Horror Scene That I Love: The Opening of Michele Soavi’s Stagefright

Posted on October 24, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Stage Fright (1987, dir by Michele Soavi)

Today’s horror scene that I love is the opening production number of Michele Soavi’s 1987 masterpiece, Stagefright.

Not only does the opening scene wonderfully satirize both a certain type of stage production and a certain type of exploitation film, it also lets the audience know that they’re about to something that is more than just another Italian slasher film. With this opening sequence, Soavi announced his arrival as a major filmmaker.

Personally, I can’t help but laugh when the saxophone makes an appearance. Anyone who has ever been involved in a community theater will relate to the moment.

October True Crime: The Company We Keep (dir by Jeff Edelstein)

Posted on October 24, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Like Ed Kemper, the 2023’s The Company We Keep is based on the crimes of Edmund Kemper.

The Company We Keep does take a few liberties with the true story. For one thing, it’s set in the present instead of the 70s. As well, Carter Holcomb (Cary Mark), who is this film’s version of Kemper, works not for the Highway Department but instead at a grocery store. His boss is Pete Matthews (Eric Roberts). Pete is a terrible manager but he’s played by Eric Roberts so you can’t help but like him.

Otherwise, The Company We Keep sticks closer to the facts of the case than some of the other films that I’ve seen about Kemper. Carter Holcomb has just been released from prison. His juvenile record has been expunged. He’s living with his harsh mother (Sharon Jordan). And he’s murdering hithchhikers, keeping their remains in his closet, and imagining having conversations with them.

It’s a creepy movie, largely because Ed Kemper is a very creepy killer. It’s also rather oddly paced and it doesn’t really have much a plot, beyond Carter getting annoyed with his mother and killing people. Like the real Kemper, Carter is friends with the cops who are investigating the murders and that certainly adds an interesting wrinkle. There’s a clever scene where Carter gets arrested just to discover that it’s his friends playing a trick on him.

Though the film has some pretty serious pacing issues, It’s still a well-acted film. Cary Mark is appropriately awkward as Carter Holcomb and Sharon Jordan wisely doesn’t play his mother as being an over-the-top tyrant but instead as someone who has suddenly found herself living with a son who she really doesn’t know. And, of course, the film features Eric Roberts, giving an amusing performance as the incompetent boss from Hell. As I’ve always said, any film is improved by the casting of Eric Roberts.

Previous Eric Roberts Films That We Have Reviewed:

Horror On The Lens: Satan’s School For Girls (dir by David Lowell Rich)

Posted on October 24, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

For today’s horror on the lens, we have a 1973 made-for-TV movie called Satan’s School For Girls.

After her sister turns up dead, Elizabeth (Pamela Franklin) refuses to accept that official conclusion that it was a suicide. Instead, Elizabeth is convinced that it was murder and that it has something to do with the exclusive school that her sister attended, the Salem Academy for Women.

Well, honestly, the Salem part is a dead giveaway. I think we can all agree on that.

Anyway, this movie features a Satanic cult, an old school clique, and plenty of early of 70s fashion choices. It may be silly but it’s also definitely entertaining.

October Positivity: Me Again (dir by David A.R. White)

Posted on October 23, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

In 2011’s Me Again, David A.R. White stars as Rich.

Rich is a typical David A.R. White character. He’s a preacher with a young family and he has lost his ability to excite his congregation. His sermons are dry and boring and show little connection with the concerns or lives of those listening. Rich is burned out and his wife, April (Ali Landry), is tired of listening to him complain. When they were children, April promised Rich that they were meant to be together. Now that they are adults and married, April and Rich are separated and April wants to make the divorce final.

Poor Rich! No one respects him and he’s about to lose his family. His one friend, Tony (Tommy Blaze), tries to offer some good advice but Rich doesn’t want to hear it. Rich just wants to feel sorry for himself and watch an odd infomercial hosted by Big Earl (Bruce McGill). Big Earl says that if you call his number, he can change your life. Rich doesn’t call the number but his life gets changed anyways.

Rich finds himself being transported from one body to another. When he wakes up, he’s a wealthy man who has no friends and who has a heart condition. Just as quickly, he finds himself in the body of Chloe (Andrea White Logan), an insecure super model with an eating disorder. Then, suddenly, he’s in the body of a fish floating in a fish tank in Tony’s restaurant. Then he’s his daughter’s teen boyfriend, who is pressuring her to start taking birth control. (AGCK!) Then he’s in his wife’s body. Briefly, he takes control of Della Reese. He even spends some time in jail, talking to Big Earl.

