October Positivity: Heaven’s Heroes (dir by Donald W. Thompson)

Posted on October 2, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The 1980 film, Heaven’s Heroes, is a cop film that takes place in Des Moines, Iowa!

Now, it’s tempting to make a joke about a film taking place on the “mean streets of Des Moines” and I know that I did when the film started and I saw that it was another Russell S. Doughten production. In the late 70s and early 80s, Doughten directed several low-budget faith-based films, most of them shot on location in Iowa. (I previously reviewed Doughten’s Nite Song, among others.) Though Doughten is only credited as executive producer on Heaven’s Heroes, it features all the hallmarks of Doughten’s other films. The budget is low, some of the actors are a bit amateurish, and the ultimate message is undeniably heartfelt. What Doughten’s film may have lacked in technical polish, they made up for sincerity.

To its credit, Heaven’s Heroes doesn’t try to present Des Moines as being any more edgy that it actually is. But the film makes the point that a cop’s life can be dangerous, even in a relatively quiet town like Des Moines. In fact, the film opens with police responding to the shooting of Officer David Hill (played by David Ralphe). His wife, Cindy (Heidi Vaughn), is taken to the hospital where she talks to the comatose David until he dies. The doctor explains that if the bullet had entered David’s head just a few inches higher, his life probably could have been saved.

The rest of the film is taken up with flashbacks to David’s life before he was shot. We watch as he and Cindy meet each other in college. A helicopter hovering over a Des Moines mall leads to a flash to David’s service in Vietnam. His partner (James O’Hagen) remembers the training that he went through with David. Through it all, David comes across as the ideal cop, the type who treats everyone fairly and who doesn’t draw his gun unless it’s absolutely necessary. (At one point, David does fire at a man who is holding a shotgun, just to miss. Later, he discovers that the man was only holding the shotgun for self-defense.) David saves the life of a child who has swallowed a button but later finds himself unable to help another child who has been hit by a drunk driver. Some people thank David and some people call him a pig. A lot of the film deals with David and his partner trying to deal with the stress of their job. There’s an interesting scene, early on, in which a lecturer at the Academy explains that a good cop has to be able to deal with the frustrations of the job without taking those frustrations out on the public. He warns about giving into paranoia and assuming that everyone is looking to commit a crime. David struggles with stress but never gives in. Of course, it’s a religious film so David gives all the credit for his success to God and, when he’s later shot, his wife takes solace in the idea that David has gone to Heaven. Your mileage may vary on that but no one can deny the sincerity of the film’s simple message. The film, which was based on a true story, was shot on location in Des Moines and featured a lot of actual Des Moines police officers. The acting is sometimes amateurish but they all bring an authenticity to their roles.

It’s interesting to compare the cops in this 1980 film to the cops of today. None of the cops in Heaven’s Heroes wear body armor. None of them patrol the streets in modified tanks. They don’t shout at suspects or bark orders at bystanders. They’re not bulked-up gym rats with shaved heads. Though both David and his partner did serve in the military, both of them understand that they’re not fighting a war on the streets of Des Moines. Instead, they are there to protect the citizens. They’re the ideal cops and sadly, they’re almost unrecognizable when compared to much of what we see today.

Last Night Retro Television Reviews: Nightmare Cafe 1.1 “Nightmare Cafe”

Posted on October 2, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Late Night 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 Nightmare Cafe, which ran on NBC from January to April of 1992. The entire show is currently streaming on YouTube!

Created by Wes Craven and Thomas Baum, Nightmare Café was an anthology show about a mysterious café and the people who worked there. The proprietor was played by Robert Englund. The series only aired for six episodes and apparently, NBC didn’t really give the show much of a chance to find an audience. Myself, I just recently came across it on YouTube and I’m looking forward to reviewing it over the course of October!

Episode 1.1 “Nightmare Café”

(Dir by Phillip Noyce, originally aired on January 29th, 1992)

“See those two folks up there?” Robert Englund, playing a sharply-dressed man named Blackie, asks while staring straight at the camera. “They’re about to get a second chance. And you know what? I bet they blow it.”

