Retro Television Review: Hang Time 1.13 “Game Day”

Posted on October 17, 2022 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Mondays, I will be reviewing Hang Time, which ran on NBC from 1995 to 2000. The entire show is currently streaming on YouTube!

It’s time for championship so let’s get to it!

Episode 1.13 “Game Day”

(Directed by Howard Murray, originally aired on December 2nd, 1995)

The final episode of Hang Time‘s first season opens not with the team practicing or Coach Fuller coaching. Instead, it opens with the Deering High gym dark and deserted, with the exception of Samantha. Samantha sits in the bleachers, writing in her diary. As I watched this scene, it occurred to me that, after 12 episodes, we know next to nothing about Sam beyond the fact that she works at the Sports Shack, she’s the equipment manager, and she’s dating Danny. Does she have a family? Does she have parents who wonder why she’s hanging out at the gym in the middle of the night? Why can’t she write in her journal at home? I get the feeling that Sam’s home life must have been some sort of Dickensian nightmare.

Anyway, this episode revolves around Sam remembering the days leading up the championship game and the game itself. She writes that she had never seen Coach Fuller “so pumped,” which means that we get a flashback of Fuller talking to the team in the locker room and yes, he does seem pretty excited. Fuller tells the team that “I know the Huskies are undefeated …. but I know we’re going to win tonight because we’re a family!”

(Here’s my thing, though. The Huskies are undefeated but the Tornadoes are not. So why is the championship being played at Deering High instead of wherever it is that the Huskies are from?)

Fuller leaves the locker room and everyone starts fighting! Oh no! There’s trouble in basketball world! Michael thinks he’s jinxed! Danny and Sam are arguing! Chris and Julie aren’t even talking!

“But I’m getting ahead of myself,” Sam writes, “This all started Monday morning.”

And so, we go even further into the flashback machine. Julie gives Chris a massage outside the school but gets upset when Chris accidentally calls her “Mary Beth.” “It just slipped out!” Chris replies, something that he probably says to Julie a lot. Julie gets upset.

Meanwhile, while having a picnic in the gym (again, with the gym), Sam tells Danny that she loves him. Danny panics and replies, “I like you a lot.” AGCK! Bad move, Danny. It’s bad enough that Sam is apparently not allowed to leave the gym. She’s also got a coward for a boyfriend.

At practice, Coach Fuller tells everyone that they have to play as a team. Fuller says that Chris’s playing has sucked over the past few weeks. What could Chris be doing differently than before? Let’s see. When Chris was playing well, he was dating Mary Beth. Now, he’s dating …. uh oh. Mary Beth overhears and mentions that she used to always kiss Chris before every game. Now, of course, Chris is dating Julie and Julie apparently doesn’t believe in showing affection so it sucks to be Chris.

At lunch, Julie tells Sam that she grew up with four brothers and they can play “every Led Zeppelin song through use of their armpits.” I don’t know if I believe that. Some of those songs are pretty long. Stairway to Heaven is like a 50-minute song if I remember correctly. Julie is worried Chris isn’t over Mary Beth. Sam says that she has nothing to worry about and then writes, “Sometimes, you have to lie through your teeth.”

Danny tries to apologize to Sam, explaining the he thinks people are too quick to use the “L-word.” Sam says she understands but then Danny casually mentions that he “loves” tuna fish. Meanwhile, Earl freaks out because Michael walks under a ladder. Everyone’s getting a storyline in this episode!

Chris also gives into his superstition, sharing a kiss with Mary Beth before the game. Actually, he shares several. He’s so busy kissing her that he doesn’t notice Julie coming out of the locker room until the last minute! Uh-oh.

The game begins with everyone angry at each other. Myself, I’m more concerned that the other team is being played by people who obviously were basketball players and, as a result, they tower over the Deering Tornadoes.

(Incidentally, I spell Tornadoes with an E. Judging by the banners hanging in the Deering High gym, this show does not. However, I’m the one writing the review.)

Before the game begins, Julie tells Chris that she’s not going to be a runner-up to anyone. (But seriously, Mary Beth is so cool that if you were going to be runner up to someone….) Julie then kisses Earl to show that she can have any guy she wants. Earl does the chef’s kiss motion while Chris stares on horrified.

Despite their problems, the Deering High Tornadoes still take the lead. However, Coach Fuller is angry because the score is still too close in his opinion. Hey, Coach, they’re winning! A win is a win. Fuller does praise Chris for playing a great game. We all know who deserves the credit for that. Mary Beth better get the game ball.

