Category Archives: Horrorthon

Horror Film Review: The Seduction (dir by David Schmoeller)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Get to know your neighbors, people!

That’s really the main message that I took away from the 1982 film, The Seduction.  In The Seduction, Morgan Fairchild stars as Jamie Douglas.  Jamie is a anchorwoman for a local news channel in Los Angeles.  She has an older boyfriend named Brandon (Michael Sarrazin).  She has a sex-crazed best friend named Robin (Colleen Camp).  She has a beautiful home in the Hollywood Hills.  She’s doing wonderfully for someone whose main talent is the ability to read what’s on the teleprompter.  Much like Ron Burgundy, she’ll read whatever is put on that teleprompter without even thinking about it.  Some might say that indicates that Jamie is a fairly vacuous character and …. well, they’re right.  She is.

Jamie starts receiving flowers at work and mysterious phone calls from someone named Derek.  Derek (Andrew Stevens) is a fashion photographer.  He’s young.  He’s handsome.  He’s charismatic.  His assistant, Julie (Wendy Smith Howard), is absolutely in love with him.  In fact, Derek would seem to have it all but he’s obsessed with Jamie.  Soon, he’s breaking into Jamie’s house so that he can watch her undress and then confronting her at the mall.  At one point, he shows up in her living room and starts taking pictures of her.  Jamie screams.  Brandon beats him up.  After Derek leaves, Jamie and Brandon go to the police and ask if there’s something that they can do about Derek.  The police say that there are not many options because Derek has not technically broken the law …. uhm, what?  I get that things were different in the 80s but I still find it hard to believe that showing up in someone else’s living ro0om without an invitation and then refusing to leave would have been considered legal back then.  As you probably already guessed, Derek’s obsession soon turns lethal.

Perhaps the weirdest thing about The Seduction is that Derek is basically Jamie’s neighbor but she doesn’t ever seem to realize it.  Watching this film, there were time when I really had to wonder if maybe Jamie was just an idiot.  As well, throughout the film, Jamie reports on an unknown serial killer who is terrorizing Los Angeles.  The killer is dubbed the Sweetheart Killer and, when I watched this film, I wondered if the Sweetheart Killer and Derek were one in the same.  I don’t think that they were but, still, why introduce an unknown serial killer without providing any sort of resolution?  It’s all indicative of just how sloppy the plotting on The Seduction truly was.  That’s especially true of the ludicrous ending of the film.  A murder is committed in Jamie’s hot tub and when Jamie calls the police to report it, she’s put on hold.  Meanwhile, Derek buries the body in Jamie’s backyard and somehow manages to do it without really breaking a sweat or being noticed by anyone.  Derek’s big secret turns out to be not that much of a shock.

Morgan Fairchild’s performance isn’t great but that’s largely because she’s stuck with a character who is never allowed to behave in a consistent manner.  Andrew Stevens is a bit more convincing as Derek, playing him as a photographer who doesn’t need cocaine because he’s already get his obsessive personality keeping up at nights.  Michael Sarrazin, as Brandon, bellows nearly all of his lines and gives a performance that just shouts out, “Why did I agree to do this movie!?”  He’s amusing.  As for director David Schmoeller, he did much better with both Tourist Trap and Crawlspace.

Seriously, though, a lot of the horror and drama in this film could have been avoided by Jamie just getting to know her neighbors.  I’ve been very lucky to have some very good neighbors over the years.  When my Dad passed away, my neighbors Hunter and Hannah checked in on my nearly every day afterwards and let me use their hot tub whenever I wanted to.  Neighbors, they can be pretty special.

Horror Film Review: It! The Terror From Beyond Space (dir by Edward L. Cahn)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

“Another name for Mars is …. DEATH!”

The 1958 sci-fi/horror hybrid, It!  The Terror From Beyond Space, opens with a NASA press conference.  The assembled reporters are reminded that, earlier in the year, America’s first manned mission to Mars was presumed to have been lost.  However, a second mission was sent to Mars and they discovered that the commander of the first mission, Edward L. Carruthers (Marshall Thompson), was still alive.

