Daily Archives: October 18, 2023

Retro Television Reviews: The Love Boat 3.12 “The Brotherhood of the Sea/Letter to Babycakes/Daddy’s Pride”

Posted on 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 Wednesdays, I will be reviewing the original Love Boat, which aired on ABC from 1977 to 1986!  The series can be streamed on Paramount Plus!

This cruise is all about deception!  Welcome aboard, it’s love!

Episode 3.12 “The Brotherhood of the Sea/Letter to Babycakes/Daddy’s Pride”

(Dir by George Tyne, originally aired on November 17th, 1979)

Julie’s birthday is coming up and the crew is planning to throw her a surprise party.  However, to keep Julie from catching on to what they’re planning, Doc, Gopher, and Isaac decide that they need to keep her occupied.  They tell her that they are all member of the “The Brotherhood of the Sea” and that they’re now prepared to make Julie a member as well.

Somehow, Julie falls for this very obvious lie and she spends almost the entire cruise doing all of the silly activities that Doc, Gopher, and Isaac have set up for her.  As I watched this, I found myself wondering if maybe Julie had somehow forgotten when her birthday was because, seriously, it couldn’t have been any more obvious what Doc, Gopher, and Isaac were doing.  Even worse, Julie gets so busy trying to join the Brotherhood of the Sea that she neglects her latest romantic partner, Rory Daniels (Christopher Connelly).

It’s time that we just face facts.  Until Julie gets off that boat, she’s never going to find the husband that she always says that she’s looking for.  The Boat pretty much dominates Julie’s life and there’s no way that her male co-workers are ever going to stop out of the way and allow Julie to find any sort of happiness.  It’s an interesting dynamic and I think it’s one that’s familiar to any woman who has worked with mostly male co-workers.  On the one hand, the ground you walk on is worshipped.  On the other hand, they don’t ever want to let you go.

While Julie is trying to join the Brotherhood of the Sea, Olympic gymnast Penny Barrett (Nancy McKeon) just wants to hang out with Kevin (Stephen Manley), a passenger who is her own age.  Unfortunately, Penny’s father (Alex Cord) is also her coach and he wants her to devote all of her time, even her time on the Boat, to training.  Poor Penny!  Seriously, back when my whole life was about going to dance class, I met so many people like Penny, whose parents basically lived their entire lives through them and never allowed them to have a childhood.  I was glad my parents supported me but didn’t pressure me.

Finally, wealthy Bart (Demon Wilson) boards the ship with his girlfriend, Tracy (Telma Hopkins), and his assistant, Wally (Jimmie Walker).  After Bart meets Ginger (Sydney Goldsmith), he decides that he wants to cheat on Tracy and he expects Wally to help him pull it off by keeping Tracy busy while Bart goes off with Ginger.  Needless to say this leads to Tracy and Wally falling in love.  Ha!  Take that, Bart!  This storyline would have been a bit more interesting if the two leads actors weren’t so boring in their roles.

This was a so-so cruise but at least Julie knows where she stands now.

Horror Scenes That I Love: Christopher Lee in Count Dracula

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Christopher Lee was a man of many talents.  Over the course of his long life, he wrote books, he recorded albums, he performed Shakespeare on stage, and he appeared in so many films that he himself reportedly had trouble remembering them all.  During World War II, Lee served in the British Secret Service with his cousin, Ian Fleming, and was reportedly one of the inspirations for the character of James Bond.  (Of course, Lee would eventually play Scaramanga in The Man With The Golden Gun.)

Up until he played Saruman in The Lord of the Rings and Count Dooku in the Stars Wars prequels, Lee was best-known for his performances as Dracula in several Hammer films.  By his own account, though, Lee never really cared for Hammer’s interpretation of Dracula.  He felt that Hammer did the character a disservice by portraying Dracula as just being a snarling villain.  In 1970, Lee finally got his chance to star in a faithful adaptation of Bram Stoker’s original novel when he starred in Jess Franco’s Count Dracula.

In the scene, an aged Dracula greets Jonathan Harker.