The two people to whom Blackie is referring are Frank Nolan (Jack Coleman) and Fay Pernovic (Lindsay Frost). On a foggy night, Fay stops her car on the side of the bridge and jumps into the water below. Fortunately, Jack already happens to be in the water so he grabs her and pulls her to dry land. Standing on the deserted road and soaking wet, Fay refuses to say thank you and Frank refuses to mention why he was there to begin with. However, when they see an all-night café in the distance, they decide to get a cup of coffee. As they head to the café, Blackie watches them from the shadows. As they enter the café, the neon sign changes from saying “Night Café” to “Nightmare Café.”

The café appears to be deserted, though in working order. Jack goes behind the counter finds a chef’s outfit. Fay finds a waitress outfit. When she heads into the restroom to change clothes, she briefly hears the sound of a woman crying but, upon entering, she finds no one. Meanwhile, Jack notices that a TV screen at the front of the café has come to life and …. uh-oh! He’s suddenly watching what appears to be security footage of Fay removing her wet clothes. Jack does the right thing and turns the TV off but seriously, what’s happening with this place!?

In the restroom, Fay marvels at how well the waitress uniform fits, almost as if it was made for her. Suddenly, she hears more crying. She touches the bathroom mirror and she sees herself sobbing and pulling pills out of a medicine cabinet.

Fay steps back into the main part of the café. Frank confesses about watching her change on the television. Fay demands to know what color underwear she was wearing. “White …. with red hearts on back,” is Frank’s reply. (For the record, as I sit here typing this, I am wearing black underwear with red hearts on the back.) Fay accuses him of being a pervert and peeking in on her while she was changing. Frank turns on the TV in an attempt to prove that he’s not a perv but, instead of showing the restroom, the TV shows the chemical plant where, according to Frank, he works as a night watchman. He watches as two men steal a barrel of chemical waste and brag about how they’re going to dump it into the harbor. Frank says that his worst nightmare is seeing something that’s wrong and not doing anything to stop it. Fay pinches Frank in an attempt to wake him up. On the TV screen, Frank Nolan tries to stop the men from driving off with the chemical waste. Frank is fired and then knocked unconscious.

Realizing the Frank has vanished from the café, Fay runs over to a payphone and dials 9-1-1, just to be informed that the number cannot be reached. Fay opens the door to the café and discovers that she and the café are apparently floating in space!

Returning to the television, Fay sees that, at the chemical plant, Frank is still on the ground and his employer tells a bunch of thugs that he wants them to make Frank watch as they dump the waste into the harbor. However, once the thugs drive down to the harbor, Frank jumps out of the trunk of their car and into one of the trucks transporting the chemical waste. The thugs shoot at the truck until it explodes and then decide that it’s time to get a cup of coffee.

Realizing that the thugs might be coming, Fay decides she better pretend to be a real waitress. She grabs a cup of coffee and walks into the back where she discovers Frank rising out of a water-filled sink. “You know what?” Frank says, “I don’t think this is your run-of-the-mill all night café!”

Fay congratulates Frank on doing the right thing and standing up to the thugs. Suddenly, Fay starts to worry about what she saw in the restroom so she and Frank enter and, in the mirror, they see the two thugs approaching the cafe. Frank and Fay run into the kitchen. Frank opens a door marked exit and plunges back into the harbor. Fay closes the door and then opens it again and finds herself staring at a back alley. Deciding to face the thugs, she heads to the front of the café, where the two thugs demand to know where Frank is. She tells them that he’s in the ladies room. They rush into the restroom and suddenly find themselves on a police shooting range with a bunch of cops aiming their guns at them.

“This place has possibilities,” Fay says as the two thugs run from the café.

Suddenly, the TV turns on Fays sees herself in her bedroom, getting dressed for a date. Frank steps back into the café and watches the TV, barely noticing that Fay has vanished from the café. While he’s doing this, Blackie steps into the café and, breaking the fourth wall, says, “This ought to be interesting.”

