Category Archives: Horror

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

Posted on 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, 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 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 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 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 You tube!

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 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 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, 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.

Late Night Retro Television Review: Friday the 13th: The Series 2.2 “The Voodoo Mambo”

Posted on 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, Micki, Ryan, and Jack get involved in voodoo!

Episode 2.2 “The Voodoo Mambo”

(Dir by Timothy Bond, originally aired on October 7th, 1988)

This episode opens with Micki and Ryan watching a street party that just happens to be taking place in front of Curious Goods.  It’s a Haitian voodoo party and, judging from Micki and Ryan’s comments, it is apparently some sort of annual event that takes place wherever this show is supposed to be set.

(If Curious Goods was set in New Orleans, I could maybe buy this without giving it too much thought.  But the show is filmed in Canada and, judging from the states that were specifically mentioned over the course of the first few episode, it appears that Curious Goods is meant to be located in the Northeast.  How many voodoo street parties do you see in New Jersey?)

Micki and Ryan want to join the party but Jack insists that they first meet his old friend, Hedley (Joe Seneca).  Hedely is a powerful voodoo priest and he has traveled to the city so that his daughter, Stacy (Rachael Crawford, who was on the first season of T & T until her character vanished), can become a priestess.  Ryan is obviously attracted to Stacy but the attraction goes nowhere, which I guess is good considering that every woman who likes Ryan ends up dying in some terrible way.

Meanwhile, good-for-nothing Carl Walters (David Matheson) is in danger of losing the mansion that has been in his family’s possession ever since their days as plantation overlords.  Carl finds a voodoo mask in the basement.  Whenever he puts the mask on, the spirit of a voodoo priestess named Laotia (Suzanna Coy) rips out someone’s throat.  Laotia wants to rip out the throats of the city’s top voodoo priests so that she can gain their powers.  Carl agrees to help because part of the deal is that Carl will get what he wants as well.  I’m not sure what Carl wants, though.  Money, I guess.  But it doesn’t matter because, of course, Laotia is really only concerned with what she wants.

This episode had some atmospheric moments, especially in the scenes featuring the big party outside of Curious Goods.  There’s also some black-and-white footage of actual voodoo ceremonies that is randomly inserted throughout the episode.  I assume that black-and-white footage is meant to be a flashback or something like that, though the show never really makes it all that clear.  That said, this episode was a bit on the dull side.  Carl and Laotia were not particularly interesting and this is the second episode this season to feature an old friend of Jack’s.  (That wouldn’t be a problem, except for the fact that we’re only two episodes in.)  This episode felt a bit tired, as if someone entered the production office and shouted, “I need an episode about Voodoo!  You’ve got 48 hours!”

Next week, hopefully, thing will be a bit more interesting.

Scenes That I Love: Amy Steel Confuses Jason Voorhees in Friday the 13th Part II!

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Today, the Shattered Lens wishes a happy birthday to Amy Steel, the actress who played Ginny, the strongest and most resourceful of all of the final girls to appear in the Friday the 13th franchise.  Whenever I watch any of the Friday the 13th films, I always like to think that I would be Part 2’s Ginny, though I know, deep down, I would actually probably more likely be Part One’s Marci, getting stuck outside the rain in my underwear and somehow not hearing someone stepping up behind me with an axe.

Today’s scene that I love comes from Friday the 13th Part II.  In this scene, Ginny proves herself to be the only camp counselor in history to be smart enough to confuse a backwoods vagrant who wears a flour bag over his head.  This scene is one of the reasons why Ginny is one of the franchise’s most popular characters.

Scenes That I Love: Ari Lehman Emerges From The Lake In Friday the 13th

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Today, the Shattered Lens wishes a happy 59th birthday to actor and musician Ari Lehman!  Lehman made his debut in 1978’s Manny Orphans and so impressed director Sean S. Cunningham that Cunningham offered him a role in his next film.  When Cunningham offered Lehman the role, he asked only one question. “Can you swim?”

At the age of 14, Ari appeared in Friday the 13th.  He didn’t get much screen time but his performance and appearance as the young Jason Voorhees created a moment of fright that lives on today.

Happy birthday, Ari Lehman!

Late Night Retro Television Review: Monsters 2.6 “The Farmer’s Daughter”

Posted on 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.

Say, have you heard the joke about the traveling Bible salesman and the farmer’s daughter?  How about the one about the Man from Nantucket….

Episode 2.6 “The Farmer’s Daughter”

(Dir by Michael Warren Powell, originally aired on November 5th, 1989)

On a rainy night, traveling salesman Howard Filby (Soupy Sales) has an accident in front of the farmhouse owned by …. well, the show just calls them Ma (Bobo Lewis) and Pa (George Hall).  Ma and Pa seem like good country folks.  (That said, just their names brought to mind the owners of the Ma & Pa General Store on King of the Hill.  “I guess your Pa because you’re PA-thetic!”  “And you’re Ma because you’re always ridin’ mah ass!”)  Ma and Pa are willing to let Howard spend the night at the farmhouse, out of the rain.  He can just sleep up in the attic.  They’ll have to put up a privacy sheet, of course.  Their daughter Lucy (Stephanie Phillips) also stays up in the attic.

That privacy sheet doesn’t stay up for long.  Howard becomes intrigued by Lucy’s silhouette and her sultry voice.  When the sheet comes down, Howard is relieved to discover that Lucy is just as attractive as she sounded.  Lucy asks Howard for his undying love and Howard’s willing to give it.  Lucy talks about heading downstairs to let Ma and Pa know that they’ll be getting married.  Howard’s a little bit surprised to hear that….

Howard’s even more surprised when he accidentally pulls off a chunk of Lucy’s skin.  It turns out that Lucy is not quite who Howard thought she was and that Howard is hardly the first salesman to be brought to the farmhouse and sent up to the attic.  Even as Howard struggles in the attic, Ma and Pa sit in their living room and smile at the sound of another fender bender outside….

This was a nicely atmospheric episode.  Having heard all the various stories and jokes about traveling salesman and farmer’s daughters, I can’t say that I was particularly surprised by the direction that the story took but the episode still works as an example of American folk horror.  Soupy Sales was a comedian and a children’s show host and, according to Wikipedia, his trademark was getting a pie slammed in his face.  (Ouch!)  With that in mind, I guess it’s not a surprise that Sales’s performance occasionally leans a bit too much towards the goofy side.  (There’s a difference between playing the role with humor and just mugging for the camera.)  However, Stephanie Phillips, George Hall, and Bobo Lewis are all effectively creepy as the faux friendly farmhouse inhabitants.

Interestingly enough, this episode was co-written by character actor Bob Balaban.  As a director, Balaban was responsible for Parents, another film about a seemingly perfect married couple with a secret.

Scenes That I Love: Dan O’Herlihy Explains The Meaning of Halloween in Halloween III: Season of The Witch

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

105 years ago, on this date, the great character actor Dan O’Herlihy was born in Wexford, Wexford County, Ireland.

O’Herlihy would have a long career as an actor, making his feature debut in 1947’s Odd Man Out and working steadily in film and television for the next 50 years.  For modern viewers, he is perhaps best remembered for his role as The Old Man in the first two Robocop films and his performance as the sinister trickster, Conal Cochran, in 1982’s Halloween III: Season of the Witch.

Today’s scene that I love from from the latter film.  O’Herlihy explains the mean of Halloween to a trapped Tom Atkins.  O’Herlihy truly turned Conal Cochran into one of the great horror villains of the 80s and his performance is one of the main reasons that the rather oddball Halloween III retains a loyal audience to this day.