Horror Film Review: Manos: The Hands of Fate (dir by Harold P. Warren)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Is Manos: The Hands of Fate really that bad?

This 1966 film is often described as being one of the worst films ever made.  It’s a movie that was the subject of one of the most popular episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000 and, when three alumni of MST 3K alumni subsequently started Rifftrax, they participated in a live “riffing” of the film.  Much like The Room and Birdemic, Manos: The Hands of Fate is one of those films that has developed a cult following, one that seems to be largely made up of people who grew up making fun of the film.  And I have to admit that, in the past, I myself have cited Manos: The Hands of Fate as being one of the worst films ever made.

(And like everyone, I’ve pointed out that the title of the film is actually Hands: The Hands of Fate.)

But let us be honest.  Manos: The Hands of Fate premiered in El Paso in 1966.  The film’s director/writer/producer/star hired a searchlight for the theater and arranged for the cast to show up in limousines.  That was undoubtedly a big deal in 1966 El Paso.  After the film’s El Paso premiere, Manos apparently played in a few West Texas drive-ins and it may have shown up in New Mexico.  It is known that it showed up on television at one point and then, for several years, it disappeared.  In 1992, the film was released on video that was taken from the 16mm television print.  The film was submitted to and subsequently included on Mystery Science Theater 3000 and, since then, it’s become quite a success.  It has a cult of devoted fans.  There have been stage adaptations.  Both a prequel and a sequel have been filmed.  57 years after it premiered, Manos: The Hands of Fate is far more popular now than when it was first released.

And really, that’s not bad for a film that was made as the result of a bet.  Harold P. Warren was a fertilizer salesman and an amateur actor who made a bet with screenwriter Stirling Silliphant that he could make a horror film.  (Silliphant is best-known for his work on the screenplays for The Towering Inferno and The Poseidon Adventure.)  Warren wrote the plot outline for a Manos on a napkin in a coffee shop.  Back in El Paso, Warren wrote the script.  Warren put up the $19,000 budget and produced the film.   Warren directed the film.  Warren starred in the film and selected the rest of the cast from people who were involved in El Paso’s community theater.  Manos is totally the product of Harold P. Warren’s imagination.

The film, as I am sure everyone knows, opens with a 9-minute shot of Warren driving his family around.  Warren plays Michael.  Diane Mahree plays Michael’s wife, Margaret.  Jackey Neyman plays Debbie, who is Michael and Margaret’s daughter.  They’re on vacation in the desert and looking for a hotel.  Of course, Michael, being a man of that era, refuses to ask for directions.  When they finally stop at a house that Michael apparently believes is a motel, Torgo (John Reynolds) informs them that “the master is away.”  Depending on how good a print you’re watching, you may be able to see that Torgo has cloven hooves for feet.  For some reason, this doesn’t disturb Michael or his family.  He’s more irritated by how slowly Torgo moves.

The Master (Tom Neyman) is a sorcerer who spends most of his time sleeping in front of a fire with his wives.  The Master wears a goofy robe that is decorated with two red handprints.  The wives all wear translucent nightgowns and get into a dramatic catfight shortly after they wake up, making the film feel like a peak straight into Harold Warren’s fantasies.  For his part, The Master wants to sacrifice Michael to a demon named Manos (in other word, a deomn of hands) and he also wants to make Margaret and Debbie into his new brides.

It’s an odd film, one that feels as if it was largely made up while it was being filmed.  (A scene in which a cop pulls over  two teenagers is memorable only for the fact that the scene was obviously dubbed by only one actor reading from the script.)  The entire film is dubbed, leading to Debbie having a 40 year-old voice and Torgo speaking in a voice that’s as shaky as his movements.  It’s a film that’s full of padding and the driving scenes are both dull and yet full of a definite sense of ennui.  Manos has atmosphere but it ultimately feels like accidental atmosphere.

The performances are difficult to judge, largely because of the dubbing.  Harold Warren comes across like the ultimate no-nonsense, Silent Generation father.  You can just look at him and know that he thinks anti-war protestors should be charged with treason.  Diane Mahree, as Margaret, probably comes the closest to playing a believable human being but, in the end, most people just remember the performances of Tom Neyman and poor John Reynolds.

