Horror Film Review: War of the Satellites (dir by Roger Corman)

Posted on October 2, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

1958’s War of the Satellites opens with a tragedy.

The United Nations is leading the way in humanity’s attempt to explore space. Unfortunately, ten manned spaceships (or “satellites” as they’re called in this film) all run into the same problem. There’s a “space barrier” around the Earth, one that traps any ship that flies into it. On Earth, Dr. Pol Van Ponder (Richard Devon) is forced to remotely blow up both the ships and the UN’s astronauts. It looks like the the UN’s space program is coming to an end.

Or, at least, it does until an unseen group of aliens drop a missile on Earth. The missile, when it’s discovered by two “teenagers” who appear to be in their 30s, doesn’t explode. Instead, it simply carries a message. Don’t try to explore space, the message says. A group of snooty aliens have decided that humanity is not ready to leave the planet. The message is read at the UN. In a scene that warmed my heart, the American delegate replies that no one tells humanity what to do. The aliens don’t want us in space? Well, guess where we’re going, baby!

(Woo hoo! I love my country!)

Unfortunately, Dr. Van Ponder is in a serious car accident and is killed. Or, at least, that’s what everyone believes until he shows up at the UN without a scratch on him. Van Ponder explains that he miraculously survived the accident and he’s now ready to lead the UN mission into space. The UN takes his survival as a sign that Van Ponder is meant to take humanity to the stars.

Of course, the truth of the matter is that Dr. Van Ponder actually was killed in that accident and the man at the UN is not Van Ponder but instead just an alien pretending to be him. A few people notice that Dr. Van Ponder is acting strangely. He speaks without emotion and uses curious phrases. When he burns his hand during an experiment, he barely seems to notice. When he’s alone in his office, he creates a second duplicate Van Ponder so that he can be two places at once. Everyone who suspects that Van Ponder is actually an alien ends up dead. Once the satellite takes off, it falls to crewman Dave Boyer (Dick Miller) to not only thwart Van Ponder’s evil scheme but to also convince Sybil Carrington (Susan Cabot) that Van Ponder is no longer the man who she thinks she loves.

Reportedly, a day after the Russians launched Sputnik, Roger Corman met with film producer Steve Broidy and said that, in return for $80,000, he could have a satellite movie ready to go in 90 days. Broidy asked him what the film would be about and Corman replied, “I don’t know but I will have the picture ready.” Broidy handed over the money and Corman shot War of the Satellites over the course of ten days. Corman also said that Broidy was so impressed with the film that he gave Corman an extra $500 to throw a party for the cast and crew. Corman never threw the party.

As for War of the Satellites, it clearly a rush job. The interior of the space ship is basically two rooms and a couple of chairs. The idea of the UN having a space program feels ridiculous today and I imagine it probably felt just as ridiculous in 1958. (We should have kicked the UN out of New York decades ago) That said, I have to admit that I really enjoyed this film. Richard Devon gives an appropriately off-center performance as Dr. Van Ponder and this film actually features Dick Miller in a rare heroic starring role. Even though he’s playing an astronomer, Miller still comes across like a New York wiseguy and my favorite scenes are the one where he gives Van Ponder a look that just seems to shout, “What are ya talking about, ya putz?” There’s something really enjoyable about watching scrappy Dick Miller play the type of role that would usually go to someone like Peter Graves or Kenneth Tobey. In an interview, Miller said that he felt miscast as the hero because he was only 5’5 while Devon was 6’1. But the fact that Devon is actually so much taller than Miller only makes us rooft for Dick Miller even more. As played by Dick Miller, Dave Boyar becomes the type of underdog that you can’t help but cheer for.

The best thing about this film is that it loudly declares that no one, no matter how scientifically-advanced or snooty, gets to tell humanity what to do. You want us to stay on Earth? We’re coming for the moon!

No one puts us in a corner.

Moments #36: October Rain

Posted on October 2, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

I used to love storms.

Living in Texas, you eventually get used to the long and dry summers, but it’s still always a good feeling when it starts to rain again. Up until two years ago, I got excited whenever I saw that we were under any type of weather alert. I loved the sound of the rain. I loved the way the wind howled. I even loved the thunder and the lightning. Sometimes, the lights would blink and the power would go out, but it didn’t bother me because it just added to the atmosphere.

