Today’s Horror on the Lens is a classic film that really needs no introduction! Released in 1922, the German silent film Nosferatu remains one of the greatest vampire films ever made. It’s a film that we share every October and I’m happy to do so again this year!
Enjoy!
The 2016 film, Remember the Goal, is all about running track.
Well, actually, I guess it’s not all about running track. It’s also about the importance of teamwork. It’s also about the importance of remaining humble, respecting authority, and doing what your coach tells you to do. In short, it’s a film that makes me happy that I wasn’t on the track team in high school. I’m not really a fan of authority or doing what other people tell me to do. For that matter, I’m not really much of a team person. I’m an individualist who enjoys being around other individualists. I’m a big believer that people can work together while still allowing everyone to do their own thing and at their own pace.
In short, Coach Courtney Smith-Donnelly (Allee Sutton Hethcoat) would probably not want me on her track team and that’s okay. Though I will say that, a few years ago, I took up running because I was told that it might help to ease my asthma and it totally has. I start nearly every morning with a good run. I enjoy running. It helps me to clear my head and get my thoughts in order. Plus, it keeps my legs looking good.
But anyway, back to the film.
Courtney is the new coach at the local Christian school. Unfortunately, her coaching techniques prove to be controversial. She wants the members of the track team to pace themselves and to only run at a certain tempo, even if it means losing the race. Courtney is trying to teach the team how to conserve their energy so that they’ll still have it when they get to State. All of the parents, though, are upset because they want their daughters to win every race instead of spending all of their time preparing for the state competition. They’re also not happy when Courtney starts tells them that they need to stop putting so much pressure on their children and instead just have faith in Courtney’s plans.
Meanwhile, the five girls on the team all deal with typical high school problems. One of them likes a guy but her father has forbidden her from dating and, since this is a Christian film, she decides to honor her father’s wishes. Another girl has just started smoking weed and, when confronted about it, she replies (quite correctly) that the Bible doesn’t say anything about smoking. She also points out that most teenagers her age are experimenting with new things. “An alcoholic starts with just one drink!” her friend replies, “A drug addict starts with just one joint!” Uhmmm, that’s not really true but it’s enough to get her friend to give up the weed with roots in Hell.
This is another Dave Christiano film that takes a popular genre — in this case, a sports movie — and uses it to push a faith-based message. The coach continually quotes Corinthians and the end of the film literally compares coaching a cross country team to Jesus raising the dead. It’s a bit much, even if it’s not quite as preachy as his earlier films. (No one is condemned to Hell in this film, for example.) Christiano makes the unfortunate decision to have the final race play out in slow motion. That’s several minutes of nonstop slow motion. Unfortunately, slow motion and running are not a great combination, especially when some members of the cast are obviously more experienced runners than others.
Anyway, the main message here (beyond the religious one) seems to be that there’s no “self” in team. What fun is that, though? I’ll keep running for myself.
Tonight, on Circle of Fear, bratty Robert (played by Leif Garrett) discovers that an upstairs door in his family’s new apartment building leads to someplace very unexpected. His older sister, Peggy (Susan Dey), doesn’t believe him but she soon learns the error of her ways.
This episode is really creepy and atmospheric and I don’t want to spoil too much of it. It was written by Jimmy Sangster, who also did several Hammer films, and it was directed by Daryl Duke. To be honest, this episode reminds me of the episode of Lost where Jack stumbles across the ghosts of Ben’s parents outside of the cabin. It has a similar, dream-like feel to it.
The episode originally aired on January 26th, 1973.
This 1960 film tells the story of Bill Allison (Robert Clarke), an air force test pilot who flies his test craft into space and then returns to discover that Earth has totally changed!
The Air Force base where he previously worked is now deserted and desolate. After he’s captured by a group of silent soldiers, Allison is taken to an underground city known as the Citadel. He meets the head of the city, an older man known as The Supreme (Vladimer Sokoloff). The Supreme explains that only he and his second-in-command, The Captain (Red Morgan), can speak and hear. The rest of humanity communicates through telepathy. Though the Supreme’s granddaughter, Princess Trirene (Darlene Tompkins), telepathically insists that Allison is not a threat, the Supreme and the Captain still exile him to live with a bunch of angry, bald mutants who are determined to destroy the city. Allison meets three other exiles and discovers that they too are time travelers. The scientists explains that Bill has found himself in the far future. The year is no longer 1960. No, the year is …. 2024!
OH MY GOD, WE’VE ONLY GOT TWO YEARS LEFT!
