On tonight’s episode of Friday the 13th: The Series, Ryan’s attempt to live as a member of a cult leads to him being framed by the group’s leader!
This is the second part of the story started in yesterday’s episode. It originally aired on May 14th, 1988.
The Fly (1958, D: Kurt Neumann)
One of the great things about the original, 1958 version of The Fly is that, even though it starred Vincent Price, Price didn’t play the Fly. Instead, for once, Price was allowed to be the voice of reason, the guy who said, “Maybe don’t mess around with the laws of time and space.”
Today’s scene that I love is from the ending of the original Fly. Supposedly, Price had a hard time filming this scene because whenever he heard the recording of David Hedison crying out, “Help me!,” he would start laughing. Still, if you know what spiders actually do to the flies that they capture, you can’t help but sympathize with our misdirected scientist in the web. Destroying him with a rock was probably the most merciful thing that anyone could do.
4 Shots From 4 Films is just what it says it is, 4 shots from 4 of our favorite films. As opposed to the reviews and recaps that we usually post, 4 Shots From 4 Films lets the visuals do the talking!
I woke up today to discover that Vincent Price was trending on Twitter. He was specifically trending because someone did a thread about Price’s political activism. This was something that I already knew about but most people on Twitter are stunned to discover that people actually did good things before the creation of social media.
Once I got over feeling elitist and superior, I thought to myself that it was actually kind of nice that people still love Vincent Price. He’s definitely one of my favorite actors. He started out as a mainstream studio actor, reading for the role of Ashley Wilkes in Gone With The Window and being considered for Mr. Potter in It’s A Wonderful Life. But he found his true stardom as a horror actor, bringing life to films that often would have been dead without his wonderful presence.
There’s no way that we can do Horrorthon without paying tribute to the great Vincent Price. Here are….
4 Shots From 4 Vincent Price Films!
House on Haunted Hill (1959, dir by William Castle, DP: Carl E. Guthrie)
The Masque of the Red Death (1964, dir by Roger Corman, DP: Nicolas Roeg)
Witchfinder General (1968, dir by Michael Reeves, DP: John Coquillon)
Scream and Scream Again (1969, dir by Gordon Hessler, DP: John Coquillon)
Today’s horror movie on the Shattered Lens is both a classic of silent era and one of the most influential horror films ever made. It’s one that I previously shared in 2013, 2015, 2016, 2108, 2019, and 2020 but it’s such a classic that I feel that it is worth sharing a second (or fifth or even a sixth or perhaps a seventh) time.
First released in 1925, The Phantom of the Opera is today best known for both Lon Chaney’s theatrical but empathetic performance as the Phantom and the iconic scene where Mary Philbin unmasks him. However, the film is also a perfect example of early screen spectacle. The Phantom of the Opera was released during that period of time, between Birth of the Nation and the introduction of sound, when audiences expected films to provide a visual feast and Phantom of the Opera certainly accomplishes that. Indeed, after watching this film and reading Gaston Leroux’s original novel, it’s obvious that the musical was inspired more by the opulence of this film than by the book.
This film is also historically significant in that it was one of the first films to be massively reworked as the result of a poor test screening. The film’s ending was originally faithful to the end of the novel. However, audiences demanded something a little more dramatic and that’s what they got.
On tonight’s episode of Friday the 13th: The Series, it appears that Ryan might be tempted to abandon searching for haunted antique when the quest to find a cursed quilt leads him to a religious cult that has rejected “modern” society.
Honestly, at this point, a religious cult that has rejected social media could probably win over a lot of adherents. However, I think things are a bit more sinister in this case.
Tonight’s episode first aired on May 7th, 1988. Fear not the “To be continued” ending! We’ll have the second part of this story tomorrow night!
Enjoy!
Myles (Steve Vanderzee) is a once-hot comedian whose career has been going downhill ever since 1) his wife died in a car accident and 2) he started taking medication to control his moods. Myles has now gone from playing packed comedy clubs to appearing in sleazy dives where he’s regularly cheated out of getting paid.
