October Positivity: The Apocalypse (dir by Justin Jones)

Posted on October 3, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

First released in 2007 and produced by The Asylum, The Apocalypse opens in much the same way as many Asylum films. An asteroid is hurtling towards the Earth. It crashes into our planet without warning, destroying the town of Monterey. (“And nothing of value was lost!” says the old timey Borscht Belt comedian.) Then more asteroids strike the planet, causing mass panic. The power goes out. People desperately try to reach their loved ones.

And then a tornado hits out of nowhere.

And then the state of California is suddenly hit by torrential rainfall.

And then….

Well, you get it. Things are not going well in California or in the rest of the world. As I said at the start of this review, the Earth being bombarded with asteroids is a pretty common theme when it comes to the Asylum. Indeed, anyone who has watched more than a handful of Asylum films is probably already picturing the stock footage of the asteroid hurtling through space with Earth in the distance. I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve seen that rock start to burst into flames as it enters the atmosphere.

What sets The Apocalypse apart from other Asylum asteroid films is that, after the first asteroid hits, people start to vanish. They’re not crushed underneath an asteroid, or at least they aren’t as far as we can tell. Instead, they just seem to vanish into thin air, as if they’ve been taken to another place. Those who do not vanish can only stand around and wonder why they didn’t go to church more often….

“I’ve been left behind,” one character says and yes, this is indeed a mockbuster version of the Left Behind films. I guess it makes sense. The Asylum has produced mockbuster versions of every other genre out there. Why shouldn’t they also try to cash in on the end times. Really, one has to respect the fact that the Asylum managed to make its own Left Behind film without abandoning the idea of the world being bombarded by asteroids.

(And, if we’re going to be honest, the idea of God using asteroids to destroy humanity actually makes a lot more sense than the usual story that these films tend to tell. I mean, asteroids have to be good for something, right?)

The Apocalypse follows Jason (Rhett Giles) and Ashley (Jill Stapley), a divorced couple who are trying to make their way through the state of California so that they can see their daughter Lindsay (Kristen Quintrall) before the world ends. Along the way, Jason and Ashley discuss their own failed marriage and their guilt over the death of their son. Though Jason and Ashley do have to deal with some unexpected weather and asteroid events, the film itself is surprisingly somber for an Asylum film. There’s far less self-referential humor than in the usual Asylum film. The pace is deliberate, thoughtful, and, to be honest, a bit too reverential for its own good. The world ends but it ends very slowly. This is probably the talkiest film that the Asylum has ever produced.

That said, the film does create a believable portrait of the type of desperation that would accompany the end of the world, with the various characters all attempting to find some sort of peace before everything ends. The special effects may be a bit cheap but the images of deserted streets and desolate countryside are far more effective than what one might expect from an Asylum film. This is a case where the mockbuster, flaws and all, is still superior to the original.

Late Night Retro Television Review: Highway to Heaven 2.19 “Heaven on Earth”

Posted on October 3, 2024 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 Thursdays, I will be reviewing Highway to Heaven, which aired on NBC from 1984 to 1989. The entire show is currently streaming on Freevee and several other services!

This week, things get a little bit sad on the highway to Heaven.

Episode 2.19 “Heaven on Earth”

(Dir by Michael Landon, originally aired on February 26th, 1986)

Now, this episode made me cry!

While visiting an amusement park on their day off, Jonathan and Mark come across a lost six year-old girl named Sarah (Morgan Nagler). Jonathan offers to take Sarah to the park’s security office but Sarah says that she’s not allowed to go anywhere with a stranger. After explaining that he’s a former cop and knows how to deal with lost children, Mark asks Sarah for the name of her mother. After learning that Sarah’s mother is named Nancy, Mark goes to the security office and has them page her. Soon, Sarah and Nancy are reunited. Yay!

Later, as they drive through the desert, Mark and Jonathan are nearly run off the road by a drunk driver. A few moments later, they come across an auto accident. The owner of a jeep swerved to avoid the drunk and instead crashed into a station wagon. Jonathan suddenly tells Mark that they should leave but Mark walks up to the overturned car and discovers that it was being driven by Nancy. Nancy survived the accident but Sarah did not.

Broken-hearted, Mark blames himself. He tells Jonathan that, if he hadn’t been so eager to show off, Sarah and Nancy wouldn’t have left the park when they did and they wouldn’t have been in the car accident. Mark pulls the car over to the side of the road and tells Jonathan to get out. Jonathan reluctantly does so and Mark drives off.

