October Positivity: One Nation Under God (dir by Lisa Arnold)

Posted on October 15, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

In 2o2o’s One Nation Under God, David Gutierrez (Isaak Presley) is a new student at an exclusive private school. (He was selected via a lottery of intelligent but economically disadvantaged kids.) On the first day of school, David makes a point of saying “One nation under God,” while reciting the Pledge of Allegiance. His classmate, Gordon (Thomas Kasp), corners him outside of class and tells him that he’s not allowed to say that in school. Since Gordon’s father happens to Headmaster Kingsley (Casper Van Dien), David’s first day is not off to a good start.

However, the debate coach, Mr. Truman (Kevin Sorbo), hears about what David said and decides that David should definitely be on the debate team. The topic for the semester is whether or not “God should be in schools.” Gordon is already prepared to argue the negative. Can David argue the positive?

But first, presidential candidate Sen. Viera (Antonio Sabato, Jr.) stops by the school for an assembly. He’s a graduate from the school and it’s felt that appearing there will be a good PR move for him. He’s accompanied by one of his strongest supporters, former football player and U.S. Senate candidate Herschel Walker. When David stands up and asks Viera about his own beliefs, Viera stumbles over the question and his aides quickly end the assembly.

Stunned by David’s question and ashamed of his own inability to answer it, Sen. Viera decides to make his religious faith the center of his campaign. His wife is happy but his campaign aides are freaking out. They’ve got a big debate coming up with Governor Palabra (Summer Selby) and they just know that she’s going to accuse Viera of wanting to legislate morality.

Meanwhile, David has his own debate to prepare for. Fearful that Gordon will lose the debate and also whatever chance he may have to attend an Ivy League college, the Headmaster plans to bribe David to lose. David’s single mother could really use the money. Will David sell out or will he stick to his beliefs?

As you can see, there’s a lot going on in this movie but, ultimately, every subplot serves the same purpose, which is to tick off any liberal who happens to watch it. Sure, there’s a lot of talk about the importance of faith and also the importance of freedom of speech but the main purpose of this movie is to upset liberal viewers. Judging from some of the reviews of this film that were posted on Letterboxd, the film appears to have accomplished that. My personal opinion is that, if you spend more than an hour composing an angry review about a relatively obscure film starring Kevin Sorbo, you’ve already lost the war. I always find the frenzied reaction to these type of films to be a bit amusing because they’re really not any more heavy-handed or one-sided than the typical mainstream film. It’s just they’re attacking from the right instead of the left.

And make no mistake, One Nation Under God is heavy-handed and one-sided. Nothing about its portrayal of the inner workings of a major presidential campaign feels authentic and quite a few of its subplots fall flat. That said, I actually liked some of the songs on the soundtrack and the film itself looked like a real movie, which definitely set this film apart from a lot of other faith-based films. Kevin Sorbo is properly authoritative as the debate coach. Casper van Dien is properly villainous as the evil Headmaster. In the end, though, the main purpose of the film is to annoy liberals and it accomplishes that goal.

Late Night Retro Television Review: Hunter 2.6 “Rape and Revenge: Part 1”

Posted on October 15, 2026 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 Hunter, which aired on NBC from 1984 to 1991. The entire show is currently streaming on Tubi and several other services!

This week’s episode is a difficult one.

Episode 2.6 “Rape and Revenge: Part 1”

(Dir by Gary Winter, originally aired on November 2nd, 1985)

I nearly didn’t watch this episode.

When I saw the title of this episode and then read the plot description on the IMDb, my first instinct was to try to find an excuse to get out of having to watch and review it. The plot description read: McCall is raped by a visiting diplomat and her colleague’s hands are tied when he claims diplomatic immunity. Nearly every episode of Hunter so far has featured McCall getting into some sort of trouble. She’s been kidnapped countless times. She’s been shot at least three times. She’s been in more than a few fights. In the past, that didn’t bother me because no one is going to mistake Hunter for a realistic show. But when I read what was going to happen to her in this week’s episode, I immediately imagined that the show would handle it in the worst and most insensitive way possible.

Still, I watched the episode because I’m a completist. And you know what? I was wrong.

This episode opens with Hunter and McCall investigating the discovery of a dead woman at the Curaguayan Consulate in Los Angeles. (Curaguaya is a fictional country in South America.) One of the consuls, Raoul Marino (Richard Yniguez), immediately starts hitting on McCall, despite the fact that she’s conducting a police investigation. Later, Raoul sends three different flower deliveries to McCall’s house. When Raoul then shows up at McCall’s house, she tells him to leave. He rapes her and then flees. McCall calls Hunter, who rushes over to her house and then takes her to the hospital.