Actually, we’ve probably got less than two years left. This is October and the film appears to be taking place in the summer so we’ve probably only got 18 months to go!
(Cue Jennifer Lawrence: “We’re all gonna die!” Cue Leonardo Di Caprio: “I’m so scared!” Okay, tell them both to shut up now.)
Anyway, Allison assumes that society must have collapsed due to a global war but the scientists explain that the first manned spacetrip to the moon actually ushered in an era of peace. (Wow, how did I miss this?) In fact, humans had colonized the Moon, Mars, and Venus by 1970. (Woo hoo! Yay, humanity!) However, years of nuclear testing had weakened the Earth’s atmosphere and, in 1971, the planet was bombarded by cosmic rays. (Uh oh….) Humanity was forced to move into underground cities. Some of them developed telepathy and became super advanced. Others became bald mutants. Unfortunately, everyone is now sterile and the Supreme probably expects Allison to impregnate Trirene and do his part to repopulate the planet.
On the one hand, Allison and Trirene are falling in love. Allison is handsome and strong. Trirene has pretty hair and is the only citizen of the Citadel who gets to wear anything flattering. They’re a cute couple. On the other hand, if Allison sticks around the repopulate the planet, he’ll never be able to go back to his present and warn everyone about the upcoming cosmic ray plague. Plus, it soon becomes clear that the scientists have an agenda of their own. Allison finds himself torn between the two factions trying to control the Citadel.
Made for next to no money and filmed at Fair Park in Dallas, Beyond The Time Barrier is a surprisingly good film. It was directed by Edgar G. Ulmer, an Austrian director who started out as an associate of Fritz Lang’s and who followed Lang to the United States. Ulmer made films for the Poverty Row studios and he was a master of creating atmosphere on a budget. He was one of the pioneers of film noir and he brought that same style to his horror and sci-fi films. As envisioned by Ulmer in Beyond The Time Barrier, the future is full of menacing shadows, dangerous con artists, and untrustworthy authority figures. It’s a fatalistic film, one that ends on a surprisingly downbeat note. Even if Allison can save humanity, will it really be worth all the trouble? Much like Detour, Ulmer’s best-known film, Beyond The Time Barrier plays out like a deliberately-paced dream, full of surreal moments and ominous atmosphere.
Beyond The Time Barrier is available on YouTube and Prime. Watch it now before we have to go underground.
Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Mondays, I will be reviewing Hang Time, which ran on NBC from 1995 to 2000. The entire show is currently streaming on YouTube!
It’s time for championship so let’s get to it!
Episode 1.13 “Game Day”
(Directed by Howard Murray, originally aired on December 2nd, 1995)
The final episode of Hang Time‘s first season opens not with the team practicing or Coach Fuller coaching. Instead, it opens with the Deering High gym dark and deserted, with the exception of Samantha. Samantha sits in the bleachers, writing in her diary. As I watched this scene, it occurred to me that, after 12 episodes, we know next to nothing about Sam beyond the fact that she works at the Sports Shack, she’s the equipment manager, and she’s dating Danny. Does she have a family? Does she have parents who wonder why she’s hanging out at the gym in the middle of the night? Why can’t she write in her journal at home? I get the feeling that Sam’s home life must have been some sort of Dickensian nightmare.
Anyway, this episode revolves around Sam remembering the days leading up the championship game and the game itself. She writes that she had never seen Coach Fuller “so pumped,” which means that we get a flashback of Fuller talking to the team in the locker room and yes, he does seem pretty excited. Fuller tells the team that “I know the Huskies are undefeated …. but I know we’re going to win tonight because we’re a family!”
(Here’s my thing, though. The Huskies are undefeated but the Tornadoes are not. So why is the championship being played at Deering High instead of wherever it is that the Huskies are from?)
Fuller leaves the locker room and everyone starts fighting! Oh no! There’s trouble in basketball world! Michael thinks he’s jinxed! Danny and Sam are arguing! Chris and Julie aren’t even talking!
“But I’m getting ahead of myself,” Sam writes, “This all started Monday morning.”
And so, we go even further into the flashback machine. Julie gives Chris a massage outside the school but gets upset when Chris accidentally calls her “Mary Beth.” “It just slipped out!” Chris replies, something that he probably says to Julie a lot. Julie gets upset.
