Gone Fishing, Gone Murdering: “Big” Ed Cooper Enters the Hall of Killers
The Hall of Killers has welcomed some complicated individuals through its doors. We’ve had supernatural monsters, masked lunatics, psychopaths and creatures capable of reducing a human being to something requiring several bin bags and a very understanding carpet cleaner. But every respectable institution occasionally needs an old-fashioned outdoorsman, which brings us to “Big” Ed Cooper, the homicidal father from The Mutilator. Big Ed enjoys hunting, fishing, collecting trophies and spending quality time with his son, although admittedly that last hobby mostly consists of trying to murder him.
Played by Jack Chatham, Big Ed is a wonderfully straightforward addition to the Hall. He doesn’t need a mask, supernatural powers or an ancient curse explaining why he can’t be killed. Give the man an axe, chainsaw, pitchfork or fishing gaff and he’ll provide the entertainment himself. Frankly, if Big Ed ever invited you to look inside his garden shed, you’d be entirely justified in moving to another county.
Big Ed’s descent into madness begins with an event unlikely to appear in any parenting manual. As a young boy, Ed Jr. decides to surprise his father by cleaning his gun collection as a birthday present. Unfortunately, one of the guns fires and accidentally kills his mother. Big Ed arrives home, discovers what has happened and reacts by striking his son before carrying his wife’s body away. It is an appalling tragedy, although it also establishes an important rule for children everywhere: if Dad owns several firearms, just buy him socks.
Years later, Ed Jr. is a college student and the relationship with his father hasn’t exactly improved. Big Ed has spent the intervening years doing the emotional equivalent of leaving a pressure cooker on maximum heat and welding the lid shut. When he asks Ed Jr. to close the family’s beach condominium for winter, Ed brings friends Pam, Ralph, Sue, Mike and Linda along and turns the chore into a seaside break. What could possibly go wrong, apart from absolutely everything?
The holidaymakers discover a property packed with hunting trophies and equipment, while Ed Jr. cheerfully tells stories about his father’s enthusiasm for killing and gutting animals. Then he notices that a battle axe is missing. Everyone remains remarkably calm about this development, presumably because There Is a Missing Battle Axe and My Estranged Father Is Mentally Unwell would have been a less marketable title than The Mutilator. Unfortunately, Big Ed is already hiding around the property, watching the group and preparing to demonstrate why his beach house receives absolutely catastrophic TripAdvisor reviews.
Unlike Jason Voorhees, who eventually settled into a committed long-term relationship with his machete, Big Ed refuses to be tied down. He’s a weapon polyamorist. Axes, chainsaws, pitchforks and fishing equipment all deserve a chance. Mike discovers this when Big Ed attacks him with a chainsaw. A police officer subsequently gets decapitated, while Ralph encounters the business end of a pitchfork. Big Ed approaches murder like someone working through a DIY catalogue. Why restrict yourself to one tool when the garage is full?
Then we arrive at the fishing gaff. The film establishes the implement earlier as part of Big Ed’s fishing equipment before he later uses it to murder Sue in the movie’s most infamous sequence. We won’t go into anatomical specifics because some of you may be eating breakfast, but suffice to say the scene did absolutely nothing positive for the recreational fishing industry. That’s ultimately what makes Big Ed more distinctive than the hundreds of interchangeable lunatics generated by the slasher boom. His background as a hunter and fisherman isn’t merely decoration. He has effectively replaced animals with human prey, using the equipment and skills associated with his ordinary life to stalk his victims.
Another major advantage is Jack Chatham himself. Big Ed spends much of The Mutilator without dialogue, leaving Chatham to sell the character through his size, expressions and physical presence. Writer-director Buddy Cooper later remembered Chatham asking for guidance on playing the role and essentially being told that Big Ed was one mean individual. Chatham apparently took that detailed Stanislavskian character analysis and ran with it.
Amusingly, Cooper remembered the actor himself as an extremely kind and gentle man who had worked as a high-school teacher. Imagine discovering that your lovely former teacher subsequently became famous for murdering teenagers with fishing equipment. That’s one school reunion where you’d definitely hand your homework in on time.
The film itself was shot in North Carolina in 1983 and originally carried the wonderfully inappropriate title Fall Break. It even has a ridiculously cheerful theme song, giving the impression that you’re about to watch six attractive youngsters enjoy beer, beaches and mild romantic misunderstandings rather than being systematically converted into practical-effects demonstrations. The eventual title The Mutilator was considerably more honest. There are titles that gently suggest the tone of a film, and then there’s The Mutilator, which practically arrives carrying a mop and a bucket.
Big Ed’s rampage eventually becomes a deeply unpleasant family reunion when Ed Jr. discovers that his own father is responsible. The childhood accident that killed his mother has come back in the worst possible way, with the father who blamed him now attempting to finish the family argument using considerably more hardware than most therapists would recommend. Big Ed proves remarkably durable for an entirely human killer before eventually being struck by a car and effectively cut in half. Even then, he still attempts one final attack. You have to admire the work ethic. Most people would consider being bisected a reasonable excuse to finish early.
So why Third Class? Because Big Ed never became a mainstream horror icon. The Mutilator developed a genuine cult following through home video and later releases, and its elaborate practical gore has ensured it hasn’t vanished alongside countless forgotten slashers of the period. But Ed isn’t Jason, Freddy or Michael, and asking the average person on the street to identify Big Ed Cooper is more likely to result in directions to the nearest pub than recognition of a slasher villain.
Third Class is exactly where he belongs. He’s brutal, memorable, wonderfully practical and responsible for several kills that hardened slasher fans haven’t forgotten. He also brings enough hunting equipment into the Hall to ensure nobody else will ever have to buy tools. “Big” Ed Cooper enters the Hall of Killers in the Third Class Tier. We’ve given him a room, reinforced the door and confiscated his fishing gear. Unfortunately, nobody can find the battle axe.