In a subplot that is so stupid that I’ve been tying to avoid mentioning it, Michael has been trying to play the game without stepping on any cracks on the gym floor. (He doesn’t want to break his mother’s back. I told you it was stupid.) Fuller yanks him out of the game and sends in a previously unseen player as a replacement. The new player’s name is Bryan Kuta, which feels like such a random name that I’m assuming that was either the actor’s real name or the name of someone on the show’s crew. Later, when Fuller tries to send Michael back into the game, Michael refuses because there’s only 13 seconds left in the quarter. I would make fun of Michael but, to be honest, I refuse to use odd numbers. If you’ve ever wondered why I always use four periods for an ellipsis instead of the standard three …. well, now you know. Anyway, Fuller gives Michael a piece of tape and tells him to use it as a good luck charm.

Danny gets knocked to the ground. Samantha runs out on court to make sure that he’s okay. Michael interrupts the game by grabbing a microphone and announcing, “Samantha Morgan, I love you.” Awwwwwww! Yes, it’s cringey but Sam and Danny are a cute couple so it works.

With only 30 seconds left in the game, Coach Fuller pulls Chris and Julie off the court and replaces them with the second-string players. Of course, the Tornados are up by ten. Let’s see if Fuller would be so nice if it was a one point game! Chris tells Julie that all of the luck came from Julie and not Mary Beth. Personally, I think we all know that Mary Beth deserves all the credit.

The Tornadoes win the championship 84-75. “Well, congratulations,” Fuller tells the players, “You’re the champs.” That wasn’t much of a speech but …. Yay, I guess.

And so, the first season comes to an end. Chris and Julie are a couple! Danny and Sam are in love! Michael is going to be a star! Earl already is a star! I can’t wait to see what happens to all of them next season….

Oh, alright. I’ll tell you what happens next season. Chris, Sam, Michael, and Earl are written out of the show and all of tonight’s storylines are forgotten about. Join us next week for …. THE NEW HANG TIME!

Horror Scenes I Love: The Cenobites Make Their First Appearance In The Original Hellraiser

Posted on October 17, 2022 by Lisa Marie Bowman

AGCK!

This is from the original 1987 Hellraiser. The Cenobites were probably never scarier than they were in their very first appearance. Perhaps the most interesting thing about them is that, rather than being stereotypically good or evil, they’re actually neutral. They’re doing their job and, if you don’t want to see them, don’t mess around with the puzzle box. Doug Bradley was brilliant in the role of the head Cenobite (who, of course, would later be known as Pinhead).

Novel Review: The Thrill Club by R.L. Stine

Posted on October 17, 2022 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Let’s hang out with The Thrill Club!

The who club?

The Thrill Club! They’re the group of high school students who are at the center of R.L. Stine’s 1994 novel, The Thrill Club. They get together at night and they read the scary stories that they’ve written. Perhaps the most macabre of all the writers is Talia, who always comes up with stories about people getting cornered by scary ghosts and ripped up into little pieces. The other members of The Thrill Club are a bit upset because Talia keeps using them as a characters in her gory horror stories. (Of course, what they don’t know is that Talia’s boyfriend, Seth, has secretly been writing Talia’s stories for her.) I’m not really sure why that would upset anyone, especially people who are supposed to be horror fans. Part of the fun of reading a scary story or watching a horror movie is imagining what you would do in that situation and why it would inevitably lead to your horrible death. Anyway, Shondel asks Talia not to use her name in any more scary stories. A few days later, Shondel is dead …. murdered …. and somebody’s responsible! (Yes, that is a line from Plan 9 From Outer Space.)

Who killed Shondel? Everyone in the Thrill Club suspects that it was Talia and isn’t that the way it always goes? You write a few stories about your friends being brutally murdered and then, once they are, who is automatically the number one suspect? Of course, it also doesn’t help that, on the night of Shondel’s murder, Talia comes to the Thrill Club meeting wearing a blood-stained sweatshirt. And then there’s the fact that someone claiming to be Talia called Shondel’s mother and confessed to the crime….

Oh my God! Could Talia be guilty!?