On the television, Fay gets a call from a guy named Al (John D’Aquino) who explains that he’ll be delayed but he’ll see her later. Frank recognizes Al as being his boss at the chemical plant and then he realizes that Blackie also worked at the chemical plant and was one of the people who always told him not to waste his time reporting the toxic waste dumping. Blackie holds up a deck of cards and says that whoever pulls the low card will pay for their meal. Frank says that the only person that he’s betting on is Fay.

On the TV, Fay drives towards Al’s house. Suddenly, Frank is standing on the side of the road and hitchhiking. Fay gives him a ride and suddenly, the two thugs pop up and start shooting at them. Fay speeds off, with Frank in the car. Fay outmaneuvers the pursuing thugs, who end up crashing their car into the harbor.

Suddenly, Blackie is the only one sitting in the café. He watches Fay and Frank talk in the car. Frank tells Fay all about Al and Fay kicks Frank out of the car, not understanding how he could possibly know her name. Suddenly, Frank is back in the café. He and Blackie watch as Fay knocks on the door of Al’s penthouse. No one answers and Frank cheers as Fay starts to walk away. Suddenly, Blackie appears on the television and unlocks the door so Fay can enter the penthouse.

Fay gives Al a really ugly sweater for his birthday but is then shocked to discover that Al is at the penthouse with another woman (played by Carrie-Anne Moss in an early role), who promptly asks if Fay is the maid. As Fay heads for the penthouse’s bathroom, one of the thugs shows up and announces that he previous saw Fay at the café. Meanwhile, Fay searches the medicine cabinet for pills before heading back to her car

Seeing Fay driving towards the harbor on the television, Frank runs out of the café to save Fay again. But this time, instead of jumping into the harbor, Fay looks at the water and then says that it would be foolish to kill herself over a loser like Al. Suddenly, Al drives up and Fay and Frank have to jump into the water to avoid getting hit. However, once they hit the water, Frank realizes that they’re already dead.

Upon figuring this out, Frank and Fay are transported back to the café where Blackie tells them that they’re dead in the real world but they’re alive in the café and now, they get to make a difference in other people’s lives. Blackie opens the door, to show Frank and Fay that they are once again floating in space and that the Earth in the distance. Blackie tells them that they’ve been selected by “a higher authority” to help the people who enter the café and “maybe learn a little about yourselves along the way.” But they’re both dead so what’s left to learn?

Suddenly, Al enters the café. Blackie tells Al that Frank and Fay are in the restroom. Al steps into the restroom and suddenly has a vision of Fay testifying against him in court. Terrified, Al runs from the café but, upon opening the door, he plunges through space and lands in a vat of chemical waste.

A woman (played by Joan Chen of Twin Peaks fame) opens the front door. “Hi,” she asks, “Are you open?”

Nightmare Café only ran for 6 episodes and anthology shows are notorious for being uneven. All that considered, I really enjoyed the pilot for Nightmare Café, with its twisty plot, frequently surreal visuals, and — last but not least — Robert Englund having what appears to be a lot of fun as the show’s host. The pilot was directed by Philip Noyce, who keeps the action moving a great pace. Even more importantly, from their first scene together, Lindsay Frost and Jack Coleman have a lot chemistry. I’m looking forward to watching the remaining episodes and seeing where all of this goes!

Horror on TV: The Hitchhiker 4.2 “Minuteman” (dir by Chris Thomson)

Posted on October 2, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

For tonight’s episode of The Hitchhiker, our narrator (played by Page Fletcher) takes a look at Jeremy (John Shea) and Julie (Alexandra Paul).

Jeremy and Julie are a couple who are taking a road trip and whose relationship is strained due to Jeremy’s obsession with organization and control. However, when Jeremy and Julie meet two people that Jeremy can’t control — a biker (Dean Hallo) and his pregnant girlfriend (Nancy Isaak) — Jeremy finds himself taking a trip through time and learning a lesson about letting go.

