“Today it is science fiction, tomorrow it will be science fact….”
So declared the trailer from 1973’s The Clones.
One of the first films to be made about cloning, this movie tells the story of Dr. Gerald Appleby (Michael Greene), who discovers that there’s another version of him living his life. Dr. Appleby and his clone both find themselves being pursued by two government agents (Gregory Sierra and Otis Brown) and a mad scientist (Stanley Adams).
TheClones requires some patience. It moves at its own deliberate pace and there’s quite a few scenes of Dr. Appleby running through the desert. That said, the film builds up to wonderfully twisted conclusion and the final roller coaster shoot-out makes everything more than worth it.
Ever since I first saw this ennui-drenched film in 2012, I’ve been recommending it to people. I’m happy to share it with you today!
As some of our regular readers undoubtedly know, I am involved in a few weekly live tweets on Twitter and Mastodon. I host #FridayNightFlix every Friday, I co-host #ScarySocial on Saturday, and I am one of the five hosts of #MondayActionMovie! Every week, we get together. We watch a movie. We tweet our way through it.
Tonight, at 10 pm et, #ScarySocial presents Piranha II — The Spawning!
If you want to join us this Saturday, just hop onto twitter, start the movie at 10 pm et, and use the #ScarySocial hashtag! It’s a friendly group and welcoming of newcomers so don’t be shy.
For today’s horror song of the day, we have Demon, a track from the soundtrack for the 1985 film, Demons. This song was composed and performed by Claudio Simonetti, who is best known as the keyboardist of Goblin.
The music video, incidentally, was directed by Michele Soavi, who also appeared in Demons as the mysterious masked man handing out free movie tickets.
Today’s horror scene that I love comes from one of my favorite films, 1953’s Creature From The Black Lagoon. In this scene, Julie Adams goes for a swim. Little does she realize that, under the water, the Creature is following her every move. Wonderfully directed by Jack Arnold, this creepy yet oddly lovely scene is one of the best of the 50s.
(Today also would have been the 100th birthday of Julie Adams, one of the best — and in my mind, most underrated — actresses of Hollywood’s Golden Age.)
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 Films
Children Shouldn’t Play With Dead Things (1972, dir by Bob Clark, DP: Jack McGowan)
The Last House On The Left (1972, dir by Wes Craven, DP: Victor Hurwitz)
The Killing Kind (1973, dir by Curtis Harrington, DP: Mario Tosi)
The Brood (1979, dir by David Cronenberg, DP: Mark Irwin)
2014’s Only One Way tells the story of Paul (Josiah David Warren), who is 20 years old and who lives with his parents in Texas. Paul was home-schooled and now he’s a college student. He goes to church every Sunday and he and his parents have regular Bible study.
Paul is a bit easily led. We discover this when he starts dating Melanie (Erika Alaspa), who is still in high school and who insists that Paul tell her that she’s beautiful whenever he picks her up from her dance class. Melanie’s father has a devilish beard and a condescending attitude and, when he hears that Paul still lives at home, he says that’s fine except that Paul won’t be a real man until he moves out. Later Paul gets a text from Melanie telling him that her parents loved meeting him but that they all agree that he needs to become “A REAL MAN” and find a new place to live.
Paul gets his own apartment and soon, he’s struggling in both school and life. Melanie and her wild friends are always coming over to party. They introduce Paul to smoking weed. Paul goes from hacking up a lung to making an apple pipe in record time. Uh-oh! His parents stop by the apartment to drop off some groceries and they catch Paul with an apple.
No longer welcome at his parents’s house, Paul tries to make it in the world on his own. He gets a job delivering fried chicken but he’s not good at it. You may wonder how any twenty year-old could manage to screw up something as simple a delivering fried chicken. Well, Paul drops a bucket of KFC on somebody’s lawn and his response it just to brush the grass off the chicken. Then he drops the bucket for a second time when trying to hand it off to the people who ordered it.
“That’ll be fifteen,” Paul says.
No, Paul, that’ll be free!
To be honest, what Paul is going through is not that unusual. I think everyone struggles a bit making the transition from being a teenager to being an adult. The job of a parent is to help the kid prepare for that transition but still, it’s not easy going from living a life with no consequences to living a life where everything has a consequence. Everyone probably parties too much when they first leave home. It’s just human nature.
The thing that sets Paul apart is that he really does just seem to be a complete idiot. Even before he starts dating Melanie, he’s talking about how he’s struggling in college. The film puts most of the blame on Melanie but Melanie isn’t the one who told Paul to put the chicken back in that bucket. Melanie may smoke weed but Paul is the one who decides to smoke with her. Believe me, most people will not be offended if you don’t smoke their weed. That just means more for them.
Anyway, this film was shot on video with a largely amateur class and it shows. This is one of those films where you really have to strain to make out the dialogue because the sound recording is so bad. On the plus side, Paul does own a really cute dog and, by the end of the film he’s found a girlfriend who isn’t trying to destroy his soul. Good for him!