Unfortunately, all of Carruthers’s crewmates were dead.  Carruthers claimed that the murders were committed by a monster.  The commander of the second mission, Col. Van Heusen (Kim Spalding), instead suspected that Carruthers killed his crewmates when he realized they were stranded on Mars.  The ship had enough provisions to last the entire crew for one year or ten years for just one man.

The second mission is now on their way back to Earth, with Carruthers under house arrest.  While one crewman does believe that Carruthers’s story could be true, the others are convinced that Carruthers is a murderer.  What they don’t know is that the monster from Carruthers’s story is not only real but that it also snuck onto their ship during lift-off.  Tall and scaly with huge claws and a permanently angry face, the Monster — It, for lack of a more formal name — is lurking in the lower levels of the ship and hunting for food.

To state what is probably already obvious, It! is not a film that worries much about being scientifically accurate.  While it does explain how living on the surface of Mars caused It to develop into the predator that it is, this is also a science fiction film from 1958.  It’s a film where, instead of going to the Moon, the first manned spaceflight is to Mars.  It’s also a film where there’s no weightlessness in space, the two women on the ship serve everyone coffee, and a nuclear reactor is casually unshielded at one point in an attempt to destroy It.  Bullets are fired on the spaceship.  Grenades are tossed.  Airlocks are rather casually opened.

Fortunately, none of that matters.  Clocking in at a mere 69 minutes, It! is a surprisingly suspenseful horror film, one that makes good use of its claustrophobic locations (a lot of the action takes place in an air duct) and which features a surprisingly convincing and, at times, even scary monster.  It may be a man in a rubber suit but that doesn’t make it any less shocking when its claw bursts out of an an open hatch and starts trying to grab everything nearby.  The cast of It! are all convincing in their roles.  Watching them, you really do believe that they are a crew who have seen a lot together and it makes the subsequent deaths all the more effective,

It! was a troubled production,  The monster was played by veteran stuntman Ray Corrigan, who reportedly showed up drunk a few times and also managed to damage the monster suit.  Many members of the cast were not happy about being cast in a B-movie.  (Fortunately, their resentment probably helped their performances as the similarly resentful crew of the second mission to Mars.)  Marshall Thompson, who played Carruthers, was one of the few cast members who enjoyed making It! and, perhaps not surprisingly, he also gives the best performance in the film.

Troubled production or not, It! was not only a box office success but, along with Mario Bava’s Planet of the Vampires, it was later cited as one of the inspiration for Alien.  At its best, It! has the same sort of claustrophobic feel as Alien.  The scene where one of the crewman is found in an air duct brings to mind the fate of Tom Skerritt’s character in Alien.

It! is still a very effective work of sci-fi horror.  Remember, another name for Mars is …. DEATH!

The Laundry, Short Film Review by Case Wright

Posted on by casewright

We are NOT powerless! We don’t have to let Alex Magana films happen. Alex Magana films being created is not a requirement of life, unless we permit it! I know that many of you think that he is inevitable like Thanos or getting herpes, BUT it is not! Thanos, herpes, and Alex Magana films don’t have to be part of your life!

Speaking of herpes, we need to go into a deeper dive of our cultural heroes sleeping with Aliens! Whatever they evolved from, it wasn’t on Earth!

You’re gonna give all COVID 1000! They probably have sapient cold sores! Cut it out!
The green alien especially because just wait until the Jolly Green Giant gets home! Yes, I did hold myself back from the obvious she is a

Ho Ho Ho

Yes, this was a tangent, but it delayed my review and that is a good thing. The story is very simple a woman does her laundry, the laundry alarm buzzes, and…..nothing just a high pitched boyfriend. The boyfriend investigates the laundry and is eaten by a monster hiding the dryer.
She also investigates and the monster is her laundry.
I do not understand the monster’s lifecycle or why this movie had to be. We could stop Alex Magana! Think on this, if 100 guys can stop a gorilla, 20 guys could stop Alex!
If you want to see something terrible, see below.