This episode features good performances from John Shea, Alexandra Paul, Dean Hallo, and Nancy Isaak and it also features the Hitchhiker offering up some memorably judgmental commentary. The Hitchhiker is apparently not a fan of control freaks. I’m not really a fan of control freaks either but there’s nothing wrong with having a to-do list to help guide you through your day.

This episode originally aired on February 24th, 1987.

October Hacks: Madman (Dir by Joe Giannone)

Posted on October 2, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

First released in 1982, Madman takes place on the last night of camp.

Max (Carl Fredericks), the jovial and beloved owner of the camp takes his senior counselors and his campers on one last outdoor adventure. As they sit around the campfire, he tells them the story of a farmer named Marz who, years before, went crazy and hacked up his family with an axe. The local townspeople attempted to hang Marz but somehow, he escaped from the noose and disappeared into the wilderness, along with the bodies of all of his victims. The locals say that Madman Marz is still out there in the wilderness, waiting for someone to shout his name so that he can return to life and kill again. Max tells his campers that it’s very important that they only whisper the name of Madmam Marz.

“MADMAN MARZ!” Richie (Jimmy Steele), one of the campers, shouts.

Everyone tells Richie not to shout his name so Richie shouts it again.

Max announces that it’s time to return to camp. He specifically tells none of the campers to deviate from the path back to the camp. He tells everyone to follow their counselor. He makes the directions very specific and clear.

So, of course, Richie decides to wander off by himself. As he wanders through the wilderness, he comes across Madman Marz’s old cabin and he breaks a window….

Now, if you’ve ever seen a slasher film before, you are probably expecting Richie to be the first victim of rejuvenated Madman Marz. Well, you would be incorrect. In fact, Richie turns out to be a bit of a Karma Houdini because, while Madman Marz does return with his axe, he never actually goes after Richie. Instead, Madman Marz just stalks the various counselors who go into the woods in search of Richie. Don’t get me wrong. Richie is definitely a bit traumatized by what he sees inside of Madman Marz’s cabin. But it’s still hard not to feel that Richie got off pretty easy when compared to everyone else.

But that’s really what makes Madman a superior slasher film. It defies our expectations when it comes to who dies and who doesn’t. Though it was obviously inspired by the camp-centric horror of Friday the 13th, Madman isn’t afraid to break the rules of the genre. It’s one of the rare slashers where it feels like anyone could fall victim to the killer depending on how their luck goes that night. As opposed to slashers where it sometimes seems that the victims are being punished for having sex or doing drugs or going against the rules of society, the victims in Madman tend to just be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Marz doesn’t really have a complicated motivation. He’s a madman and he’s so ruthless and relentless that he becomes a genuinely frightening monster.

Madman Marz is not only genuinely frightening but so is the film featuring him. Madman was a low-budget, non-union production, with the majority of the cast and crew credited under pseudonyms. (Dawn of the Dead‘s Gaylen Ross, who appears as one of the counselors, is credited as Alexis Dubin.) But that low budget does prevent Madman from being an atmospheric and suspenseful slasher film, one that will not only inspire nightmares but also probably cure most people of any desire to go camping.

The TSL Horror Grindhouse: I Dismember Mama (dir by Paul Leder)

Posted on October 2, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Ugh. It’s hard for me to think of any film that left me feeling as icky as the 1972 film, I Dismember Mama. Seriously, who would have guessed that a film with a title like I Dismember Mama would be disturbing and offensive?

Zooey Hall stars as Albert, a puritanical young man who idealizes the Victoria Age, when “men were gentlemen and women were pure.” Albert has tried to murder his rich mother three times for being “a whore,” and he’s now living in a minimum security mental hospital where he spends his time watching pornographic movies. When Albert escapes from the mental hospital, he heads straight to his mother’s house. His mother isn’t there but Alice (Marlene Tracy), the maid, is. After raping and murdering Alice, Albert heads down to the living room where he meets Alice’s 9 year-old daughter, Annie (Geri Reischl, who would later take on the role of Fake Jan on the Brady Bunch Variety Hour). Albert doesn’t know Annie but Annie instantly recognizes Albert from the pictures that his mom has up around the house.

