"Can I get some help here, please? I'm trapped in some sort of adhesive, polymer material and I'm on deadline!"
- Marla Bloodstone, trapped in Mohawk's web.
Marla Bloodstone (played by Haviland Morris) is an employee at Clamp Center. She has a habit of massive overreaction, calling the slightest problems nuclear meltdown disasters. She usually wears glasses, is a chain smoker and is also Billy Peltzer's boss In the design department, as Billy got a new job as a graphic artist (as possibly losing his job due to the Kingston Falls bank destroyed by the gremlins in the first film).
Appearance
Marla Bloodstone is the quintessential power-suited businesswoman of the 1980s. Her grey blazer has padded shoulders and her long grey skirt has a long slit up the back to show off her nyloned legs. Her black blouse may also indicate a darkness within, but her overall appearance suggests that she is more complicated than that. She wears the glasses of the intellectual manager and the high-heeled pumps that are the dress code of women in her position, yet her individual nature is revealed in her jewelry.
Marla wears a showy golden watch on her left wrist which is counterbalanced by a heavy golden chain on her right, giving the visual suggestion that she is a woman in shackles. This prognosticates her later becoming helplessly trapped in the Grider-web of Mohawk, but when coupled with her matching earrings and brooch it reveals something else about her personality. The latter is a miniature partial face-mask vaguely reminiscent of the Phantom of the Opera (referenced elsewhere in the film as well) and, while at first glance appearing to be some questionable art-deco bauble of the '80s, it suggests that there is something deeper to her character which is buried beneath the facade Marla presents to the world.
The dark humour of the film presents itself in Marla by suggesting that there is nothing underneath; that talking about "embossed letterheads" and "swallowing up the publicity department" is her presenting her "vulnerable" side. However, an astute viewer cannot leave completely convinced that that is all there is to Miss Bloodstone; her great tragedy and comedy is also that of Daniel Clamp: adapting to their environment of high capitalism has left him out-of-touch and her all but dead inside. Perhaps the two can find new life together, as they create not a place for mere things but a place for real people.
Biography
Marla with Gizmo in a box.
Marla has had an inclination toward business administration all her life; at the age of four she was using her crayons to write memos to the other children. Her aptitude and ambition allowed her to climb the corporate ladder until, in her 30s, she has found herself managing a department designing new location grounds for Clamp.
Marla convinced Billy to date her and Billy somewhat reluctantly agreed, whereupon they went to a Canadian restaurant. While they were there Marla starts flirting with him by rubbing her foot on his crotch giving him an erection and as he left she gave him a big kiss on his face which left a big red lipstick mark.
This caused problems for Gizmo and Kate Beringer (the latter accidentally getting Daffy with her home instead of Gizmo and getting upset at Billy). The next day, when Marla mentions about the date to Billy with Kate listening, Kate obviously got angry and told him that he will be in big trouble when the gremlin problem ends.
Near the end of the movie, Marla was seen, glasses in her hand, exasperatedly wandering the halls in search of help due to the failure of her office's lights. Distracted by the building's automated voice and unable to see properly, she then backed right into the Spider Gremlin's massive web and found her arms helplessly stuck, commenting that "This is new."
A later scene showed that Marla was still trapped in Mohawk's spider web and that her attempts to pull free with her high-heeled feet had backfired, for she was now completely suspended off the ground by the gluey fibers. Fortunately her requests for help attracted Kate, who had to decide whether to leave her behind or reluctantly help her. Marla confessed everything, and Kate removed her from the web, but the two women find themselves corned by the gremlin Mohawk, who had mutated into a spider gremlin.
Spider-Mohawk was about to kill them until Gizmo (dressed up like Rambo) came in and set Mohawk on fire with a small and flaming arrow... right before Murray Futterman rescues Marla and Kate while Billy rescues Gizmo. Afterwards, when the Gremlins were destroyed by electricity, she was holding Gizmo in a box.
After Clamp regained control of his business, he made Marla his new public relations manager and possibly showed some interest towards Marla. She is last seen deciding to quit smoking and telling curious people about the gremlin incident.
Quotes
Marla Bloodstone has some of the best lines in the franchise, but Haviland Morris delivers them with such...efficiency...that they are often unintelligible even after repeated viewings. Here are the most notable selections:
"Listen: this deadline; it's not my fault. They're making me miserable, so I have to make you miserable. It's a complete homicide-disaster horror-story."
*****
"You see, Billy? This is your problem, right here: you only see your little part of it. I have to have a complete situational long-term overview outlook perspective; it's as simple as that!"
*****
MARLA BLOODSTONE: "That courtyard looks cold. It'll be better with the trees."
BILLY PELTZER: "Are they going to plant trees there?"
BLOODSTONE: "No, but you're going to draw them."
PELTZER: "Yeah, but the way it is now...."
BLOODSTONE (interrupting): "Elms."
(Later, while DANIEL CLAMP is examining the painting)
CLAMP: "Let's, uh, lose those elm trees though, Bill. People see elm, they think Dutch, disease...."
BLOODSTONE and PELTZER (in unison): "Absolutely!"
*****
"It's a nuclear-meltdown disaster, I mean it."
*****
"I have something tonight too, Billy. A brochure, for the Clamp Cable Archery Channel. It's a total suicide trauma red-alert deadline emergency, and you know what? I'm letting it go, to have dinner with you."
*****
MARLA BLOODSTONE: "Now let's talk about your relationship to Mr. Clamp; your access. I see a future, Billy. I see corner offices, embossed letterhead; I see us swallowing up the publicity department."
BILLY PELTZER: "Really? Wow!"
BLOODSTONE: "Gosh, I'm feeling so vulnerable with you, Billy. I've never talked about these feelings before. You know, when art and business join forces, anything can happen."
*****
MARLA BLOODSTONE: "Hello? Is anyone still employed in this charming facility; I need some illumination in my office, NOW!"
CLAMP P.A. AUTOMATED VOICE: "At Clamp Enterprises, we want you to achieve all you can; that's why we're automatically-"
BLOODSTONE: "Then turn on the lights...."
VOICE: "-monitoring the number of keystrokes you type on your computer."
BLOODSTONE *stepping into the Grider (Gremlin-Spider)'s web* : "...And you'd like me to bang away on it in the dark, is that it?" *Turns around, her arms already stuck, and realizes she's caught* "This is new!"
*****
MARLA BLOODSTONE: "Can I get some help here? I'm trapped in some sort of adhesive polymer material and I'm on deadline!" *Sees Kate Beringer approaching.* "Oh! Thank God you're here."
KATE BERINGER: "Well, I could help you, or I could just leave you here."
BLOODSTONE: "Listen. About Billy: nothing happened. I asked him out to dinner, it was strictly business." *Kate's expression reveals she's not buying it.* "Okay, maybe it wasn't totally, completely, absolutely business; I'll be honest with you. It can be a cathartic-openness thing. I did my designs on him; I didn't get to first base."
BERINGER: "It'll do." *She pulls out a Swiss Army Knife.*
BLOODSTONE: "Oh! What a delightfully-prepared young woman you are!" *Once the strands of web which suspend her are cut, she falls to her knees, eyes closed, reveling in her newfound freedom. Then she opens her eyes, sees Mohawk the Grider, and screams.*