Because he has diplomatic immunity, Raoul thinks that he can get away with rape. He also thinks that he can get away with shooting Hunter in the shoulder when the latter confronts him. And it turns out that Raoul is correct. With both McCall and Hunter temporarily out of action, he boards a plane to Curaguaya and returns home.

To the show’s credit, it handles McCall’s rape sensitively. Stepfanie Kramer gives a strong performance as McCall. The scenes at the hospital, where the still bruised McCall is examined by doctors and investigators, capture the fact that the trauma of being raped doesn’t just end with the act. My fear was that this episode would have McCall magically recover at the end of the hour. It didn’t. Instead, we watch as McCall goes through therapy and as she slowly reaches the point where she feels that she can return to work. But even when she does return, the pain and the trauma are still there. This episode doesn’t simplify rape or use it as just another melodramatic plot twist. For that, it deserves a lot of credit.

(My only real issue that, during a recovery montage, the scenes of McCall in therapy are mixed with scenes of Hunter recovering from being shot in the shoulder. I feel like McCall deserved to have that montage to herself.)

This is a two-part episode. The first hour ended with McCall realizing that Hunter had traveled down to San Pablo, Curaguay to get revenge on Raoul. (Hunter previously told McCall that he was taking a few days off to go fishing.) McCall then made a reservation on the next flight to San Pablo. The story concludes next week!

Bonus Horror on TV: Baywatch Nights 2.12 “Frozen Out Of Time” (dir by Rick Jacobson)

Posted on October 15, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

I share this 1997 episode of Baywatch Nights every October because it’s just wonderfully strange. Two 900 year-old Vikings have been unfrozen and are causing chaos in Los Angeles! Who can stop them?

David Hasselhoff, of course!

(You can read my review of this beautifully odd episode here. Valhalla!)

Congratulations to the Milwaukee Brewers!

Posted on October 15, 2026 by Dazzling Erin

Congratulations to the Milwaukee Brewers, who just won their first pennant and who will be making their first appearance in the World Series! A lot of people, like me, assumed the Dodgers would win the series easily but the Brewers proved us wrong. They swept the Dodgers and now, they’re going to the World Series, where they face either the Guardians or the Rays!

Good luck in the World Series and I hope the people of Milwaukee are celebrating tonight!

Horror on TV: Freakylinks 1.3 “Edith Keeler Must Die” (dir by David Straiton)

Posted on October 15, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Are there mole people living in the New York subway system?

Of course there are. Everyone knows that. Still, watch tonight’s episode of Freakylinks and find out for sure!

This episode originally aired on October 20th, 2000.

I’m ALIVE!!

Posted on October 15, 2026 by Bradley Crain

We have reached October 15th, the final day for individuals to file their income taxes in the United States of America and not be late. For a lot of you, this day means nothing. For a guy who makes his life in the tax business, and who has spent the last couple of months helping his clients get their taxes filed up to the very last minute, this day is a day of freedom! Happy October 15th, my friends. Let the holidays commence!

SOV Horror Review: The Hackers (dir by John Duncan)

Posted on October 15, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Shot in Michigan, 1988’s The Hackers lives up to its name in two ways.

First off, it’s about a family that actually does have the surname of Hacker. Pa Hacker (Howard Coburn) drives around Michigan with his two sons, Arnie Hacker (Dale Caughel) and Eldon Hacker (Steven Picharo). They drive around Michigan and make a living by doing odd jobs. They claim that they can build and fix just about anything, even though they don’t seem to be particularly effective once they show up at their work site. Pa is gruff and kind of ornery. You can tell that he’s old school and he expects everyone to carry their weight. Arnie and Eldon are a little bit more goofy. They like to wear masks and they like to go fishing. They’re the type who will invade your personal space without even realizing why that would upset anyone. They are hicks and they’re proud of it.

Pa, Arnie, and Eldon also live up to their name in that they enjoy hacking people up. They’re the Hackers and they are really into hacking. When they see a man hitchhiking, they chop off his thumb as they drive by. When they pick up another hitchhiker, they end up strangling her. When a fisherman tells them to find another place to fish, Arnie and Eldon put an abrupt end to his fishing days.