That all changed on the night of May 27th, 2o24. I was already feeling anxious because my father was in the hospital. On Sunday, he had been in a car accident and, when I went to the hospital, he seemed like he was going to be okay. He had a broken shoulder and was obviously tired, but he was speaking normally and, when he saw me, he said he was happy to see me. He smiled, I remember that. A nurse told me that they were going to keep him for the night for observation. On Monday morning, I drove back to the hospital and, when I arrived, he was basically passed out in his bed. When I asked another nurse if he would be ready to go home anytime soon, she looked at me like I was asking a crazy question. I remember another nurse saying something about “rehab.” They promised me that a doctor would call. I went home. It turned out that they weren’t lying. A doctor did call that evening. He said my father was having trouble walking. I explained that he had Parkinson’s. The doctor said he would email me some information on the rehab centers that worked with my father’s insurance. “So,” I dumbly asked, “he’s not going home tonight?” The doctor laughed and said, “No, it’s going to be a while.”

At 9:00, I lay down on my couch and, exhausted, I fell asleep. I didn’t even bother to take off my clothes. I woke up at four in the morning to the sound of thunder and rain and howling wind. I tried to turn on the living room light, just to discover that the power was out. I stood up, stubbed my toe on an end table, said the F-word as loudly as I’ve ever said it, and then I limped over to the front door. I looked outside and the scene was apocalyptic. Rain was falling in sheets, the streets were flooded, and there were tree limbs strewn everywhere. A few trees had fallen over. The ones that still stood were violently swaying in the wind. I immediately thought of the stray cats that I fed every morning. Stupidly, I opened the front door to yell for them and I was immediately drenched.

By 7 in the morning, the rain was steady but light. I saw that Hunter and Hannah, who lived across the street from me, were outside, looking at the storm’s aftermath. I stepped outside, waved, and started to walk towards them. They saw me limping so they told me to stay where I was and came over to me. They asked me if Erin and I were okay. They told me that power was out all over town and that, when they called Oncor, they were told there was no estimate on when it would come back. We stood there and we looked up and down the block. Everything was wet. The road was so full of limbs that it appeared to be practically impassable. Trees had fallen over. Some people had broken windows. My own front door was sitting slightly off of its hinges.

(Don’t worry. Despite all the damage, the strays showed up to ask for food.)

I assumed that we would have our power back by the end of the day. Instead, the power was out for six days. It fell to the people living in the neighborhood to clean up the debris. (Even after the power came back, it would still be nearly a month before city clean-up crews got to us.) I saw a lot of really impressive things during those six days. Jeff helped to clean the streets and also helped our older neighbors with their fallen trees. Erin Nicole went to the store for people who couldn’t make it there on their own. As for me, I worried. I worried about everything. Several times, I tried to call the hospital to check on my father and all I got was some vague talk about how he had been moved to a different room. Meanwhile, the rain continued to fall. Sometimes, it was a drizzle and sometimes it was a shower, but every time it was a reminder of how little control I had over anything.

Eventually, the power came back. All of the debris was cleared. The rain stopped. My father was transferred from the hospital to the rehab center and then to home hospice, where he died two and a half months later. Ever since that week, there’s been a part of me that’s gotten anxious whenever I’ve seen that there’s a storm coming. It just brings back too many bad feelings.

A storm was predicted for October 1st this year and I was nervous. What if the power went out? What if I couldn’t contribute to this year’s Horrorthon? Well, I’m happy to say that the storm turned out to be a gloriously beautiful and rather peaceful rain shower. Sometimes, it was a heavy shower and sometimes it was a light shower, but there was a gentleness to it. I spent most of Thursday afternoon lying in bed in a comfy t-shirt and underwear, looking out the window and watching as the trees slowly and rhythmically swayed. The sound of the rain was relaxing and, as I listened to it, I remembered how much I loved the rain when I was growing up. And I realized that I still do.

It was the perfect start for October.

Previous Moments:

Horror On TV: Fear Itself 1.1 “The Sacrifice” (dir by Breck Eisner)

Posted on October 2, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Produced by Mick Garris, Fear Itself was an attempt to bring the Masters of Horror format to network television. Each week, a different director would present a tale of terror. The series aired on NBC. 13 episodes were filmed but only five were broadcast before the show was put on hiatus for the 2008 Summer Olympics. The Olympics eventually ended but Fear Itself never returned.

