Live Tweet Alert: Join #ScarySocial for Tell Me A Creepy Story!

Posted on May 18, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

As some of our regular readers undoubtedly know, I am involved in a few weekly live tweets on twitter. I host #FridayNightFlix every Friday, I co-host #ScarySocial on Saturday, and I am one of the five hosts of #MondayActionMovie! Every week, we get together. We watch a movie. We tweet our way through it.

Tonight, at 9 pm et, Tim Buntley will be hosting #ScarySocial! The movie? 2023’s Tell Me A Creepy Story!

If you want to join us this Friday, just hop onto twitter, start the movie at 9 pm et, and use the #ScarySocial hashtag! I’ll be there tweeting and I imagine some other members of the TSL Crew will be there as well. It’s a friendly group and welcoming of newcomers so don’t be shy.

Tell Me A Creepy Story is available on Prime and Tubi!

See you there!

Late Night Retro Television Review: Friday the 13th: The Series 2.4 “Tails I Live, Heads You Die”

Posted on May 17, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Late Night Retro Television Reviews, a new feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Fridays, I will be reviewing Friday the 13th: The Series, a show which ran in syndication from 1987 to 1990. The show can be found on YouTube!

This week, a flip of the coin leads to tragedy!

Episode 2.4 “Tails I Live, Heads You Die”

(Dir by Mark Sobel, originally aired on October 21st, 1988)

Finally, Jack, Micki, and Ryan have a night to relax. Jack does some reading while Micki poses for Ryan, who is apparently a sculptor now. Micki says that it’s unfortunate that Ryan is stuck having work at Curious Goods when he has so much artistic talent. Micki has a point, even if this is the first time that we’ve heard about Ryan’s artistic interests.

Suddenly, the phone rings. A reporter named Tom Hewitt (Bill MacDonald) is calling because he’s heard that Jack is an expert in the occult. Tom says that he’s tracked down a Satanic cult that is planning on doing something big. He tells Jack where he can find all of the evidence that Tom has gathered over the course of his investigation. While Jack and Ryan head over to the bus depot where Tom has hidden his research, Micki stays at the store. As for poor old Tom, he ends up dead with the image of a bloody ram’s head imprinted on his forehead.

Looking through Tom’s papers and photographs, Jack discovers that the head of the Satanic cult is a taxidermist named Sylvan Winters (Colin Fox) and that Sylvan is in possession of a coin that is imbued with Satanic energy. When the owner of the coin flips it, it leads to the death of whoever is standing nearby. After the coin kills someone, it can be used to bring someone back to life.

First, Jack goes to the taxidermy shop with Ryan but the two of them fail to find the coin. Later, Jack returns with Micki and the two of them stumble on a Satanic ceremony. When they are spotted by Sylvan and the cultists, Jack and Micki make a run for it. Sadly, they get separated. While Jack manages to escape from the cultists, Micki is caught by Sylvan. Sylvan flips the coin and …. KILLS MICKI!

Seriously, Micki’s death took me totally by surprise and it actually left me feeling really upset. I’ve got red hair. Micki has red hair. Micki tends to be a skeptic. I tend to be a skeptic. Micki was pretty much me on this show! And now she’s dead? Agck!

Arriving at the taxidermy place, Ryan sobs over Micki’s body and then tells Jack that, after he gets the coin and destroys Sylvan, he is done with the cursed antiques business. Ryan says that he’s ready to live his life and he can’t handle losing anyone else close to him. (Remember that Ryan’s father was killed by a cursed pipe last season.)

Returning to the taxidermy studio, Ryan and Jack discover that Sylvan is planning on using the coin to raise two powerful warlocks and a witch so that they can combine their power to bring Satan into the world. However, Ryan and Jack steal Micki’s body from the morgue, put a mask on her to make her look like the witch that Sylvan wants to raise from the dead, and then the replace the witch’s body with Micki’s body. As a result, Sylvan brings Micki back to life. (Ryan and Jack’s plan is incredibly complicated and I’m kind of surprised that they were able to pull it off. But who cares as long as Micki is no longer dead.) Satan gets angry, the taxidermist studio collapses. and Ryan grabs the coin and flips it in front of Sylvan. Sylvan dies but the coin is still out there.

But no matter! The important thing is that Micki comes back to life! Yay! And Ryan decides not to leave Curious Goods, mostly because he’s in love with his cousin, though that’s something that the show rarely acknowledges.