Meanwhile, while having a picnic in the gym (again, with the gym), Sam tells Danny that she loves him. Danny panics and replies, “I like you a lot.” AGCK! Bad move, Danny. It’s bad enough that Sam is apparently not allowed to leave the gym. She’s also got a coward for a boyfriend.
At practice, Coach Fuller tells everyone that they have to play as a team. Fuller says that Chris’s playing has sucked over the past few weeks. What could Chris be doing differently than before? Let’s see. When Chris was playing well, he was dating Mary Beth. Now, he’s dating …. uh oh. Mary Beth overhears and mentions that she used to always kiss Chris before every game. Now, of course, Chris is dating Julie and Julie apparently doesn’t believe in showing affection so it sucks to be Chris.
At lunch, Julie tells Sam that she grew up with four brothers and they can play “every Led Zeppelin song through use of their armpits.” I don’t know if I believe that. Some of those songs are pretty long. Stairway to Heaven is like a 50-minute song if I remember correctly. Julie is worried Chris isn’t over Mary Beth. Sam says that she has nothing to worry about and then writes, “Sometimes, you have to lie through your teeth.”
Danny tries to apologize to Sam, explaining the he thinks people are too quick to use the “L-word.” Sam says she understands but then Danny casually mentions that he “loves” tuna fish. Meanwhile, Earl freaks out because Michael walks under a ladder. Everyone’s getting a storyline in this episode!
Chris also gives into his superstition, sharing a kiss with Mary Beth before the game. Actually, he shares several. He’s so busy kissing her that he doesn’t notice Julie coming out of the locker room until the last minute! Uh-oh.
The game begins with everyone angry at each other. Myself, I’m more concerned that the other team is being played by people who obviously were basketball players and, as a result, they tower over the Deering Tornadoes.
(Incidentally, I spell Tornadoes with an E. Judging by the banners hanging in the Deering High gym, this show does not. However, I’m the one writing the review.)
Before the game begins, Julie tells Chris that she’s not going to be a runner-up to anyone. (But seriously, Mary Beth is so cool that if you were going to be runner up to someone….) Julie then kisses Earl to show that she can have any guy she wants. Earl does the chef’s kiss motion while Chris stares on horrified.
Despite their problems, the Deering High Tornadoes still take the lead. However, Coach Fuller is angry because the score is still too close in his opinion. Hey, Coach, they’re winning! A win is a win. Fuller does praise Chris for playing a great game. We all know who deserves the credit for that. Mary Beth better get the game ball.
In a subplot that is so stupid that I’ve been tying to avoid mentioning it, Michael has been trying to play the game without stepping on any cracks on the gym floor. (He doesn’t want to break his mother’s back. I told you it was stupid.) Fuller yanks him out of the game and sends in a previously unseen player as a replacement. The new player’s name is Bryan Kuta, which feels like such a random name that I’m assuming that was either the actor’s real name or the name of someone on the show’s crew. Later, when Fuller tries to send Michael back into the game, Michael refuses because there’s only 13 seconds left in the quarter. I would make fun of Michael but, to be honest, I refuse to use odd numbers. If you’ve ever wondered why I always use four periods for an ellipsis instead of the standard three …. well, now you know. Anyway, Fuller gives Michael a piece of tape and tells him to use it as a good luck charm.
Danny gets knocked to the ground. Samantha runs out on court to make sure that he’s okay. Michael interrupts the game by grabbing a microphone and announcing, “Samantha Morgan, I love you.” Awwwwwww! Yes, it’s cringey but Sam and Danny are a cute couple so it works.
With only 30 seconds left in the game, Coach Fuller pulls Chris and Julie off the court and replaces them with the second-string players. Of course, the Tornados are up by ten. Let’s see if Fuller would be so nice if it was a one point game! Chris tells Julie that all of the luck came from Julie and not Mary Beth. Personally, I think we all know that Mary Beth deserves all the credit.
The Tornadoes win the championship 84-75. “Well, congratulations,” Fuller tells the players, “You’re the champs.” That wasn’t much of a speech but …. Yay, I guess.
And so, the first season comes to an end. Chris and Julie are a couple! Danny and Sam are in love! Michael is going to be a star! Earl already is a star! I can’t wait to see what happens to all of them next season….
Oh, alright. I’ll tell you what happens next season. Chris, Sam, Michael, and Earl are written out of the show and all of tonight’s storylines are forgotten about. Join us next week for …. THE NEW HANG TIME!
AGCK!