Mark drives until the car runs out of a gas on the outskirts of a small town. The proprietor of a local store tells Mark that the town’s pretty much been dead since the new turnpike was built. There are two gas stations but they’re both closed on Wednesday because the owners like to go fishing together. Reluctantly, Mark goes to the local boarding house and asks for a room for the night.

Mark is shown his room by a helpful girl named Wendy (Alyson Croft). Inside his room, Mark spots a picture of Wendy with Sarah and realizes that Jonathan led him to the boarding house. Later, at dinner, Mark meets Wendy’s father, a divinity student named Tom Ward (Michael Anderson, Jr.) When Wendy goes to call her friend Sarah to find out how the amusement park was, Mark can only sit in silence as Wendy tells her father that Sarah’s family wants to speak to him. Without telling Wendy why, Tom says that he has to go to Sarah’s house. He tells Wendy to get to bed early and then he leaves with his wife and their infant son.

Mark goes back to his room. Wendy pops in and to give him a heater because the furnace is broken. Unfortunately, the heater is also broken and makes an annoying clicking sound. Mark angrily kicks it over before going for a walk.

While standing outside of a church, Mark hears the sirens of fire engines. The Ward house is on fire! The firemen manage to get out Wendy’s grandmother but they say there’s no way to rescue anyone else. Mark rushes into the house, determined to save Wendy. And …. he promptly faints.

When he awakens, he’s with Jonathan. Jonathan says that “the boss” has decided to give Mark the chance to play God. Mark says that he wants everything he wishes to be true and that he wants all of his mistakes to be corrected as if they never happened.

As a result, the town is suddenly thriving but the proprietor of the now 24-hour gas station is dead as a result of having worked himself to death. Wendy is alive but, because Mark wished for her to have everything she ever wanted, she’s now a spoiled brat. And Sarah….

When Mark demands to see Sarah, Jonathan takes him to the cemetery and shows him that Sarah is still dead. Jonathan explains that Sarah’s death was not his fault. It was the fault of the drunk driver and there was nothing Mark could have done to save her.

Mark awakens in the burning house. Not only does he manage to save Wendy’s life but, once he’s released from the hospital’s burn unit, he and Jonathan once again hit the highway….

This was a good episode, though I have to say that the Wards were a lot more forgiving about Mark burning down their house than I would have been. This episode worked largely due to Victor French’s heartfelt performance as Mark. Watching him, it was impossible not to feel his pain. In the end, the message was a good one, though I do think it would have been nice to see the drunk driver punished for his actions.

Horror On TV: One Step Beyond 1.3 “Emergency Only” (dir by John Newland)

Posted on October 3, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Tonight’s episode of One Step Beyond features Jocelyn Brando (sister of Marlon) as a purported psychic who warns a skeptical man that he will soon be traveling by train, that he will meet a woman with an usual, snake-design ring, and that she will end up chasing him with a knife.

The man laughs her off. Why, he never travels by train! Sure, he has a trip coming up but he’s already paid for his plane tickets. This just proves what the man has always suspected, that psychic’s are all phony! But then he gets a message that his flight has been cancelled and he’s going to have to travel to his destination by …. TRAIN!

CAN YOU PROVE IT DIDN’T HAPPEN!?

This episode originally aired on February 3rd, 1959.

Horror Film Review: The Hunger (dir. by Tony Scott)

Posted on October 3, 2024 by Leonard Wilson

Whoa! Hold your horses! This isn’t the only review for The Hunger. Take a look at Lisa’s Review and if you’re so inclined, feel free to double back here.

It seems fitting that we start our descent towards Halloween with Tony Scott’s first feature film, The Hunger. As a fan of Vampires in general, it may not be a great film, but I feel like it does have a place in history where creatures of the night are concerned.

When I think of Whitley Streiber, Wolfen comes to mind and anyone who knows me also knows how much I adore that film. I don’t usually associate him with Vampires, but 1983’s The Hunger is pretty interesting. To me, there’s a nice beauty and mystery to the film as the undead involved could just be regular people asking the same questions about mortality we do, all to some beautiful movie throughout. They are practical vampires. There’s no real explanation as to how John and Miriam move about through the day. Rather than biting, they use small knives to acquire blood. The powers they wield are subtle, putting the story on par with Kathryn Bigelow’s Near Dark when it comes to avoiding vampire cliches. Additionally, this film also never mentions the word ‘vampire’.