Tom Neyman goes through the film with a sour expression on his face, as if he can’t understand why he ever thought it would be a good idea to have 6 wives and to try to live with them all at the same time.  There’s nothing intimidating about Neyman but I imagine most real-life sorcerers would be in just as bad a mood as The Master appears to be.

Meanwhile, John Reynolds’s performance as Torgo can only be described as being bizarre but then again, Torgo is a pretty bizarre character.  Moving slowly and speaking with a permanently shaky voice, Reynolds gives a performance that is still remembered and beloved today.  Sadly, Reynolds committed suicide shortly after filming Manos, reportedly due to his addiction to drugs.  (In other words, he didn’t commit suicide because of Manos, regardless of what certain sites might insist.)  All these years later, John Reynolds has devoted fans.

So yeah, I guess Manos could be called a bad film but it’s also one of the most watchable bad films ever made.  Don’t forget to experience it this Halloween!

October True Crime: Ricky 6 (dir by Peter Filardi)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Filmed in 2000 but never given an official release (though it can now be found on YouTube), Ricky 6 takes place in the town of Harmony, New York in the mid-80s.  Harmony is an upper class community, a place where the houses are big, the yards are pristine, and every father expects his son to try out for the high school football team.  It’s a place that celebrates winners and exiles losers to the nearby woods.  It’s the sort of town that seems like it exists primarily to give teenagers something to rebel against.

Tommy Pottelance (Chad Christ) and Ricky Cowen (Vincent Kartheiser) are two of those rebels.  They both have long hair.  They both listen to music that is designed to terrify their conservative parents.  They both smoke a lot of weed and spend a lot of time obsessing on how alienated they feel from everyone else around them.  Tommy and Ricky are best friends, bonded by their mutual feelings of isolation.  They often talk about running off to California together and they’re not above committing a few minor crimes in order to do it.

Bullied by his father and laughed at by the local drug dealers, Ricky spends his time hiding out at the library and reading books on demons and magic.  He meets Pat Pagan (Kevin Gage), a self-styled Satanist who appears to live in the woods and who, despite being middle-aged, spends all of his time hanging out with teenagers.  Ricky starts to describe himself as being a Satanist, begging his friends to announce that they love Satan as a part of a ritual that he wants to perform.  Most of his friends humor him, not knowing that Ricky hears voice and has frequent hallucinations.  (The fact that his dealer keeps selling him dusted joints definitely doesn’t help as far as that’s concerned.)  Ricky starts out the film as somewhat passive and very much in Tommy’s shadow but, as his interest in Satanism grows, so does Ricky’s confidence and, soon, Ricky is the one giving orders.  Ricky goes from looking up to Tommy to being the one who issues the commands.  When Ricky becomes convinced that one of his friends stole some drugs from him, he decides to get a very violent and bloody revenge….

Ricky 6 is based on a true story, one that was examined in a documentary that Jeff reviewed earlier this year, The Acid King.  Because the film has never been given an official theatrical release and has mostly been distributed through bootleg tapes and DVDs, Ricky 6 has developed a reputation for being a bit more extreme than it actually is.  Yes, the murder scene is brutal and yes, the permanently stoned and occult-obsessed Ricky does have some memorably surreal hallucinations.  For the most part, though, Ricky 6 is more a study of Ricky and Tommy’s friendship than a straight horror and/or true crime film.  Ricky and Tommy are both angry at a world that doesn’t seem to understand them, with the main difference being that Tommy rejects the world while Ricky tries to bring some sense of order and meaning to his chaotic existence by worshipping Satan.  When Tommy angrily tells Ricky that there is no God and no Satan, Ricky rather innocently asks, “How could you want to live in a world without magic?”  Of course, for Ricky, part of the magic means dragging his friends into helping him commit a murder.