This is from the original 1987 Hellraiser. The Cenobites were probably never scarier than they were in their very first appearance. Perhaps the most interesting thing about them is that, rather than being stereotypically good or evil, they’re actually neutral. They’re doing their job and, if you don’t want to see them, don’t mess around with the puzzle box. Doug Bradley was brilliant in the role of the head Cenobite (who, of course, would later be known as Pinhead).
Let’s hang out with The Thrill Club!
The who club?
The Thrill Club! They’re the group of high school students who are at the center of R.L. Stine’s 1994 novel, The Thrill Club. They get together at night and they read the scary stories that they’ve written. Perhaps the most macabre of all the writers is Talia, who always comes up with stories about people getting cornered by scary ghosts and ripped up into little pieces. The other members of The Thrill Club are a bit upset because Talia keeps using them as a characters in her gory horror stories. (Of course, what they don’t know is that Talia’s boyfriend, Seth, has secretly been writing Talia’s stories for her.) I’m not really sure why that would upset anyone, especially people who are supposed to be horror fans. Part of the fun of reading a scary story or watching a horror movie is imagining what you would do in that situation and why it would inevitably lead to your horrible death. Anyway, Shondel asks Talia not to use her name in any more scary stories. A few days later, Shondel is dead …. murdered …. and somebody’s responsible! (Yes, that is a line from Plan 9 From Outer Space.)
Who killed Shondel? Everyone in the Thrill Club suspects that it was Talia and isn’t that the way it always goes? You write a few stories about your friends being brutally murdered and then, once they are, who is automatically the number one suspect? Of course, it also doesn’t help that, on the night of Shondel’s murder, Talia comes to the Thrill Club meeting wearing a blood-stained sweatshirt. And then there’s the fact that someone claiming to be Talia called Shondel’s mother and confessed to the crime….
Oh my God! Could Talia be guilty!?
The mystery is eventually solved, of course, and it’s all pretty dumb. Anyone who remembers the episode of Saved By The Bell were Zach thought he had brainwashed the entire student body into wanting to take him to the school dance will automatically see The Thrill Club‘s twist coming from a mile away. That said, I enjoyed the book because I used to write short stories featuring my high school friends as well. Of course, in my case, everyone always ended up having fun at the mall or shoplifting makeup from Target. I enjoyed high school.
I was thrilled to also enjoy The Thrill Club.
Many years ago, I found of a copy of this enjoyable little book at Recycled Books of Denton, Texas. I bought it, despite not being a believer in any of the things discussed in the book. I actually have a fairly large collection of books about the paranormal and it always amuses me when people assume that, just because I own them, that means that I believe in them as well. So, just to make clear, I don’t believe in ghosts. I don’t believe in vampires or werewolves. I don’t believe in UFOs. I don’t believe in conspiracy theories. I believe in art, love, imagination, and dance.
Now, back to the book:
Just as the title suggests, The Encyclopedia of the Strange a collection of entries about things that most people would deem strange, like the occult and UFOs and secret societies and all of that good stuff. None of the analysis is particularly in-depth but the entries do provide a nice introduction and an overview to the topics that many would consider to be paranormal. Fortunately, the entries are written from a skeptical point of view. One gets the feeling that the author understood that the majority of this stuff was nonsense but he also understood that it’s always enjoyable to read about this stuff and let one’s imagination run loose.
The book is divided into sections, each dealing a with a different paranormal subject. My favorite section was the Strange People section, which featured entries on Pope Joan, The Illuminati, the Rosicrucians, Cagliostro, and Saint-Germain. For those who are not into “strange people,” there’s also entries on everything from the Great Pyramid to ancient astronauts to the curse of the Hope Diamond to Atlantis and the Kingdom of Prester John. It’s an enjoyable read and for the aspiring bauthor looking for inspiration, it’s potentially a valuable tool.
Despite the fact that the book was written in 1987, most of the information felt up-to-date. (It is obvious that Daniel Cohen wrote about the Illuminati long before the start of their current fame.) One good thing about ancient mysteries is that you don’t ever have to worry about them actually being solved. They serve as a Rorschach test of both one’s sense of humor and one’s gullibility. They can be whatever one wants them to be.
Reportedly, when this 1971 film was released in Europe, it was advertised as being “The French film that was banned in France.”
That wasn’t just hyperbole. Don’t Deliver Us From Evil was so controversial that it was accused of promoting “blasphemy” and it was barely released in its native country. It would be thirty years before the film was finally released in the United States and, even then, it would just be a DVD release. The United States and France may not have agreed on much but apparently, they both agreed that Don’t Deliver Us From Evil was just too dangerous to be released into theaters.