By the time this episode came around, Robey, Chris Wiggins, and John D. LeMay had developed into a tight enough ensemble that Ryan’s tears and Jack’s anger over the death of Micki felt very powerful and very real. As well, Colin Fox was a wonderfully hissable villain. He was so smug that I couldn’t wait to see him get his comeuppance. This was an excellent episode.

Next week, Ryan falls in love with a cursed violinist because Ryan is never allowed to be happy for long.

Late Night Retro Television Review: Monsters 2.8 “The Demons”

Posted on May 15, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Late Night Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Wednesdays, I will be reviewing Monsters, which aired in syndication from 1988 to 1991. The entire series is streaming on YouTube.

This week, Monsters gives us the story of several Arthurs. Unfortunately, it’s not a very good story.

Episode 2.8 “The Demons”

(Dir by Scott Alexander, originally aired on November 19th, 1989)

On an alien planet, an alchemist named Arturus (Richard Moll) is desperate to get more of something that he calls “Drast.” He decides that the best way to do this would be to summon a demon and demand that the demon give the Drast to him. However, when Arturus tries to cast the spell, he makes a mistake and he ends up summoning a human insurance agent named Arthur (Jeff Silverman). It takes a while but Arthur eventually figures out that he is Arturus’s human equivalent and that “Drast” is actually gold. Arthur lies and tells Arturus that he has to go back to Earth to get the Drast.

Once he returns to Earth, Arthur decides to cast his own spell and summon a demon to help him break free from Arturus. Since Arthur uses the same spell the Arturus used, he makes the same mistake and he ends up summoning Arturo (Eddie Deezen), a nerdy, red-skinned, dog-faced creature from another dimension who, it turns out, is just as obsessed with insurance as Arthur is. Arthur sends Arturo to take care of Arturus, which Arturo does. For some reason, Arturo taking care of Arturus largely takes place off-screen. Having the main villain thwarted off-screen really does leave one wondering just what exactly the point of the story was in the first place.

Most of the previous episodes of Monsters had elements of humor to them. This is the first episode to actually be a straight-out comedy and it doesn’t work at all. Richard Moll and especially Eddie Deezen do manage to be amusing but the majority of the episode is centered around Jeff Silverman’s Arthur. Silverman spends a lot of time frantically running around his house and yelling. It gets to be a bit annoying. The episode is so determined to convince you that it’s hysterically funny that it ends up beating the audience over the head with every punchline and basically begging the viewer to laugh. There’s a desperation to the show’s humor and it quickly wears out its welcome. Even potentially interesting ideas — like both Arturus and Arthur screwing up the same spell in the same way — ultimately fall flat. Watching this episode, I was very much aware of the feeling of wanting to like what I was seeing considerably more than I actually did.

As I mentioned earlier, Eddie Deezen is really the only consistently funny thing about this episode. The combination of his nerdiness and his fearsome appearance made me laugh more than I was expecting. Sadly, I know Eddie Deezen has recently had to deal with some pretty serious health issues. I’m hoping the best for him.

Next week’s episode will hopefully be a bit better.

Late Night Retro Television Review: Baywatch Nights 2.4 “The Strike”

Posted on May 14, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Late Night 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 Baywatch Nights, a detective show that ran in Syndication from 1995 to 1997. The entire show is currently streaming on YouTube!

This week, Mitch is struck by lightning!

Episode 2.4 “The Strike”

(Dir by David W. Hagar, originally aired on October 20th, 1996)

While working as a lifeguard, Mitch saves a young man named Jake (Sean Blodgett) from drowning. However, no sooner has Mitch pulled Jake out of the ocean and shaken his hand than they are struck by a sudden lightning bolt. (Being struck by lightning is a scary thing but I have to admit that I chuckled a bit at the random lighting bolt in this episode. It seriously just came out of nowhere!) A bunch of Baywatch lifeguards run out to rescue both Mitch and Jake. What’s interesting is that none of these lifeguards were from the main series. (Seriously, I would have thought that at least Michael Newman would have shown up.) Baywatch Nights was trading on the Baywatch name but, other than David Hasselhoff, it couldn’t afford any of the Baywatch actors.

Due to being struck by lightning (and, oddly, the show seems to suggest that the lightning truly was just a random thing that happened), Mitch and Jake become psychically linked. Mitch can hear Jake’s thoughts in his mind and when it becomes obvious that Jake is an alien being pursued by a mysterious organization, Mitch, Ryan, and Daimont set out to track Jake down and rescue him.