Ricky 6 is a well-acted film, especially by Vincent Kartheiser, Kevin Gage, and, in the role of Tommy’s girlfriend, Emmanuelle Chriqui.  Kartheiser plays Ricky as being someone who is so lost in his own head that he’s lost the ability to understand the enormity of his actions.  And yet, it’s hard not to have some sympathy for Ricky because one look at his homelife and his overbearing father reveals that he probably never had much of a chance.  There are a few scenes where Kartheiser flashes an appealingly vulnerable smile and, for a minute or two, it’s easy to forget that he is also a ruthless killer.

With a two-hour running time, Ricky 6 is a bit too long for its own good and the use of Tommy as the story’s narrator means that the film often tells us about things that it should be showing us.  It’s an imperfect film but, due to the strength of the cast and the way the film captures the atmosphere of suburban ennui, it’s not a bad one.

Horror Film Review: The Killer Is Still Among Us (dir by Camillo Teti)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

The 1986 Italian film, The Killer Is Still Among Us, is based on the crimes of the Monster of Florence, the serial killer who is Italy’s version of the Zodiac Killer.

The film opens with two young lovers being brutally killed by an unseen killer.  The killer shoots both the man and the woman multiple time and then drags the woman out of the car, with the film suggesting that he’s going to further abuse the dead woman with both a knife and a tree branch.  It’s a graphic scene and the first of three murders, each one of which is more explicit than the previous one.

Christiana Marelli (Mariangela D’Abbraccio) is young criminology student who has written her thesis on the Monster of Florence.  Her theory is that the murderer is either a doctor or a butcher, someone who is good with a knife.  (“Perhaps he is a boy scout,” her professor says, “they are good with knives as well.”)  For some reason, Christiana’s thesis scandalizes both her professor and the police, even though there’s nothing particularly shocking about her conclusion.  Her basic argument is that a killer who mutilates his victims with a knife might work in a profession where he regularly handles sharp instruments.  Wow, that’s really thinking outside the box.

Anyway, Christiana continues to investigate the crimes, to the point of becoming obsessed with them.  At an autopsy, she meets a medical intern named Alex (Giovanni Visentin) and soon, she and Alex are a couple.  However, Christiana cannot fail to notice that Alex doesn’t even seem to be that interested in talking about the murders and that Alex always seems to be out of the apartment whenever the murders occur.  Is Alex the murderer or is Christiana’s paranoia getting the better of her?

There’s one interesting and genuinely frightening scene in The Killer Is Still Among Us, in which Christiana goes to a séance.  The idea is to contact the spirit of the Monster’s last victim but instead, Christiana and everyone else at the séance has a violent vision of the Monster’s latest murder, with the medium even getting wounds on his body corresponding to the wounds suffered by the Monster’s victims.  When Christiana hears that they’ve just seen a murder that’s currently happenings, she runs from the room to find Alex.  It’s an effectively shot and performed scene but it’s the exception to the majority of this slow-moving film.

The main problem with this film is that Christiana often behaves in a way that only makes sense if you accept that she’s a total idiot.  One night, while she’s at the police station, she spots a gynecologist named Doctor Franco M. Benincasa (Luigi Mezzanotte) being brought in after being arrested for being a peeping tom.  One of the cops mentions that they arrest the doctor nearly every night.  (And yet he still has his medical license?)  Christiana and the doctor both stare straight at each other.  Christiana decides that the doctor is an obvious suspect so what does she do?  She makes an appointment to see him on the following day.  Christiana goes to his office and pretends to be a patient but Dr. Benincasa looked straight at her the night before so how does Christiana, who makes no attempt to disguise her appearance, think that she’s going to get away with pretending not to know who he is?  Needless to say, the doctor recognizes Christiana as soon as he sees her and Christiana has to flee from the office.

(Christiana did bring her friend, Chiara, played by Yvonne D’Abbraccio, with her but Chiara promptly abandons Christiana at the office of a potential murderer because Chiata’s suffering from cramps.  To be honest, I would probably do the same.)

The Killer Is Still Among Us ends without resolution, just a title card informing us that this movie was made as a warning to young people about the Monster of Florence.  Whatever.