The mystery is eventually solved, of course, and it’s all pretty dumb. Anyone who remembers the episode of Saved By The Bell were Zach thought he had brainwashed the entire student body into wanting to take him to the school dance will automatically see The Thrill Club‘s twist coming from a mile away. That said, I enjoyed the book because I used to write short stories featuring my high school friends as well. Of course, in my case, everyone always ended up having fun at the mall or shoplifting makeup from Target. I enjoyed high school.

I was thrilled to also enjoy The Thrill Club.

Non-Fiction Review: Encyclopedia of the Strange by Daniel Cohen

Posted on October 17, 2022 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Many years ago, I found of a copy of this enjoyable little book at Recycled Books of Denton, Texas. I bought it, despite not being a believer in any of the things discussed in the book. I actually have a fairly large collection of books about the paranormal and it always amuses me when people assume that, just because I own them, that means that I believe in them as well. So, just to make clear, I don’t believe in ghosts. I don’t believe in vampires or werewolves. I don’t believe in UFOs. I don’t believe in conspiracy theories. I believe in art, love, imagination, and dance.

Now, back to the book:

Just as the title suggests, The Encyclopedia of the Strange a collection of entries about things that most people would deem strange, like the occult and UFOs and secret societies and all of that good stuff. None of the analysis is particularly in-depth but the entries do provide a nice introduction and an overview to the topics that many would consider to be paranormal. Fortunately, the entries are written from a skeptical point of view. One gets the feeling that the author understood that the majority of this stuff was nonsense but he also understood that it’s always enjoyable to read about this stuff and let one’s imagination run loose.

The book is divided into sections, each dealing a with a different paranormal subject. My favorite section was the Strange People section, which featured entries on Pope Joan, The Illuminati, the Rosicrucians, Cagliostro, and Saint-Germain. For those who are not into “strange people,” there’s also entries on everything from the Great Pyramid to ancient astronauts to the curse of the Hope Diamond to Atlantis and the Kingdom of Prester John. It’s an enjoyable read and for the aspiring bauthor looking for inspiration, it’s potentially a valuable tool.

Despite the fact that the book was written in 1987, most of the information felt up-to-date. (It is obvious that Daniel Cohen wrote about the Illuminati long before the start of their current fame.) One good thing about ancient mysteries is that you don’t ever have to worry about them actually being solved. They serve as a Rorschach test of both one’s sense of humor and one’s gullibility. They can be whatever one wants them to be.

International Horror Review: Don’t Deliver Us From Evil (dir by Joel Seria)

Posted on October 17, 2022 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Reportedly, when this 1971 film was released in Europe, it was advertised as being “The French film that was banned in France.”

That wasn’t just hyperbole. Don’t Deliver Us From Evil was so controversial that it was accused of promoting “blasphemy” and it was barely released in its native country. It would be thirty years before the film was finally released in the United States and, even then, it would just be a DVD release. The United States and France may not have agreed on much but apparently, they both agreed that Don’t Deliver Us From Evil was just too dangerous to be released into theaters.

The film is loosely based on a true story, the same 1954 Parker-Hulme murder case that would later inspire Peter Jackson’s Heavenly Creatures. In Don’t Deliver Us From Evil, Pauline Parker and Juliet Hulme are reimagined as Anne de Boissy (Jeanne Goupil) and Lore Fournier (Catherine Wagener), two 15 year-old girls who meet at boarding school and become fast friends. Together, they read sordid novels, they spy on the nuns, and they taunt the priest with fictional confessions. (Anne has erotic fantasies about the priest during Mass. Are you starting to get why some people considered this film to be blasphemous?) During the summer, Lore stays at Anne’s estate. Spending all of their time together, they start to play games that become increasingly dangerous and cruel. For instance, they playfully taunt a pervy goat herder until the man attempts to rape Lore. Lore and Anne manage to escape and they get their revenge by burning down the man’s home. Meanwhile, they also find the time to cruelly taunt their mentally disabled gardener, pledge their souls to Satan, and eventually kill a stranger. Uh-oh, summer’s over! Time to go back to school. Hopefully, Lore and Anne were able to successfully hide the stranger’s body because there certainly are a lot of police around. It all leads to a shocking and rather disturbing finale.

