NO FRANKIE FAISON.

I know what you're thinking, but no, that's not Turk from Scrubs.  Not counting Hannibal Rising, there have been four Hannibal Lecter films already: Manhunter, Silence of the Lambs, Hannibal and Red Dragon (which is a remake of Manhunter).  And as the IMDb will tell you, even though there are many characters in common between these films/books, only one actor has been in all four films.  That's right, Frankie Faison.

Sure, he was probably the only one to not win an Oscar for Silence of the Lambs, but I prefer to think of F-Double as the glue that's held the Hannibal series together.  And to see that he's not in Hannibal Rising really bums me out. 

Look, there's a lot of ways you can screw up a movie franchise.  You can set it in outer space for example.  Or introduce a race of creatures called "Gungans."  Or have Joel Schumacher direct an installment.  Those are the obvious mistakes.  And so is leaving out beloved second-tier characters.

So, in my Frankie Faison despair, I got to thinking about some of the other beloved secondary characters from horror films.  The men and women who make watching crappy horror sequels worthwhile.  You know what I'm talking about: that moment in Hannibal when Barney the orderly hands over the Hannibal Lecter mask to whoever it was that Gary Oldman played.

So, in honor of our fallen friend, I present to you:  THE GREATEST SECONDARY CHARACTERS IN HORROR MOVIE HISTORY.  And yes, that needed to be in all caps.

5.  Fritz from Frankenstein (1931), played by Dwight Frye

The original, the “O.G.”, the Daddy of the Mack.  Who else has a song dedicated to them that was written by Alice Cooper?  Okay, maybe Jason Voorhees, but we're talking secondary guys here. 

Fritz is the one who got the ball rolling for secondary horror movie characters.  He drops the brain!  He tortures Frankenstein's monster with fire!  How can you not love this guy?  Oh yeah, right ... he's got a hunchback and probably had his way with the corpses before Dr. Frankenstein sewed them up.  Ugh, moving on ...

4.  Dick Halloran from The Shining (1980), played by Scatman Crothers

Ah, the Scatman.  Sure he's great in everything from Chico and the Man  to the original animated series of Transformers. But I honestly think that this character alone inspired the South Park guys in their creation of Chef.  First of all, he quickly defends the young white kid and teaches him the things even his parents don't understand.  Also, keep a close eye out for the picture hanging above Dick Halloran's bed when they cut to the one shot of him at home: a naked, writhing Nubian velvet painting.  Little touches like that cement your status on a completely meaningless list like this.

Also, Dick makes the list because he gets owned big time by Jack Nicholson's character, and he's probably the only character in this movie you DON'T want to see get it.

3.  Grady from A Nightmare on Elm Street 2 (1985), played by Robert Rusler 

Here's the thing, A Nightmare on Elm Street 2 is a pretty interesting movie, for all the wrong reasons.  It doesn't really make any sense: Freddy's trying to be reborn into the world through some teenage kid, and yet he can still kill people in dreams. And maybe he can make this kid kill other people for him. I don't know.  And I don't care.

But if you watch it from the point of view that this is a metaphor for the main character's struggle with his latent homosexuality, then the film starts to take on a whole new meaning, especially in the early days of AIDS.  Did the filmmakers intend this subtext?  Who the hell cares?

And then there's Grady.  Robert Rusler plays the friend/jock/bully that we all knew in school.  And if he was just a typical jerk in the film, he never would've made this list.  But Grady is a very funny, sympathetic guy to the main character and really comes across like a guy you'd actually want to be friends with.  Too bad he gets slashed to ribbons.

And, for the record, not to get all "name dropper" on you, but I ran into Robert Rusler a few years ago at a bar on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood.  It should come as no surprise that, in real life, he's pretty much exactly the same as Grady.

2. Lynda van der Klok from Halloween (1978), played by P.J. Soles

I guess if there's one thing cooler than having an Alice Cooper song written in your honor, it's having an entire Local H album named in your honor.  And no, the Foo Fighters album "In Your Honor" doesn't count for anything, smart guy.

Writing a list like this and not including P.J. Soles should be considered an act of treason.  As Lynda, P.J. Soles does it all. She makes us laugh, she makes us cry (almost), she gets drunk, she gets high, she hits on the guy who just killed her boyfriend, she makes the word "totally" much more fun to say than it has any right to be and, most importantly, she shows us her bare breasts.  Sure, she did a lot of that in other movies like Stripes, Rock 'n' Roll High School, and Alienator, but she did it first in Halloween.

Name drop time part two: I saw Halloween a few years ago at the Egyptian Theater in Hollywood, and who was sitting behind me the whole time?  Ms. P.J. Soles herself, along with her two daughters.  And her kids loved her performance just as much as I did (albeit probably for different reasons).

And the number one spot on my list goes to ...

1. Ted from Friday the 13th Part 2 (1981), played by Stu Charno

This is the performance by which all secondary horror movie characters will forever be judged.  There's a lot of craziness in the different Friday the 13th movies, whether it be Crispin Glover's totally nutso persona in Part 4, Arnold Horshack from Welcome Back Kotter getting his heart torn out at the beginning of Part 6, or Corey Feldman's pre-soft-core-porn, early days of cinema appearance in Part 4 and, for a couple minutes, in Part 5. But Ted is special.

I'm not sure of the specifics, but I have a feeling that when Stu Charno was offered this role, he misunderstood the title of this film and thought it was called Friday the 13th Part Stu.  Watch his performance, especially in the bar scene where John Furey's character -- okay, who am I kidding -- the blonde guy tells Stu to come home right after the bar closes.  Stu's line may just be "Okay boss," but he turns this minor, two-word sentence into an imitation of some "alien space creature/Tattoo from Fantasy Island" imitation.  To paraphrase Ray Stanz from Ghostbusters, "Whoever came up with this is either an authentic genius or a certified whacko."

Ladies and gentlemen, that is the essence of Charno.

It's fortunate that he brought his A-game to the table here, because although he was a counselor at Camp Crystal Lake and ACTUALLY SURVIVED a Friday the 13th movie, he was never brought back.  Not even for the one that took place in space.

Ronald Banks spends his time watching horror movies and trying to talk to his wife about them, to no avail.  Thank God he's got a gig writing columns for Fantasy Moguls.  He can be reached at Ronald@fantasymoguls.com.