Welcome to Late Night Retro Television Reviews, a new feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Fridays, I will be reviewing Friday the 13th, a show which ran in syndication from 1987 to 1990. The show can be found on YouTube!
This week, a pair of tattoo needles cause trouble!
Episode 1.16 “Tattoo”
(Dir by Lyndon Chubbuck, originally aired on March 7th, 1988)
Tommy Chen (Leonard Chow) is a first generation Chinese-American who has a gambling problem. He owes several thousand dollars to the local gangsters and his grandfather, Lum Chen (Keye Luke), is no longer willing to help cover his costs.
However, Tommy thinks that he’s found the perfect solution for his problems. He has two cursed tattoo needles. All he has to do is tattoo something on someone’s body. That tattoo will come to life and, as long as the tattooed person dies, Tommy will win whatever game that he’s playing. With a gangster demanding that he pay his debts by the end of the night, Tommy is going from gambling den to gambling den, drawing tattoos and making money. Unfortunately, he owes so much that almost every dollar that he makes is taken away from him as soon as he receives it.
And, of course, he also has Ryan, Micki, and Jack trying to track him down as well.
I had mixed feelings about this episode. On the one hand, the tattoo needles are a totally impractical weapon because Tommy, who is a little bit on the small side, has to find a way to get his victims to lie still and not resist while he tattoos him. His first victim is a half-conscious woman at an Opium den and that’s at least believable. But, by the time Tommy is tattooing a gangster, you have to wonder if there isn’t a more practical way for him to make money.
On the other hand, the sight of the tattoos coming to life and crawling (or slithering) up their victims is definitely a frightening one. One tattoo turns into a giant spider. Another turns into a coral snake. One tattoo turns into a fist that bursts out of someone’s chest. (That made me jump.) The needles may be impractical but if you have a thing about spiders and snakes (as I do), it really won’t matter. They’re too frightening for the viewer to spend too much time worrying about the logic of how they actually work.
Fortunately, Ryan and Jack are able to recover the needles and use them to kill the latest tattoo before it can claim a victim. Unfortunately for Tommy, he’s playing Russian roulette at the time. Even more unfortunately for Micki, she’s standing close enough to get splattered by blood when Tommy’s gun turns out to have a bullet in the chamber. I have to admit that I’ve never gotten the appeal of Russian roulette. I’ve always assumed it must be a guy thing. Myself, I see the gun being traded back and forth and I say, “Yikes!”
Next week, a cursed electric chair falls into the hands of a dentist …. AGCK!
Through the Shattered Lens 