This episode, with its hints of government cover-ups and alien conspiracies, owes a lot to The X-Files. (Actually, the entire second season of Baywatch Nights owes a considerable debt to The X-Files.) As a student of conspiracy theories (albeit a skeptical one), I appreciated the episode’s attempt to create a genuine atmosphere of paranoia. That said, this is still Baywatch Nights and that means that the majority of the episode was basically Mitch and Jake being chased from one location to another. It all got to be a bit repetitive but it remained entertaining.

The best part of this episode is that it allows David Hasselhoff to embrace his inner William Shatner. Hasselhoff has always been a natural overactor and he’s at his most likable when he’s not being at all subtle. This episode not only features the Hoff getting mad about a conspiracy but it also involves a few scenes where he starts to speak in Jake’s voice as a result of their mind-meld. Hasselhoff throw himself into the performance. Again, there’s nothing subtle about any of it but that’s the Hasselhoff charm. As a friend of mine once said while we were watching Starcrash, “Every country should have a Hoff.”

This episode ends on a sad note, which gives Hasselhoff an excuse to get teary-eyed. How can Mitch continue to be a skeptic after everything that he sees in this episode? Will he finally be willing to admit that there are things out there that cannot be rationally explained? You would think so but Mitch can be remarkably stubborn. We’ll find out next week!

Live Tweet Alert: Watch The War of the Worlds With #ScarySocial!

Posted on May 11, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Tonight, for #ScarySocial, I will be hosting 1953’s The War of the Worlds!

If you want to join us on Saturday night, just hop onto twitter, start the film at 9 pm et, and use the #ScarySocial hashtag! The film is available on Prime! I’ll be there co-hosting and I imagine some other members of the TSL Crew will be there as well. It’s a friendly group and welcoming of newcomers so don’t be shy.

Late Night Retro Television Review: Friday the 13th The Series 2.3 “And Now The News”

Posted on May 10, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, Jack is on vacation so Ryan and Micki try to retrieve an antique on their own. Near disaster ensues. I swear, why is Jack always running off? How can you take a vacation when your job is to literally save the world? You know who never got a decent vacation? Atlas.

Anyway, onto the episode….

Episode 2.3 “And Now The News”

(Dir by Bruce Pittman, originally aired October 14th, 1988)

With Jack on vacation, it falls to Micki and Ryan to track down the latest antique, a cursed radio that will reveal information to its owner as long as the owner uses the radio to kill a certain number of people. (The radio brings people’s greatest fears to life. So, if you’ve got a thing about snakes, watch out!) Micki and Ryan discover that the radio is currently in the possession of Dr. Avril Carter (Kate Trotter), who works at the local mental hospital and who is murdering patients so that the radio will help her with her research. Dr. Carter really wants to win that Nobel Prize.

Ryan and Micki really probably should have waited for Jack to come back because their attempts to get the radio back leads to one disaster after another. Ryan even manages to get electrocuted while trying to climb over the hospital’s security fence. Micki, meanwhile, does manage to get into the hospital but she is soon reminded that the majority of the patients are serial killers and perverts.

The best thing about this episode is that radio actually has a voice. Henry Ramer provides the voice of the “radio announcer,” who says stuff like, “And now the news …. after this murder” and such. At the end of the episode, it even taunts Dr. Carter when she fails to kill the required number of people and announces that Carter will never win a Nobel Prize. (The radio then proceeds to electrocute her.) In a nice touch, the announcer continues to talk to Ryan and Micki even when they’re taking it down to the vault. It offer to help them out in their quest, in return for a certain amount of murders. Micki and Ryan end up tossing the radio back and forth between the two of them. The episode even ends with a freeze frame of the radio in the air. Hopefully, they got it into the vault eventually.

This was a fun episode. The mental hospital was a atmospheric location, the radio was an inspired antique, and Kate Trotter gave a good performance as the villainous Dr. Carter. After two less than enthralling episodes, And Now The News was a definite return to everything that worked about the first season.

Late Night Retro Television Review: Monsters 2.7 “Jar”

Posted on May 8, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, Monsters brings together horror and noir!

Episode 2.7 “Jar”

(Dir by Bette Gordon, originally aired on November 1st, 1989)

Having been hired to find a missing woman, cynical private investigator Jack Bateman (Richard Edson) begins his investigation at the seedy bayou motel where the woman was last seen. However, Mr. Hallet and Jack are not the only people at the hotel. Ann Spiros (Gina Gershon) arrives with her loutish husband, the wealthy George (Ed Kovens). Ann wants to get rid of her husband and she and Jack seem to share an immediate attraction to each other. Does Mr. Hallet have something hidden away in all of his mason jars that could help Ann with that? Of course, he does. The show is called Monsters. This episode is called Jar. One doesn’t have to be a genius to figure out that something pretty extreme is about to happen in that isolated hotel and that it’s going involve something in a jar.

