Inferno (1980, dir by Dario Argento, DP: Romana Albano)
Today’s horror song of the day comes from Keith Emerson’s soundtrack of Dario Argento’s Inferno. Emerson did not have an enviable task, having to follow up Goblin’s soundtrack for Suspiria. But Emerson pulled it off, crafting a score that compliments Goblin’s earlier work while maintaining an identity of its own.
Today’s horror scene that I love comes from 1959’s House on Haunted Hill. As the film opens, Vincent Price takes a moment to speak directly to the audience and introduce the characters who are coming to spend the night at the house. Price, who is one of the patron saints of October, delivers his lines with such relish that it’s impossible not to stick around to see who survives the night.
4 Or More Shots From 4 Or More 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: October 11th
Phenomena (1985, dir by Dario Argento)
House (1985, dir by Steve Miner)
Demons (1985, dir by Lamberto Bava)
Re-Animator (1985, dir by Stuart Gordon)
In 2012’s Abel’s Field, Kevin Sorbo plays the role of Abel. He’s the new groundskeeper at a small town high school, one of those places where football is king. No one in town really seems to know much about Abel and that’s fine with Abel. He keeps to himself and he prefers not have long conversations with people. He works hard, he tries to stay out of trouble, and he spends a lot time writing in a notebook on which he keeps a very close eye.
And let’s give credit where credit is due. Kevin Sorbo actually gives a very good performance as Abel. I know that some people will snicker when they read that. At this point, Kevin Sorbo is so associated with a certain type of politics and a certain type of religion and a certain type of movie that merely mentioning his name will send some self-appointed cultural critics into a frothing rage. That said, Sorbo is one of the better actors to have found a niche in the faith-based film industry and he does a good job playing the role of Abel. He’s convincing as a man who doesn’t want to get close to anyone but who is still kind enough to reach out to people who need help.
Seth McArdle (Samuel Davis) is someone who could definitely use some help. A 17 year-old high school senior, Seth has had to step up and take on an enormous amount of responsibility. With his father having vanished and his mother having died, Seth is taking care of his two younger sisters. He attends high school, he works two jobs, and then when he finally returns home, he just hopes that he has enough money to pay the babysitter.
When Seth yells at the arrogant high school quarterback after the latter runs a stop sign and nearly hits Seth’s sisters, the entire football team starts to target Seth. The team is struggling on the field this season so they decide to take their frustrations out on Seth. Seth can’t even walk down the school hallway without the team attacking him. Because Seth fights back, he’s the one who ends up getting in trouble. Seth is told that he has two options. He can either help Abel install a new sprinkler system for the football field or he can just drop out of school.
(Wow, that’s harsh.)
You can guess where this is going. After an awkward beginning, Abel eventually becomes a mentor to Seth. Abel and Seth discover they have something in common. They’re both down-on-their luck and their both kind of miserable. When the bank threatens to foreclose on Seth’s house, Abel is there to try to keep Seth from breaking the law in order to pay. They share a lot of pain but they also share a common faith and, eventually, Abel even shares the dark secret from his past. How much that secret surprises you will depend on how much you know about the stories of the Biblical Cain and Abel and Seth.
Abel’s Field is a surprisingly effective film. Yes, it’s a religious film but it’s nowhere near as preachy as some of the other films of the genre that I’ve seen. The characters are portrayed as being flawed individuals who are trying to do their best in difficult situations. Both Davis and Sorbo give good strong performances. Believe it or not, it’s a good movie.
Welcome to Late Night Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Saturdays, I will be reviewing Saved By The Bell, which ran on NBC from 1989 to 1993. The entire show can be purchased on Prime!
This week, Zack loses his favorite duck.
Episode 3.9 “Pipe Dreams”
(Dir by Don Barnhart, originally aired on October 26th, 1991)
Oil’s been discovered on Bayside’s football field! Smarmy Dan Grayson (Gary Lahti) offers Bayside a lot of money for the right to drill on the field. Almost all of the students fantasize about going to rich school despite the fact that, with the exception of Kelly, it’s been established that they’re all already rich and that Bayside has been a rich school for a while. I’m not sure why the students think that they would be getting any of the money. And why is it up to the principal to decide whether or not to allow drilling. It seems like that should be up to the county supervisors.
But what about the never before mentioned pond behind the football field!? When the inevitable oil spill happens, Zack’s favorite duck Becky is killed. “She’s where the oil can’t hurt her anymore,” Screech says. It looks like it’s time for Zack to crash Mr. Grayson’s presentation and spray oil on him. “I’m covered in oil!” Mr. Grayson shouts. It’s easy to make your point when your opponent is cartoonishly evil.
