Joan Collins vs Rose Byrne

Tales from the Crypt (1972); as Scarlet, 28 Weeks Later (2007).

The limp body of Zoe Saldaña is carried off, blood all over her mouth and soaking half her cat-suited torso, by two of her apparent admirers. These are the 13-year-old Natalie Portman (from ‘Leon the Professional’) and Christian Serratos (Rosita from The Walking Dead) for some reason, go figure. Respectful applause rings out, for that last contest and now for the two walking on.

Both stroll into the arena with a calm dignity, although Joan Collins gives off a subtle leer compared with Rose Byrne’s look of gentle gravity. Joan is in a black bodysuit which reaches to her mid-thighs and leaves her arms bare with thin shoulder-straps, and at 39 – her incarnation here – she wears it well. Rose has gone for simple khaki shorts and a camouflage T-shirt, in keeping with her persona here as ‘Scarlet’, 28-year-old military medical personnel. Does that background mean she is a better fighter? No. We must remember that their combat abilities here are not governed by their character vocations, but how overall talented and appealing they are, as embodied in their given ratings. Both feel they have been lifted out of nightmares to be here.

Joan’s was the British horror film of 1972, Tales from the Crypt. Hers was one of 5 tongue-in-cheek short stories in this, yet deliciously believable, where she is a middle class housewife (Joanne Clayton) who brains her older husband with a metal poker for the insurance money. She then herself gets strangled to death by an escaped lunatic from the local asylum. It does strike you as being almost as unlikely as being materialized on a starship to fight for the privilege of serving under some unknown pervert from England, yet here we are. It scared me as a kid, but I laugh now. I shouldn’t. Here, she is undoubtedly going to be a woman who knows what she wants and will stop at little to get it. What the hell would she be like in New Olympus?

She has to get past Rose Byrne first, in any case. The number 6 seed is a class above, but that is no guarantee. Rose has not had a comparable spectacular career by the age of 45 that Joan had, but she’s featured in some good strong things. My feeling about Rose is ‘what’s not to like’? An Australian, born in 1979, I first noticed her in the cult British zombie apocalypse ‘28 Weeks Later’, and soon after in Insidious, another horror movie. Rose does a good number in looking vulnerable yet courageous in the midst of something absolutely awful. She looked simultaneously sweet and feisty in military uniform in 28 Weeks Later, and you had to love the nobleness of her character (no spoiler, but didn’t end well for her).

Joan gets the loudest applause as they both acknowledge their fellow thespian audience, but Rose with a more modest nod. This is Dame Joan Collins after all, who was still alive and well on Earth at age 93 in 2024, and you have to respect an epic long career which launched so spectacularly in the Land of the Pharaohs (1955). Her scheming bitch portrayal in that set a certain tone, but she’s just as capable of niceness, such as her celebrated Star Trek appearance in the original series where she plays a pre World War 2 young humanitarian woman. Probably even a fully-realized Joanne Clayton has depth too, and I suspect had a life that did not necessarily revolve around murdering wealthy husbands; I’d be curious to find out.

Damn, that was nice – the two shared a word and chuckle of encouragement to each other, and cheek kisses, saying something about how they thought they were about to die horribly but then got brought here! (So, I’m doing a good thing here, see).

Two others from 28 Weeks Later are featured in this tournament by the way: Imogen Poots and Catherine McCormack. You don’t even want to know what happened to Catherine in that movie! Bloody hell. That movie was brutal stuff, and it must surely give the characters within it a substantial shell of toughness with which to handle this tournament. Apparently, in 2025, the release of the third instalment of it is planned (it started with 28 Days Later), called ‘28 Years Later’. The theme music used in the first two films – google ‘In a Heartbeat by Murphy’ – would be great for Celebrity Actress Deathmatch itself methinks, as the contestants walk on, but I digress.