Author Archives: Lisa Marie Bowman

Horror On The Lens: Baffled! (dir by Philip Leacock)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

 

This is a film that I share every year for Horrorthon and can you blame me?  Check out this pitch: Leonard Nimoy is a race car driver who can see into the future and who uses his powers to solve crimes!

Seriously, if that’s not enough to get you to watch the 1973 made-for-TV movie Baffled!, then I don’t know what is.  In the film, Nimoy takes a break from racing so that he and a parapsychologist (played by Susan Hampshire) can solve the mystery of the visions that Nimoy is having of a woman in a mansion.  This movie was meant to serve as a pilot and I guess if the series had been picked up, Nimoy would have had weekly visions.  Of course, the movie didn’t lead to a series but Baffled! is still fun in a 70s television sort of way.  Thanks to use of what I like to call “slo mo of doom,” a few of Nimoy’s visions are creepy and the whole thing ends with the promise of future adventures that were sadly never to be.  And it’s a shame because I’ve always wondered what was going on with that couple at the airport!

Enjoy Baffled!  Can you solve the mystery before Leonard?

 

Lisa Marie Takes A Look At The Amazing Race 39.5 “That’s Honestly On Them”

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

One thing about The Amazing Race is that you can always tell when Phil dislikes a team.

As of last night, Matt and Michelle have now finished first for two weeks in a row. Last week, Phil could barely force a smile at the sight of them. This week, he seemed downright indifferent to them. Phil also was clearly not happy when Daisha and Dalton arrived in second place. Their sin was apparently not helping Riley and Ann-Marie at the Detour.

Phil likes the teams that help each other out, and I imagine that he really likes Riley and Ann-Marie. Myself, I’m a little bit tired of Riley and Ann-Marie. I’m sure that they’re nice people, and I was happy that Riley took the time to let Anuar know what he was doing wrong at the first Roadblock. (If she hadn’t, Anuar would have been there all day.) But Riley and Ann-Marie both tend to be a little self-righteous and preachy, and I get a little bit tired of them going on about how important it is that everyone help each other (especially since that usually translates to “everyone needs to help us”).

This leg saw the teams traveling to Albania. This was the first time that the Race went to Albania, and it really did look like a lovely country. Matt and Michelle pretty much spent the entire leg in first place. By being the first to arrive at each Roadblock, they were in “the Driver’s Seat,” which means they got to determine how difficult each Roadblock would be for each team. Needless to say, this didn’t make them popular with the other racers, but seriously, what were Matt and Michelle supposed to do?

At the first Roadblock, teams had to harvest and grind a certain amount of grapes. Matt and Michelle publicly assigned 50 pounds to themselves, Ann-Marie & Riley, and Erin & Javi; 75 pounds to Conner & Garrett, Dafina & Saran, and Daisha & Dalton; and 100 pounds to Ali & Joanna, Anuar & Andrea, and Doug & Dylan. The only thing I really disagree with there is assigning 100 pounds to Doug & Dylan. That did feel mean. I would have assigned 100 pounds to Ann-Marie and Riley because they’re the stronger team.

At the second Roadblock, teams had to roll out dough for a pastry. (I would have sucked at this challenge, but my sister would have kicked its ass!) Matt and Michelle publicly assigned eight pastries to themselves; twelve pastries to Ann-Marie & Riley, Dafina & Saran, and Doug & Dylan; and sixteen pastries to Ali & Joanna, Anuar & Andrea, Conner & Garrett, Daisha & Dalton, and Erin & Javi. Erin struggled with this Roadblock, to the extent that she and Javi probably would have been eliminated if not for Dafina & Saran getting lost on the way to the Pit Stop.

Here’s how everyone finished last night:

1st — Matt and Michelle. Phil and the other teams may not like them, but Matt and Michelle are a strong team. Matt pretends to be goofy, but in his way, he’s just as ruthless as Michelle.

