October Positivity: Prayer Never Fails (dir by Wes Miller)

Posted on October 10, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The 2016 film, Prayer Never Fails, tells the story of Aiden Paul (Nick Lashaway). Having survived a traumatic childhood that was full of abuse, Aiden is now the beloved basketball coach at the local high school. (The fact that he never shaves or gets his hair out of his face does not seem to be a problem as far as this school district is concenred.) When one of his players approaches Aiden and tell him that he’s being abused by his father (Lorenzo Lamas), Aiden suggests that the player pray on it. When the player says that he doesn’t know how to pray (because his father is not just abusive but also a hardcore atheist, of course), Aiden takes him into a classroom and teaches him how.

Unfortunately, another teacher sees Aiden and the player praying and reports Aiden to the principal. Aiden is fired from his position. Though Aiden says that he’s just going to give up and find another job, his players demand that Aiden fight to be reinstated. Aiden decides to take the school to court!

Unfortunately, there aren’t any lawyers that Aiden can afford. (And most lawyers would hopefully be ethical enough tell Aiden that, regardless of his good intentions, he doesn’t have a case.) Finally, a chance meeting at a diner leads to Aiden hiring Michael Brown (Clifton Davis), an agnostic lawyer with a gambling problem. Michael takes the case but he soon finds himself going up against master litigator Joseph T. Harrington (Corbin Bernsen). Can Michael somehow win the case?

This is another one of those Christian courtroom films where no one does anything that makes sense. For instance, it seems like, instead of ducking into an open classroom for a quick prayer, Aiden could have reported that one of his students was being abused by a parent, which is something that, as a teacher, he would have been required to do in the first place. (Instead, that subplot is abandoned after Aiden is fired.) As well, to win the case, all Joseph T. Herrington had to do was 1) point out that Aiden had admitted to leading a prayer in school and 2) call to the stand a Constitutional law expert to explain the establishment clause. Instead, Herrington puts the entire concept of prayer on trial and tries to argue that praying doesn’t work. It’s an argument based purely on emotion and bias, which allows Michael to make a counter-argument that’s based purely on emotion and bias. At one point, Michael interrogates the school’s principal as to why he was willing to defend a transgender teacher but not Aiden’s right to pray. The correct answer, of course, is that whether or not another teacher is transgender has nothing to do with Aiden’s case and that the Supreme Court has ruled that prayer is not allowed in public schools. That’s really all anyone needed to say to any of Michael’s arguments but no one does because, if they did, it would be a very short film.

(Along with the dubious legal arguments, this film annoyed me because Aiden didn’t ever bother to shave or comb his hair before the trail began. I mean, seriously, did someone tell him that it was a good strategy to go to court looking like you spend the previous week sleeping in the back of a pickup truck? I would not want him coaching my school’s basketball team.)

On the plus side, Eric Roberts is in this movie. He plays the judge and goes through the film with a bemused smile on his face, as if even he can’t believe the legal arguments that he’s hearing. It’s always nice to see Eric Roberts picking up a paycheck.

Previous Eric Roberts Films That We Have Reviewed:

Late Night Retro Television Reviews: Gun 1.2 “Ricochet”

Posted on October 10, 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 Tuesdays, I will be reviewing Gun, an anthology series that ran on ABC for six week in 1997. The entire show is currently streaming on Tubi!

This week, on Gun, Martin Sheen plays a cop who might be investigating the final murder of his career!

Episode 1.2 “Ricochet”

(Dir by Peter Horton, originally aired on April 19th, 1997)

The second episode of Gun opens with the death of a Japanese businessman. He’s found shot on a cliffside that overlooks the ocean. The gun that shot him is discovered and taken by a homeless man named Lazy Eye Pete (Bud Cort). Pete is a cheerfully eccentric type, one who sings for money and who is dedicated to taking care of his pet dog, Chester. But, as soon as Pete gets that gun, his personality starts to change and he even ends up pulling the gun on a group of teenagers who were attempting to mug him. In the end, Pete sells the gun to a friend of his.

Also searching for that gun is Detective Van Guinness (Martin Sheen). Guinness, who suffers from ulcers and who takes his job very personally, has promised his girlfriend (Tess Harper) that he will retire from the force. However, he doesn’t want to go out on a simple or an unsolved case. Fortunately, for Guinness, he’s assigned the complicated case of the dead businessman. Unfortunately, for him, his girlfriend is not at all amused by his refusal to retire.

