Author Archives: Lisa Marie Bowman

Retro Television Review: Fantasy Island 1.5 “Lady of the Evening/The Racer”

Posted on 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 Tuesdays, I will be reviewing the original Fantasy Island, which ran on ABC from 1977 to 1996.  The entire show is currently streaming on Tubi!

Smiles, everyone, smiles!  It’s time for another trip to Fantasy Island, the most dramatic mystical island this side of Lost!  This week, we have three fantasies and Tattoo tries to grow mustache.

Episode 1.5 “Lady of the Evening/The Racer”

(Directed by Don Weis, originally aired on February 25th, 1978)

This episode begins with the bell ringing and Tattoo yelling that the plane is arriving.  Before Mr. Roarke and Tattoo drive off to greet the plane, Mr. Roarke tells Tattoo to wash his face because he has what appears to be a smudge on his upper lip.  Tattoo explains that he’s growing a mustache because all of the world’s great lovers (including, Tattoo says, Burt Reynolds) have mustaches.  Tattoo’s effort to grow a mustache is a running joke through this episode of Fantasy Island.  Needless to say, it doesn’t go well for him.  Eventually, he resorts to using shoe polish.  By the end of the episode, Tattoo finally washes his face and presumably returns to doing whatever it is that he actually does on the island.

As for the fantasies….

Renee Lansing (Carol Lynley) is a high-priced New York “call girl” who just wants to take a vacation some place where no one knows what she does for a living.  At first, the fantasy seems to be going well.  She even meets a nice guy named Bill (Paul Burke).  But then, on the tennis court — OH MY GOD, IT’S ONE OF HER CUSTOMERS!  Renee runs off to Mr. Roarke’s office and demands her money back.  Mr. Roarke tells her that she’s not being honest with herself about what her fantasy actually is.  At this point, I was really wondering what one goes through when one signs up to Fantasy Island.  I assume some sort of agreement has to be signed.  Does the agreement actually state that Mr. Roarke gets to decide what your fantasy actually is?  Renee’s fantasy was to not be recognized.  She’s been recognized.  GIVE HER BACK HER MONEY, ROARKE!

Anyway, it all turns out for the best.  Bill reveals that he also knows who Renee is (GIVE HER BACK HER MONEY!) but he doesn’t care because he’s secretly been in love with her for years and apparently, it was his fantasy to be reunited with her.  Good for Bill but Renee still didn’t get her fantasy.  Someone needs to introduce her to a good lawyer.

Meanwhile, Jack Kincaid (played by the master of overacting, Christopher George) is a race car driver who has never mentally recovered from a serious crash.  His fantasy is to reexperience the crash so that he can get back his confidence.  Mr. Roarke goes through a lot of trouble to build an exact replica of the race track on which Jack crashed.  He even brings Jack’s mechanic, Corky (Alan Hale, Jr.), to the island.  Fortunately, Jack’s wife (Carol Lawrence) convinces Jack that he has nothing to prove.  So, Jack doesn’t get his fantasy but he does become a better person.

Did anyone get their fantasy this week!?  Actually, Mr. Brennan (Jerry Van Dyke) did.  Mr. Brennan shows up in one scene and tells Roarke that he loved his fantasy, which was apparently to play tennis without having to deal with his wife nagging him …. wait, what?  That’s the fantasy that Roarke actually honors?

I’m starting to think Fantasy Island might be a scam!  We’ll find out more next week, I guess.

Horror Scenes I Love: Carrie Blows Up A Car

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

When it comes to the 1976 film, Carrie, we tend to focus so much on what Carrie does at prom that we forget about what she does while she’s walking home.

The prom scene, to me, is disturbing because Carrie not only kills her bullies but also a lot of people who probably weren’t actually laughing at her.  The floppy-haired photographer wearing the dorky fake tuxedo?  That dude did not deserve to die in a fiery inferno!

However, the scene in which Carrie blows up Chris and Billy is extremely satisfying because there’s no doubt they deserved it.

International Horror Film: Robo Vampire 3: Counter Destroy (dir by Godfrey Ho)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

In 1989, Hong Kong director Godfrey Ho made what might be the most confusing film of all time.  It has been released under many different name.  The Vampire Is Still Alive was one.  Another was Counter Destroy.  And finally, there’s  the title that I’m choosing to use for this review — Robo Vampire 3!  This is indeed the third part of the Robo Vampire trilogy, though the guy in the robot suit doesn’t show up until the very end of the movie and even then, it’s never quite clear whether he’s really there or if he’s just a figment of someone’s imagination.