The first episode of Fear Itself featured Jesse Plemons as one of four criminals who finds themselves holed in an isolated fort with three mysterious women. The women are not what they seem and the criminals soon find themselves fighting for their lives.

The Sacrifice first aired on June 5th, 2008. It was directed by Breck Eisner, who went on to direct the 2010 remake of The Crazies.

October Hacks: Slashlorette Party (dir by Paula Ragsdale and Angelica de Alba)

Posted on October 2, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

First released in 2020, Slashlorette Party is a decent indie slasher. It isn’t totally successful, but it deserves credit for respecting the rules of the genre while using those rules to explore something more than the usual hacking and slashing. This is a film that never apologizes for being a slasher, and I appreciated that. I’m tired of horror movies made by people who think they’re better than the genre. At the same time, this is a film that not only has blood on the floor but thoughts in its head. There’s something to be said for that.

Molly Souza plays Brie, who is engaged to Dolph (Andrew Brown). The wedding is just around the corner, but there’s one big problem: Brie has just realized that she doesn’t really like Dolph that much. In fact, Dolph is such a jerk that he almost feels like a parody of the bad boyfriend who always shows up in romantic comedies so the sweet, sensitive guy will look even better as he encourages the female lead to dump him. (Strangely, no one ever asks, “What did you ever see in someone like that to begin with?”) Brie’s therapist (Ginger Lynn Allen) thinks Brie should consider ending the engagement. Meanwhile, Brie’s friends Alexa (Brooke Morris) and Nia (Nina Lanee Kent) want her to stay engaged at least long enough for them to throw her a bachelorette party at a remote cabin in the woods. You know who else loves parties in remote cabins in the woods? Homicidal maniacs!

Slashlorette Party is about more than just people being murdered in the woods. Absolutely no one in the film seems to believe that Brie should marry Dolph. Dolph is such a jerk that even when Brie disappears in the woods, he responds by sitting around and drinking a beer. Brie can barely stand Dolph, but she feels that she’s obligated to marry him because he asked and that otherwise she’ll run the risk of being forever single. Meanwhile, Dolph and his friends spend their time talking about how easy they believe women have it compared to men. In their worldview, all women are teases and all men are victims. (Ironically, the dumbest and most outspoken of the men actually does end up getting teased by one of the women shortly before getting his hand cut off by someone who is even more misogynistic than he is. His prediction of being both teased and victimized comes true, even if he’s too stupid to appreciate it.) When the deaths occur, they feel like a commentary on incel self-pity. Brie and her friends are targeted because of the male gaze. The men fall victim because they’re too hopelessly whiny and beta to defend themselves.

Slashlorette Party is a low-budget indie horror film. At first I didn’t have much hope for it. It seemed like just another movie that would feature a lot of bad acting and maybe some semi-decent gore. For the first half, the pace does feel off, and I spent a lot of time wondering if anyone was actually going to die. In the second half, though, things pick up. There are a few memorably bloody deaths. There are a few interesting twists. It becomes obvious that the film is meant to be more than a typical wilderness slasher. There’s some bite to the dialogue. There’s a funny joke about a male stripper who shows up as a policeman and finds himself stumbling onto a real crime scene. When the film started, I thought Dolph was too much of a lout to be believed, but the movie has a few surprises up its sleeve when it comes to his character. It ends with a final twist you will either love or hate. I always appreciate a film that’s willing to risk being hated.

I’ve been to enough bachelorette parties that I could relate. It isn’t really a bachelorette party until at least one person has said something they shouldn’t have and the bride-to-be is locked in the bathroom having a panic attack. If nothing else, this film captures the feeling of a bunch of people realizing their friend is about to make the biggest mistake of her life and deciding to throw a party to celebrate.

SOV Horror: Psycho Scarecrow (dir by Steve Galler)

Posted on October 2, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

In an alley in the middle of a big city, a junkie puts a human-sized mirror on the ground so that he can snort one tiny line of cocaine. Suddenly a disturbing image is reflected in the glass: a young woman (Tracy Rankin) plunges to the ground and crashes straight into the mirror. The mirror is shattered. So is the woman. The cocaine? Presumably it’s scattered to the wind. There’s probably a lesson for us all there.

So starts Psycho Scarecrow, a surprisingly enjoyable shot-on-video horror film from 1996.