Horror Review: Visitor Q (dir. Miike Takashi)

Posted on by Arleigh

Miike Takashi’s 2001 film Visitor Q (called Bizita Q in Japan) is definitely one of the most bizarre and disturbing movies out there. It often gets compared to the work of Quentin Tarantino, but that comparison really doesn’t do Miike justice. Tarantino’s style is all about showing violence in a flashy, stylized way that sometimes feels more like entertainment or homage than outright shock. Miike, on the other hand, takes a very different approach—his films are much more raw, unfiltered, and transgressive. Where Tarantino’s violence can almost feel like a performance, Miike’s hits you in a way that’s meant to provoke and unsettle on a deeper level.

Visitor Q is a wild, surreal ride that dives headfirst into the messy mix of violence and sex that’s so common in today’s media, with a cheeky nod toward reality TV culture. The film came out of Japan at a really interesting time, when the culture was pretty conflicted about Western influences. Japan often points fingers at the West for “decadence” and moral decline, but at the same time, it produces some of the most intense and boundary-pushing entertainment around—like anime and manga filled with everything from weirdly sexualized creatures (yes, tentacles, lots of tentacles) to ultra-violent stories that Western media would blush at.

The plot itself is maybe the simplest part of the whole thing. It’s about a down-on-his-luck former TV reporter named Q Takahashi who’s trying to support his dysfunctional family by filming a documentary about how violence and sex in media affects young people today. From there, the story quickly spins into something much darker and more uncomfortable, focusing on his family’s raw problems: drug abuse, emotional numbness, incest, necrophilia, and other twisted stuff that’s hard to even put into words.

What really makes Visitor Q stand out is how Miike doesn’t hold anything back. This film isn’t trying to make you comfortable or distract you with flashy effects. Instead, it confronts you with some very real, very uncomfortable issues. Miike has a fearless way of showing violence and sex that feels totally unfiltered and even brutal, forcing you to face parts of human nature and society that most movies would shy away from or sugarcoat.

It’s easy to see how this movie channels the spirit of the Marquis de Sade, that infamous figure known for embracing taboo and shock to criticize societal hypocrisy. Miike takes this spirit and uses it to spotlight the way media—and especially the voyeuristic culture of reality TV—turns personal pain and dysfunction into public spectacle. The movie asks us to think about how watching violence and sex over and over might warp not just society’s values, but how people actually relate to one another.

One thing Visitor Q pokes at pretty hard is voyeurism, the idea of watching other people’s lives like it’s entertainment. The former TV reporter filming his family for the documentary is both an observer and a participant, and the film forces viewers to question the ethics of watching intimate, often tragic moments unfold just for the sake of entertainment. It’s a powerful reminder of what media voyeurism can do to real lives.

Another theme that hits home is how desensitized people have become to violence and sex. The family in the movie often reacts to brutal, horrible things with complete indifference—almost like they’re numb from being exposed to this stuff all the time. Miike seems to be saying that when we see violence and sex as everyday entertainment, it dulls our emotions and disconnects us from the human suffering behind those images. This is especially relevant for young people growing up in a media-saturated world, which is exactly what the film’s documentary narrator is trying to get at.

Some of the film’s more extreme themes, like incest and necrophilia, are obviously shocking, but Miike uses them to highlight just how broken the family is. These aren’t just there for shock value—they’re symbols of how far relationships can fall apart when love, respect, and communication break down entirely. The film uses these taboos as metaphors for emotional neglect and societal decay, asking us to look hard at the dark corners of family life and human nature that most media avoids.