However, it appears that Myles finally has a chance to get back up on top! He’s been booked as the opening act for an egotistical comedy superstar! All Myles has to do is deliver one good set and his life will no longer be a joke. The only problem is that there’s a dead body in Myles’s dressing room and the staff of the theater is disappearing one-by-one. There’s a murderer stalking the theater and, at times, it seems like only Myles can see him. Is Myles — who hasn’t taken his pills — losing it or is there really a killer in the wings?
That’s the question asked by 2020’s The Last Laugh. It’s an intriguing question and the premise has a lot of promise but, unfortunately, the execution leaves even more to be desired. Not only are the victims rather generic but you also never really feel as if you know Myles. The film doesn’t show us much of his act so you really don’t know if the guy’s even all that funny. Since a lot of the movie hinges on whether or not Myles is willing to blow his shot at stardom in order to expose the murderer, it would be helpful to actually care about whether or not Myles becomes a star or not. Unfortunately, Myles isn’t really that likable or interesting of a character so who cares?
I did like the fact that the people behind The Last Laugh paid homage to some classic Italian horror films. Several of the shots of the killer creeping through the theater appeared to pay homage to Michele Soavi’s StageFright and there’s also a clever shout out to the Short Night Of The Glass Dolls at the end of the film. Unfortunately, there’s not really enough to the plot of The Last Laugh to make it memorable and the ambiguous ending will probably leave most viewers angry rather than intrigued. (Personally, I usually like ambiguous endings but, in this case, it just felt a little lazy.)
The Last Laugh has promise but it doesn’t really live up to it.
Good Lord, people, how hard is it to make sure that all of your kids are in the car before you leave for the airport!? You make out a list, you look in each car, you put a check mark next to each name, and you don’t go anywhere until every name has a check! It’s not that difficult!
Anyway, Home Sweet Home Alone is the new version of Home Alone. It’ll be premiering on Disney Plus in November so that will be your chance to watch this new kid, Max, be traumatized for the rest of his life. Here’s the trailer:
Seriously, if you’re going to totally abandon your child for the holidays, you should at least make sure that you abandon them in a big house. Sure, they might have some problems with the burglars but that’s to be expected, I guess.
Today, the Shattered Lens wishes a happy 49th birthday to Danny Lloyd, the child actor who — at the age of 6 — brought Danny Torrance to life in Stanley Kubrick’s version of The Shining. After appearing in one made-for-TV movie after The Shining, Lloyd retired from acting. (He did make a cameo appearance in Doctor Sleep.) He went on to become a teacher. Somewhat sweetly, it’s been reported that, during the filming of The Shining, Kubrick went out of his way to keep Lloyd from knowing that he was appearing in a movie about killer ghosts and a father attempting to kill his family.
In honor of Danny’s birthday, here’s a scene that I love from Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining!
Oh my God, a super cute boy has moved in next door! Squee!
Seriously, Scott, the title character of this 1996 YA thriller from R.L. Stine, seems like he could be the perfect neighbor. He’s handsome. We’re told that he’s charming, though you don’t really see much of that in the book. He’s a star football player and, obviously, that’s a very important thing in the world of R.L. Stine. And, perhaps most importantly, Scott’s single! Of course, Scott’s single because he previous kind of girlfriend jumped into a pool that happened to be empty at the time. Scott was the one who encouraged her to do it.
Scott, you see, has some issues. He expects every girl that he meets to live up to an impossible ideal that he’s apparently created from watching old sitcoms from the 1950s. What the means is no makeup, no flirting, and definitely no short skirts! Scott really gets worked up over short skirts, to the extent that he’ll kill anyone who wears one. AGCK!
(If I had been a student at Scott’s high school, I would have been so dead.)