Van’s partner (Kirk Baltz) thinks that the businessman was killed during a robbery but Guinness disagrees. Guinness thinks that the businessman was murdered by either his wife (Nancy Travis) or his amoral attorney (Christopher McDonald). The wife and the attorney are sleeping together and they’ve also come up with a plan to somehow fix the California state lottery. (I couldn’t really follow what their plan was but then again, I’ve also never played the lottery.) The attorney thinks that the wife is the murderer. The wife thinks that the attorney is the murderer. The truth is a bit more complicated but, in order to full understand what happened, Van Guinness is going to have to find that gun.

Though the plot was a bit too complicated for its own good (Seriously, what was going on with the whole lottery subplot?), the second episode was a definite improvement over the first episode, with director Peter Horton keeping the action moving at a steady pace and establishing the consistent tone that the previous episode lacked. Ricochet played out like a true ensemble piece, splitting its attention between Martin Sheen, Bud Cort, Nancy Travis, and Christopher McDonald. All four of the actors did a good job bringing their characters to life. I especially liked Christopher McDonald’s amoral attorney. Nobody plays a crooked attorney with quite the style and wit of Christopher McDonald!

Next week: Rosanna Arquette and James Gandolfini appear in an episode directed by the show’s co-creator, James Steven Sadwith.

Congratulations to the Rangers!

Posted on October 10, 2023 by Dazzling Erin

Congratulations to my Texas Rangers, who just swept the Divisional Play-offs and will be moving on to the ACLS for the first time since 2011! We’ll be facing either the Astros or the Twins and hopefully, we’ll be moving on to the World Series!

I didn’t post much about the playoffs because I didn’t want to jinx my team by getting too excited or getting ahead of myself. But tonight, I’m excited! Way to go, Rangers! Now, let’s win the ACLS and let’s go to the World Series! Fans like me have been waiting for this moment for 12 years. A lot of people thought it would never happen. But the Rangers are in it!

Horror on TV: The Hitchhiker 5.3 “Dark Wishes” (dir by John Liang)

Posted on October 10, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

On tonight’s episode of The Hitchhiker, a nurse (Tammy Lauren) decides that the best way to win the husband of her patient is to indulge in a little black magic. Needless to say, things don’t go quite as planned. And yes, The Hitchhiker definitely has something to say about it!

Seriously, I would so freak out if I ever saw The Hitchhiker commenting on anything that I’ve ever done in my life. “Lisa Marie Bowman thought she could escape real-life horror by writing about fictional horror. But sometimes, that which we think is fiction, turns out to be real….” AGCK!

This episode originally aired on July 1st, 1989.

October Hacks: Blood Theatre (dir by Rick Sloane)

Posted on October 10, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

I have watched my share of not-good films but, as I sit here typing this, it’s hard for me to think of anything quite as mind-numbingly bad as 1984’s Blood Theatre.

Blood Theatre is a horror film without scares and a comedy without laughs. It starts at some point in the past, when a lovelorn movie theater owner (played, as a young man, by David Milbern) has a nervous breakdown upon discovering that the ticket girl doesn’t love him. So, he stabs her to death and then sets the theater on fire, killing the majority of the patrons inside. Years later, Mr. Murdock (Rob-Roy Fletcher) decides to increase his chain of Starlite Theaters by purchasing the old theater. He sends three of his employees over to get the place in shape. What he doesn’t stop to consider is that the theater owner (now played, as an old man, by Jonathan Blakely) is still haunting the old theater and killing anyone who shows up. Is the owner a ghost or a human killer? The film never quite makes up its mind, as sometimes he appears to have control of electricity and time and space and other times, he’s just an old geezer with a knife.

But the motives of the killer really aren’t that important because, oddly enough, he’s not really in the much of the film. Instead, the majority of the film is a broad comedy about the people working at the theater, none of whom are particularly funny or even likable. Selena (Joanna Foxx) gets mad when someone fails to pay for their popcorn so, for some reason, she follows them into theater and rips of her bra in front of them. I’m not really sure how that is supposed to get back at them for not paying for their popcorn but it does lead to a riot in the theater as everyone demands that she sit down so that they can enjoy the movie. Amazingly, this somehow does not lead to Selena getting fired but instead, she and her friend Darcy (Stephanie Dillard) are transferred to the new theater, much to the irritation of their co-worker, cheerleader Jennifer (Jenny Cunningham). Jennifer, Selena, and Darcy are all supposed to be in high school but they also all appear to be in their 30s.