Watching Visitor Q is definitely not an easy ride. At first, most people find themselves looking away or flinching because the content is so wild and graphic. But it’s interesting how, over time, viewers start watching the movie without turning away, even if what they see is still deeply disturbing. The film somehow pulls you in with its surreal style and brutal honesty, making you confront just how far you’re willing to go in understanding these messed-up family dynamics and cultural critiques.

Stylistically, the film bounces between stark realism and surreal, almost absurd imagery. This gives it a rollercoaster tone that keeps you off balance—one moment it’s brutally raw, the next it’s almost darkly comedic or bizarre. This mix mirrors the instability of the family and the unpredictable nature of their world. Miike really embraces both the artistic and the extreme exploitation sides of filmmaking here, unapologetically pushing boundaries with each scene.

Despite all the shocking stuff, the film comes with a clear message about the relationship between media, sex, and violence. It’s not just reflecting society’s problems; it’s suggesting that media actually shapes how we think, feel, and behave—especially for kids. The film also takes a swipe at reality TV, highlighting how people get a twisted sense of pleasure from watching others’ suffering and humiliation. This is even more relevant today with social media and constant livestreams making all aspects of life a public show.

Miike’s gritty and unfiltered take makes it clear he isn’t just copying Western transgressive directors—he’s got his own voice and style that’s as challenging as it is unique. Where Tarantino’s films entertain and provoke with wit and style, Miike’s work disturbs and pushes, asking viewers to get uncomfortable and reflect. Comparisons to Pasolini, the Italian filmmaker known for his raw and provocative films, fit well here. Like Pasolini, Miike straddles the line between art and exploitation, using shock to force deeper questions about society.

In the end, Visitor Q isn’t a movie for casual watching or easy enjoyment. It’s intense, often repugnant, and demands a tough kind of attention. But for those willing to dive into its messy, surreal, and disturbing world, it offers a powerful look at how media influences family, society, and morality. Miike Takashi is definitely not Japan’s Tarantino—he’s a far more transgressive filmmaker who dares to challenge audiences by taking them into the most uncomfortable and raw parts of human experience. If one has the courage and curiosity, Visitor Q is an unforgettable, provocative film that forces us to think hard about voyeurism, media excess, and just how dark and strange life can get behind closed doors.

Horror On The Lens: The Clones (dir by Lamar Card and Paul Hunt)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

“Today it is science fiction, tomorrow it will be science fact….”

So declared the trailer from 1973’s The Clones.  

One of the first films to be made about cloning, this movie tells the story of Dr. Gerald Appleby (Michael Greene), who discovers that there’s another version of him living his life.  Dr. Appleby and his clone both find themselves being pursued by two government agents (Gregory Sierra and Otis Brown) and a mad scientist (Stanley Adams).

The Clones requires some patience.  It moves at its own deliberate pace and there’s quite a few scenes of Dr. Appleby running through the desert.  That said, the film builds up to wonderfully twisted conclusion and the final roller coaster shoot-out makes everything more than worth it.

Ever since I first saw this ennui-drenched film in 2012, I’ve been recommending it to people.  I’m happy to share it with you today!

 

Music Film Review: Tommy (dir by Ken Russell)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

“Tommy, can you hear me?”

That’s a question that’s asked frequently in the 1975 film, Tommy.  An adaptation of the famous rock opera by the Who (though Pete Townshend apparently felt that the film’s vision was more director Ken Russell’s than anything that he had meant to say), Tommy tells the story of a “deaf, dumb, and blind kid” who grows up to play a mean pinball and then become a cult leader.  Why pinball?  Who knows?  Townshend’s the one who wrote Pinball Wizard but Ken Russell is the one who decided to have Elton John sing it while wearing giant platform shoes.