Pa, Arnie, and Eldon have been hired to fix up the barn on a nearly deserted property. Marcie (Michelle Rank) is house-sitting and she soon finds herself being menaced by the Hackers. And while that’s definitely a scary situation, Marcie does have one big fact on her side: Arnie and Eldon are idiots. They’re the type who accidentally lose a finger while using a radial saw. Really, I’m surprised that Pa keeps them employed. If Pa simply did the job by himself, he’d probably get finished and get paid a lot quicker. Instead, he spends a lot of time dealing with Arnie and Eldon’s messes.

This is pretty much the epitome of a late 80s SOV slasher film. This was pretty much the only film that the majority of the cast appeared in, and it only has a 70-minute runtime. It’s hard to believe that a 70-minute movie could have any wasted moments, but this one does. There are scenes in which Arnie and Eldon seem to literally spend hours arguing about nothing. There’s no real suspense. The special effects are definitely on the cheap side. It’s a regional film, through and through.

And yet, there’s something oddly likable about a film like The Hackers. It’s an amateur film that was made by some guy in Michigan in 1988, and yet, I’m sitting here in Texas and I’m reviewing it in 2026. Because the film was shot on location and it was made by a bunch of amateurs, there’s an authenticity to the film that you wouldn’t necessarily get from a more professionally shot film. When it was made, it may have just been another regional horror flick. Today, though, it’s a time capsule. Watching a film like The Hackers is about as close as any of us are going to get to using a time machine.

The TSL Horror Grindhouse: Demonwarp (dir by Emmett Alston)

Posted on October 15, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

George Kennedy vs. Bigfoot!

I think for most people, that will be the main appeal of 1988’s Demonwarp. Bill (George Kennedy) lives in a cabin in the woods with his daughter. After a Bigfoot-like creature kills his daughter, Bill grabs a shotgun and starts wandering around the woods, looking for revenge. And while I’m calling the character Bill, I should make clear that George Kennedy comes across as if he’s playing George Kennedy. If you’ve watched enough TCM, you know George Kennedy as the big, burly guy who might be in his 50s but still looks like he could beat up an army of young punks if he had to. He’s gruff and plainspoken and he doesn’t have much patience for people who aren’t willing to man up and work hard. And so, when Bill declares that he’s going to kill Bigfoot, it’s the equivalent of George Kennedy declaring it. It’s nice to see that, even after winning an Oscar for Cool Hand Luke, George Kennedy still had what it took to keep the woods safe.

Unfortunately, George Kennedy is only a supporting player here. The main characters are a group of teenagers who end up hanging out at a cabin of their own and who soon fall victim to Bigfoot themselves. It takes them a while to accept the help of George Kennedy and, for that, they have only themselves to blame. Obviously, they hadn’t watched Cool Hand Luke or they would have known that George Kennedy is exactly the guy you want to listen to in an extreme situation. If only they had binged the Airport films, as I do every time before I go on any type of vacation, things would have worked out much better for them. Let Joe Patroni in the cockpit and he’ll land that plane right on top of that monster. Problem solved.

Demonwarp is an extremely silly film that I happen to like. Some of that is because I don’t really like camping but I do enjoy going to my family’s lakehouse and every stupid mistake that the teenagers make in Demonwarp is one that I’ve made in real life. Reacting to a scary sound by running outside half-naked or just in a towel? I have lost track of the number of times I’ve done that. Usually, it was because I thought I heard a catfight going on outside. When you hear two cats yelling at each other, you don’t have time to worry about getting fully dressed. Modesty can be the difference between scaring off the other cat or having to take your cat to the vet. I imagine the same is true when it comes to Bigfoot intrusions. Yes, the characters in Demonwarp did some foolish things but they’re all pretty much the same things that I would do.

The other good thing about Demonwarp is that the final 20 minutes features a twist that is so out there and downright weird that it simply has to be seen to be believed. Demonwarp is a thoroughly ludicrous horror film and that’s the main reason to watch it.

Graphic Novel Review: Dazzler The Movie (1984, by Jim Shooter, Frank Springer, and Vince Colletta)

Posted on October 15, 2026 by Jedadiah Leland

During the day, Alison Blair is just your everyday aerobics instructor, leading exercise classes and getting hit on by sleazy Hollywood producers like Eric Beale. At night, she’s the Dazzler, an up-and-coming rock star who amazes her fans with the elaborate light shows at her concerts. What they don’t know is that Alison is a mutant and is creating the lights herself. Or, at least, they don’t know that until Alison’s boyfriend, over-the-hill singer Roman Nekobah, reveals the truth to the press. Roman thinks that it will make Alison a star. Instead, Alison finds herself hounded by the press, anti-mutant bigots, and the producers of a movie.

