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Vanessa Lutz
Vanessa Lutz
"You just think of me every time you empty that motherfucking thing, MOTHERFUCKER!!"
Played By: Reese Witherspoon
Vanessa Lutz is a White trash, illiterate late teenager who is very poor.
- Anti-Hero: Of the film. Verges on Villain Protagonist at times.
- Book Dumb: Vanessa may be illiterate but she's still smart.
- Cop Hater: Refers to them as pigs.
- Large Ham: Reese Witherspoon at her most scenery-chewing.
- Politically Incorrect Hero: While she does have a black boyfriend, she also goes on a racist rant against a black cop, calling him "shit-skinned" at one point.
- Sir Swears-a-Lot: Vanessa swears more than every other character in the movie. She even lampshaded it.Vanessa: Excuse my bad language.
- Villain Protagonist: At times. She brings forth a lot of hell, even to people that might not deserve it.
Bob Wolverton
Bob Wolverton
Played By: Kiefer Sutherland
Bob Wolverton is a serial killer who is very deluded and has dark tendencies to little girls.
- Ax-Crazy: He's a serial killer who murders people for fun. He also threatens Vanessa with a razor.
- Evil Cripple: Being confined to a wheelchair and robbed of his voice does nothing to stop his villainy. He mounts a smear campaign to make it look like Vanessa attacked him first, and he strangles Vanessa's grandmother to death at the climax of the film.
- Fate Worse than Death: He is shot multiple times in the head, face, neck, and back when he attacks Vanessa; he survives but loses an eye, is confined to a wheelchair, and needs a colonoscopy bag. Later subverted as Vanessa strangles him: overlaps into Laser-Guided Karma because he really deserves it.
- Faux Affably Evil: He can act polite and trustworthy when he needs to, but he's still a violent psychopath at heart.
- Four Eyes, Zero Soul: His glasses serve to make him look even creepier.
- Hate Sink: He's a psychiatrist who moonlights as a necrophiliac Serial Killer of teenage girls. When Vanessa cripples him to stop his crimes, he plays the innocent victim and tries to get her thrown in prison for life before trying to kill her himself. He's also revealed to have a shed full of child porn.
- Karmic Death: Vanessa strangles Bob after he strangles her grandmother and tries to strangle her.
- Karmic Disability: Vanessa shoots Bob several times in self-defense when he attempts to kill her. This results in him being paralyzed and needing to use a wheelchair and an oxygen tank. Though it doesn't stop him from killing Vanessa's grandmother, it does enable Vanessa to win in a physical fight against him and strangle him.
- Mood-Swinger: He goes from calm and controlling to lashing out with weapons, and vice versa, at the drop of a hat.
- Politically Incorrect Villain: He claims to Vanessa that his victims deserve it because they were "whores" or drug addicts.
- Porn Stash: A horrific example. Bob has a stash of child pornography in his shed.
- Psycho Psychologist: He's a psychiatrist who also happens to be a serial killer.
- Serial Killer: He's the elusive I-5 Killer.
- The Sociopath: Bob Wolverton pretends to be a kindly psychiatrist, but moonlights as a necrophiliac Serial Killer of teenage girls: his motive is pure hatred, viewing his victims as "garbage people" but when one of his victims fights back and cripples him, Bob plays the victim and uses the courts to destroy her life; Even his wife is nothing but an accessory, with him showing no affection to her whatsoever.
- They Look Just Like Everyone Else!: He looks like a perfectly normal guy, which he exploits to bait his victims.
- Would Harm a Senior: He strangles Vanessa's grandmother to death and wears her night clothes as a disguise to lure Vanessa in.
- Wounded Gazelle Gambit: After Vanessa shoots him, he manages to convince the police and the media that he was an innocent victim and Vanessa was the aggressor.
- Would Hurt a Child: He's a serial killer and rapist who targets teenagers. He also has a shed filled with child pornography.