4 Shots From 4 Films: Special Jess Franco Edition

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

4 Shots From 4 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 is all about letting the visuals do the talking.

This October, I am going to be using our 4 Shots From 4 Films feature to pay tribute to some of my favorite horror directors, in alphabetical order!  That’s right, we’re going from Argento to Zombie in one month!

Today’s filmmaker: the legendarily prolific Jess Franco!

4 Shots From 4 Films

The Awful Dr. Orloff (1962, dir by Jess Franco, DP: Godofredo Pacheco)

She Killed In Ecstasy (1970, dir by Jess Franco, DP: Manuel Merino)

Vampyros Lesbos (1970, dir by Jess Franco, DP: Manuel Merino)

A Virgin Among The Living Dead (1973, dir by Jess Franco)

The Gift, Dir. Brian E-RAD Simmons, Review by Case Wright

Posted on by casewright

This is the Horrorthon short that I am used to seeing: a true James Nguyen level of garbage. There was nothing on IMDB to give me a title card; so, I went with this cute Crab-Dog. One note about this film is the outrageous number of easter eggs referring to people no one has ever heard of. It’s like giving yourself a nickname. I don’t understand. It’s also just a terrible short and what makes it worse is that it purports to be a comedy- WHY?

There’s a woman who gets home from a bad date and the date is presumably stalking her or might be Michael Myers from the Halloween films- I really can’t tell. I hope John Carpenter does a Cease and Desist order. She tries to block the creep and he shows up at her house and stabs her- laugh riot…it’s like some people want me to feel pain. Maybe I deserve the pain? Maybe they know that if they make this horribleness that I’ll have to watch it and reflect upon my failed existence?

If you want to punish yourself and the pain of 7 minutes feeling like 7000, this is for you! Maybe Pinhead made this film and I’m in a Hell Dimension in the Houston Suburbs?

This is the 7 minutes and change of my discontent.

Horror on the Lens: The Little Shop of Horrors (dir by Roger Corman)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

(It’s tradition here at the Lens that, every October, we watch the original Little Shop of Horrors.  And always, I start things off by telling this story…)

Enter singing.

Little Shop…Little Shop of Horrors…Little Shop…Little Shop of Terrors…

Hi!  Good morning and Happy October 24th!  For today’s plunge into the world of public domain horror films, I’d like to present you with a true classic.  From 1960, it’s the original Little Shop of Horrors!

When I was 19 years old, I was in a community theater production of the musical Little Shop of Horrors.  Though I think I would have made the perfect Audrey, everybody always snickered whenever I sang so I ended up as a part of “the ensemble.”  Being in the ensemble basically meant that I spent a lot of time dancing and showing off lots of cleavage.  And you know what?  The girl who did play Audrey was screechy, off-key, and annoying and after every show, all the old people in the audience always came back stage and ignored her and went straight over to me.  So there.

Anyway, during rehearsals, our director thought it would be so funny if we all watched the original film.  Now, I’m sorry to say, much like just about everyone else in the cast, this was my first exposure to the original and I even had to be told that the masochistic dentist patient was being played by Jack Nicholson.  However, I’m also very proud to say that — out of that entire cast — I’m the only one who understood that the zero-budget film I was watching was actually better than the big spectacle we were attempting to perform on stage.  Certainly, I understood the film better than that screechy little thing that was playing Audrey.

The first Little Shop of Horrors certainly isn’t scary and there’s nobody singing about somewhere that’s green (I always tear up when I hear that song, by the way).  However, it is a very, very funny film with the just the right amount of a dark streak to make it perfect Halloween viewing.

So, if you have 72 minutes to kill, check out the original and the best Little Shop of Horrors…

Music Video of the Day: Braineaters by The Misfits (1983, directed by ????)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

It’s just a normal night as Danzig’s house in the video for Braineaters.  Everyone comes for dinner and the chef comes out with a pot full of brains.  If nothing else, this video is about as literal an adaptation of a song’s title as you are ever likely to see.

Enjoy!