Elizabeth Vail who plays Vanessa, the cop daughter of Matthew Lillard gets the full treatment! About halfway through the film, she goes by herself to investigate the original Freddy's pizzeria. She finds a key clue and confronts the villain who she has history with. Over a loudspeaker, the villain says "I don't hate you, Vanessa...I just need you out of my way." Then the villain jumps her and the scene cuts away.
Next we see Vanessa, she has her hands tied behind her back and her ankles tied together with the villain's arms wrapped around her with one arm around her neck, strangling her just a little bit. She's tied with thick white rope and the ropework is excellent, really tight and thick, I'm pretty sure her wrists are crossed. Her ankles are bound with 5 or 6 loops of rope. also tight. Only downside is that the wrists at least looks like an insert shot. The villain forces Vanessa to give up a code.
Maybe 10 minutes later, Mike comes to Freddy's looking for Abby when he hears a banging. He follows the noise to a square storage locker and when he opens it, a gagged Vanessa tumbles out on the floor on her side. You don't see her bonds but she's tightly cleave-gagged with what looks like a torn piece of fabric, bluish-gray. It's thin and stretchy and looks just gorgeous in her mouth. Mike pulls out the gag and unties her hands and Vanessa explains everything while untying her ankles which takes a long time although you only catch the barest glimpse of rope.
What makes this scene so awesome isn't just the tight gag and ropework but the fact that it's such a classic scenario- girl detective/action heroine investigates on her own without telling anyone, finds a vital clue only to get captured. The villain binds and gags her and stuffs her in a locker "to keep her out of the way" because they know she's the only one that threatens them.
All-time winner here, my pick for best scene of 2025.