Mary Woronov is also in this film. She’s totally wasted in the role of Murdock’s administrative assistant. She spends the entire movie answering the phone in the office and rolling her eyes and then making sarcastic comments about the fact that Murdock has gone to a theater owner’s convention but he hasn’t returned yet because he’s been mugged. For reasons that aren’t really clear, she hates Murdock and she hates everyone that she works with but then again, no one in this movie seems to like anyone else. Everyone in this movie dislikes everyone else and, as a result, it’s not as if any of the people are particularly pleasant to hang out with.

This is one of those comedies where every joke is repeated ad nauseum, to the point where it becomes impossible to watch the film without wanting to throw something at the screen. It would help, of course, if the jokes were funny but none of them are. It would also help if there was a shred of charisma to be found in the cast but, with the exception of Mary Woronov, everyone delivers their lines stiffly and without personality. Clocking in at 75 minutes but feeling much, much longer, Blood Theatre is one of the most incredibly dull films that I’ve ever seen. This is the slasher film that answers the question, “Just how bad can these films get?”

The TSL Horror Grindhouse: Sweet Kill (dir by Curtis Hanson)

Posted on October 10, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

As the saying goes, everyone has to start somewhere and, for Curtis Hanson, that somewhere was with 1973’s Sweet Kill.

Curtis Hanson, of course, would go on to become one of Hollywood’s top genre directors, directing films like The River Wild, Bad Influence, Wonder Boys, The Hand That Rocks The Cradle, 8 Mile, and the Oscar-nominated L.A. Confidential. But, in the early 70s, he was just one of the many recent film school grads who approached Roger Corman for a job.

Having previously worked on the script for the Corman-produced Dunwich Horror, Hanson approached Roger and told him that he had an idea for a Psycho-inspired movie about a female serial killer. Corman replied that he would help finance the film if Hanson made the killer into a man. Hanson did so but Corman still ended up only putting up a third of the film’s budget as opposed to the two/thirds that he had originally offered. Hanson ended up convincing his parents to take out a mortgage on their home to help finance the movie.

Hanson shot the film in 1971. Corman said that the film showed promise but that it needed more nudity and a better title if it was going to be successful. Corman re-edited the film and additional nude scenes were shot and inserted into the film. Despite this, Sweet Kill was a box office disappointment when it was originally released. Corman re-titled the film Kisses For Eddie but it didn’t help at the box office. Finally, the film was released under a third title, The Arousers. Despite a lurid ad campaign built around “the arousers,” the film once again failed at the box office. It wouldn’t be until years later, when Hanson started to achieve some mainstream success, that Sweet Kill would be rediscovered.

After all of the drama that went into post-production, it would be nice to be able to report that Sweet Kill was some sort of overlooked masterpiece but, to be honest, it’s pretty bad. The film stars Tab Hunter as Eddie Collins. When Eddie was a kid, he used to hide in the closet and watch as his mother lounged around her bedroom in lingerie. Now that Eddie is a grown-up and working as a high school gym coach, he is still so haunted by his mother that he’s impotent. As a result, Eddie spends his time breaking into apartments, stealing underwear, and having a prostitute dress up like his mother so that he can undress her while sobbing. After a chance meeting with a hippie girl leads to Eddie once again failing to get it up, he shoves the girl hard enough to kill her. The film implies that this act of violence leads to Eddie getting aroused for the first time and soon, Eddie is killing people and …. well, that’s pretty much the whole movie. There’s not really a plot, beyond Eddie looking confused and trying to keep his sympathetic neighbor from finding out that he’s a serial killer.

Sweet Kill has gotten some attention because of the casting of former teen idol Tab Hunter in the role of psycho Eddie. Tab Hunter has the right blonde look for Eddie, who is basically a homicidal beach bum, but otherwise, Hunter’s performance is fairly dull. Watching the film, it’s obvious that he wasn’t particularly comfortable with the role of Eddie and, as such, he sleepwalks through the performance. (Ironically, Eddie was based on Norman Bates, who was played by Hunter’s former partner, Anthony Perkins.) There are a few creepy moments where Hunter stares off into the distance with a blank look on his face but otherwise, this isn’t a particularly memorable performance nor is Sweet Kill a particularly interesting film.