Suddenly enchanted by Annie and her innocence, Albert lies and tells Annie that Alice has been taken ill and had to go see a doctor but she asked Albert to keep an eye on Annie until she got back. (Is there a reason why everyone’s name starts with an A? My ADD is going crazy just trying to type this up.) Albert then takes Annie for a ride around town, telling her about how much he loves the Victoria era and eventually checking into a motel with her. (Ewwwwww!) When Albert murders a woman that he picked up at a bar, Annie runs away from the hotel and Albert, suddenly convinced that Annie is now a harlot, chases after her. It all leads to a properly violent conclusion. Say what you will about the film but the final five minutes make great use of slo mo of doom as Albert and Annie run through a mannequin factory in slow motion.

My favorite character in this film was the police detective played by Greg Mullavey. When Albert’s liberal doctor (Frank Whiteman) argues that even Albert can be cured with the right amount of treatment, the detective just smirks and complains about how his tax dollars are being used “to baby murderers.” Normally, I would argue that the doctor has a point but Albert is such a creep and his fixation on Alice is so disturbing that I was totally on the Detective’s side. Whether he could be cured or not, Albert deserved a bullet in the head.

It’s a competently-made and well-acted film and Zooey Hall deserves a lot of credit for making Albert into an all-too plausible madman. It’s also a thoroughly icky film, the type of film the features flashbacks to scenes of rape and violence that occurred mere minutes before. This is one of those grimy films that leaves the viewer feeling as if they’re going to need to take multiple showers after watching.

The film is today is best remembered for the gimmicks that were used to promote it. Theater patrons were given an upchuck cup, in case the film proved to be too intense for them. And, of course, the film’s famous trailer featured people who had been driven insane by watching the film.

Director Paul Leder and Greg Mullavey would reunite for another grindhouse horror film, My Friends Need Killing. Look for my review of that film tomorrow!

Murderbot (2023, directed by Jim Wynorski)

Posted on October 2, 2023 by Jedadiah Leland

“Blow harder!”

— Val (Lauren Parkinson) in Murderbot

In a remote army base, three busty scientists create a busty robot named Raquel (Melissa Brasselle). General Griffin (Arthur Sellers) is impressed that Raquel has mastered all forms of combat but he is not happy by her dominatrix outfit because, according to him, America’s enemies don’t fear cleavage.

One night, while the scientists all have hot dates, Raquel escapes from the base and goes to a nearly deserted desert town, where she kills a leering gas station attendant and a busty diner owner. Meanwhile, a group of busty teenagers and their boyfriends run out of gas while driving through town and find themselves being stalked by Raquel.

This is a Jim Wynorski film so you know what you’re going to get, a lot of cleavage (though, for once, no actual nudity), a splattering of blood, and some deliberately corny humor that is sometimes self-aware enough to be funny. Murderbot was originally named Killbot, a reference to Wynorski’s first film, Chopping Mall. Murderbot even duplicates that film’s famous exploding head scene, though it’s the entire body that explodes this time.

This is pretty dumb but Wynorski fans should be happy. Even though no one will be watching this movie for the acting, I actually did like the performances of Walker Mintz and Sylvia Thackery, playing respectively a trumpet player and the girl that he likes. As Raquel, Melissa Brasselle is no Arnold Schwarzenegger but she still handles dreadful one-liners like “You’ve been deleted,” with enough aplomb to make them tolerable.

Murderbot is proof that, no matter how much things change, Jim Wynorski will always by Jim Wynorksi.

Retro Television Reviews: Miami Vice 1.4 “Cool Runnin'”

Posted on October 2, 2023 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 Miami Vice, which ran on NBC from 1984 to 1989. The entire show is currently streaming on Tubi!

This week, Crockett and Tubbs gain an informant!