And I guess the idea is that, from going to body to body, Rich learns why he needs to stop feeling sorry for himself and actually make the effort to make his marriage work. He also comes to understand the problems of a few other people. The rich man needs to go to church. The model needs to do something about all the disparaging post-it notes that she has hanging around her house. Her daughter’s boyfriend needs to be handcuffed with a sock in his mouth. The fish need as new home. You get the idea.

This movie …. well, let’s give credit where credit is due. David A.R. White is not a bad actor and his comedic timing is adequate. There were a few moments when he did make me smile. I laughed out loud when he suddenly became a fish. As a director, though, White goes a bit overboard. The whole thing with Rich becoming a model starts out as relatively humorous but then it just goes on and on. As well, I appreciated the message of taking care of other people but I’m not sure that the best way to communicate that message was for the very white Rich to briefly inhabit the body of a black housekeeper. The intentions may have been good but the execution often left me cringing.

Me Again is like a lot of faith-based comedies. There are a few humorous moments but, in the end, it’s just too uneven to really work.

Horror on TV: The Night Stalker (dir by John Llewelyn Moxey)

Posted on October 23, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Long before he achieved holiday immortality by playing the father in A Christmas Story, Darren McGavin played journalist Carl Kolchak in the 1972 made-for-TV movie, The Night Stalker. Kolchak is investigating a series of murders in Las Vegas, all of which involve victims being drained of their blood. Kolchak thinks that the murderer might be a vampire. Everyone else thinks that he’s crazy.

When this movie first aired, it was the highest rated made-for-TV movie of all time. Eventually, it led to a weekly TV series in which Kolchak investigated various paranormal happenings. Though the TV series did not last long, it’s still regularly cited as one of the most influential shows ever made.

The Night Stalker is an effective little vampire movie and Darren McGavin gives an entertaining performance as the rather nervous Carl Kolchak.

Enjoy!

Made-For-TV Horror: The Initiation of Sarah (dir by Robert Day)

Posted on October 23, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Oh, poor Sarah.

Sarah (Kay Lenz) is attending college with her sister, Patty (Morgan Brittany). Patty is pretty and popular and everyone wants to be her friend. Sarah is withdrawn and a bit moody and people seem to go out of their way to avoid her. Sarah, however, has a secret. She can move and break things with her mind. When a guy on the beach tries to force himself on Patty, Sarah uses her powers to push him away. Later, when Sarah’s upset, she stares at a mirror until it cracks.

When Patty and Sarah visit their mother’s old sorority, Patty is a hit but Sarah is less popular. The bitchy president of the Sorority, Jennifer Lawrence (Morgan Fairchild), is happy to invite Patty to join but she doesn’t want Sarah to be anywhere near her. Sarah ends up joining the outcast PDE sorority. Jennifer, however, remains obsessed with humiliating and destroying Sarah. And Sarah, when she gets angry, has a tendency to cause things to happen….

This film, which aired in 1978, probably sounds like a rip-off of Carrie and, in many ways, it is. For whatever reason, Sarah’s bullies seem to be obsessed with making her as miserable as possible. In Carrie, one reason you hated the bullies was because Sissy Spacek gave such a heart-breaking, vulnerable and empathetic performance as Carrie White. The bullies were terrible to begin with but then to pick on someone as fragile as Carrie? It sucked William Katt had to die but there’s still a reason why the prom inferno makes as many people applaud as scream. In The Initiation of Sarah, Kay Lenz is not particularly sympathetic as Sarah. Even before the bullies start picking on her, Sarah comes across as being angry and bitter about …. well, everything. Patty goes out of her way to take care of her sister but Sarah never seems to appreciate it. Bullies still suck, of course. There’s no excuse for being a bully and Jennifer really does go overboard when it comes to going after Sarah. But Sarah herself still doesn’t necessarily come across as being someone you would want to join your sorority.

What sets The Initiation of Sarah apart from other Carrie rip-offs is the character of Mrs. Hunter (Shelley Winters). Mrs. Hunter founded PDE when she was a student and now, as the school’s resident expert on paganism, she’s the housemother of PDE. As soon as Sarah joins, Mrs. Hunter starts to talk about how Sarah is destined to lead PDE to glory. When another member of PDE, Mouse (Tisa Farrow), takes a look in Mrs. Hunter’s room, she discovers a Satanic altar that is guarded by a fierce looking dog….