That said, Curtis Hanson went on to have quite a career so, on that level, Sweet Kill‘s bland badness is inspiring. If the director of Sweet Kill could still go on to direct and produce some of the best films of the past 50 years, there’s hope for everyone looking to achieve their dreams. Don’t let one failure get you down.

Death Metal (2023, directed by Michael Kuciak)

Posted on October 10, 2023 by Jedadiah Leland

Abyssinister is a death metal band that has seen better days. Lead singer Ivan (Nico Zahniser) is a perfectionist who has alienated most of the members of the group with his abrasive personality. Their records aren’t selling. Their European tour was a disaster. Hardly anyone can pronounce the band’s name and those who can think that Abyssinister broke up. And the band is on the verge of breaking up for real until Ivan announces that he’s hired the famed Norwegian producer, Fleming (Ray Goodwin), to produce their next album.

Agreeing to give stardom one last shot, Abyssinister travels out to Fleming’s isolated farm and recording studio. After they arrive, Ivan announces that he has a copy of a supposedly cursed concerto that he wants the band to record. The band records the piece and it sounds great but what neither the band nor their manager, Shadia (Shadia Martin), knows is that Ivan had made a deal with the Devil and now, there is a price to pay.

Full of inside jokes about the death metal scene and featuring some surprisingly realistic gore, Death Metal turned out to be much better than I was expecting it to be. The first half is a humorous satire of every cliché about the Death Metal scene while the second half is full of effective jump scares and frightening scenes. Every member of the band and their groupies get a chance to make an impression before the concerto is recorded and you actually do worry about them once everything starts to fall apart. I especially liked the performance of Chris Richards, as the otherwise mild-mannered drummer who legally changed his name to Baphomet.

Death Metal is both an effective satire of the hysteria surrounding death metal music and an effective horror movie.

Retro Television Reviews: Fantasy Island 3.18 “Aphrodite/Dr. Jekyll and Miss Hyde”

Posted on October 10, 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 Tuesdays, I will be reviewing the original Fantasy Island, which ran on ABC from 1977 to 1986. Almost entire show is currently streaming is on Youtube!

This week, Aphrodite comes to Fantasy Island, along with Marcia Brady!

Episode 3.18 “Aphrodite/Dr. Jekyll and Miss Hyde”

(Dir by Rod Holcomb, originally aired on February 2nd, 1980)

This week, Maureen McCormick returns to Fantasy Island!

The former Marcia Brady is playing Jennifer Griffin, the younger sister of renowned psychiatrist Melanie Griffin (Rosemary Forsyth). Jennifer is dating a total lout named Ross Hayden (Don Stroud) and Melanie’s fantasy is to understand why women like her sister are irresistibly drawn to bad boys.

(Because bad boys are sexy rebels who don’t let anyone tell them what to do and just need the right woman to bring out their sensitive side. It’s not that complicated!)

Roarke gives Melanie a vial of a blue serum that he claims is the same serum that Dr. Henry Jekyll used to transform himself into Edward Hyde. Roarke warns Melanie that she should only drink two drops of the serum at a time. Melanie does so and is transformed into the sexy Lilah, who dances up a storm at a nightclub and wins the attention of Ross, who is there with Jennifer. Somehow, Jennifer does not realize that Liliah is her old sister, despite the fact that Lilah is essentially just Melanie wearing a wig and a little more makeup than usual.

Ross, however, does figure out that Melanie is actually Lilah. Ross confronts Melanie in her cabin and forces her to drink the ENTIRE serum, as opposed to just the two drops. Melanie is transformed into an growling old woman with bad teeth. She ends up chasing Ross through the jungle, carrying a knife and growling at him until Mr. Roarke suddenly pops up and uses his magic powers to transforms Melanie back to her normal self. Roarke suggests that Melanie should think about why she has so much anger towards men and …. wait a minute. Does Roarke not realize that Ross basically just drugged Melanie and tried to force himself on her? Why is it suddenly on Melanie to figure out why she doesn’t like men like Ross?

Anyway, Jennifer dumps Ross and she and Melanie leave Fantasy Island together. We don’t see Ross leave Fantasy Island so I’m going to guess that he’s still somewhere in the jungle.

Speaking of the jungle, that’s where Professor Alan Blair (George Maharis) finds the lost temple of Aphrodite!

