a putter. Then, to make it appear as if his father is on one of his golf-stuff selling business trips, he parks the car in the garage! Genius! Later, to cover up his bludgeoning of the irresistible Brian, Johnny douses his workshop with gasoline and throws a road flare onto the puddle. That ought to fool the police: It seems that this man died of massive head trauma inflicted by an accidental fire. Case closed.

Live by the golf stuff, die by the golf stuff.

One aspect of The Paperboy that I found particularly funny was Johnny’s sudden, brief religious awakening one hour and ten minutes into the movie. Though there had been no previous allusion to the Bible or any religious inclination in Johnny’s past, one solitary scene, in which Johnny catches Ms. Thorpe in a lie, is replete with religious dialogue: “Thou shalt not lie. That’s the ninth commandment, remember?”, “My mother’s in heaven because she’s good!”, and, finally, “Jesus doesn’t take bad people.” This particular facet of Johnny’s character never comes up again. This either 1) reflects the consummate skill of the screenwriter in showing us exactly how fragmented is the psyche of young Johnny McFarley, or, 2) reflects the consummate lack of skill in a crappy screenwriter who just threw this scene in for the heck of it, perhaps in the hope that it would give Johnny depth or make him more creepy.

Despite his ability to turn on the false charm like it’s water from the tap, Johnny gets his comeuppance and is dragged kicking and screaming (and protesting in his grating, girly voice) into the backseat of a car belonging to some of Canada’s finest (It would have been much cooler if the Royal Canadian Mounted Police showed up and, like, tied him to a horse or something, don’cha think?) I don’t want to give too much away, but I will say this: What kind of fool thinks that he can kill The Greatest American Hero? (Such an oversight perfectly illustrates the limited scope of the Canadian mind.) You have to give young Johnny McFarley some credit, however. If you’re going to nurture a sick oedipal complex, go out and get yourself an attractive mom. You may as well do it in style.