Tommy opens, like so many British films of the 70s, with the blitz.  With London in ruins, Captain Walker (the almost beatifically handsome Robert Powell) leaves his wife behind as he fights for his country.  When Walker is believed to be dead, Nora (Ann-Margaret) takes Tommy to a holiday camp run by Frank (Oliver Reed).  Oliver Reed might not be the first person you would expect to see in a musical and it is true that he wasn’t much of a singer.  However, it’s also true that he was Oliver Reed and, as such, he was impossible to look away from.  Even his tuneless warbling is somehow charmingly dangerous.  Nora falls for Frank but — uh oh! — Captain Walker’s not dead.  When the scarred captain surprises Frank in bed with Nora, Frank hits him over the head and kills him.  Young Tommy witnesses the crime and is told that he didn’t see anything and he didn’t hear anything and that he’s not going to say anything.

And so, as played by Roger Daltrey, Tommy grows up to be “deaf, dumb, and blind.”  Various cures — from drugs to religion to therapy — are pursued to no avail.  As the Acid Queen, Tina Turner sings and dances as if she’s stealing Tommy’s soul.  As the Therapist, Jack Nicholson is all smarmy charm as he gently croons to Ann-Margaret.  Eric Clapton performs in front of a statue of Marilyn Monroe.  Ann-Margaret dances in a pool of beans and chocolate and rides a phallic shaped pillow. As for Tommy, he eventually becomes the Pinball Wizard and also a new age messiah.  But it turns out that his new followers are just as destructive as the people who exploited him when he was younger.   It’s very much a Ken Russell film, full of imagery that is shocking and occasionally campy but always memorable.

I love Tommy.  It’s just so over-the-top and absurd that there’s no way you can ignore it.  Ann-Margaret sings and dances as if the fate of the world depends upon it while Oliver Reed drinks and glowers with the type of dangerous charisma that makes it clear why he was apparently seriously considered as Sean Connery’s replacement in the roles of James Bond.  As every scene is surreal and every line of dialogue is sung, it’s probably easy to read too much into the film.  It could very well be Ken Russell’s commentary on the New Age movement and the dangers of false messiahs.  It could also just be that Ken Russell enjoyed confusing people and 1975 was a year when directors could still get away with doing that.  With each subsequent viewing of Tommy, I become more convinced that some of the film’s most enigmatic moments are just Russell having a bit of fun.  The scenes of Tommy running underwater are so crudely put together that you can’t help but feel that Russell was having a laugh at the expense of people looking for some sort of deeper meaning in Tommy’s journey.  In the end, Tommy is a true masterpiece of pop art, an explosion of style and mystery.

Tommy may seem like a strange film for me to review in October.  It’s not a horror film, though it does contain elements of the genre, from the scarred face of the returned to Captain Walker to the Acid Queen sequence to a memorable side story that features a singer who looks like a junior Frankenstein.  To me, though, Tommy is a great Halloween film.  Halloween is about costumes and Tommy is ultimately about the costumes that people wear and the personas that they assume as they go through their lives.  Oliver Reed goes from wearing the polo shirt of a holiday camp owner to the monocle of a tycoon to the drab jumpsuits of a communist cult leader.  Ann-Margaret’s wardrobe is literally a character of its own.  Everyone in the film is looking for meaning and identity and the ultimate message (if there is one) appears to be that the search never ends.

 

Music Video of the Day: The Wild Boys by Duran Duran (1984, directed by Russell Mulcahy)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Directed by Russell Mulcahy, the video for Wild Boys cost over a million pounds, which was considered to be an astronomical sum in 1984.  Both the video and the song is based on the William S. Burroughs novel, The Wild Boys.  Mulcahy had long-wanted to adapt the book into a film and the song was written to serve as a part of the soundtrack of the proposed film.  (The film itself was never made.)

The costumes in the video were left over from The Road Warrior.  The video, featuring all of the members of Duran Duran being tortured in different ways, was controversial but ultimately very popular.

Enjoy!

Forever Knight – S1:E3 – “For I Have Sinned”

Posted on by Leonard Wilson

“He was brought across in 1228. Prayed on humans for their blood. 
Now, he wants to be mortal again.To repay society for his sins. 
To emerge from his World of Darkness. From his endless Forever Night.”