2nd — Daisha and Dalton. They came on strong during this leg of the race. As for them not sticking around to help Ann-Marie and Riley… hey, it’s a race. You don’t get an extra trophy for being nice.

3rd — Conner and Garrett. I never thought that Conner and Garrett would become my favorite team, but they have. They’re good-natured, they work well together, and unlike some people, they can be nice without feeling the need to brag about it.

4th — Ann-Marie and Riley. I’ve said all I need to say about them this week.

5th — Ali and Joanna. The soccer players finally used their Express Pass and still only managed a fifth-place finish. They’re a good example of a team that’s strong but somehow still not as strong as they should be.

6th — Doug and Dylan. Doug and Dylan actually did better than they usually do during this leg. They moved up from 9th to 6th, despite being targeted by Matt and Michelle.

7th — Anuar and Andrea. Anuar and Andrea struggled this week. First, Anuar didn’t understand how to grind the grapes. Then they got lost and ended up arguing with each other. Still, they avoided elimination.

8th — Erin and Javi. Erin and Javi narrowly avoided elimination this week. They’re going to need to pick things up a little because, other than when they use their Express Pass, they’ve struggled in almost every leg.

9th — Dafina and Saran. Dafina and Saran came in ninth and were eliminated. I knew it was going to happen eventually, but I was still sorry to see them go. They were a team that never gave up and worked well together.

Next week, the Race continues in Albania. Conner and Garrett still have their Express Pass, so I imagine they’ll use it at some point during the sixth leg, which is the last leg in which it can be used. Everyone else is going to have to depend on their own skills to make it to the Pit Stop in time to avoid elimination.

Lisa Marie Takes A Look At Survivor 51.5 “Not Here To Get A Pedicure”

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Last night, after Toka won immunity, both Savu and Dina went to Tribal Council. That’s right, we got two Tribal Councils. Only one of them was interesting, though.

The Savu Tribal Council was predictable. Yes, the show’s editors did their best to make us think that there was a chance that Jelly and Ori would blindside Devin and save Alexis. But the fact of the matter is that there was never any real possibility of either Ori or Jelly betraying the Helicopter Alliance. Though the show has kind of tiptoed around it, the Helicopter Alliance is an alliance that, much like Big Brother’s Cookout, is based primarily on race. Ever since the start of reality television, alliances are typically based on a common bond that all of the members share. The strength of the alliance usually mirrors the strength of the bond and the shared experiences that go along with it. Alliances that are based on race typically don’t break until they absolutely have to. So, no, it was not a shock to see Alexis voted out 3-1.

The Dina Tribal Council was a bit more interesting. Lewis and Kilby went into Tribal Council outnumbered by the former members of Savu, but they were still able to not only take over the entire council but also force the former Toka members to agree to unanimously vote out one of their stronger members. This was thanks to Maggie, who, instead of taking part in her tribe’s reward for winning immunity, was taken to another beach and given two extra votes that she could give to anyone she wanted. She gave the two votes to Lewis and Kilby.

At Tribal Council, while the former Savu members all voted for Lewis, Kilby and Lewis were able to cast four votes for Linnea and tie things up. (Maggie specifically asked them to vote for Linnea.) A revote revealed the vote to be 4-4. Jeff Probst told the tribe members who had not received votes that they would now have a chance to negotiate with each other and try to come up with a unanimous consensus on who was going home—Lewis or Linnea. If they couldn’t do that, Lewis and Linnea would be safe and the remaining tribe members would draw rocks to determine who was being sent home.

Despite having three former Savus ganging up on him, Kilby held firm. Obviously, he understood that, if he joined the former Savu members, he would always be at the bottom of their alliance. Soon, the former Savus were sobbing over the prospect of having to draw rocks. Kilby had the courage to risk his game on a rock draw. The other members of Savu did not. They agreed to vote out Linnea so that they wouldn’t have to go to rocks. What a bunch of wimps! Watching Eric cry, I suddenly realized that Rob was right about the guy.