The question running through the film is whether the girls are evil or if they’re just playing a game. Many of their actions are undeniably cruel, especially when it comes to taunting the gardener. But there are other times when Anne and Lore are revealed to be painfully naïve. Having been raised by nuns and often ignored by their wealthy parents, Anne and Lore’s knowledge of sex and sexuality is largely the result of the “forbidden” books that they read late at night when everyone else is asleep. For most of the movie, neither seems to care that their “games” have real world consequences but is that due to them being evil or is it due to them being completely sheltered and cut-off from the rest of the world? When they pledge their souls to Satan, is it because they truly want to be evil or is it just something to do for a laugh? Anne is undeniably the dominant personality in their friendship. Anne has a near breakdown when she spends two days apart from Lore but, at the same time, it’s Anne who is constantly instructing Lore to do things that put her safety at risk. Lore herself seems to be a follower, one who follows Anne even when Anne is putting Lore’s life at risk.

Don’t Deliver Us From Evil has enough sex, violence, and nudity (though Lore and Anne are both 15, the actresses playing them were 19 and 20) that it’s not surprising that the film was controversial. That said, it’s not a bad film. Much as Peter Jackson did when he told his version of the Parker-Hulme Murder Case, Don’t Deliver Us From Evil refuses to pass easy judgment on either of the girls. Instead, it’s left to the viewer to try to figure out if Anne and Lore are evil or if they’re just immature and confused. Director Joel Seria directs most of his ire not at the girls but at the Church and at Anne’s upper class parents. Having pushed her off on the Church to raise, Anne’s parents never seem to be particularly interested in what their daughter is doing. Even during the film’s apocalyptic finale, Anne’s parents (and really, just about every adult in the film) is clueless as to what’s actually happening right in front of them.

Watching the film, I could imagine the controversy that it caused when it was first released. While some of the once-shocking scenes are tame by today’s standards, there are still a few moments that retain their power to shock. Ultimately, though, Don’t Deliver Us From Evil is an intelligent exploration of la mauvaise caractère.

10 Shots From 10 Horror Films: 1987 — 1989

Posted on October 17, 2022 by Lisa Marie Bowman

4 Or More Shots From 4 Or More Films is just what it says it is, 4 shots from 4 of our favorite films. As opposed to the reviews and recaps that we usually post, 4 Shots From 4 Films lets the visuals do the talking!

This October, I’m going to be doing something a little bit different with my contribution to 4 (or more) Shots From 4 (or more) Films. I’m going to be taking a little chronological tour of the history of horror cinema, moving from decade to decade.

Today, we take a look at 1987, 1988, and 1989!

10 Shots From Horror History: 1987–1989

Hellraiser (1987, dir by Clive Barker, DP: Robin Vidgeon)

Stage Fright (1987, dir by Michele Soavi, DP: Renato Tafuri)

Near Dark (1987, dir by Kathryn Bigelow, DP: Adam Greenberg)

Prince of Darkness (1987, dir by John Carpenter, DP: Gary B. Kibbe)

They Live (1988, dir by John Carpenter, DP: Gary B. Kibbe)

Night of the Demons (1988, dir by Kevin S. Tenney, DP: David Lewis)

The Lair of the White Worm (1988, dir by Ken Russell, DP: Dick Bush)

The Church (1989, dir by Michele Soavi, DP: Renato Tafuri)

Twin Peaks: The Pilot (1989, dir by David Lynch, DP: Ron Garcia)

Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan (1989, dir by Rob Hedden, DP: Bryan England)

Monday Live Tweet Alert: Join Us For Champions and I Can Only Imagine!

Posted on October 17, 2022 by Lisa Marie Bowman

As some of our regular readers undoubtedly know, I am involved in hosting a few weekly live tweets on twitter. I host #FridayNightFlix every Friday, I co-host #ScarySocial on Saturday, and I am one of the five hosts of #MondayActionMovie! Every week, we get together. We watch a movie. We tweet our way through it.

Tonight, for #MondayActionMovie, the film will be 1997’s Champions! Selected and hosted by @Titus88Titus, Champions is about a retired modern day gladiator trying to avenge the death of his brother. The movie starts at 8 pm et and it is available on YouTube.

Following #MondayActionMovie, Brad and Sierra will be hosting the #MondayMuggers live tweet. Tonight’s movie, starting at 10 pm et, will be 2018’s I Can Only Imagine. The movie tells the story behind the song. The film is available on Prime!

It should make for a night of intense viewing and I invite all of you to join in. If you want to join the live tweets, just hop onto twitter, start Champions at 8 pm et, and use the #MondayActionMovie hashtag! Then, at 10 pm et, switch over to prime, start I Can Only Imagine and use the #MondayMuggers hashtag! The live tweet community is a friendly group and welcoming of newcomers so don’t be shy. And reviews of these films will probably end up on this site at some point over the next few weeks.