The Prologue opens in the back of an electronic store, where a couple is making out. The woman pushes her Security Guard lover away playfully and states she has to go, fastening a cross around her neck before leaving. Inside her car, the woman puts on a wedding ring. Before she can leave, a figure grabs her from the back seat, ripping the cross from her neck and whispering “You don’t deserve this.” as she screams. It’s time for another case!

Nick arrives at Janette’s nightclub, greeting each other with a small dance before Nick relays the recent murders in the city. “Two women, one decapitated, one disembowled.” Janette wonders why he came to her. She doesn’t care about mortals and reminds Nick that he’s “not people”, by dipping her finger in her blood filled glass, offering a taste. Schanke arrives in the club, getting a little close to one of the vampire patrons when Nick escorts him out. “It’s dangerous in there, Schanke.”, to which Schanke argues that his entire lineage are filled with ladies men who fooled around. They don’t have much time to go into details as he tells Nick about the latest crime scene.

With the chalk outline and blood splatter, Nick is quickly able to discern the crime as a crucifixion and has the cops on the scene bring in the guard as a suspect. One thing is certain, there is a an incredible about of blood loss. Could another vampire be doing this? At the morgue, Natalie’s analysis supports Nick’s theory. Death by a coronary. As she removes the victim’s cross, she sees Nick flinch and says “These things really make you uncomfortable, don’t they?” His response is that they make him sick. Natalie apologizes, noting he’ll have to keep the cross as evidence, with the other two woman all having had crosses with them and were all Catholic. 

In a church, a priest listens to a confession. The voice in the other room explains that he’s not a sinner, that he holds the keys of perdition and of death. Father Pierre Rochefort (Michael McManus, TV’s Lexx) tries to dissuade the individual, but only receives a warning that more sinners will face his wrath. The priest hears footsteps scamper away, visibly shaken. 

At his apartment, Nick tries some garlic pills that send him into a short fit. As he recovers, he examines the cross Natalie gave him that causes him to remember being in a chapel in the Dark Ages. He recalls Joan(Christine Cox, who ironically played a cop in her own vampire show, Blood Ties) who tells him he’s cursed because his salvation has him living in fear of death. As he raises his hand to the nearby cross in the flashback, his hand catches fire. At the same time, he drops the evidence cross into his palm, which burns a small imprint. “Well, the garlic pills are definitely an improvement.”, he whispers. 

The next day, Father Pierre approaches another priest and asks his advice about going to the police. The elder price reminds him that what’s said in the confessional stays there, and has to be protected. This leaves Father Pierre a bit troubled. That night, Schanke makes a visit to Janette’s nightclub, where he catches the attention of Alma (Tracey Cook). She dazzles him with her vampire eyes and leads him into the back of the club, away from the others. Janette breaks up Alma and Schanke before she can have a drink. Janette warns Schanke to stay away from the club, else he might find himself a permanent member of the night shift. Schanke quickly runs out of the room and the club.

At a Naughty phone line service desk, a woman named Magda receives a call from the villain. He tells her he knows her name and that she “profanes the church by feeding the fires of lust”, threatening to burn her alive. Playing the call for her manager, she’s sent home. The poor girl can’t even make it out of the building before she’s caught by the masked killer. Nick, who happens to just be driving in the vicinity, hears her screams and pulls over his car, taking flight. He arrives in the building from the room and pulls his firearm on the villain. The villain pushes the girl into Nick’s arm and reveals a revolver of his own, shooting Nick at point blank range before darting down the stairs. Nick makes the girl call an ambulance, using the moment to change the villain out into the alleyway. He stops the masked individual who turns out to be Father Pierre. Nick’s seen a lot over the years, but even he seems shocked at the revelation. 