That’s right! This isn’t just a rip-off of Carrie. It’s a rip-off of The Omen as well!

Kay Lenz might be a bit on the dull side as Sarah but this film is worth watching for the performance of Morgan Fairchild and, especially, Shelley Winters. As played by Fairchild, Jennifer is more than just a bitch. She’s a sociopath with great hair. Meanwhile, Shelley Winters — especially once the 70s started — was never a particularly low-key or subtle actress. When you cast her as an overbearing housemother who happens to be the high priestess of a cult, you know that you’re going to get something worth watching. Winters attacks the role with a ferocity that is occasionally over-the-top and almost funny but always entertaining.

The Initiation of Sarah is an enjoyable made-for-TV movie. Watch it the next time you’re feeling nostalgic for college life.

Scenes That I Love: The Inevitability of Doom In The Dead Don’t Die

Posted on October 23, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Jim Jarmusch’s The Dead Don’t Die is a film that definitely grew on me. When I first watched it, I thought it was intriguing but perhaps a bit too cutesy and enamored with itself. However, I later came to realize that Jarmusch actually found the perfect tone for his look at our zombie-saturated culture.

In the scenes below, Bill Murray, Chloe Sevigny, and the wonderful Adam Driver all deal with the inevitability of doom that comes with being a character in a zombie film.

October True Crime: Ed Kemper (dir by Chad Ferrin)

Posted on October 23, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

In 1964, 15 year-old Edmund Kemper murdered his grandparents. When he was asked why he had killed the two people who basically raised him, Kemper reportedly replied, “I just wanted to see what it was like to kill grandma.”

Kemper spent the next five years imprisoned by the California Youth Authority. He was discovered to have an IQ of 138. The psychiatrists who examined him all commented on what a friendly and conscientious prisoner Kemper was. Kemper never caused trouble. He always cleaned up after himself. He seemed to be truly happy while incarcerated.

When Kemper turned 21, he was released back into the world. He moved in with his domineering mother, who worked as an administrative assistant at the local college. Because it had been determined that he would probably never reoffend, his juvenile record was expunged. Kemper went to community college. He hung out at a local cop bar. (He applied unsuccessfully to be a police officer.) He got a job with Departments of Highways. Because he stood 6’9, everyone knew him as the friendly and somewhat dorky “Big Ed.”

Edmund Kemper went on to kill eight more people, including his mother and her best friend.

Kemper turned himself into the police and confessed to his crimes. At his trial, his lawyers unsuccessfully went with an insanity defense. When he was convicted, Kemper requested the death penalty, just to learn that the Supreme Court had (temporarily) outlawed capitol punishment. Kemper was sent to prison, for life. And that’s where he is to this day.

What’s odd about Kemper is that, once he was back in prison, he again impressed everyone by being a friendly, polite, and conscientious prisoner. Unlike most convicted murderers, Kemper admitted his crimes and was even willing to analyze the darkness that drove him to commit them. In the early days of criminal profiling, Edmund Kemper was frequently interviewed by FBI agent Robert Ressler and his insights into his own mind are still frequently used to profile serial killers to this day. Both Ressler and profiler John Douglas described Kemper as being a sensitive and likable man with a good sense of humor. Thomas Harris has said that Kemper was one of the inspirations for Dr. Hannibal Lecter.

Released earlier this year, Ed Kemper stick fairly closely to the facts of the case. Brandon Kirk may not be as a tall as the real-life Kemper but he’s still convincing as a socially awkward, somewhat nerdy man who seems to be as shocked as anyone by his crimes. The majority of the film deals with Kemper’s relationship with his mother (Susan Priver), who is portrayed as being a deranged tyrant who alternates between gently teasing Kemper and telling him that he’s destined to be miserable and alone forever. Gava gives a convincing performance but, at times, the film almost seems as if it’s putting all the blame for Kemper’s crimes on his mother. In the end, Kemper’s the one who killed those hitchhikers, regardless of how much his mom yelled at him beforehand.