Scott’s new neighbor Crystal and her best friend, Lynne, both think Scott is totally hot and want to date him. Unfortunately, they both wear short skirts and Scott even catches Lynne putting on lipstick. Even if he wasn’t a puritanical incel murderer, Scott would still be creepy because he always seems to be staring through the windows of Crystal’s house. You would think that would be a red flag but …. well, Scott’s a football player and this is an R.L. Stine novel.
Fortunately, Crystal has a sister named Melinda who likes to read books and who doesn’t wear makeup so it seems pretty clear that she’s going to be the secret weapon to stopping Scott. But will it be too late for either Lynne or Crystal?
Scott is revealed to be a killer during the first few pages of this book so I have to admit that, the whole time I was reading it, I was waiting for one of those out-of-nowhere R.L. Stine twists. I was expecting Scott to discover that he was actually suffering from amnesia and that his real name was Jake. I was waiting for someone to reveal themselves to be a ghost. I was thinking, at one point, that it was all a dream. But nope, there’s no twist. This is one of the most straight-forward Stine books that I’ve ever read.
At times, the book felt like one of those weird Lifetime movies where everyone keeps talking about “girl power” and how no one has the right to judge you for behaving and dressing the way you want but, at the same time, you can’t help but notice that it’s always the really independent and fun-loving girls that end up getting killed. The Boy Next Door seems to be all over the place. On the one hand, Scott is a crazy puritan. On the other hand, almost every girl in the book is portrayed as being shallow and easily fooled. I was happy that Scott was presented as being a total monster but couldn’t the girls have been a little less naïve? Couldn’t they have at least acknowledged that Scott’s behavior was pretty creepy even before he turned out to be a killer? It doesn’t help that the plotting throughout the book feels rather random. There’s a lot of convenient coincidences, including one that happens during the climax. Chekhov wrote that, if you introduce a gun at the start of the story, it must be fired by the end of the story. One gets the feeling that Stine would be the type to forget to introduce the gun but still have someone fire it. One also gets the feeling that Stine may have been in a hurry when he wrote The Boy Next Door.
(Don’t worry, though. you’re still loved, R.L! Thank you for Fear Street!)
Anyway, the lesson here is that if the boy next door flies into a rage every time you put on lipstick, you don’t need him in your life! Even if he does play football….
Do you love Italian horror?
If you answered yes, Spaghetti Nightmares is a book that you simply must own. Actually, you probably already do own it. You’re probably looking at it sitting on your book shelf right now. And you’re thinking, “Gee, thanks Lisa. Maybe next you’ll tell me that giallo is named after the cheap yellow paper that thriller novels were published on in Italy and then you’ll really blow my mind!”
Okay, well fine. Make me feel bad. That’s okay. I hope you’re proud of yourself. It’s a pretty good thing that we both love Italian horror because, if we didn’t, I’d probably never speak to you again….
Anyway, just in case you don’t own this book, you really should. First published in 1996, Spaghetti Nightmares is a collection of interviews with some of the top figures in Italian horror. Michele Soavi, Dario Argento, Ruggero Deodato, David Warbeck, Umberto Lenzi, Lamberto Bava, Luigi Cozzi. Antonio Margheriti, and many more answer questions about their careers, their artistic visions, and their feelings about the future and the past of the Italian film industry. What makes this volume special is that it was written at a time when Italian horror was just starting to be appreciated. So, the questions and the answers are a bit more honest than they probably would be now that everyone is a confirmed Italian horror fan.
This book also features what I believe was Lucio Fulci’s final interview before he passed away. He describes himself as being Italian cinema’s “last zombie” and displays a strong knowledge of cinematic history. Unlike some of the directors interviewed, who come across as being competent (if charming) craftsmen, Fulci comes across as being a true artist. The interview with Michele Soavi is also poignant as he would soon abandon filmmaking to take care of his son. (Fortunately, he has since returned.)
So, if you don’t own this book, get it!
Through the Shattered Lens 