(Someday, remind me to write a post about all of the historical figures who had certain body parts preserved in a jar. I don’t know why that would happen but no matter. You can still see a few inches of Napoleon if you want to, though it might not be the part of him that you want to see.)

From the sultry saxophone on the soundtrack to the shadow visual style, this episode announces itself from the start as being an homage to film noir. It works far better than I think anyone would have any reason to expect. The bayou hotel is wonderfully atmospheric and steamy location. One can literally feel the humidity that runs through this episode. Though he was a bit young for the role, Richard Edson is a convincing hard-boiled detective. Gina Gershon, as always, is a perfect femme fatale and seems to relish the opportunity to keep the audience guessing as to he motivations. Ed Kovens is properly unsympathetic as the wealthy husband. (Can you imagine how unpleasant noirs like this would be if the husbands were decent guys who just minded their own business? It’s a good thing that they’re always louts.) Finally, Fritz Weaver gives a nicely eccentric performance as old Mr. Hallet. This episode is full of schemes and forbidden passions. Fans of noir will appreciate the episode.

What’s especially surprising is just how well the supernatural and the monsters are all integrated into the noir format. The monsters feel as if they belong in the story just as much as the hard-boiled detective and the sultry wife. It takes a while for the monsters to do their thing but when they do, they definitely make an impression.

Monsters can be a bit of uneven show. But Jar is definitely a triumph.

Late Night Retro Television Review: Baywatch Nights 2.3 “The Rig”

Posted on May 7, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, Mitch and Ryan head out to an abandoned ocean oil rig. Do they find love or do they find a glowing green slime monster? Read on to find out!

Episode 2.3 “The Rig”

(Dir by Jon Cassar, originally aired on October 13th, 1996)

Donna is super-excited because she’s saved her first person as a lifeguard. (Apparently, the nightclub is no longer a thing and Donna is no longer a cynical and tough-minded businesswoman.) She tracks down Griff and she tells him about it. Griff is impressed. Donna wants to tell Mitch but he’s not on the beach!

Instead, Mitch and Ryan are investigating a deserted oil rig. A few weeks ago, the crew of the oil rig died under mysterious circumstances. The official story is that they fell victim to cabin fever or maybe a mass delusion. But Diamont thinks that maybe something paranormal has happened and he has asked Mitch and Ryan to check it out. Despite the fact that this is the third “paranormal” mystery that Mitch has investigated in as many episodes, he remains a skeptic. Ryan, however, thinks that it is possible that the rig was attacked by some sort of prehistoric one-celled organism.

And it turns out that Ryan is right! Ryan and Mitch find themselves being threatened by a green gelatinous goo that eats away at everything from metal to skin. Joining Ryan and Mitch is Claire (Jennifer Campbell), whose boat was earlier attacked by the goo. Claire does very little in this episode and there’s really no point to her being there, beyond the fact that the show’s producers needed someone to wear a bikini and to scream.

Featuring an absolutely ludicrous monster and a finale that involves a self-destruct mechanism slowly counting down, The Rig is actually a lot of fun. It’s totally ludicrous and silly and everything that an episode of something like Baywatch Nights should be. Mitch and Ryan make for an entertaining team. Angie Harmon’s naturally sarcastic delivery contrasts nicely with David Hasselhoff’s most earnest style. The Rig is at its best when it just follows Mitch and Ryan as they flirtatiously argue about the paranormal while walking around the abandoned rig.

And fear not! Mitch survives his meeting with goo, jumping off the rig at the same moment that it explodes. We get a little bit of slow motion, followed by a short of an obvious dummy crashing into the water. When Hasselhoff jumps off the rig, the night sky is pitch black. When he emerges from the ocean, the sun is shining. That’s type of easily avoidable continuity error that makes Baywatch Nights so much fun!

This was a fun episode. Next week, Mitch gets involved with a UFO!

The Films of 2024: Late Night With The Devil (dir by Colin Cairnes and Cameron Cairnes)

Posted on May 6, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Late Night With The Devil is a truly frightening film.