In the Interrogation Room, Father Pierre says that he’s not protecting the killer, but the rules and beliefs of his religion. Nick scoffs at this, but the Captain (who’s also in the room) kicks Knight out after his outburst. Father Pierre poses a question: “Faith is the cornerstone of the church…I believe in it. Is there nothing you believe in that strongly?” We see another flashback, with Nick talking to Joan, who is due to be burned at the stake. He offers to make her a vampire, but she refuses. It’s something Nick can’t understand. She gives him her cross to remind him that “the faith you’ve lost is always there to regain.”

At the Precinct, Magda finds Nick, asking him if he’s okay. He shrugs off the shooting as just a grazing and that he’ll be fine. Magda suggests setting herself up as bait, but Knight refuses, sending her away. She then turns to Father Pierre, who comes into the hallway from the interrogation room, but he sends her away as well. The Captain has Nick find someone to put Magda in a hotel until everything’s safe. 

Back at Nick’s apartment, Natalie discovers the old wooden cross and Nick tells her it belonged to Joan of Arc. Natalie is amazed by this, gently caressing the cross while listening as Nick talk about Joan. “You know, she had this incredible strength, this courage…” he smiles, reminiscing. “Faith.” Natalie smiles, still admiring the cross. Nick asks Natalie to bring the cross closer to him. When she does, he flinches, but fights against it. To Nat’s question of why he fears it, he says it’s because it’s “the One True Light and we’re creatures of the Dark.” Nick tells Natalie that he has to spend the day in the church in case the villain returns. 

Dawn. We find Nick staring at the front of Father Pierre’s church. He has a quick conversation with Schanke, letting him know he doesn’t need any extra backup as it might tip the villain off. In the church, Knight moves through the pews, pausing at a row of candles. He remembers watching Joan, burning at the cross. He tries to run out the door, but with the sun already out, he’s trapped. Instead, he hides himself inside Father Pierre’s confessional box. Schanke, still feeling some guilt over his antics at Janette’s, steps into the church and into the other area of the confessional. Knight hears Schanke out, having some fun at the poor guy’s expense. 

As the evening starts, the police are ready to close the stakeout when Schanke catches sight of Magda. She snuck out of the hotel and made her way into the church. Schanke gets knocked out in his car, and Magda is kidnapped by the villain and is taken behind the church to a hilltop where a large cross awaits. The villain ties Magda to the cross, preparing to start a bonfire. Knight arrives (via flight) and tackles the villain, eventually knocking him out. The villain’s torch lands in the kindling, starting the bonfire. Remembering Joans words about Faith being ready to be reclaimed, he leaps over the fire onto the platform and unties Magda. He covers her head with his jacket and jumps away from the bonfire saving them both. “How….” she breathes, “How did you do that?!” to which Knight replies…”A little bit of adrenaline…and a lot of faith.” 

With the day (or night) saved, everyone’s at the precinct. Magda thanks Father Pierre and Nick as well, giving him her cross. He refuses at first, but she places it in his hand and closes it, smiling. Nick makes his way to the recovering Schanke and Natalie. Natalie notices the cross in Knight’s hand, amazed he’s able to hold it. “It still burns, but not as much.”, he says. Natalie suggests that he’s perhaps one step closer to redemption. Schanke offers to get them all food, but Nick states he can’t, putting on his sunglasses in a move that would make CSI’s Horatio Caine proud…”..the sun is coming up.” are his final words. 

Horror On TV: Hammer House of Horror #7 “The Silent Scream” (dir by Alan Gibson)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Today’s episode of televised horror is The Silent Scream, the seventh episode of Hammer House of Horror.  It was originally broadcast in the UK on October 25th, 1980.

A quick content warning for everyone: This episode features some scenes of animals in distress so I personally would advise viewer discretion.  That said, I simply had to share this episode because it features Peter Cushing’s final performance for Hammer Studios.  He plays a seemingly kindly old man who has a very dark secret.  A youngish Brian Cox plays the ex-con who gets a job working for Cushing.  This is a very unnerving episode with an ending that truly sticks with you.