Ed Kemper is a bit of an uneven film. Brandon Kirk, Susan Priver, and Brinke Stevens (cast as Kemper’s mom’s best friend) all give good performances but some of the other actors are a bit less convincing in their roles. The film deserves some credit for not shying away from the darkness of Kemper’s crimes but the pacing is also off, with some scenes dragging forever and others ending quickly. The film’s best scene comes towards the end, when Ed Kemper is interviewed by the FBI and points out that he could kill the agent anytime that he felt like it. It’s a tense scene that reminds us that even the likable killers are still killers.

(An earlier version of this review mistakenly listed Cassandra Gava as the actress who played Kemper’s mother. Gava plays Kemper’s grandmother. Susan Priver played Kemper’s mother. I regret the error and I apologize to both actresses.)

Horror On The Lens: Not Of This Earth (dir by Roger Corman)

Posted on October 23, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Today’s horror on the lens is the 1957 Roger Corman-directed, sci-fi “epic,” Not of this Earth.

Paul Johnson (Paul Birch) may seems like a strange character, with his stilted way of speaking and his sunglasses and his overdramatic reaction to any and all loud noises. Paul could us be an eccentric. Or, he could be …. NOT OF THIS EARTH! Actually, his habit of draining people of their blood and sending weird, umbrella-like creatures out to attack his enemies would seem to suggest that the latter is probably true.

Listen, it’s not easy being a blood-sucking alien. I mean, sure, there’s always seems to be people stupid enough to show up at your mansion so that you can drain their bodies. Paul is lucky that he doesn’t exactly seem to be surrounded by brain surgeons. But sometimes, things happen. For instance, someone might show up from your home planet and demand an immediate transfusion! What is an alien to do?

Watch this low-budget but undeniably entertaining film to find out! And be sure to especially keep an eye out for the great Dick Miller, who reportedly improvised his role as a vacuum cleaner salesman. (Before going into acting, Miller actually did sell vacuum cleaners door-to-door.)

October Positivity: Love On The Rock (dir by Matt Shapira)

Posted on October 22, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

2021’s Love On The Rock definitely has something going for it. It was filmed on the island of Malta.

Malta is a beautiful island nation, sitting between Sicily and North Africa. I spent the summer after I graduated high school in Europe and Malta was one of the many beautiful places that I visited. Along with its gorgeous architecture and the beaches, Malta is also known for being the island where St. Paul and St. Luke were shipwrecked for three months. Paul, it’s said, healed every sick person on the island.

Love On The Rock may be a comedic action film with a religious subtext but, far more importantly, it’s a bit of a travelogue as well. David A.R. White plays Colton Riggs, a former Chicago cop who moved to Malta after the death of his wife. He has his own boat and he makes his living giving tours. (He even has a pre-recorded narration that he plays while navigating the boat.) This allows for several scenes that give us a chance to take in the stunning beauty of the island. Colton also has a friend named Rev. Yearwood (Jeff Fahey), who oversees a church that overlooks the ocean. Again, the view is lovely.

As for the plot, it has to do with the search for a serum that can, in theory, cure any and all diseases. International criminal Claudio Fairbanks (Steven Bauer, who appears to have been dubbed by someone else) wants control of the serum so he sends his associates to raid the Maltese laboratory where it’s being developed. One technician gets away, carrying a vial of the serum with him. Wounded during his escape, the dying man secretly hides the vial on Colton’s boat.

Claudio sends his people, led by Halston Hallstrom (Matthew Marsden), to find the serum. Meanwhile, the head of the CIA (Jon Lovitz …. wait, Jon Lovitz?) sends Josie (Lauriane Gillieron) to Malta to seduce Colton and discover if he knows where the serum is. Of course, Josie actually does fall in love with Colton and eventually, Colton does find the serum and it all ends with a surprisingly laid back confrontation between the bad guy and the good guys.

The film is also a comedy and it’s got a religious message as well. (Josie is offended when Colton acts surprised that a spy would also be religious.) Surprisingly enough, it’s actually pretty adroit when it comes to juggling all of its different genres. David A.R. White and Laurianne Gillieron make for a cute couple and both of them turn out to have good comedic timing. For that matter, I also liked the performance of Nathalie Rapti Gomez, who played a trigger-happy mercenary named Plaza and who gave an entertainingly unhinged performance. In the end, even that stuff that shouldn’t have worked — like casting Jon Lovitz as a spymaster — actually did work. Maybe Lovitz should be the next James Bond.

Love On The Rock is an entertaining and unpretentious action spoof. If nothing else, it’s worth seeing for the beauty of Malta.