Miriam (Catherine Deneuve, Belle de Jour) and John Baylock (David Bowie, Labyrinth) are vampires living in present day Manhattan. Enjoying their existence as any member of the undead would, they spend their nights mingling among the living and discarding bodies by dawn. What seems like a great unlife takes a turn when John finds himself unable to sleep. This restlessness escalates as he finds he’s losing his hair and gaining more wrinkles. The pair stumble on the Park West Sleep Clinic, and Dr. Sarah Roberts’ (Susan Sarandon, Blue Beetle) studies on sleep and aging. For me, one of the best scenes of the film was a parallel between John’s rapid aging while waiting in the Clinic alongside a lab monkey that is also suffering a similar issue. Sarah doesn’t really get to check in on John (who ages a quick 15 years during the wait), but their meeting does eventually introduce her to Miriam.

Miriam eventually loses John after he falls into a near mummified state. Although he becomes incredibly old, he’s still far from death’s touch. I love her explanation for him: “Humankind die one way, we another. Their end is final. Ours is not. In the earth, in the rotting wood, in the eternal darkness, we will see and hear and feel.” We also learn that this has happened with all of Miriam’s former lovers over the ages. Miriam then turns her sights on Sarah, which blossoms into a mix of a romance at first. Trivia fans will recognize the piano piece Miriam plays for Sarah (Lakme by Delibes), which Scott reused for True Romance. That was a nice touch. Needing a new partner, Miriam’s approaches become more predatory after Miriam’s true nature is revealed.

The cast in The Hunger all do well, but let’s face it, the real draw here was always Bowie (at least for me, anyway). It’s a shame his character doesn’t stay on screen for long, but he makes good use of the scenes he has and he’s there for at least half the movie. The film essentially belongs to Deneuve, who brings some charisma to Miriam’s character. Whether she’s being playfully flirtatious or deadly serious, she seems to be in control. I don’t have anything particular against Susan Sarandon as an actress. She’s quite good in this, but part me kind of imagined Lesley Ann Warren (Clue) doing all this a bit better.

Tony’s directing style is beautiful but slightly disjointed, with flashbacks giving an idea to Miriam’s past. On the one hand, they aren’t enough to be too revealing, but they’re also accompanied with some strange sound zingers that could be a bit off-putting. He moves quickly between scenes, but the general ideas of immortality and her longevity are suggested. Cinematographer Stephen Goldblatt (Outland) would go on to work on the Lethal Weapon films and Schumacher’s Batman films. There are some good uses of shadow and light here.

The music a mix of classical pieces, mixed with what sounds like either wind chimes and synth keyboards. The classical music stands out. The score, not so much. It’s not a terrible thing by any means, but it’s a strange selection of sounds. Other than the music, I was bothered by the film’s ending. What occurs seems like it could have happened at any time, and why it does is never explained in any way. I guess it worked. By the end, though, I felt like I watched something where the first 3 acts were fully thought out and the production team threw a dart at a board full of possible endings.

Overall, The Hunger is a interesting film to watch if you catch it late at night. Every director has to start somewhere, and while it’s a little sketchy in the end, there’s some style and grace to it all.

October Hacks: Behave (dir by Francesco Gabriele)

Posted on October 3, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

There’s been a murder.

A young woman has been murdered and her friends, who are all kind of in mourning but not really, have retreated to a villa near London. The villa is owned by one of their mothers, who is very Italian. She is also very protective of her son and hopeful that she can teach him and his friend some proper etiquette lessons. To accomplish this, she has invited a TikTok etiquette expert to come lecture the group. (The expert turns out to be an alcoholic.)

Needless to say, the majority of the group is not interested in learning about etiquette. They want to drink. They want to party. Some of them want to have sex. Lily (Eleanora Bindi) is interested in the villa’s reputation for being haunted and she especially has an eye for Charles (Christian Vit), the enigmatic and taciturn groundskeeper. Mostly, everyone just wants to have a wild weekend …. including the stranger in the mask who not only killed their friend but who has apparently followed them to the villa!

Released this year, Behave is one of the most mind-numbingly boring films that I’ve ever seen. For a slasher film that doesn’t even run for longer than 80 minute, it’s an amazingly talky film. Being talky is not necessarily a bad thing for a horror film, as long as the characters are interesting and the dialogue is witty. It also helps if the cast is talented enough to hold your interest even when they’re just sitting around and shooting the breeze. Unfortunately, Behave doesn’t have any of that. The characters are all so thinly drawn and their conversations are so entirely devoid of wit that listening to them try to communicate is the equivalent of torture. One gets the feeling that this movie could be used to force people to confess to committing crimes that they didn’t actually commit because it would be preferable to go to prison than to listen to another line of the film’s dialogue.