Jack Deloy (David Dastmalchian) is the host of Night Owls, a late-night talk show. Deloy has spent his entire television career competing against The Tonight Show With Johnny Carson. Deloy has a loyal audience. He has several Emmy awards. But he has never been able to beat The Tonight Show in the ratings. Even when he interviewed his dying wife (Georgina Haig) and got the biggest ratings of his career, he still finished second to Johnny Carson. After his wife died, Deloy went into seclusion before eventually returning to his show.

It’s Halloween night in 1977 and Deloy is hosting a live broadcast of Night Owls. He and his producer (John Quong Tart) are convinced that they’re finally going to achieve their goal of winning the ratings race. On the show, they have the medium Christou (Faysal Bazzi). They have Carmichael Haig (Ian Bliss), a pompous former magician who now makes his living by exposing charlatans. They have parapsychologist June Ross-Mitchell (Laura Gordon) and Lilly (Ingrid Torelli), a young woman who claims to be possessed by a demon that she calls Mr. Wiggles. Deloy’s sidekick Gus McConnell (Rhys Auteri) fears that it’s not a good idea to mess with the occult on Halloween night but Deloy is determined to get those ratings. In fact, Deloy is willing to do just about anything for the ratings.

Opening with narration from Michael Ironside and introduced as being a documentary about what happened that mysterious night, Late Night With The Devil is a found footage horror film but, unlike a lot of films of the genre, it doesn’t get bogged down with people saying stuff like, “Are we recording?” or “Are you getting this?” Instead, the film’s directors actually make good use of the format, suggesting that there might still be a spark of inspiration to be found in the found footage genre. The contrast between the grainy color of the show and the stark black-and-white footage of what went on whenever the show went to commercial is one of the things that makes Late Night With The Devil so memorable. It keeps the audience from getting too comfortable with what they’re watching and it’s a reminder that what one sees in a controlled environment (like a talk show) is often meant to hide the chaos lurking under the surface. Towards the end of the episode, when the color footage goes from being grainy to suddenly being very bright and vivid, it’s truly unsettling. (The film does such a good job of keeping the audience off-balance that the directors can even get away with abandoning the found footage format at a key moment.) Late Night With The Devil does a wonderful job recreating the look and feel of an old late night talk show. One look at the Night Owls set and you can literally smell the combination of stale cigarettes and outright desperation. Looking at the ugly set and the tacky clothes, it’s easy to buy that we actually are watching some long-buried archival footage from 1977. One reason why the film is frightening is because it feels authentic.

(And yes, it feels authentic despite the inclusion of some AI-images. AI was used to create the intertitles that appear whenever Night Owls goes to commercial. They appear for less than a minute and, if not for the online controversy, I never would have noticed them.)

David Dastmalchian plays Jack Deloy as being a showman who is an expert at manipulating the audience and who will do anything to get people to watch. Still, even the most jaded horror fan will be shocked to see how far Jack Deloy is willing to go to win the ratings race. (For all the supernatural elements of the film, nothing is more disturbing than its portrayal of human avarice.) A major subplot deals with Jack’s membership in the Grove, a society of the wealthy and powerful that is based on the very real Bohemian Grove. Bohemian Grove is, of course, a favorite of conspiracy theorists who assume that the rich and famous are up to all sorts of nefarious deeds whenever they gather for their annual meeting. Those conspiracy theorists will find much to appreciate about Late Night With The Devil and Dastmalchian’s performance. (Of course, one can also read Jon Ronson’s Them, which features an entire chapter about Ronson traveling to Bohemian Grove and discovering that what was advertised as being a day of dorky fun for the rich and powerful actually was just that.)

Obviously, many films did influence Late Night With The Devil. The end credits begin with a land acknowledgment but it could have just as easily contained a film acknowledgment. “The filmmakers acknowledge the influence of The Exorcist, Cannibal Holocaust, The Last Exorcism, the careers of James Randi, Uri Geller, and Sylvia Browne, Michelle Remembers, The Conjuring franchise, The Larry Sanders Show, the films of David Cronenberg, and Ghostwatch.” It’s a testament to the skill of the directors and the cast that, despite all the obvious influence, Late Night With The Devil stands as an original and genuinely unsettling work of art.

Live Tweet Alert: Watch The Wicker Man with #ScarySocial

Posted on May 4, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Tonight, for #ScarySocial, Deanna Dawn will be hosting 1973’s The Wicker Man!

If you want to join us on Saturday night, just hop onto twitter, start the film at 9 pm et, and use the #ScarySocial hashtag! The film is available on Prime and Tubi. It’s a friendly group and welcoming of newcomers so don’t be shy.