You probably already guessed that this is not my favorite episode. It’s just so cartoonishly heavy-handed and the idea that Zack’s simplistic presentation was enough to convince everyone not to drill for oil was borderline insulting. If there’s oil underneath the football field and money to be made by drilling for it, someone’s going to do it. No one is going to care whether Zack approves or not.
My favorite moment is when Slater calls out Jessie for wearing clothing and accessories that aren’t environmentally-friendly. Seriously, Jessie is always a little bit too self-righteous for me. Personally, I would have agreed to let the company drill for the oil but only after they found a new pond for all of the turtles and ducks.
Poor Becky.
The Amazing Race (Wednesday Night, CBS)
I wrote about the Amazing Race here.
Austin City Limits (PBS)
On Friday night, I watched a performance by Sienna Spiro. She was okay. I prefer EDM but that’s not the Austin City Limits way.
Carrie (Prime)
I started watching Mike Flanagan’s Carrie on Friday. I’ve got two more episodes to go so I’ll probably review it tomorrow. I’ll hold off on giving my thoughts until then.
Fear Itself (YouTube)
I’ve been watching and posting episodes of Fear Itself all week.
Kitchen Nightmares (Tubi)
I watched four episodes on Wednesday. Two of the episodes deal with the Main Street Bistro and its arrogant owner. One episode was about Yanni’s, a Greek restaurant owned by a loud family. The final episode was the classic episode that featured Gordon’s visit to Amy’s Baking Company in Scotsdale, Arizona. It’s hard to believe that episode is now 13 years old.
The Steve Wilkos Show (Tubi)
I watched two episodes on Tuesday. Both dealt with bad and abusive parents. Steve got mad and yelled a lot but he was totally justified in doing so. Some people really don’t deserve to be parents.
Survivor (Wednesday Night, CBS)
1957’s Final Curtain is a short, 22-minute film in which a mysterious man (Duke Moore) wanders around a creepy and seemingly abandoned theater. While Dudley Manlove (who played Eros the Alien in Plan Nine From Outer Space) provides narration, the man sees many strange things in the theater. What is real and what is merely a hallucination? Watch to find out!
Final Curtain was envisioned, by director Edward D. Wood, as being the pilot for a horror anthology series. Though none of the networks were interested in buying Wood’s proposed series, Wood considered Final Curtain to be his finest film and it certainly is a bit more atmospheric than the typical Wood film. The role of the mysterious man was written for Bela Lugosi but, after Lugosi passed away, Duke Moore was cast in the role instead.
From 1957, here is Final Curtain.
Tonight’s episode of Fear Itself features Ethan Embry as Chance Miller, whose run of bad luck gets even worse once he finds himself having to deal with an evil doppelganger of himself. This psychological thriller was directed by noir specialist, John Dahl.
This was one of the episodes of Fear Itself that was filmed in 2008 but wasn’t aired before the show went on hiatus. It was included when the show was released on DVD in 2009.
In his mansion in Alabama, fashion photographer Jack B. Rippington (Blake Bahner) kills people in ways that are cruel and grotesque. He does it with a smile on his face and a spring in his step, and he always remembers to take pictures first because, I guess, he really does take the whole fashion photographer thing seriously. He has standards. He’s a professional. When he meets and starts dating a model named Erica (Ena Henderson), she soon finds herself unwittingly leading victims to their doom.
Why is Jack B. Rippington so obsessed with murdering anyone who comes by his house? Well, you could say that it runs in the family. He’s the great-grandson of Jack the Ripper. He informs the audience of this. Myself, I have to wonder if Rippington is a family name or if it’s just his nom de meurtre. If Jack the Ripper’s last name really was Rippington, that would be a hell of a coincidence, and it would also show that Scotland Yard really wasn’t doing a very good job of investigating the crimes at Whitechapel. I mean, why did they devote so much time to investigating poor Montague John Druitt when there was a guy named Rippington wandering around?
Of course, it’s also possible that Jack the Ripper moved to the United States, had a daughter, and then she married someone named Rippington. Still, that seems like it would be an amazing coincidence.
(For the record, the real Jack the Ripper was some guy that you’ve never heard of and who probably died without ever telling anyone the truth. The fact that he was never captured would seem to indicate that the police were investigating the wrong suspects. And don’t start in with any of that royal conspiracy nonsense either. Honestly, that’s one of the silliest theories that I’ve ever heard.)
Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah, Fatal Exposure. Fatal Exposure is a shot-on-video epic that has some surprisingly effective gore effects. Between burning people with acid and chopping off their heads, Jack B. Rippington really gets into his work, and the results are often difficult to look at. If I were to compare this to any other film, it would probably be William Lustig’s Maniac, which featured Joe Spinell playing an equally homicidal photographer whose crimes seemed to owe more than a little to Jack the Ripper. Of course, Jack B. Rippington is much more handsome than Joe Spinell was in Maniac. If Maniac was a plunge into darkness and a trip to the realm of absolute zero, Fatal Exposure tries to be a bit of a comedic romp. Jack B. Rippington may be a murderer, but he also enjoys talking to the audience. In its use of dark humor and its breaking of the fourth wall, the film has quite a bit in common with Lucio Fulci’s Touch of Death.
There’s not really much of a plot to Fatal Exposure. Jack B. Rippington takes pictures of women in lingerie. He kills anyone who comes to the house. Erica eventually gets suspicious. But director Peter B. Good keeps the action moving, and it looks surprisingly good for a SOV film. (Good was best-known as a cinematographer.) Blake Bahner gives a good performance as Jack B. Rippington. It’s not a film for everyone, but, at the very least, it feels like a real movie. That puts it ahead of most SOV productions.
Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Saturdays, I will be reviewing Baywatch, which ran on NBC and then in syndication from 1989 to 2001. The entire show can be viewed on Tubi.
This week, the third of Baywatch begins with a special!
Episode 3.0: “Summerfest Special”
(Originally aired September 13, 1992)
“Hi, I’m David Hasselhoff, here to welcome you to the Summerfest special.”
The third season of Baywatch starts not with a story about Mitch Buchannon and his fellow lifeguards, but with a breezy special about the California lifestyle and what viewers can expect from the upcoming season. David Hasselhoff stands on the beach in his Baywatch uniform and earnestly talks about how important lifeguards are and how the show is all about celebrating their heroism.
“Life’s a beach,” Hasselhoff says, “and everyone’s life is at the beach.”
“We’ll be back with the latest in barely legal swimwear!” announcer Sean “Hollywood” Hamilton says as the special goes to commercial. Yes, that is the actual line.
In between shots of beachgoers in bikinis, the Summerfest Special features interviews with the cast members joining Baywatch in season 3. Susan Anton talks about being dramatically taller than her on-screen daughter, Nicole Eggert. David Charvet is introduced as “Baywatch’s newest bad boy.” Alexandra Paul says that maybe her character and Mitch will hook up, then laughs. Kelly Slater says that he’s not really an actor, but he joined the cast to show the world what “surfing is all about.” Pamela Anderson says that she’s looking forward to playing a “metaphysical character” because she’s very metaphysical herself. Gregory Alan Williams, who is being promoted to regular status in season 3, talks about saving a bystander during a riot because “I don’t like mobs.”
In between even more shots of beachgoers in bikinis, Hasselhoff talks about his music career and says that Baywatch is a show the entire family can watch. He adds, “Skimpy apparel is a part of the appeal.” This is followed by a montage of women in bikinis.
The Summerfest Special isn’t streaming on Tubi or Prime, but it is available on YouTube. The version I watched included all of the commercials that aired with the show. There weren’t any pharma commercials, which I appreciated. In America, we don’t really realize how bombarded we are with commercials for medicine with potentially deadly side effects until we get a chance to watch a complete broadcast from a time when no one in their right mind would think of advertising prescription medication on television.
Instead, I got a lot of commercials for local businesses and special musical compilation albums. There was a commercial for a Dodge dealership that bragged about how their vehicles came with airbags. In the middle of a commercial for a gospel album, a preacher said, “Who the hell left the gate open?” and everyone in the church cheered. A woman quit her job with confidence because of her Secret deodorant. “I’ll borrow my mother’s scarf,” a young woman who reminded me of myself declared, “but my mother’s tampons? No way!” A bunch of teen soccer players announced they’d rather drink “Sunny D” than “soda” or “purple stuff.” I’m from the South, so it always sounds weird to hear people refer to Coke as soda. It’s even weirder to see people preferring an orange drink to it.
If I seem to be spending a lot of time on the commercials, that’s because they felt like little mini time machines. Watching them was like taking a 30-second trip back to the early ’90s. As for the rest of the special, it was essentially a lengthy commercial for Baywatch and bikinis, but everyone interviewed seemed to be in a really good mood. They were having fun, and that’s the important thing.