What’s behind the talkiness that seems to have infected so many recent low-budget horror films? Personally, I blame the drawn-out television shows and miniseries that dominate the streaming era. People have become so used to shows that are full of filler and which take forever to actually go anywhere that the pleasure of a well-paced story is in danger of becoming a distant memory. When even a 79-minute film like this one features scenes of people talking about things that have nothing to do with the overall plot, it’s obvious that there’s a problem.

The killer shows up throughout the film, though mostly mostly just so it can stand outside of a window and look …. well, not really menacing. We don’t actually see the killer in action until about 65 minutes into the film. For a slasher film, that’s way too long to wait. If the filmmakers wanted to make an indie comedy-drama about a bunch of friends spending the weekend at a villa, that’s what they should have done. If you’re going to make a horror movie, you have an obligation to work in some scares before your movie is nearly over.

Anyway, boring film.

The TSL Horror Grindhouse: Boogeyman II (dir by Ulli Lommel)

Posted on October 3, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Filmed in 1982 but not released until 1984, Boogeyman II is — as the name implies — the sequel to 1980’s The Boogeyman.

What’s that, you say? You don’t remember anything about The Boogeyman and you don’t want to take the time to read my review of it? Well, don’t worry. It’s not necessary to have seen the original Boogeyman to follow the sequel, largely because the sequel is full of flashbacks to the first film. Boogeyman II is only 79 minutes long and 30 minutes of that running time is taken up with footage from the first Boogeyman. Indeed, if you want to see the good parts of Boogeyman without having to deal with any of the filler, I would recommend just watching the first 30 minutes of Boogeyman II.

There is a plot to Boogeyman II, kind of. Having survived the massacre of her family at the farm, the now-divorced Lacey (played by Suzanna Love, the then-wife of director Ulli Lommel) goes out to California to visit her friends, actress Bonnie (Shannah Hall) and her husband, director Mickey (Lommel). How is it that Lacey, who was portrayed as being a simple and not particularly worldly farm wife in the first film, happens to be friends with a wealthy actress and director? It’s never really explained.

Bonnie and Mickey ask Lacey whether or not the people who killed her family were ever caught. Lacey replies that they can’t be caught because they’re spirits. Over dinner, Lacey tells Bonnie and Mickey the story of the shattered mirror and the killer whose spirit was trapped in the broken glass. Bonnie and Mickey listen sympathetically, though they both think that Lacey’s crazy. (Perhaps they noticed that Lacey’s flashbacks include scenes in which she wasn’t even present. Or maybe they’re wondering why Lacey would take the time to apparently describe a lengthy, bondage-themed nightmare that she had during the first film. Or maybe they’re just amazed by the presence of John Carradine in the flashbacks.) Bonnie and Mickey also think that Lacey’s story would make a great movie!

For some reason, Lacey is still carrying around a piece of the haunted mirror. This is the mirror that contains the spirit that possessed her during the first film and which killed the majority of her family. I would throw that piece of the mirror away but I guess Lacey’s more sentimental than I am. A creepy butler named Joseph (Sholto von Douglas, a rather stiff actor who still had a fascinatingly menacing screen presence) steals the piece of the mirror and soon, Hollywood phonies are dying.

Boogeyman II was directed by the late Ulli Lommel, a German director who got his start as an associate of Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s and who eventually came to America, where he hung out with Andy Warhol, directed some documentaries about the American punk scene, and married heiress Suzanna Love. Love bankrolled Lommel’s early films, including The Boogeyman. With Lommel, it was always a challenge to figure out how seriously he took any of his films. In interviews, he would joke about being an exploitation filmmaker while, at the same time, claiming that his films were designed to expose the hypocrisy of American society. Boogeyman II is full of phony Hollywood types and there’s a scene where Mickey comments that, in America, “exploitation is a genre.” It’s probably not a coincidence that it’s the servant, Joseph, who uses the mirror to take out the film’s wealthy victims. The opening credits of Boogeyman II appear to literally be written in magic marker. Is Lommel mocking expensive Hollywood productions or could Lommel only afford a box of magic markers? I suppose both could be true.