Oh, what a pathetic display. Now, the big question is whether or not next week will feature another tribal shakeup or if the new Savu tribe will continue with just three players. If Savu goes to Tribal Council again, this will be the first time that the Helicopter Alliance will lose one of their own. I’m just looking forward to seeing how awkward things are going to be over at Dina when they all get back from Tribal Council.

Join #TubiThursday For The Creeping Terror!

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Hi, everyone!  Tonight, on Mastodon, I will be hosting the #TubiThursday watch party!  Join us for The Creeping Terror!

You can find the movie on Tubi and YouTube and you can join us on Mastodon at 9 pm central time!  (That’s 10 pm for you folks on the East Coast.)  We will be using #TubiThursday hashtag!  See you then!

Song Of The Day: Opera by Claudio Simonetti

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

This is a song that Claudio Simonetti composed for Dario Argento’s 1985 film, Opera.

Compared to the film, the video for this song is decidedly low-key but it’s still a lovely piece of music.

Horror Scenes I Love: The Trip from A Field In England

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Today’s scene that I love comes from 2014’s A Field In England.  This film may (or may not) take place during a solar eclipse.  I won’t try to explain everything that is happening in the scene, beyond stating that this particular field in England is home to some interesting mushrooms.  I encourage you see to watch the film for yourself.

4 Shots From 4 Horror Films: October 22nd

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 lets the visuals do the talking!

4 Shots From 4 Horror Films

The Trip (1967, dir by Roger Corman, DP: Archie Dalzell)

Blue Sunshine (1978, dir by Jeff Lieberman, DP: Don Knight)

Piranha (1978, dir by Joe Dante, DP: Jamie Anderson)

The Dead Zone (1983, dir by David Cronenberg, DP: Mark Irwin)

 

Insomnia File #80: Greetings (dir by Brian De Palma)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

What’s an Insomnia File? You know how some times you just can’t get any sleep and, at about three in the morning, you’ll find yourself watching whatever you can find on cable or streaming? This feature is all about those insomnia-inspired discoveries!

If you were having trouble getting to sleep last night, you could have jumped over to Prime and watched 1968’s Greetings.

Greetings tells the story of three friends, all of whom live in New York and all of whom are dealing with the possibility of being drafted. Paul (Jonathan Warden) gets his “greetings” from the U.S. Government and tries to avoid being drafted by pretending to be a gay Neo-Nazi. Lloyd (Gerrit Graham) deals with the stress of being young in the late ’60s by obsessing over the JFK assassination, to the extent that he even uses a felt-tip pen to illustrate JFK’s wounds on his girlfriend’s naked body. Jon Rubin (Robert De Niro) tries computer dating, hits on every woman he meets, and tries to launch a career as an adult filmmaker. The great character actor Allen Garfield has a brief cameo as “the smut peddler,” and his scene with De Niro feels largely improvised.

Technically, Greetings was not Brian De Palma’s directorial debut. His first film was The Wedding Party, which he shot in 1963 (and which featured a 19-year-old De Niro making his film debut) but which wasn’t released until 1969. However, De Palma was one of three directors who worked on The Wedding Party, and De Palma himself has dismissed it as essentially being a student film. De Palma’s second film was Murder à la Mod, which was his first thriller but which was also little-seen. Greetings was De Palma’s first film to actually gain attention for both the director and co-stars De Niro and Graham. (Warden, sad to say, never makes much of an impression.)

Seen today, it’s definitely a product of its time. After a note telling us that the film has been slapped with an X rating, Greetings opens and ends with footage of Lyndon B. Johnson asking viewers if they’ve ever had it “so good.” Warden, Graham, and De Niro are all playing familiar types: the 1960s urban pseudo-intellectual. De Palma often directs in a semi-documentary style. In the scenes on the streets of New York, it’s not unusual to see bystanders stopping to stare directly at De Palma’s camera. There are a few scenes that are distractingly sped up, which is a bit annoying, but it’s also a sign of De Palma’s love for experimenting with what exactly can be done with a camera. The humor is pure De Palma: dark, paranoid, and occasionally deliberately provocative. I certainly find Greetings to be a funnier film than its sequel, Hi, Mom!. If Hi, Mom! was clearly De Niro’s film, Greetings feels like it belongs to Gerrit Graham. De Niro may have been the more versatile actor, but Graham had a more natural comedic timing.