Robo Vampire 3 is actually two movies in one.  Half of the film deals with a private detective named Jackie.  Jackie has been hired by a movie mogul named Lawrence.  Lawrence is producing a film about the last emperor of China but, apparently, there are several other film companies that want to make a movie about the same subject.  (Uhmmm, guys …. Bernado Bertolucci beat all of you to it by about two years.)  Lawrence is concerned that the other film companies and their gangster allies are going to try to disrupt his production so he hires Jackie to find out what their plans are.  Jackie accepts the assignment and then go around killing all of the other studio heads and gang bosses.  Jackie is presented as being one of the film’s heroes, even though she’s basically just tracking down middle-aged men and murdering them in cold blood.  Now, in fairness to Godfrey Ho, the efforts of the Triads to control the Hong Kong film industry are fairly well-documented so, when seen in that context, Lawrence and Jackie’s action might make more sense.  It’s still kind of jarring to watch Jackie assassinate a man, at close range, with a crossbow.

Meanwhile, Joyce has been assigned to write the script for Lawrence’s Last Emperor movie and she’s been given a week to do all the research and get the script done.  Joyce and her assistant, Cindy, are working in a villa.  However, after Joyce and Cindy have a conversation with a mysterious monk, a scarred guy who has a Freddy Krueger-style glove knife shows up at the villa and starts to haunt Joyce’s nightmares.  Meanwhile, a bunch of hopping vampires (in Chinese folklore, vampires hop) are approaching the house.  Who do they work for?  Are they connected to all of the other productions of The Last Emperor?  Are they college students who have been brainwashed by Bertolucci’s Marxist cinema?  It’s never really made clear.

But where is Robo Vampire?  As I said, he shows up eventually.  Long after Joyce has been possessed by an evil spirit and it appears that the film set is going to be overrun by hopping vampires, the director of this film’s version of The Last Emperor suddenly spins around and is transformed into the cyborg Shadow Warrior dude from the previous two films.  No one is particularly shocked when this happens.

As you may have guessed, Robo Vampire 3 is a bit of a disjointed film but it’s pretty much what we’ve come to expect from Godfrey Ho.  One gets the feeling that Robo Vampire 3 was stitched together with stock footage and outtakes from several unrelated movies.  It also wouldn’t surprise me to discover that there were several different versions of the film out there.  The version I saw was badly dubbed so who knows what the film’s plot actually was.  The whole thing has a “make it up as you go along” feel to it.  With the previous Robo Vampire films, the shoddiness was kind of charming but Robo Vampire 3 takes forever to get going.  It needed more hopping vampires.

As far as I know, this was the last Robo Vampire film.  Hopefully, Robo Vampire’s version of The Last Emperor was a big enough success that he could retire from shadow warrioring and devote himself to cinema.  Now, that’s a happy ending!

10 Shots From 10 Horror Films: 1975 — 1977

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

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 three very important years: 1975, 1976, and 1977!

10 Shots From 10 Films: 1975 — 1977

Deep Red (1975, dir by Dario Argento, DP: Luigi Kuveiller)

Trilogy of Terror (1975, dir by Dan Curtis. DP: Paul Lohmann)

Eaten Alive (1976, dir by Tobe Hooper. DP: Robert Caramico)

The Omen (1976, dir by Richard Donner, DP: Gilbert Taylor)

Carrie (1976, dir by Brian De Palma, DP: Mario Tosi)

Shock (1977, dir by Mario Bava, DP: Alberto Spagnoli)

The Hills Have Eyes (1977, dir by Wes Craven, DP: Eric Saarinen)

Suspiria (1977, dir by Dario Argento, DP: Luciano Tuvalia)

Eraserhead (1977, directed by David Lynch, DP: Frederick Elmes and Herbert Cardwell)

Shock Waves (1977, dir by Ken Wiederhorn, DP: Reuben Trane)

Horror Film Review: The Fog (dir by John Carpenter)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

“Time for one more story,” Mr. Machen (John Houseman) declares the beginning of John Carpenter’s 1980 horror film, The Fog.

Mr. Machen is a resident of Antonio Bay, California, a coastal town that was founded with the help of gold stolen from a ship that was owned by a wealthy man named Blake (Rob Bottin). Blake wanted to start a leper colony. Instead, he was betrayed by six sailors who sank Blake’s ship, stole the gold, and used it to start the town of Antonio Bay.

At 12 midnight, on the day that the town is to celebrate its 100 anniversary, strange things start to happen. Windows shatter. Masonry falls from walls. A thick fog rolls across the ocean and seems to move from house to house. Inside the fog are several angry spirits, led by Blake. They not only want their gold back but they also want to take six lives as a way of getting revenge on the six conspirators who stole their gold and sank their ship.