The best parts of Boogeyman II are the flashback to the first film, which was a genuinely atmospheric horror film with some serious pacing issues. The rest of Boogeyman II is dull, though you do have to appreciate the sense of ennui that Lommel brings to the proceedings. Was the ennui intentional? That’s the mystery of Ulli Lommel.

As for Lommel, he and Love eventually divorced and Lommel ended his career making trashy true crime films that went direct-to-video. As usual, Lommel claimed that his crime films were meant to be a serious critique of everything that was wrong with America. Lommel’s true crime films have none of the atmosphere or occasional flashes of wit that distinguished Lommel’s earlier films. Was Lommel an incompetent director or was he a subversive artist? Again, both could be true. Lommel died in 2017, bringing to close an enigmatic career.

The Strange Case Of The End Of Civilization As We Know It (1977, directed by Joseph McGrath)

Posted on October 3, 2024 by Jedadiah Leland

It should have been so much funnier.

After someone is obviously meant to be Henry Kissinger (played by Ron Moody) is assassinated when he loses his diary and extends the wrong greeting to a welcoming party in the Middle East, someone claiming to be a direct descendant of the infamous Prof. Moriarty sends a letter to the U.S. President (Joss Ackland) taking responsibility and claiming that it’s the first step in a plan to control the world.

Who better to stop the descendant of Moriarty than the descendant of Moriarty’s greatest enemy? Arthur Sherlock Holmes (John Cleese) operates out of Baker Street with Dr. Watson (Arthur Lowe), who is bionic, and their housekeeper, Miss Hudson (Connie Booth). Holmes solution to bringing out Moriarty is to host a gathering of the world’s greatest detectives and to dare Moriarty to try to take them out with one fell swoop. Soon, everyone from Sam Spade to Columbo to McCloud is showing up at Baker Street.

This is a joke-a-minute comedy. The jokes that work are funny but, unfortunately, there aren’t many of them. Some bits, like Joss Ackland’s impersonation of Gerald Ford, start off well and then go on for too long. Other bits, like the famous TV detectives showing up at Baker Street, have potential but fail due to poor execution. Unfortunately, much of the humor is just not that clever to begin with, which is not something that anyone would expect from a script co-written by John Cleese. As an actor, John Cleese is funny but underused, playing Sherlock Holmes as being an even denser version of Basil Fawlty. Arthur Lowe’s comedic befuddlement is consistently amusing but I wish the script has done more with the idea of him being bionic. Connie Booth is both funny and sexy and the best reason to watch this misfire.

A Blast From the Past: Saved By The Belding (dir by Matt Hamilton and Scott Hamilton)

Posted on October 3, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Do you all remember that time that Rod Belding came to Bayside High School as a substitute?

At first, the students were surprised. Rod was the younger brother of their stuffy principal, Richard Belding. Richard was going bald. Rod had long blonde hair. Richard was boring. Rod was exciting. Richard was by-the-book. Rod took chances. Richard wanted to go on a boring class trip. Rod wanted to take the students white water rafting! When Richard called Rod out for the way he was running his class, student Zack Morris accused Richard of just being jealous of his brother. You would think this would get Zack suspended but instead, the studio audience just said, “Awwww!”

But then, the night before the students were due to leave for their rafting trip, Rod told Richard that he had met a flight attendant and he was abandoning the students.

“Cover for me,” Rod said.

“I’m tired of covering for you, Rod. Get out of my school!” Richard snapped.

That said, Richard did cover for his brother. He said Rod had the flu and then he volunteered to take the students on their rafting trip. Kelly Kapowski was so thrilled that she kissed Richard on the cheek, which one would expect to lead to Mr. Belding losing his job once word got out that he had physical contact with a student. Instead, the audience applauded.

Zack asked Richard why didn’t tell the truth about Rod. It turned out Zack had overheard the whole conversation. Richard admitted that the students at Bayside got the less exciting Belding.

“We got the better Belding,” Zack replied as the audience awwed and applauded once again.

The audience was there because this was all an episode of Saved By The Bell. In fact, “The Fabolous Belding Boys” was perhaps the best episode of Saved by the Bell, featuring excellent performances from both Dennis Haskins and Edward Blatchford.