The woman is named Sheila Murphy. When two detectives (Tim Vince and Joe Parro) arrive at Sheila’s apartment, they debate whether she committed suicide or was thrown to her death. The veteran detective thinks it is a clear case of suicide. It’s late, and he just wants to wrap up the investigation and go home. The younger detective, however, insists that they listen to the message Sheila tape-recorded before her death.

The rest of the film switches back and forth between the past and the present. Sheila’s final message tells the story of how she and her friends decided to go camping for the weekend and, after their car broke down, ended up spending the night in a cornfield. When one of the friends was accidentally killed, they decided to cover up the death by dressing him up as a scarecrow and leaving him in the field. Unfortunately, the field was cursed. Soon Sheila and her friends found themselves being stalked by a heavy-set scarecrow that had a pumpkin for a face. He also rides a motorcycle.

Psycho Scarecrow took me by surprise. This is a low-budget, shot-on-video horror film that actually features clever dialogue, a lot of atmosphere, and a villain who should be silly but is actually pretty creepy. Psycho Scarecrow pokes fun at the conventions of the horror genre while also showing that it understands how to use those conventions to tell an effectively spooky story. It plays out like a story you might hear while sitting around a campfire, or maybe in your living room when a storm is raging outside and the electricity is out. (Sheila’s taped narration definitely helps as far as that’s concerned.) It’s a story that will occasionally make you roll your eyes or even laugh, but it’s still told effectively enough that you’ll look over your shoulder before walking off on your own.

What makes this film so effective is that the filmmakers obviously understood the limitations of the shot-on-video (SOV) genre and, instead of being imprisoned by those limitations, used them to their advantage. The majority of the film is shot at night. Actually shooting at night is a dangerous thing. I’ve seen so many SOV films where the night scenes were so dark that you couldn’t even see what was happening on screen. (There’s a reason Hollywood developed the day-for-night shot.) In Psycho Scarecrow, the night scenes are dark but still lit enough that you can actually see who is in the scene. The background darkness becomes a character of its own. Characters emerge from and disappear into the darkness, and we’re always aware that there could be anything hiding in the shadows.

I assume the cast was made up of amateur and local actors, but everyone does a good job of bringing their characters to life. Even the scenes with the two detectives don’t slow down the action, and it’s hard not to smile at how the veteran detective refuses to accept that Sheila was murdered despite all of the evidence his partner easily uncovers.

Ultimately, what makes the film work is its rural atmosphere, which is both intriguing and ominous at the same time. Watching the film, I was reminded of the times I’ve spent in the country. I remembered walking through fields of high grass in shorts and a T-shirt and freezing in place because I heard what sounded like a snake slithering nearby. I remembered stopping to use my inhaler and trying not to think about how easy it would be for someone or something to hide behind the round bales of hay that decorated the landscape. I remembered the feeling that anything could be out there. It was scary and exciting at the same time.

Psycho Scarecrow is an enjoyably creepy SOV production. It’s the type of film that deserves to be rediscovered this Halloween.

The TSL Horror Grindhouse: Amityville A.I. (dir by Matt Jaissle)

Posted on October 2, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Let’s give some credit to the Amityville franchise. It simply does not stop.

In November 1974, 23-year-old Ronald DeFeo Jr., a heroin user, murdered his entire family in their home at 112 Ocean Avenue in Amityville, New York. After realizing no one was going to buy his original claim that the Mafia killed everyone but left him alive, he eventually said a demon had possessed him. Some people believed that story because some people will believe anything that involves demonic possession.

A family called the Lutzes moved into the Amityville murder house, lasted a few weeks, then fled and claimed they’d been haunted by the same demons that drove DeFeo to kill. It was a stupid story, but it fed the 1970s obsession with the apocalypse and demonic possession. That was the decade of The Exorcist and The Omen. A “non-fiction” novel was published and became a bestseller. In 1979 a movie was made and became a hit. In the years since, there have been dozens upon dozens of films with “Amityville” in the title. Some are actual Amityville films. Most are generic low-budget horror that just borrowed the name. What they all have in common is the claim that DeFeo was possessed by Satan and that the Lutzes weren’t lying about the house being haunted. If there really is an Amityville Demon, it’s probably furious by now. These films do not make it look good.