Episode 1.4 “Cool Runnin'”

(Dir by Lee H. Katzin, originally aired on October 5th, 1984)

One of the main themes of Miami Vice was that, no matter how many drug lords that Crockett and Tubbs got off the streets, there was always someone in the wings waiting to replace them. The drug trade was (and is) big business and there was always someone willing to step into the vacuum that was left by the downfall of any of the major players. For all of their efforts, Crockett and Tubbs were essentially fighting a war on drugs that could not be won.

Cool Runnin’ features an early example of this. With Calderone having fled Miami for Colombia, he’s been replaced by Desmond Maxwell (Afemo Omilami), a Jamaican who is willing to murder just about anyone who gets in his way. When he’s first seen, he and the members of his gang are gunning down a group of rival drug dealers in a mall parking lot. Later, Desmond kills one undercover cop and seriously wounds another.

Another major theme in Miami Vice is that Crockett (and, to a lesser extent, Tubbs) are willing to put others at risk to take down their targets. The majority of this episode deals with Nugart Neville ‘Noogie’ Lamont (Charlie Barnett), a talkative thief and speed freak who is recruited, somewhat against his will, to be an informant. When Crockett and Tubbs discover that Noogie served time with Desmond, they use Noogie to set up a meeting with Desmond. When Crockett tells Desmond that he wants to buy from him and that he’ll be waiting for him at Noogie’s apartment, Tubbs points out that Crockett is putting Noogie’s life in danger without even bothering to tell Noogie beforehand.

(Crockett, it should be noted, isn’t thinking straight for most of this episode because his wife has filed for divorce and wants to take his son to Georgia.)

At first, it appears that Noogie is going to get a reprieve when a calls comes in that the man who killed the undercover cops has been arrested. It doesn’t take long for Crockett (and the audience) to figure out that the man who has been arrested is not Jamaican (instead, he’s Haitian) and that he’s been beaten by the racist cop who arrested him.

Instead, the killers are now at Noogie’s apartment, where they are waiting for Crockett and Tubbs to show up so that they can kill both the cops and their informant. It all leads to final shoot-out, one that is shown almost entirely in slow motion and which is surprisingly effective.

This was a good episode about the human cost of getting involved as law enforcement, whether as a cop or a criminal. While Desmond Maxwell was not a particularly nuanced character, he was appropriately intimidating and the audience never had any doubt that he would coldly kill anyone who he viewed as being a threat. (One of the more haunting moments of the episode features the Vice Squad listening to the tape of shooting in which Desmond gunned down two detectives.)

The episode was largely dominated by Charlie Barnett’s performance as Noogie. Barnett was a stand-up comedian who first came to prominence performing in Central Park. He was nearly cast on Saturday Night Live until it was discovered that he struggled with reading. Barnett was replaced, at the last minute, by another New York comedian, Eddie Murphy. As Noogie. Barnett never stops moving, talking, and performing. It’s actually exhausting just watching him. But, as the episode proceeds, Barnett starts to calm down and, by the end of it, the audience is actually happy that he wasn’t killed in the shoot-out.

Unfortunately, next week, a major character will be killed in a shootout. Who? Find out next Monday!

Horror Scenes That I Love: Linda Blair In The Exorcist II: The Heretic

Posted on October 2, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Today’s horror scene that I love features Linda Blair in 1977’s The Exorcist II: The Heretic, the sequel to the film for which she received an Oscar nomination.

Linda Blair was only 13 when she was cast a Regan McNeil, the girl who is possessed by a demon in The Exorcist. She was nominated for Best Supporting Actress, only losing the award after it was revealed that Mercedes McCambridge had dubbed Blair for the scenes in which she was possessed. Blair has gone on to have a long career, appearing in movies that may not have been as honored by the Academy as The Exorcist was but which are still often very entertaining when taken on their own terms.