Welcome to Late Night Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Fridays, I will be reviewing SLEDGE HAMMER!, a cop comedy which ran on ABC from 1986 to 1988. The entire series can be found on Prime!
Sledge Hammer says to trust him. Does that mean he’ll be able to find a bunch of missing babies?
Episode 1.10 “If I Had A Little Hammer”
(Dir by Kim Manners, originally aired on November 29th, 1986)
Someone has abducted all of the newborn babies from the local hospital. Captain Trunk suspects that the babies are going to be sold to couples looking to adopt. “You mean like a mom and pop operation?” Hammer asks. Doreau asks to be assigned to the case and Trunk reluctantly agrees. He has full faith in Doreau. It’s her partner that worries him.
Most of the humor in this episode comes from the fact that Hammer doesn’t like babies. The reason why the humor works is because Hammer never changes his mind. Hammer dislikes babies just as much at the end of the episode as he did at the start. It provided a nice contrast to not only every other character on the show but also to what we usually expect from television shows.
(Personally, I love babies but I get tired of seeing them in commercials where the whole joke is that they need their diapers changed.)
The babynappers are a brother/sister team. Brion James plays the brother and it was nice to see that he could handle comedy just as well as drama. He fit right in with the Sledge Hammer universe. The big confrontation between him and Sledge Hammer took place inside the warehouse of baby products supplier. Hey, it made laugh!
This was perhaps the most wholesome show about kidnapping and illegal adoption that I’ve ever seen.
One of the more intriguing mysteries of history is investigated in this episode of In Search Of…. Leonard Nimoy narrates!
(It’s always strange to me that there hasn’t been hundreds of movies made about the Tunguska event. I know that the current popular theory is that it was a comet or, at the very least, a really big asteroid. Personally, I like the theory that it was Nikolai Tesla testing out a death ray.)
On tonight’s episode of FreakyLinks, Derek and the team head down to New Mexico to investigate reports of a tentacle-bearing desert creature! If not for the tentacles, I would say it was probably a chupacabra. Seriously, if you ever see a chupacabra coming at you, run!
This episode originally aired on November 3rd, 2000!
Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Fridays, I will be reviewing St. Elsewhere, a medical show which ran on NBC from 1982 to 1988. The show can be found on Daily Motion.
This week, Bobby Caldwell returns.
Episode 4.15 “Family Feud”
(Dir by Mark Tinker, originally aired on January 29th, 1986)
After being gone for the last few episodes, Bobby Caldwell (Mark Harmon) returns to St. Eligius. As he explains it, he’s spent the last month or so with his family in Baltimore. He worked on his family’s farm and got in touch with what actually matters in life. Westphall is so happy to hear this that he immediately starts talking about the time he spent volunteering in Ethiopia.
Caldwell is ready to get his facial scar taken care of. He meets with an old colleague from medical school, Dr. Duncan Harper (Kip Gilman). Harper says that the operation should be simple and quick and then Caldwell will be ready to hit the bars again. As a precaution, Caldwell gives blood, just in case it’s needed during the surgery.
Later, a shaken Harper comes to St. Eligius and meets privately with Caldwell. Harper says that the lab did some standard tests on Caldwell’s blood and that it appears that Caldwell might have AIDS. Caldwell says there has to be some sort of mistake, but Harper shakes his head. Harper retested the blood himself. He asks if Caldwell has any lesions. Caldwell looks down at a spot on his hand and says, “I thought it was just an infection.”
Caldwell tells Westphall about his diagnosis. Westphall tells Caldwell not to give up hope, that a cure might be right around the corner. Caldwell replies that he’s probably got 15 months to live and he’s not going to stop working. After Caldwell leaves, Westphall meets with Auschlander and they both agree that they have no idea what to do.
Meanwhile, it’s Jack Morrison’s birthday! Clancy arranges for him to have a birthday party in the doctor’s lounge. She also continues to flirt with Fiscus. You might expect Morrison to be upset about that, but Morrison is too busy flirting with Mona, Fiscus’s ex! Yeah, we’ll see how that works out….
Finally, Augusta Endicott previously told Dr. Craig that she didn’t want to have a bypass, even if it meant that she would die otherwise. However, when the entire Endicott family comes to visit her, she changes her mind. (During the operation, Dr. Wade comments that Dr. Craig must really be looking forward to the next Endicott presidential campaign. Craig snorts and says that the Endicotts are a bunch of bleeding-heart liberals and he wouldn’t vote for them in a million years. I love Dr. Craig.) Sen. Gordon Endicott (Charles Cioffi) goes to the chapel to pray and ends up getting shot by a lone gunman.
Gee, who saw that coming?
The Endicotts continue to bore me. They’re just not that interesting as either characters or as thinly-veiled stand-ins for the Kennedy family. On the other hand, Bobby Caldwell’s storyline was powerful and Mark Harmon gave an especially good performance. (I just wish the show had made it clear that AIDS wasn’t meant to be some sort of narrative punishment for Caldwell’s previous bad behavior.) It will be interesting to see how the hospital deals with Caldwell’s diagnosis. Will he actually be allowed to continue to do his job? We’ll find out next week.