Horror Film Review: The Collector (dir by Marcus Dunstan)

Posted on October 17, 2022 by Lisa Marie Bowman

There are a few horror films that I dislike as much as I dislike 2009’s The Collector.

I guess that should be considered fair warning about how this review is going to go.

I’ve only watched this movie two times and, both times, it was as a part of a live tweet group. The first time that I watched it, I absolutely hated it because I found it to be incredibly mean-spirited and lacking in any sort of wit. It just felt like a rip-off of the Saw movies, with a bit of Hostel tossed in. I felt that it was the least imaginative torture show that I had ever watched,

The second time I watched, I know what was coming so my reaction was not quite as viscerally negative as the first time. I still didn’t like the film but I could at least see that there was some craft involved in the making of the film and there were even a few hints of wit at the start of the film. I could even respect the fact that the film stayed true to its dark worldview. The Collector was a truly creepy character, even if his motivations and his techniques made absolutely no sense.

That said, I simply cannot get beyond the death of the cat.

A cat is killed in the film and it’s such a gratuitous and mean-spirited scene that I simply cannot look past it. There was absolutely no reason to kill the cat, beyond wanting to show off that this film was so hardcore that it was even willing to kill cute pets. The way the cat died was sadistic. It was unnecessary and the scene went on forever. Sorry, The Collector. You lost me.

What’s interesting, though, is that it’s not just the cat that dies in the film. At least seven or eight people die over the course of this film. Of the two main, non-villainous characters who are still alive at the end of the film, one only has a future of physical and mental torture to look forward to while the other is going to be psychologically scarred for the rest of their lives. And yet, none of the human death and suffering bothered me as much as the death of the cat. I guess some of that is because the humans were played by recognizable actors and I’ve seen enough behind-the-scenes documentaries to know how all of the gore effects are done. I didn’t particularly enjoy the many scenes of people being tortured but I knew they weren’t really being tortured and that everyone was getting paid. Of course, it also helped that none of the human characters were particularly likable or interesting. The cat, meanwhile, was just an innocent house pet who was killed for absolutely no reason.

And yes, I know they didn’t kill a real cat. Still, it was way too graphic and drawn-out for me.

So, maybe I just don’t like seeing animals suffer in horror movies. But it really didn’t bother me when an attacking dog was killed towards the end of the film so maybe I just like cats.

Anyway, I didn’t like The Collector.

Horror on the Lens: The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (dir by Robert Wiene)

Posted on October 17, 2022 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920, dir by Robert Wiene, DP: Willy Hameister)

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari is a film that I’ve shared many times previously on the Shattered Lens. The first time was in 2011 and then I shared it again in 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, and 2021! Well, you know what? I’m sharing it again because it’s a classic, it’s Halloween, and everyone should see it! (And let’s face it — it’s entirely possible that some of the people reading this post right now didn’t even know this site existed in any of those previous years. Why should they be deprived of Caligari just because they only now arrived?)

Released in 1920, the German film The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari is one of those films that we’ve all heard about but far too few of us have actually seen. Like most silent films, it requires some patience and a willingess to adapt to the narrative convictions of an earlier time. However, for those of us who love horror cinema, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari remains required viewing. Not only did it introduce the concept of the twist ending (M. Night Shyamalan owes his career to this film) but it also helped to introduce German expressionism to the cinematic world.

My initial reaction to The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari was that it simply wasn’t that scary. It was certainly interesting to watch and I was happy that I was finally experiencing this film that I had previously only read about. However, the film itself was obviously primitive and it was difficult for my mind (which takes CGI for granted) to adjust to watching a silent film. I didn’t regret watching the film but I’d be lying (much like a first-year film student) if I said that I truly appreciated it after my first viewing.

But you know what? Despite my dismissive initial reaction, the film stayed with me. Whereas most modern films fade from the memory about 30 minutes after the end credits,The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari has stuck with me and the night after I watched it, I even had a nightmare in which Dr. Caligari was trying to break into my apartment. Yes, Dr. Caligari looked a little bit silly staring through my bedroom window but it still caused me to wake up with my heart about to explode out of my chest.

In short, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari passes the most important test that a horror film can pass. It sticks with you even after it’s over.

For the curious with an open mind to watch with, here is Robert Wiene’s The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari!

Enjoy!