The most interesting thing about Greetings is how political it actually is. De Palma is often described as being more about technique than anything else, but Greetings reveals him to have been far more sympathetic to the counterculture than contemporaries like Martin Scorsese or Steven Spielberg. The film itself is largely plotless by design. Instead, the film is De Palma’s attempt to capture the attitude of a very specific time and place. Greetings is a film that probably could have only been made in New York in the late ’60s. If nothing else, it’s a time capsule from a very different age.

Previous Insomnia Files:

  1. Story of Mankind
  2. Stag
  3. Love Is A Gun
  4. Nina Takes A Lover
  5. Black Ice
  6. Frogs For Snakes
  7. Fair Game
  8. From The Hip
  9. Born Killers
  10. Eye For An Eye
  11. Summer Catch
  12. Beyond the Law
  13. Spring Broke
  14. Promise
  15. George Wallace
  16. Kill The Messenger
  17. The Suburbans
  18. Only The Strong
  19. Great Expectations
  20. Casual Sex?
  21. Truth
  22. Insomina
  23. Death Do Us Part
  24. A Star is Born
  25. The Winning Season
  26. Rabbit Run
  27. Remember My Name
  28. The Arrangement
  29. Day of the Animals
  30. Still of The Night
  31. Arsenal
  32. Smooth Talk
  33. The Comedian
  34. The Minus Man
  35. Donnie Brasco
  36. Punchline
  37. Evita
  38. Six: The Mark Unleashed
  39. Disclosure
  40. The Spanish Prisoner
  41. Elektra
  42. Revenge
  43. Legend
  44. Cat Run
  45. The Pyramid
  46. Enter the Ninja
  47. Downhill
  48. Malice
  49. Mystery Date
  50. Zola
  51. Ira & Abby
  52. The Next Karate Kid
  53. A Nightmare on Drug Street
  54. Jud
  55. FTA
  56. Exterminators of the Year 3000
  57. Boris Karloff: The Man Behind The Monster
  58. The Haunting of Helen Walker
  59. True Spirit
  60. Project Kill
  61. Replica
  62. Rollergator
  63. Hillbillys In A Haunted House
  64. Once Upon A Midnight Scary
  65. Girl Lost
  66. Ghosts Can’t Do It
  67. Heist
  68. Mind, Body & Soul
  69. Candy
  70. Shortcut to Happiness
  71. Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders
  72. Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders II
  73. Don’t Kill It
  74. Listen To Me
  75. 300 Miles For Stephanie
  76. Hackers
  77. Rolling Vengeance
  78. Nails
  79. Bring Him To Me

October Positivity: Welcome to Paradise (dir by Brent Huff)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

In 2007’s Welcome to Paradise, Crystal Bernard stars as Debbie Laramie. Debbie is a preacher who belongs to one of those weird Protestant churches where it’s apparently appropriate to heckle someone while they’re giving a sermon. After Debbie scandalizes her parish by removing her jacket while preaching, she is reassigned to a church in the small town of Paradise. Apparently, this is not the first time that Debbie has been reassigned. She’s a rebellious preacher who does things her own way or, at least, that’s what we’re told. (She doesn’t ever seem that rebellious to me, but then again, I’m used to the Jesuits.) Debbie’s teenage son certainly isn’t happy about having to move again.

In Paradise, Debbie makes a name for herself by reaching out to the town’s surprisingly large homeless population. She invites a street performer named Trevor (Lou Beatty, Jr.) to play his guitar at the church. She holds a potluck dinner to help feed the residents of the local shelter. When a sudden storm approaches, she allows Frances (Beth Grant) to spend the night on the church’s back porch. (Debbie tries to convince Frances to come home with her, but Frances doesn’t want to impose.) Unfortunately, Frances gets cold and tries to build a small fire for warmth. The next thing anyone knows, the church is burning down.