In 2024’s Amityville A.I., Stuart Birdsall (William Childress) is the latest person to move into a house in the Amityville area. (It doesn’t appear to be the original house, though a few shots suggest they share the same attic windows.) Stuart is developing an A.I. and he’s convinced he’ll get the work done in the new place. Unfortunately the house is possessed, and soon so is his program. Even worse, the demon starts possessing the other electronic devices in the neighborhood. Stuart’s neighbor owns a sex doll that is soon running around saying, “Do you want to have sex?” while flashing a knife.

Amityville A.I. mixes demonic possession with the current moral panic around artificial intelligence and data centers. To be honest, Stuart’s A.I. doesn’t seem particularly practical. Its name is VIC 3000 and it is clearly riffing on HAL 9000 from 2001: A Space Odyssey. Setting Vic up means lugging around a lot of bulky equipment. There are several scenes of Stuart staring at diagrams on his laptop, and it’s never quite clear what any of it has to do with VIC or why anyone would pick VIC over the other A.I. options out there. Perhaps that’s why the demon starts messing with him. Hubris, not artificial intelligence, will be the downfall of .… well, it feels a bit too dramatic to say humanity. How about Amityville? Hubris will be the downfall of Amityville.

That said, I actually enjoyed Amityville A.I. It’s a low-budget movie that looks like a low-budget movie, but it commits to the bit. The sight of Stuart being chased by a psychotic, smiling sex doll belongs in the Amityville Hall of Fame. Whether it’s the demon, the A.I., or just his own twisted mind, Stuart is put through the wringer, and the film does tap the fear a lot of people have right now: that A.I. is both convenient and destined to destroy us.

If the first Amityville film’s message was that you should just leave the house, this one suggests you should consider disconnecting. Good luck with that.

Previous TSL Amityville Reviews:

Retro Television Review: St. Elsewhere 4.13 “To Tell The Truth”

Posted on October 2, 2026 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 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.

Has John Doe finally discovered his real identity?

Episode 4.13 “To Tell The Truth”

(Dir by Mark Tinker, originally aired on January 15th, 1986)

Last week’s episode ended with an abortion protester hiding a bomb in a custodial cart. The majority of this episode features various characters pushing that cart around the hospital, leaving us to wonder if and when the bomb is going to go off. At one point, even Dr. Craig gives the cart a frustrated shove. When the bomb finally does go off, it’s sitting outside the hospital gift shop. The hospital survives. An orderly is seriously injured. And Morrison gets to yell at the bomber (Rob Garrison).

Fiscus isn’t in the hospital when the bomb goes off. Instead, he’s out doing his Westphall-mandated community service. Fiscus is sent out on house calls, visiting elderly patients in their homes and doing follow-up exams. Fiscus hates it, and it’s easy to see why. For the most part, the old people are stereotypes. This episode is a rare case of St. Elsewhere trying too hard to be sentimental.

(And yes, when Fiscus complains, you can be sure that Westphall is ready with a long monologue about the time he spent in Ethiopia.)

The Valeres (George DelHoyo and Deborah May) are both getting frustrated with their inability to conceive. With Dr. Turner currently visiting her hometown in Mississippi, Ehrlich and Chandler have taken over the case. Ehrlich recommends that the Valeres consider adoption. Chandler, however, tells them that they should continue with IVF.

After a long day in court, Lucy slaps Helen, declares them to be even, and then drops her lawsuit.

Finally, Ramsey Headley (Ellis Rabb) and Lucinda Ferrare-Headley (Carrie Nye) show up at the hospital and claim that John Doe No. 6 is their long-lost brother and the heir to their family’s fortune. John Doe No. 6, who had been experimenting with being Shakespeare, says that he knows them and that he now realizes that he is Thomas Headley of New Orleans. Auschlander is happy that John has found his identity, but he’s still sad to see him go. (Auschlander does not seem to notice that the Headleys all speak like characters in a bad Tennessee Williams play.) After John leaves, the hospital gets a call from a “New Orleans sanitarium,” informing them that two of their patients have escaped and are heading to Boston. Yikes! If John returns next week, this will be a funny little incident. If he doesn’t, I’m never going to forgive Auschlander for letting him leave with two obvious charlatans.

This week’s episode was .… well, it was okay. It had its good moments, like the suspense with the custodial cart and the John Doe storyline. But it also got a bit too sentimental with the old people, and I’m at the point where I’m going to scream if I have to listen to another Westphall lecture about life in Ethiopia.

Let’s just be happy that the show didn’t kill Santa Claus again.