In The Exorcist II, Blair returned to the role of Regan. Now in her late teens, Regan says that she can’t remember anything about being possessed. Father Philip Lamont (Richard Burton) and Dr. Gene Tuskin (Louise Fletcher) think that Regan is repressing her memories and, in this scene …. well, I don’t really know how to describe this scene. Seriously, The Exorcist II is such a strange movie! Basically, Dr. Tuskin has a hypnosis machine while allows people to link minds. Dr. Tuskin links with Regan’s mind and then Lamont links with Tuskin’s mind. It’s all incredibly silly but it does allow for this scene in which “good Regan” shares the screen with “possessed Regan.”

Here is a weird scene from a weird movie, featuring a total of four Oscar-nominated performers. (For the record, Burton was nominated multiple times and, the same year he appeared in this film, he also appeared in Equus, for which he received his final nomination. Louise Fletcher won for One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest. Max von Sydow would later be nominated for Pelle the Conqueror and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. And, of course, Linda Blair was nominated for The Exorcist.)

Horror Book Review: Missing by R.L. Stine

Posted on October 2, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

First published in 1990, Missing tells the story of Mark and Cara Burroughs. They’re siblings who have just moved to the town of Shadyside. Along with their parents and their cousin Roger, they live in a house located on Fear Street. Even though they are new students, they’re already popular enough that Mark is dating Gena and everyone from school shows up to party at their house while their parents are gone for the night.

Now, there’s a lot of negative things that you can say about the town of Shadyside and Fear Street in general. I mean, it’s kind of a violent town. How many homicidal maniacs have lived in Shadyside? Over the years, how many students at Shadyside High have either been murdered or seriously injured? But, it should be noted that Shadyside High is notably welcoming to new students. I know that, when I was in high school, the new transfer students were always initially viewed with suspicion. That was especially true if they were from any other place than Texas. (Since my family moved around a lot when I was a kid, I knew far too well what it was like to be the new kid at school so I always tried to be nice to everyone, even if they were from up north.) At Shadyside High, though, new students can go from moving into new home to throwing a huge party in just a matter of weeks.

Anyway, this party comes to an end when a cop shows up, not to complain about the noise but just to ask if Mark and Cara know anything about a nearby burglary. After all of their guests leave, Mark and Cara realize that their parents have yet to come home. What has happened to their parents and how is it connected to Roger, Gena, and a strange monkey statue? And why is a mysterious van parked outside the house? And what’s happening in Fear Street Woods!? That’s a lot of questions and fortunately, Mark and Cara decide to solve the case themselves as opposed to going to the police. (It should be noted that the phones at the house are all dead and, since this book was published in 1990, Mark and Cara are dependent on their landline. The 90s were a difficult time.)

Missing was the fourth of R.L. Stine’s Fear Street novels and it’s fast-paced with a lot of enjoyably silly melodrama. This is one of those books where no one is who they originally claim to be, including the parents. One could argue that all of the plot contrivances don’t hold together under close scrutiny but Stine keeps the plot moving so quickly and fills the book with so many weird moments that it really doesn’t matter. The book is full of cliffhangers and Stine wisely doesn’t let things like realism get in the way of resolving those cliffhangers. By the time a major supporting character shows up, from out of nowhere, with a gun in order to save the heroic siblings, I was giggling with joy. Seriously, does every resident of Shadyside just happen to have a weapon just casually lying around the house?

October True Crime: Freeway Killer (dir by John Murlowski)

Posted on October 2, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The 2010 film, Freeway Killer, opens with a desperate woman named Ruth (Debbon Ayer) visiting a man named William Bonin (Scott Anthony Leef).

Bonin, who has a quick smile and a mustache that makes him look like a wannabe porn star, is an inmate on California’s Death Row. In just a few days, Bonin is scheduled to be the first man to be executed by lethal injection in the state of California. Ruth explains that she has done everything that she can to try to save Bonin’s life. She has written to the review board. She had written to the governor. She has asked that Bonin be spared and she’s even used the exact words that Bonin suggested that she use in her letters. However, she’s gotten no response. Still, she now wants Bonin to uphold his side of the bargain. She wants to know if her son was among the thirty-six men that Bonin is suspected of having murdered.