It really doesn’t get more 80s than this graphic novel about Dazzler. Unfortunately, this graphic novel was not a great moment in comic book history. Instead, it was just Alison in leotards and doing things with Roman that Jim Shooter and Marvel couldn’t get away with acknowledging in the monthly Dazzler comic book. A full page of art is devoted to just Alison undressing and looking at herself in the mirror. That was probably popular with readers of a certain age in 1984, but today, it’s just a reflection that there wasn’t much to Dazzler beyond how she looked. Not much happens plotwise. Eric Beale is a sleazy producer but he’s hardly a villain on the scale of Dr. Doom or even Sebastian Shaw. When writers and artists of the era complain about Jim Shooter’s commercialized vision for the company, Dazzler The Movie is a good example of what they were talking about.

Dazzler The Movie is mostly interesting as a roman à clef about how the character was created in the first place. Dazzler was developed by Marvel and Neil Bogart, the legendary (and legendarily erratic) manager of Casablanca Records. At first, Dazzler was going to be a multimedia project. Not only would there be the Dazzler comic book but there were plans to release Dazzler records and to have actual Dazzler concerts. A movie about Dazzler was a part of the plan but things fell through when Casablanca went bankrupt. Shooter continued to try to develop a Dazzler movie. When Bo Derek showed some interest, Dazzler was redesigned to resemble her. However, Bo insisted that the movie could only be directed by her husband, John Derek. After the box office failure of John and Bo’s version of Tarzan, the Ape Man, Marvel lost interest in the Dereks and the Dereks lost interest in Dazzler. It’s easy to see John Derek in the character of Eric Beale. Dazzler has a choice between selling out or continuing to do things her way and she decides that she doesn’t need an Eric Beale in her life.

The comic book lived on, though. Dazzler The Movie was Shooter’s attempt to draw more readers to the comic and to also express his hatred of Hollywood. It wasn’t much of a graphic novel. It was no God Loves, Man Kills. It didn’t get the acclaim of The Death of Captain Marvel. But it did keep Dazzler going. And she’s still going to this day.

Great Moments In Comic Book History #48: Kulan Gath Transforms Manhattan

Posted on October 15, 2026 by Jedadiah Leland

Kulan Gath, an evil sorcerer from the Hyborian Age who fought both Conan and Red Sonja, emerges from a magic amulet in Manhattan and casts a spell that turns the city into an ancient city, complete with warriors, wizards, and other mythical monsters. Because he was defeated by Spider-Man the last time he showed up in modern times, Gath is obsessed with capturing and sacrificing the web-slinger. He recruits and transforms members of the X-Men, Avengers, New Mutants, and the Morlocks and uses them to hunt down Spider-Man. Those whom Gath has not succeeded in capturing try to return Manhattan to normal.

Today, we know that any time a comic book takes a trip to an alternate reality or timeline, almost everyone is going to end up dead. It almost feels like it’s a way for comic book artists and writers to get out their frustration over not being able to permanently change any of the characters. We’re used to the big slaughters that take place, and it’s no longer a big deal to read that an alternate version of our favorite character was killed in battle.

I don’t know if people were used to it in 1985, when X-Men #190 and #191 told the story of Kulan Gath conquering Manhattan and featured one of the biggest bloodbaths in Marvel history. Over the course of two issues, nearly every prominent Marvel hero was either transformed into a grotesque creature or horribly killed. Rogue gets stabbed in the back. Colossus explodes. Selene loses her mouth, Even Spider-Man eventually ended up dying. Things got so extreme that Dr. Strange and Magik had to team up to change history to keep Kulan Gath from even emerging from that amulet in the first place. By the end of it, there were only six heroes left alive. When Storm, one of the survivors, said that humanity would never know that they had been saved by mutants, Captain America made a point to thank her. He says he knows it’s probably not enough. You’re right, Cap. It’s not. Did you see what they did to Spider-Man?

Written by Chris Claremont with art by John Romita, Jr. and Dan Green, the saga of Kulan Gath is a classic X-Men story. X-Men #191 was entitled “Raiders of the Lost Temple.” It could have just as easily been called “No One Lives.” I’m glad Dr. Strange was there to set everything right.