Horror Book Review: The Funhouse by Dean Koontz, writing as Owen West

Posted on October 2, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

In 1980, Dean Koontz was hired to write a novelization of The Funhouse. At the time, he was not yet a household name. He still regularly worked as an author-for-hire under a string of pseudonyms; for this book, he originally published as Owen West. While Tobe Hooper was in pre-production, Koontz was assigned to turn Larry Block’s screenplay into a fast, accessible novel. He was not particularly impressed by Block’s story, but he liked the idea of writing about a carnival. Production delays meant the novelization reached stores in late 1980, months before the film. It sold well at first. When the movie finally opened in 1981 and did disappointing business, the book’s sales collapsed. Years later, after Koontz had become a bestselling author in his own right, The Funhouse was reissued under his real name.

The first thing that stands out is how little the novel has in common with Hooper’s film. The movie, of which I am a fan, is a fairly straightforward, atmosphere-heavy slasher. Teenager Amy and her three friends hide in the funhouse after the carnival closes, witness a murder, and find themselves hunted by a carny and his son. Those elements are all present in Koontz’s book, but he adds a large amount of backstory, most of it centered on Amy’s alcoholic mother, Ellen.

In the novel, Ellen is the ex-wife of Conrad the carny. A runaway, she married him without realizing he was a Satanist who hoped she would give birth to the Antichrist. When their demonic infant attacked her, Ellen crushed the baby. Conrad swore revenge: he would let her go so he could hunt her down later and destroy whatever family she built. What plays as random bad luck in the film becomes something very different here. Over the years, Conrad and his second son, the deformed Gunther, take their carnival from town to town in search of Ellen and her new family. The other carnival workers are drawn as sympathetic figures, people on the margins who have formed a family of their own and have no idea how depraved Conrad and Gunther really are.

Family is the novel’s real subject. Ellen has remarried and has two children, Amy and Joey. In the film, Amy is a typically naïve final girl, and Joey is an annoying brat who sneaks out to the carnival. Ellen appears only briefly and makes little impression, though she is seen drinking as Amy leaves the house. In the book, Ellen hits Amy when her daughter says she is pregnant, then pays for the abortion because she fears Amy might give birth to the Antichrist. Joey is terrified of Ellen and runs away to the carnival because, like Ellen before him, he wants an escape from a dysfunctional home. The contrast between the carnies’ supportive found family and Amy and Joey’s abusive “respectable” household is easy to spot, but it still works.

Koontz’s eye for detail and his gift for vivid characterization lift The Funhouse above the usual horror novelization. The plot is occasionally stretched thin. Conrad’s revenge scheme never quite makes sense. What if Ellen had stayed unmarried and never had another child? Even so, Koontz keeps the action moving and is smart enough to lean into the melodrama without apology. He even lands a surprisingly moving final scene.

This is a case of a novelization that diverges sharply from its source. I like both Hooper’s film and Koontz’s novel. They are both wonderfully macabre. The film is true to Hooper’s aesthetic. The novel is pure Koontz.

October True Crime: Devil On Campus (dir by Elisabeth Rohm)

Posted on October 2, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Remember The Vow?

A two-season docuseries that aired on HBO, The Vow featured former members of the NXIVM cult telling their stories and trying to downplay their own involvement in all of the cult’s crimes. In one of the show’s key scenes, former filmmaker and NXIVM follower Mark Vicente angrily exclaimed that anyone could get brainwashed. Anyone could become a member of a cult.

I have never really believed that.

I’ve sat through several documentaries and docudramas about cults. I have listened to countless interviews with disillusioned former members. One thing that has always really stood out to me is that people who get brainwashed and join cults are usually some of the stupidest, flakiest people in the world. Inevitably, they always say they felt they were missing something in their lives and that they needed a greater purpose. And to that, I say, “Big deal.” If something’s missing from your life, volunteer at a soup kitchen. Don’t give up your identity for a commune. Cults seem to appeal to weak-willed people who want to be told that they’re victims first and individuals last.

I found myself thinking about all of this as I watched 2024’s Devil on Campus: The Larry Ray Story. Based on a true story, Devil on Campus opens in 2010 with Larry Ray (Billy Zane) showing up at his daughter’s dorm room at Sarah Lawrence College. Larry has just been released from prison, though he claims that he was set up by Rudy Giuliani and former NYPD Commissioner Bernie Kerik. Larry is charismatic and energetic. He has a gift for telling stories that sound like they could potentially be credible as long as you don’t give them too much thought. Larry also has a lot of money and, at the start, he seems to have a generous nature.