It all starts with knock at the door and, if you look out a window, maybe you’ll see a dark shadow standing in an all-enveloping fog. Answering the door is a mistake. At the same time, so is not answering the door. It’s not easy to escape the vengeful spirits in the fog.

The Fog (1980, dir by John Carpenter, DP: Dean Cudney)

The Fog plays out like a disaster film, albeit one with a supernatural twist. The film follows several characters who are trying to survive the night and the majority of them don’t even meet until the final half of the film. There’s a truck driver (Tom Atkins) and a hitchhiker (Jamie Lee Curtis). There’s the alcoholic priest (Hal Halbrook) and the chairwoman (Janet Leigh) of the anniversary committee. Nancy Loomis, who co-starred with Curtis in Carpenter’s Halloween, plays an administrative assistant while Carpenter’s wife, Adrienne Barbeau, plays the local radio DJ whose son is briefly targeted by the fog. There’s even a coroner named Dr. Phibes!

In fact, the whole film is full of references to other films. The Fog finds John Carpenter in a rather playful mood, with characters named after Carpenter associates like Dan O’Bannon, Tommy Wallace, and Nick Castle. There’s even a mention of Arkham, the fictional New England town that served as the setting for many of H.P. Lovecraft’s stories.

42 years after it was made, The Fog holds up as a very well-told ghost story. I mean, fog is just creepy in itself. Then you add in a bunch of silent shadows standing in the fog and it gets even scarier! For the most part, the actors all do a good job playing rather thinly-drawn characters. Tom Atkins is always fun to watch! The true stars of the film, of course, are the ghosts and they will definitely give you nightmares.

The Fog is a good film for Halloween viewing so watch it and don’t answer the door!

The Fog (1980, dir by John Carpenter, DP: Dean Cundey)

(Don’t just take my word for it!  Be sure to read Leonard’s review of The Fog!)

Horror on the Lens: Bride of the Monster (dir by Edward D. Wood, Jr.)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Bride of The Monster (1955, dir by Ed Wood)

Since yesterday was the great man’s birthday, it seems appropriate that today’s horror film on the lens is Edward D. Wood’s 1955 epic, Bride of the Monster.

(Much like Plan 9 From Outer Space, around here, it is a tradition to watch Bride of the Monster in October.)

The film itself doesn’t feature a bride but it does feature a monster, a giant octopus who guards the mansion of the mysterious Dr. Vornoff (Bela Lugosi).  Vornoff and his hulking henchman Lobo (Tor Johnson) have been kidnapping men and using nuclear power to try to create a race of super soldiers.  Or something like that.  The plot has a make-it-up-as-you-go-along feel to it.  That’s actually a huge part of the film’s appeal.

Bride of the Monster is regularly described as being one of the worst films ever made but I think that’s rather unfair.   Appearing in his last speaking role, Lugosi actually gives a pretty good performance, bringing a wounded dignity to the role of Vornoff.  If judged solely against other movies directed by Ed Wood, this is actually one of the best films ever made.

(For a longer review, click here!)

October Positivity: Late One Night (dir by Dave Christiano)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

The 2001 film, Late One Night, takes place in a diner.  As you can probably guess from the title, it also takes place late one night.  It’s so late that there are only five people in the diner.  There’s a cook.  There’s three men who work at a local factory, the main one of which is named Larry (Brad Heller).  And then, there’s a quiet guy (John Gaffga) sitting at the counter.  Though the guy never introduces himself, Larry decides to call him Jesus.

To say that Larry is a bit of an obnoxious character really doesn’t do justice to just how grating a human being Larry is.  At work, Larry sexually harasses the only woman working at the factory.  In the diner, he sexually harasses a waitress as her shift ends.  When he sees the quiet man sitting at the counter, Larry starts to harass him.  Larry is angry.  Larry, as we learn, was abandoned by his father, raised by an unstable mother, and he spent several years in jail before ending up at a go-nowhere job at a bottling factory.  Larry has his reasons but that doesn’t make him any more likable.

In fact, Larry is such a jerk that you kind of wonder why the cook even allows him to hang out in the diner.  From the dialogue, it becomes clear that Larry has a long history of harassing people.  At one point, Larry does point out that he spends a lot of money at the diner but you have to consider how many people probably avoid the place whenever they see Larry and his co-workers sitting in their booth.  No matter how much money Larry spends, it seems likely that he keeps even more money out.  Really, the cook should call the cops whenever he sees Larry and maybe slap with him a trespassing charge.  I imagine Larry probably isn’t even a good tipper.

