To me Dr. Horrible, is the story of the death of a boy named Billy and his alter ego that takes over, but I am getting ahead of myself. Let's start from the beginning of the film.
The opening scene is a man (Billy) manically laughing into a web cam where he then starts to explain that you can never be a great super villain without a solid evil laugh. At this point we first hear mention of Bad Horse. His idol. Moving on he goes to his fan mail and shows the results of a less than perfect heist but based on Billy's attitude we can guess that this is an improvement of previous attempts. Flipping through the fan letters he finds one that asks about who 'she' is, that he is trying so hard to impress. Cue the first song. We find out that Billy is in love with a girl at the laundry mat. The end of the song is interrupted by his roommate and friendly henchman, his buddy Moist who has the mail. In the mail he finds a letter to be sung by the Bad Horse choir informing him that he still needs to impress the Evil League of Evil that he wants so desperately to be a part of. It all seems perfect. He already has a heist planned. What could go wrong?
Well to answer that, two things:
First of all, the girl from the Laundry mat (Penny) chooses now to speak to him for the first time. She wants to help the homeless and needs signatures for her petition. Unfortunately he is too distracted to properly pay her any attention and she walks away when he's not looking.
Second problem? That would be his arch nemesis Captain Hammer. He enters the scene and proceeds to destroy the object Billy is using to control a van and makes it go wildly out of control while Captain Hammer flirts with a random woman.
Billy tries to regain control of the van when he is aware it would hit Penny. While he is doing this, Captain Hammer shows up and throws her into the garbage to save her but it wasn't needed. Billy had stopped the van not that Penny sees this.
After a duet between Penny and Captain Hammer, Billy storms off infuriated with himself that Penny seems to like Captain Hammer and he was unintentially the cause of them meeting. End Scene One.
Scene two opens with one of my favorite songs that shows Penny and Captain Hammer going on a date and Billy stalking them. Then we go to the laundry mat where he seems now to be able to talk to Penny and gives her a frozen yogurt and drives a spork into his leg when Penny says she wants to see him again. Billy then blogs about his up coming heist where he finds out the police watch his blog as does Captain Hammer. Then Bad Horse Chorus calls. He saw the failed heist and Billy finds out the only way he can get in to the Evil Leage of Evil is if he commits a murder and he is appalled by the idea.
He is conflicted and Penny tries to console him before she tells him Captain Hammer is going to meet her there. Billy panicks and while trying to get away runs into him. Captain Hammer recognises him as Dr. Horrible but doesn't tell Penny. Instead he tells Billy he will have sex with Penny just because Billy wants her and Captain Hammer gets what Billy wants.
This starts the process of Billy breaking. He decides that if he has to murder someone it will be Captain Hammer. He focuses on this so intently that he ignores his friends and Penny who we see a scene of her waiting on him at the laundry mat. End Scene two.
The Final part of the story begins with a song about how the world is finally looking up. Of course if you listen carefully, Penny is less than certain about her relationship with Captain Hammer, and Captain Hammer seems to think she is worth sleeping with twice. We don't see Billy at this point as it moves into Captain Hammer giving a speech at the new homeless shelter that the mayor gave him. Penny unable to stand his ego leaves the room. Nearing the end of the song Billy emerges from where Captain Hammers statue was supposed to be and uses a freeze ray to still him. With Captain Hammer unable to move Billy get's a song where he goes to kill Captain Hammer but finds himself unable to pull the trigger when the freeze ray breaks freeing Captain Hammer. At this point Captain Hammer goes to kill Billy but the gun malfunctions and we find out Penny didn't actually leave. When the gun explodes Captain Hammer experiences pain for the first time and runs screaming and Billy is fine, until he sees one of the shards hits Penny.
Penny smiles when she sees Billy and tells him not to worry Captain Hammer will save them before she dies. When Penny dies, Billy leaves broken. We see a musical scene where he is going through the motions but his face is blank. He got everything he every wanted, at the cost of Penny and this destroys him. The last scene goes from Dr. Horrible walking into the Evil League of Evil main room with confidence and malice before in the last moment switches back to a heart broken Billy alone in an empty room.
To summarize, this was a spectacular film of musical brilliance. I never get tired of hearing the soundtrack and have seen the movie more times than I can recall. I have never met anyone who didn't like it for that matter but would love to hear from you if you have a problem with it. I am always open to different perspectives.
Loving to watch movies where the good guy looses to himself,
-The Girl in a Corset.
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