Over the course of his career, John Waters has lived up to his nickname of “The Pope of Trash” by giving us a lot of brilliant bad taste movies that often focus on the outcasts of society. Let’s not forget, it’s him who first introduced the world to Divine, an iconic eighties drag queen who starred in multiple films of his. But while Divine might have stood out in flicks such as Pink Flamingos, Hairspray and Mondo Trasho, it was another out there person who made their presence felt in 1990’s Cry Baby, with this being none other than Mona Malnorowski AKA Hatchet-Face.
It is no surprise that Hatchet-Face has been featured in the 50 strangest faces in movie history:
Who was Hatchet-Face?
Yes, as the name suggests, Hatchet-Face certainly caught the eye of audiences when they first got a glimpse of her at the beginning of the 1990’s. And that was because her face was so weird, so shocking, so creepy, it couldn’t help but stand out. And this was only helped by the fact that she wasn’t supposed to be a horror movie monster or even a villain. Rather she was one of the film’s group of ragtag protagonists.
Played by actress Kim McGuire, the idea here was that this was a person who had the ugliest mug in all of the land, as director John Waters put it when describing her in fact “She’s got the body of Jayne Mansfield and the face of Margaret Hamilton.” with Margaret Hamilton famously being the actress who played The Wicked Witch of the West in The Wizard of Oz. But these unconventional looks wouldn’t hold her down in life, and it wouldn’t leave her without friends. No, in the world of Cry Baby, Hatchet-Face would find solace in her own gang of outcast buddies, buddies who included Pepper, Milton Hackett, and the titular Cry Baby himself as played by Johnny Depp.
Some surprising origins
Of course, if John Waters had his way though, this would not have been the first time Hatchet-Face appeared on screen. No, she would have actually been the lead character in a movie named after her. In fact the idea to this one was that it would be a film all about her journey through the world looking like a subject in a Picasso painting, and how difficult that would be for her to deal with. Again, in the words of Waters, it would be “about a woman and her multilevel beauty problems.”
In the end though, after struggling to get such a movie off the ground, the director shelved it. Though he would keep the character in the back of his mind for future use. And that would mean when he started writing Cry Baby in the late eighties, he’d decide to include her as a supporting character here. Originally however, the character was supposed to have been played by none other than Divine. But after Divine passed away as a result of a heart attack in 1988, it would be Kim McGuire who got the role instead.
Kim McGuire’s performance
Needless to say then, this turned out to be something of a blessing in disguise as McGuire played the role perfectly, adding a layer of humanity to it that made audiences fall in love with her, even if her face was about as creepy as it got. And part of the reason Hatchet-Face was so easy to love was because she didn’t let her unusual looks get her down, and she didn’t allow herself to be victimised for it. No, as she herself would state in Cry Baby “There’s nothing the matter with my face. I got character.”
But then given the movie was about a bunch of outcasts finding a family with one another, a common trope of John Waters, it’s only right she should feel this way about herself. Just as it’s only right that audiences should come away loving her, even if they can’t help but be a little creeped out by her looks. Basically, it’s like what would happen if Frankenstein’s Monster became the hero at the end of that story and, instead of killing him, everyone realised he wasn’t so bad deep down inside.
The legacy of Hatchet-Face
Because of her popularity then, the character of Hatchet-Face has remained something of a cult icon in the years since, with anyone who’s a fan of John Waters’ style of trashy movies usually loving her, and anyone who wasn’t blessed with the best of looks seeing her as a bit of a hero. Even today in fact, she’s considered an iconic figure of cinema, with the New York Times describing her as a “hideously contorted floozy”, and Newsweek describing her as “gorgeously grotesque.” And that cult success would lead to Kim McGuire later working with other great directors like David Lynch in his short lived TV show On The Air, with this continuing all the way up until she retired from acting in the mid-nineties.
Still though, even if she was doing something different now, McGuire’s portrayal of Hatchet-Face remained the thing she was known for as it was such a unique character and such an eye-catching one, no one who saw Cry Baby could ever forget it. So when she died in 2016, many rained down tributes on her, mostly because of how great she was at playing that particular role. And that meant a whole new generation were able to discover Hatchet-Face and find out for themselves why she’s rightfully considered one of the best characters of creepy cinema. If you’d like to see more creepy faces just like Mona’s, be sure to check out this video on YouTube!