Larry is soon living in the dorm room and controlling the lives of both his daughter and her roommates. He can be tough. He can be erratic. But he repeatedly tells all of them that he’s just trying to help them. Larry encourages them to express their emotions and to cry and to have sex with each other. Eventually, he encourages them to live in an off-campus apartment with him, to work (without pay) on his family farm, and finally to work as sex workers. Eventually, some break away from him and some do not. It’s good that some realized the truth, but it’s hard not to be disappointed that it took them so long to do so.

Though a few names have been changed, Devil on Campus sticks close to the facts of the case. The movie works largely due to Billy Zane’s bigger-than-life screen presence. The minute that Zane appears in the film, he dominates every frame. He plays Larry as someone smart enough to know that the way to keep people from questioning you is to just keep talking. Larry instinctively recognizes when someone is too weak-willed or slow-witted to resist being manipulated. Zane’s performance dominates the film. His victims, on the other hand, come across as ciphers, but perhaps that’s a reflection of reality. Regardless of what Mark Vicente claimed in The Vow, not everyone is dumb enough to get brainwashed.

As for the real-life Larry Ray, he’s currently in federal prison. He’s scheduled to be released in 2071, when he will be 111 years old.

Horror Film Review: Tony Manero (dir by Pablo Larrain)

Posted on October 2, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Pablo Larraín’s 2008 film Tony Manero tells the story of an odd man named Raúl (Alfredo Castro). At the height of the Pinochet dictatorship, Raúl lives in a dilapidated boarding house with his girlfriend’s family. The boarding house has a small stage for putting on shows, and Raúl uses it to choreograph dances that pay tribute to his favorite movie, Saturday Night Fever, and his favorite character, Tony Manero. Raúl is a quiet man who comes to life whenever he imitates John Travolta’s dance moves. He goes to see Saturday Night Fever on a daily basis and can recite all of the dialogue by heart. A Chilean TV show is hosting a Tony Manero look-alike contest, and Raúl is determined to win. He even gets a white suit and looks forward to becoming a star instead of just a poor nobody.

That may sound like the setup for a heartwarming, crowd-pleasing movie, but it is not. Raúl is a bitter and paranoid man in his 50s. He’s on the short side. Despite owning a white suit and being able to do all the moves, he really doesn’t look much like Tony Manero. Throughout the film, he goes out of his way to find the secret to becoming Tony Manero. (He becomes obsessed with making the boarding house stage light up just like the disco dance floor in the movie.) But the truth of the matter is that he is not Tony Manero. He is not a charismatic young man trying to find himself in Brooklyn. He is a rather creepy and obnoxious middle-aged man living under a dictatorship. The film turns into a full horror film as it becomes obvious how far Raúl will go to accomplish his dream. When the kindly theater owners swap out Saturday Night Fever for Grease, Raúl is not pleased.

There is a humorous scene early in the film in which Raúl shows up at the television studio in his Tony Manero costume, only to discover that he has gotten the date wrong and has shown up a week early. Everyone in the studio is dressed up to look like Chuck Norris. At the same time, the subtext is very serious. Director Pablo Larraín is showing the influence of American culture on Chile and commenting on American involvement in helping Pinochet take power in 1973. While Raúl tries to turn himself into Tony Manero, people are informing on their neighbors and dissidents are being executed in the streets. Raúl is indifferent to the violence around him. (When he witnesses an execution, his response is to loot the body.) While his girlfriend’s son gets involved with the anti-Pinochet underground, Raúl focuses on trying to transform himself into Tony Manero. In Saturday Night Fever, Tony Manero can escape his oppressive home life by riding the train to a different borough. Raúl doesn’t have that option.

Seen from today’s perspective, Tony Manero’s portrayal of Pinochet’s Chile brings to mind what a lot of people wanted America to become during the COVID era, complete with secret police, neighborhood informants, and the rich getting to flout the rules while the poor were expected to be happy with whatever crumbs were left over. If Raúl survived the Pinochet years, it is easy to imagine him in his 90s, reporting his neighbors for not wearing a face mask and then settling in to watch Saturday Night Fever for the thousandth time.