The 2010 short film, Saved By The Belding, tells the story of a group of men who don’t understand that Saved By The Bell was just a television show and that Dennis Haskins and Edward Blatchford were just actors. Hoping to help them regain some sense of reality, their psychiatrist takes them to the Hollywood home of Ed Blatchford. Ed is excited to talk to his fans, asking them if they know him from his work in Last of the Mohicans. The men, however, want to know is he really had the flu or if Richard was just covering for him. Ed, realizing that the men don’t understand that he’s not actually Rod Belding, invites them to join him for dinner at a nice restaurant. However, as Ed is heading to the restaurant, he runs into an old acquaintance — a flight attendant — who invites him to come have dinner with her.

Will Ed abandon his new friends? And will Dennis Haskins once again have to come to the rescue?

Saved By The Belding is a sweet little film, one that views the cultural obsession with Saved By The Bell with both affection and wit. (That said, the cultural obsessions does seem to be waning a bit. For the first time in a long time, it’s next to impossible to find the show streaming online.) Both Dennis Haskin and especially Ed Blatchford deserve a lot of credit for being good sports and appearing as versions of themselves. Ed’s shock when Dennis appeared out of nowhere made me laugh out loud.

Check it out below and ask yourself who got the better Belding.

Retro Television Review: Malibu, CA 1.12 “The Big Storm”

Posted on October 3, 2024 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 Thursdays, I will be reviewing Malibu CA, which aired in Syndication in 1998 and 1999. The entire show is currently streaming on YouTube!

This week, a mudslide changes everything …. kind of.

Episode 1.12 “The Big Storm”

(Dir by Gary Shimokawa, originally aired on January 10th, 1999)

Stads and Jason are coming up on their big, six-month anniversary! Stads wants to celebrate at a volleyball tournament. Jason wants to celebrate at the “Puff Daddy” concert. You can really tell how old this show is by the fact that 1) they’re still calling him “Puff Daddy” and 2) they’re taking seriously the idea of wanting to see him in concert.

With Stads annoyed that Jason never seems to want to do anything that she wants to do, Jason turns to Sam for advice. Sam says that Jason should drive into Beverly Hills and buy a necklace that Stads wants. Sam even accompanies Jason on the drive. Awww! What a good freind.

But then — oh no! — a storm hits. Jason and Sam end up getting trapped in their car by a mudslide. Trapped together, Jason and Sam share a kiss. Its a big moment that would have been bigger if it made any sense. Seriously, until that moment, Sam had never shown any interest in Jason whatsoever. But now, suddenly, they’re kissing and preparing to die together. I understand that it’s probably mudslide panic but still, it just feels as if it comes out of nowhere.

Fortunately, Jason and Sam are rescued by the lifeguards (including Stads). Jason and Sam agree not to tell Stads about the kiss. Jason also gives Stads the necklace (Awwww! It’s a nice necklace!) and then suggests that, instead of seeing Puff Daddy, they just have a romantic dinner. Stads agrees.

Unfortunately, at dinner, Stads says that she knows what happened in the car. Jason says the kiss didn’t mean anything, just to discover that Stads was just referring to Jason and Sam talking in general. Stads gives Jason back his necklace and then dumps him. Good for Stads, she deserves better!

This is one of those storylines that would have worked better if I actually cared about any of the characters on the show but, for the most part, everyone is so shallow that it’s hard to really get worked up when they get trapped in a mudslide. As well, it would have helped if Sam had ever previously shown any interest in Jason. As well, while Jason did have a crush on Sam when the show began, that didn’t seem to last long. Two people who produce absolutely no romantic sparks shared a kiss. It didn’t really do much for me.

As often happens with this show, the B-plots were better than the main plot, largely because Brandon Brooks and Priscilla Inga Taylor were both willing to full embrace the absurdity of their characters. After Peter told Murray to stop talking so much, Murray resorted to typing his words out on his laptop and having a computerized voice repeat them. That made me laugh. Meanwhile, Tracy — who is now dating Kip, the dumb lifeguard from the previous episode — explored her artistic side by getting a camera and taking pictures of a shirtless Scott wearing an Abraham Lincoln beard. It was weird enough to be funny.

Anyway, Stads has escaped Jason …. for now. Run, Stads, run!

Scenes That I Love: Lou Ferrigno Battles A Bear in Luigi Cozzi’s Hercules

Posted on October 3, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Today’s scene that I love comes from Luigi Cozzi’s 1983 epic, Hercules!

In this scene, Hercules (Lou Ferrigno, making up for his lack of range with nonstop and likable sincerity) shows us the proper way to deal with a rampaging bear. There have been a lot of film versions of Hercules, some good and some bad. But none were quite as cheerfully weird as the Hercules that was given to us by Lou Ferrigno and Luigi Cozzi.