William Bonin merely smirks and points out that he never actually agreed to tell Ruth anything. He suggested that Ruth write the letters but never did he say that he would actually do anything in return. That was just something that he allowed Ruth to assume. Even while sitting on Death Row and facing an inevitable execution, Bonin enjoys the power that he gets from manipulating people. Instead of telling Ruth about her son, he tells the story of his life as a serial killer.

The film flashes back to 1980, when William Bonin has already started his career as a murderer. A Vietnam vet who has a war story for every occasion, he cruises the freeways of California and picks up young hitchhikers. Sometimes, he is accompanied by an accomplice. Vernon Butts (Dusty Sorg) is a self-styled occultist who wears a wizard hat at home and who knows more about Dungeons and Dragons than real life. When they’re not killing hitchhikers, Bonin and Vernon tend to bicker. Vernon constantly points out that Bonin was not the great war hero that he claims to have been. Bonin makes fun of Vernon’s hobbies. At times, they seem to genuinely despise each other but one of the few times that Bonin shows any emotion is when Vernon tries to kill himself in a pique of hurt feelings.

One night, Bonin sees a teenager named Kyle (Cole Williams) being yelled at by both his boss and his girlfriend. As he does with all of his victims, Bonin pulls up in his van and asks Kyle if he wants a ride. However, when Kyle gets in the van, it turns out that Bonin doesn’t want to kill him. Instead, he sees Kyle as a kindred spirit and soon, he’s recruited Kyle as his second accomplice. Unlike Vernon, Kyle believes all of Bonin’s stories. However, Kyle grows more confident with each murder and soon, he’s even suggesting that Bonin should kill Vernon. Frustrated with both Kyle and Vern, Bonin search for a third accomplice, an act that ultimately leads to his downfall.

Watching Bonin, Vern, and Kyle, I was reminded of a creepy group of older men who always seemed to be hanging out on campus when I was in college. Though none of them were enrolled in classes and all of them were notably older than the majority of the people on campus, they still spent all of their time hanging out around the student union, smoking cigarettes, and trying to impress people who were half their age. They approached me and my friend a few times, making awkward comments about whatever we happened to be talking about or studying at the moment. One thing that I quickly learned was that being rude would not get rid of them. Instead, you had to literally stand up and walk somewhere else to get away from them. (They had no problem approaching people but were too lazy to follow after them.) At the time, my friends and I used to joke that they were probably serial killers. Most realistically, they were probably just three losers who didn’t want to have to grow up. Still, they definitely gave off a bad vibe.

Based on a true story, Freeway Killer focuses on the relationship between Bonin, Vernon, and Kyle. Though he’s their self-declared leader, Bonin is incapable of doing anything without the help of Vernon and Kyle. At the same time, the film leaves us to wonder if Vernon and Kyle would have become killers if they hadn’t fallen under William Bonin’s influence. One gets the feeling that if Bonin and Vernon had never met each other, they both would have spent the rest of their lives as obscure losers, living alone and working a dead-end job. Certainly, if Bonin and Vernon had never met, Bonin would never have subsequently felt the need to recruit Kyle into their activities. But, because they did meet, at least 30 innocent people were murdered in California. The film is unsettling, not just because of the murders (of which only a few are discreetly portrayed) but because of the feeling that the murders themselves would never have happened if only William Bonin had not served an earlier prison sentence at the same time as Vernon Butts.

Scott Anthony Leet gives a good performance as William Bonin, playing him as man whose quick smile is just a cover for the raging feelings of inadequacy that are churning just below the surface. Dusty Sorg and Cole WIlliams are also well-cast as, respectively, Vernon and Kyle. Sorg, especially, makes Vernon into a monster who is frightening because it’s very easy to imagine running into him (or someone like him) in everyday life. Michael Rooker brings his quiet intensity to a small role as the detective who investigates the Freeway Killer murders.

The real-life William Bonin was executed in 1996. I’m against the death penalty because I don’t think we should normalize the idea of the government killing anyone but that still doesn’t mean that the world isn’t better off without William Bonin in it.