Alan’s fantasy is to find the perfect woman, who he believes to be Aphrodite despite the fact that anyone who is at all TV savvy knows that the perfect woman for Alan is actually his colleague, Minnie Hale (Belinda Montgomery). No sooner does Alan find the temple than a statue of Aphrodite comes to life. Alan and Aphrodite (played by Britt Ekland) make love all night and the next morning, Alan announces, “Aphrodite and I are getting married!”

However, it soon turns out that Aphrodite — much like that mermaid who tried to down John Saxon a few episodes ago — is all about destroying her lovers. Soon, Alan is flying into a rage whenever anyone so much as looks at Aphrodite and Aphrodite is trying to convince Alan to stay with her in her temple forever. Fortunately, Mr. Roarke shows up at the temple and announces that Aphrodite isn’t real because she’s just Alan fantasy. Mr. Roake isn’t even phased by the lightening bolt that Aphrodite tosses at him. Aphrodite is transformed back into a statue and Minnie reveals that her fantasy was that Alan would fall in love with her.

This was an extremely campy and silly episode, which also means that it was a lot of fun. Between Britt Ekland inviting every man to come to her cave and Rosemary Forsyth chasing Don Stroud with a knife, this episode was a nonstop parade of weirdness and it’s hard not to wish that it had served as a template for every episode of Fantasy Island. This week, the trip to the Island was definitely worth it!

Horror Scenes I Love: Robert Englund in A Nightmare on Elm Street

Posted on October 10, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Ah, Robert Englund.

By most accounts, Robert Englund is one of the most affable men in Hollywood, someone who is so talkative and friendly that people are often stunned to remember that he’s best known for playing Freddy Krueger. Indeed, in his pre-Nightmare on Elm Street films, Englund was usually cast as quirky and often shy characters. It was rare to see him play a villain.

That all changed when he was played Freddy Krueger in 1984’s A Nightmare on Elm Street. (Interestingly enough, director Wes Craven wrote the role with David Warner in mind.) In the role of Freddy, Englund became a horror icon. Freddy himself became such a quip machine in the later films that it’s easy to forget just how terrifying a figure he was in the first film.

In this scene, we see just how scary Robert Englund’s performance truly was in A Nightmare on Elm Street.

Horror Novel Review: College Weekend by R.L. Stine

Posted on October 10, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The 1995 YA novel, College Weekend, opens with Tina in a superexcited mood.

She is going to be spending the weekend up at Patterson College, where she’ll finally be reunited with her boyfriend, Josh! Josh is a year older than Tina and, while she’s finishing up her senior year at Shadyside High, Josh has been busy in college, collecting rocks and studying geology. Tina is so excited to have the chance to spend the weekend with Josh that she’s even willing to agree to her parents’ demand that she take her boy-crazy cousin Holly with her.

Awwwwwwwwww! Long distance relationships are so sweet!

Unfortunately, when Tina arrives on campus, she is met not by Josh but instead by Josh’s roommate, Chris. Chris explains that Josh is up in the mountains on a Geology field trip. He thought he would be home in time to pick up Tina but apparently, he had car trouble. Chris volunteers to show Tina and Holly around the campus and Tina agrees, even though she can’t help but feel that there’s something that Chris isn’t telling her. (This is one of those books that could only have been written in the days when everyone was dependent on landline phones.) Chris, Tina, Holly, and some others go to a party that night and …. HOLLY DISAPPEARS!

Tina is definitely concerned but Chris tells her not to worry about it. In fact, having heard that Tina is an aspiring model, Chris explains that he’s related to a famous photographer and that he has his own studio. In fact, Chris is willing to take some professional-quality pictures of Tina. He even has some clothes for her to wear, clothes that belonged to a former girlfriend who just happened to look a lot like Tina …. yikes!

You can probably guess where all of this is leading. Let’s just say that this turns out to be one truly traumatic college weekend and I have a feeling that Tina will probably want to apply to a different university. That said, this book does a really good job of capturing just exciting visiting a college campus can seem when you’re still in high school and you’re plotting out your future. My sisters and I visited a lot of campuses, both during their senior years and mine. I always enjoyed getting to see all of the different campuses and getting to imagine what it would be like to live on each one. Of course, I eventually ended up at a school that had a boring campus but a fun student body.

In the end, College Weekend is a fast-paced and entertaining trip to the campus of your nightmares.