The film is loosely based on a true story, the same 1954 Parker-Hulme murder case that would later inspire Peter Jackson’s Heavenly Creatures. In Don’t Deliver Us From Evil, Pauline Parker and Juliet Hulme are reimagined as Anne de Boissy (Jeanne Goupil) and Lore Fournier (Catherine Wagener), two 15 year-old girls who meet at boarding school and become fast friends. Together, they read sordid novels, they spy on the nuns, and they taunt the priest with fictional confessions. (Anne has erotic fantasies about the priest during Mass. Are you starting to get why some people considered this film to be blasphemous?) During the summer, Lore stays at Anne’s estate. Spending all of their time together, they start to play games that become increasingly dangerous and cruel. For instance, they playfully taunt a pervy goat herder until the man attempts to rape Lore. Lore and Anne manage to escape and they get their revenge by burning down the man’s home. Meanwhile, they also find the time to cruelly taunt their mentally disabled gardener, pledge their souls to Satan, and eventually kill a stranger. Uh-oh, summer’s over! Time to go back to school. Hopefully, Lore and Anne were able to successfully hide the stranger’s body because there certainly are a lot of police around. It all leads to a shocking and rather disturbing finale.
The question running through the film is whether the girls are evil or if they’re just playing a game. Many of their actions are undeniably cruel, especially when it comes to taunting the gardener. But there are other times when Anne and Lore are revealed to be painfully naïve. Having been raised by nuns and often ignored by their wealthy parents, Anne and Lore’s knowledge of sex and sexuality is largely the result of the “forbidden” books that they read late at night when everyone else is asleep. For most of the movie, neither seems to care that their “games” have real world consequences but is that due to them being evil or is it due to them being completely sheltered and cut-off from the rest of the world? When they pledge their souls to Satan, is it because they truly want to be evil or is it just something to do for a laugh? Anne is undeniably the dominant personality in their friendship. Anne has a near breakdown when she spends two days apart from Lore but, at the same time, it’s Anne who is constantly instructing Lore to do things that put her safety at risk. Lore herself seems to be a follower, one who follows Anne even when Anne is putting Lore’s life at risk.
Don’t Deliver Us From Evil has enough sex, violence, and nudity (though Lore and Anne are both 15, the actresses playing them were 19 and 20) that it’s not surprising that the film was controversial. That said, it’s not a bad film. Much as Peter Jackson did when he told his version of the Parker-Hulme Murder Case, Don’t Deliver Us From Evil refuses to pass easy judgment on either of the girls. Instead, it’s left to the viewer to try to figure out if Anne and Lore are evil or if they’re just immature and confused. Director Joel Seria directs most of his ire not at the girls but at the Church and at Anne’s upper class parents. Having pushed her off on the Church to raise, Anne’s parents never seem to be particularly interested in what their daughter is doing. Even during the film’s apocalyptic finale, Anne’s parents (and really, just about every adult in the film) is clueless as to what’s actually happening right in front of them.
Watching the film, I could imagine the controversy that it caused when it was first released. While some of the once-shocking scenes are tame by today’s standards, there are still a few moments that retain their power to shock. Ultimately, though, Don’t Deliver Us From Evil is an intelligent exploration of la mauvaise caractère.
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!
This October, I’m going to be doing something a little bit different with my contribution to 4 (or more) Shots From 4 (or more) Films. I’m going to be taking a little chronological tour of the history of horror cinema, moving from decade to decade.
Today, we take a look at 1987, 1988, and 1989!
10 Shots From Horror History: 1987–1989
Hellraiser (1987, dir by Clive Barker, DP: Robin Vidgeon)
Stage Fright (1987, dir by Michele Soavi, DP: Renato Tafuri)
Near Dark (1987, dir by Kathryn Bigelow, DP: Adam Greenberg)
Prince of Darkness (1987, dir by John Carpenter, DP: Gary B. Kibbe)
They Live (1988, dir by John Carpenter, DP: Gary B. Kibbe)
Night of the Demons (1988, dir by Kevin S. Tenney, DP: David Lewis)
The Lair of the White Worm (1988, dir by Ken Russell, DP: Dick Bush)
The Church (1989, dir by Michele Soavi, DP: Renato Tafuri)
Twin Peaks: The Pilot (1989, dir by David Lynch, DP: Ron Garcia)
Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan (1989, dir by Rob Hedden, DP: Bryan England)
Through the Shattered Lens 