Anyway, on this night, Larry is obsessed with the quiet stranger.  When the stranger briefly goes into the restroom, Larry searches the stranger’s jacket and finds a pamphlet about Christianity.  When the stranger returns, he’s been given the nickname “Jesus” and he now has to deal with Larry mocking him by asking, “Am I going to Hell when I die?”  “Jesus” controls his temper, no matter how much he is taunted.

If you’ve seen any other films from director Dave Christiano, you might be excused for expecting “Jesus” to reveal himself to actually be Jesus.  In this case, though, I think he’s simply meant to be a believer who simply wants to eat in peace.  For that matter, you might also expect the film to end with Larry converting but instead, he’s as confused and angry at the end of this short film as he was at the beginning.  Particularly when compared to the films that he was making in the 80s and the 90s, Late One Night shows a certain dramatic restraint on the part of Christiano.  The main theme, of course, still seems to be that non-believers are going to suffer forever but, for once, Christiano doesn’t seem to be asking the viewer to take any pleasure out of that.

That said, I do have to say that, in college, I spent a lot of time in a lot of late night diners and I never once saw anyone get into the type of random verbal altercation that Larry gets into in this film.  I kind of suspect that might not happen in the real world as often as it happens in the movies.

Horror On TV: Ghost Story 1.10 “Elegy For A Vampire” (dir by Don McDougall)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

On tonight’s episode of Ghost Story, college co-eds are being drained of their blood!  Who could the culprit be?  Oddly, some say that they saw a recently deceased college professor near the scene of the crime.  What was that professor studying when he died?  Vampirism!

This one is kind of silly but I always enjoy a vampire story.  This episode aired on December 1st, 1972.

The TSL’s Horror Grindhouse: Studio 666 (dir by B.J. McDonnell)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

In Studio 666, the members of Foo Fighters play themselves.  Struggling with writer’s block and hoping to remain musically relevant in a world where the culture belongs to the young, the band heads to an Encino mansion so that they can work on their latest album.  The mansion is infamous because years ago, another band was murdered while attempting to record there.  (Oddly enough, Jenna Ortega plays the drummer of the murdered band.  Ortega had quite a year as far as the horror genre is concerned.)

The band arrives at the mansion and things quickly go downhill.  The band isn’t getting along.  Lead singer Dave Grohl is revealed to be a bit of megalomaniac.  One of the band’s electricians is killed in what appears to be a freak accident.  Most people would move out of a house after someone dies under mysterious circumstances but not this band!  Instead, the band decides to dedicate the album to the memory of the dead guy.

Soon, however, there are a lot more dead people at the mansion.  Why are there so many dead people there?  This is going to sound like a spoiler but it’s not….

DAVE GROHL IS KILLING THEM!

Yes, Dave Grohl has been possessed by the evil spirit of mansion.  On the one hand, it’s given him the inspiration necessary to get over his writer’s block.  On the other hand, it also leads to him killing the other members of the band in various grotesque ways.  Studio 666 is a horror comedy that doesn’t shy away from the gore.  If you’ve ever wanted to see a member of Foo Fighters get cut in half with a chainsaw while having sex with Whitney Cummings, I guess this is the film to track down.  (Cummings, I should note, does not play herself.  This film stars the band as themselves but it’s also filled with recognizable actors who are not playing themselves.)

Studio 666 is a bit of a lark, a horror film starring a band that most people don’t really associate with the horror genre.  Indeed, a good deal of the film’s humor comes from the fact that it’s Dave Grohl doing all of the killing.  In real life, a good deal of Dave Grohl’s appeal is that he comes across as being as close to a regular guy as a rock star can be.  He’s one those famous guys who most people could imagine having a beer with.  Studio 666 gets a lot of mileage out of presenting Dave Grohl as being a pretentious taskmaster who would happily sell his soul for the chance to have a successful solo career.  It helps that Dave Grohl seems to be having a blast playing such an exaggerated version of himself.  It’s hard not to be happy for him because he really does appear to having the time of his life.

That said, once Grohl is revealed to be the killer (and that happens very early in the film so, again, this is not a spoiler), the film really has nowhere else to go.  The whole thing simply becomes Grohl tracking down various members of the band and killing them in grotesque ways and it gets to be a little boring.  There’s little suspense and, since the Foo Fighters are playing themselves, there really aren’t any stakes because we know the band wasn’t actually murdered while recording a new album.  With a 106-minute running time, Studio 666 really grinds its one joke into the ground.

I will say that longtime fans of Foo Fighters will probably enjoy the film, if just because there’s several jokes and comments that are obviously meant to be inside jokes that only a select few will get.  Personally, I think it’s nice that the band did something for the fans, even if the movie itself doesn’t really work.