A snooty bishop tells Debbie that the decision has been made to revoke the church’s charter and that all the members will be assigned to the new megachurch. Debbie, however, has already found an abandoned barn that she thinks she can turn into a church, and a local businessman named Bobby Brown (Brian Dennehy—wait, BRIAN DENNEHY!?) has agreed to help fund the new church. Debbie is told that if she can have everything ready to go in a week, the church will keep its charter. Otherwise, Debbie will have to find yet another new job, her son will have to move again, and the residents of the shelter won’t have anywhere to go.

This film wasn’t actually that bad. I liked the fact that it not only took place in small-town Texas but also captured the feeling of living in a small town. Paradise is the type of town where the richest man in town owns a used car lot and where everyone lends a helping hand to those in need. If this were a horror movie, of course, the town would have turned out to be a haven for vampires. Since this was a religious movie, it just turned out to be a nice place to live. Crystal Bernard gave a likable performance as Debbie, and Brian Dennehy, of course, was perfectly cast as the gruff but good-natured businessman. There were actually quite a few familiar faces in the film. William Shockley, Beth Grant, Ken Jenkins, and Jim O’Heir all made appearances. Even comedian Timothy Stack showed up in a small role.

In the end, Welcome to Paradise is a sweet-natured and likable movie. If it had been set during a December snowstorm, it could have easily been mistaken for a Hallmark film.

Late Night Retro Television Review: 1st & Ten 5.8 “Vindication”

Posted on 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 Wednesdays, I will be reviewing 1st and Ten, which aired in syndication from 1984 to 1991. The entire series is streaming on Tubi.

This week, some of the players get trapped in the woods.

Episode 5.8 “Vindication”

(Dir by Stan Lathan, originally aired on December 6th, 1989)

It’s time for the Barbara Ann Awards.

The Barbara Ann Awards are a never-before mentioned annual tradition in which Dr. Death, Jethro, Bubba, and Zagreb go to a cabin in the woods with a bunch of women and the women compete to be the new Barbara Ann.  Yep, it’s just as sleazy as it sounds.  Fortunately, this year sees the players being stalked by two mask-wearing, chainsaw-carrying psychoes.  While the women hide in the cabin, the players go out to battle their stalkers and, instead, they end up getting caught in a net.  Oh no!  Is this the end of the California Bulls?  (Well, four of them, at least….)

Fortunately, no.  It turns out that it was all a practical joke that was set up by the women.  Yay!  Put those men in their place!  The players are so impressed that they give the title of Barbara Ann to the woman who came up with the joke.  This whole thing was pretty silly but at least it felt appropriate for October viewing.

The episode’s other storyline featured Johnny Gunn being interviewed by reporter Susan McDermitt (Catherine MacNeal).  With protestors constantly picketing the games and calling Johnny a murderer, TD Parker (OJ Simpson) figures that it’s time for some damage control.  TD understands just how damaging it is to the reputation of the game to have a player who is routinely accused of being a murderer.

So, Susan and Johnny go to Johnny’s hometown in Pennsylvania.  We learn about Johnny’s past as a foster kid and a high school football star.  In a somewhat implausible scene, Johnny’s ex-girlfriend (Tally Chanel) admits on camera that she lied about what happened the night that Johnny killed a man.  It turns out that Johnny was actually acting in self-defense.

“I’m glad that’s taken care of!” OJ says as he watches the news report.

This is another episode of 1st & Ten that’s impossible to watch without thinking about OJ Simpson’s later life.  Every time OJ started to talk about how unfair it was that Johnny was being judged for being a murderer, I cringed just a little bit.  The episode’s contention that one positive news story was all Johnny needed to get on with his life was almost charming in its naiveté.

Next week …. well, who knows?  Hopefully, it won’t involve any more murders.