Tonight’s episode of One Step Beyond features host John Newland listening as a drunk (Sean McClory) at a bar tells the story of his former life as a gigolo and how a cursed necklace drove him mad. This episode is interesting if just because it takes the show’s “Did this story really happen?” premise to its logical conclusion. Apparently, John Newland couldn’t leave his house without someone telling him a story about the paranormal!
This episode originally aired on October 27th, 1959.
On a snowy night, Scott (Shane Johnson), CJ (Josh Hammond), and Robbie (Jason Dohring) cross into Wisconsin so that they can have a good time at a notorious roadhouse. After CJ starts a fight that gets them kicked out, the three of them start to drive back to Minnesota. They stop to pick up a deputy sheriff, Charlie (Randy Quaid), whose squad car has broken down. Charlie assures the young men that he’s off-duty and asks them a lot of questions about what they’ve been doing during the night. When a mysterious 1957 black Cadillac pulls up and challenges the Scott to a drag race, Charlie tells Scott to “go for it!”
It turns out that the Cadillac is interested in more than just a race. It tries to force Scott into crashing his car and, even after Scott seems to escape from the car, it keeps showing up wherever the friends are driving. Why is the other driver after them and how is Charlie involved?
Not a bad film. The black Cadillac and its driver are great villains that seems to be able to transport anywhere. No matter what the three young men do, they can’t escape from or even slow down the Cadillac’s pursuit. The three friends are all likable, even if the movie does get bogged down with all of their secrets. Randy Quaid shows why, before he apparently lost his mind and started talking about star whackers, he was one of the busiest character actors around. Black Cadillac is a good mix of horror and car chases.
Though I may not agree with the film’s conclusions, Bob Clark’s 1979 film Murder By Decree is still the best of the Jack the Ripper films.
This scene, featuring the final battle between Sherlock Holmes (Christopher Plummer) and the Ripper, is not only full of fog-shrouded atmosphere but it also features one of the most savage portrayals of Jack the Ripper.
4 Shots From 4 Films is just what it says it is, 4 shots from 4 of our favorite films. As opposed to the reviews and recaps that we usually post, 4 Shots From 4 Films lets the visuals do the talking!
Today, we pay tribute to a filmmaker who got his start in Canada. Though born in America, Clark spent most his career up north. Though he’s today best remembered for directing the holiday classic, A Christmas Story, Clark started his career as a horror director. In fact, long before telling the story of Ralphie and his BB gun, Clark directed one of the first Christmas slasher films.
Today, we honor the legacy of Bob Clark with….
4 Shots From 4 Bob Clark Films
Children Shouldn’t Play With Dead Things (1972, dir by Bob Clark, DP: Jack McGowan)
Deathdream (1974, dir by Bob Clark, DP: Jack McGowan)
Black Christmas (1974, dir by Bob Clark, DP: Reginald H. Morris)
Murder By Decree (1979, dir by Bob Clark, DP: Reginald H. Morris)
In the 1950s, there was actually two magazines called Science Fiction Adventures. Neither one of them ran for very long. The first Science Fiction Adventures lasted for two years, from 1952 to 1954 and it was canceled due to low sales. The name was then used for another magazine, that ran from 1956 to 1958 and which was also canceled for low sales. After the second cancellation, publishers got the hint and didn’t use the name again.
Below is a handful of covers from both versions of Science Fiction Adventures.
November, 1952, by H.R. Van Dongen
March, 1954. By Mel Hunter
December, 1956. By Edmumd Emshwiller
August, 1957. By Robert V. Engle
September, 1957. By Edmund Emshwiller
December, 1957. By Edmund Emshwiller
January, 1958. By John Schoenherr
April, 1958. By Edmund Emshwiller
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? 1992’s Army of Darkness!
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.
Army of Darkness is available on Prime!
See you there
I should start things off with a confession. This is actually not the first time that I’ve shared Manos: The Hands of Fate here on the Shattered Lens. I previously shared it during the 2013, 2015, 2020, ad 2022 Horrorthons and, each time, I even used the exact same picture of Torgo.
However, Manos proved to be such a popular choice that I simply had to post it again. Manos has a reputation for being one of the worst films ever made. And, honestly, who am I to disagree? (Though disagree, I do.) However, it’s also a film that simply has to be seen.
(As well, I love regional horror and there are a few films as regional as Manos, a film that was filmed in my home state of Texas and directed by a fertilizer salesman.)
By the way, everyone who watches Manos ends up making fun of Torgo, who was played by John Reynolds. What they may not know is that Reynolds committed suicide shortly after filming on Manos wrapped. So, as tempting at it may be to ridicule poor Mr. Reynolds’s performance, save your barbs for Torgo and leave John Reynolds alone.
And be sure to enjoy Manos: The Hands of Fate!
by Paul Stahr
This skeletal cover is from 1931. Paul Stahr signed his work, which is something that I wish more pulp artists of the era had done.
“The beat, the beat, the beat, the beat!”
Enjoy!
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, Ryan goes into the past.
Episode 2.13 “Eye of the Death”
(Dir by Timothy Bond, originally aired on January 30th, 1989)
Atticus Rook (Tom McCamus) is an antiques dealer, one who is well-known to Jack. No one seems to really like or trust Atticus Rook. Everything about him seems to scream sleaze. But Atticus has somehow managed to get artifacts from the American Civil War that no one else has ever been able to find. His latest claim is that he will soon be selling Robert E. Lee’s sword.
How is Atticus accomplishing this? He has a cursed magic lantern that he uses to project old pictures onto his wall. He’s then able to step into the picture and enter the time period in which it was taken. (Hey, that sounds like a fun cursed object to own!) Atticus has been going into the past and telling Gen. Lee (Bernard Behrens) that he’s a spy. However, the information that he gives Lee is just stuff that he remembers from history class. Atticus thinks that he’s got a pretty good operation going but there are two catches. To go to the past, he has to kill someone in the present. To return to the present, he has to kill someone in the past.
Naturally, Ryan ends up in the past while trying to retrieve the magic lantern. Ryan meets General Lee and tries to present himself as also being a spy but it turns out that Ryan paid even less attention in history class than Atticus did. Ryan being Ryan, he also falls in love with a widow named Abigail (Brooke Johnson). As we all know, having Ryan fall in love with you is pretty much a death sentence on Friday the 13th. Abigail’s death does allow Ryan, Jack, and Micki to return to the present. Moving the lantern allows Atticus to get trapped in his own wall, where he suffocates while trying to return to the present.
This was a surprisingly good episode. I say “surprisingly” because you wouldn’t necessarily think that a low-budget Canadian show would do a great job of recreating the American Civil War but this episode pulls it off. The costumes, the sets, the words used by the people encountered by Ryan and Atticus, all of them work to make the episode’s Civil War setting feel very realistic. Tom McCamus is a great villain and Bernard Behrens is well-cast as Robert E. Lee. Even the obviously doomed romance between Ryan and Abigail works remarkably well.
I have to admit that I’ve always assumed this show took place in Canada, largely because of all of the Canadian accents and the Canadian scenery. This episode reveals that Friday the 13th is supposed to be taking place in the United States, despite the way that people pronounce the word “sorry.” When Ryan ends up in the Civil War, he says that he’s from Chicago. (It’s not necessarily a good idea to go back to the Civil War era and immediatly tell everyone that you’re a Yankee.)
Well, this show can pretend that the antique store is in Chicago if it wants to, but it’ll always be Toronto to me.
Through the Shattered Lens 