The idea was to introduce Barbara as a mousy woman with a school teacher look. Then, as the film progresses, she takes on a more combative personality ready to fight/shoot/kill the zombies.
Her hair? who cares about her hair? Patricia Tallman has GREAT legs.
You notice in the film the progression of the Barbara character-- at the start, she's the mousey librarian type, all prim and proper.
She's attacked, her brother dies, and then she's running through the country side. Her clothes are torn and she's lost her shoes. She's frightened-- basically barefoot and helpless.
In the house she meets up with Tony Todd-- she's almost incoherent. Still barefoot and in her torn skirt, she gatheres up her courage and fights off a zombie.
Now her tranformation begins. As the body of the zombie is dumped outside, she grabs a pair of socks and boots from the porch and puts them on. Barbara is growing stronger-- more settled in her mind about what its going to take to survive.
This continues until a plan of action is decided on-- to board up the house and wait for help. Barbara then changes out of her torn skirt in to jeans.
By morning she's armed.
Essentially you see her character go from meek to strong, and the "barometer" of this is her outfit.
I have to admit that I just watched the movie for the first time after years yesterday and the first two thoughts I had when they first showed her were: What the f is up with the hair? AND What the f is up with thoes glassess? Not to sound like whatshisname from "Freinds" but could thoes rims be ANY bigger? All I can say a wearer of corrective lenses they MUST have been a VERY light prescription or she would have been dead, she would have had a hard time finding the farmhouse much less making all thoes headshots. As for the hair I guess they were going for a LOOK but it was weird (espically since the DVD I have had, as a speacial feature, intervies including her with LONG hair). Perhaps it would have been better to start out with it pinned up looking all short like that then as the night wore on she ends up undoing it and let it loose. I mean she took time to change into pants (presumably becuase her skirt was ripped) so she COULD have taken time to let her hair down, or visa vers. But, with it cut as it was they were stuck with it. Anyone KNOW WHOES decesion the hair cut was and WHY it was MADE? I would like to hear the thought process behind it just for curiosity sake.
Yeah but it made her look like Ann Robinson ("The Weakest Link" lady), I could just picture her saying "you are the weakest link... goodbye" as she shot the zombies... hummmm, come to think about it that might be a cool movie. Ann Robinson VS. the Undead Hord.
I don't know about that but I do know they were trying to make her appear all prudish and spencterish (is that even the word?), that much is said in the commentary. In which case it MIGHT have been better to have it long and put it in a bun or something. Then as things progressed she could have let the hair down or maybe the zombies could keep grabbing her by the hair prompting her to crudely cut it short.
I'm against the majority here I know, but I actually LIKE her hair in the movie. It fit the character well and brings out her features better than long hair would've. Besides, don't y'all know that gun-toting tough babes look sexier with short hair? lol
I agree with you aleksam... Her hair is good long, but in the movie she looked good with short hair. If men can have long hair, girls can have short hair.
Let us not forget, in the 1990's and late 80's, the style was big wire glasses and I new many people that wore them without perscription. Remember some early rappers had glasses with plain glass in them and there hair cut on an angle. Looking back now, YUCK. But I remember then thinking that it was kind of cool looking. 10 years from now, the clothes and hair that most of us are wearing will looking strange.
I totally agree about the legs. Too bad I wasn't able to see more if her. ;) She's smokin' hot and sexy. She turned me on and it wasnt just from her legs. The more she revealed the more she turned me on.
Nice legs but keep going and it's ginger pube time :-( Molly Ringwald if her hair was longer too :-( Still I loved the end when she shot that f#r through the head - hwar hwar hwar LOL
I disagree...her short hair looked damn GREAT! Much better than how she looks with it long, in my opinion.
Dated? Dated for what? This movie was done in 1990, and if I'm not mistaking, girls have had their hair cut like that for many many years, anybody who saw Julie Harris in The Member of the Wedding would know what I'm talking about, and they STILL do it like that today.
She looked damn great in this movie, and a major plus, I thought, was her short hair because I get so damn sick of seeing long hair on women.
I'd always assumed that the reason Barbara had the short, bowl haircut is because that was a popular style of women's hair around the time the movie was made (1989/1990). Compare her hair to that of Janine Turner in the TV show Northern Exposure, which first aired around the same time.