Horror On TV: The Veil 1.9 “The Return of Madame Vernoy” (dir by Herbert L. Strock)

Posted on October 12, 2019 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Tonight’s episode of The Veil is a weird one.

Basically, Armand Vernoy (Jean Del Val) is haunted by not only the death of Indian his wife but also the fact that he’s lost all of his money “in the war” and will not be able to send his son, Krishna (George Hamilton) off to study with the world-renowned Prof. Charles Goncourt (Boris Karloff, who not only hosts but gets to play a kindly character for once). Then a young woman named Santha Naidu (Lee Torrance) shows up. She’s a year younger than Krishna but she claims to be his mother, reincarnated! Meanwhile, back in India, a young man hopes to marry Santha but he’s been told that he can’t because she’s already been married in a previous life….

This is an okay episode, though definitely not as good as some of the previous episodes of The Veil. Boris doesn’t get to do much but it’s kind of nice to see him play a character who is as nice as he apparently was in real life. If this episode were made today, the casting of Torrance and Hamilton as Indians would undoubtedly be extremely controversial.

Anyway, enjoy this trip to 1958!

Horror on TV: The Veil Episode 8 “Summer Heat” (dir by George Waggner)

Posted on October 11, 2019 by Lisa Marie Bowman

On tonight’s episode of The Veil.…

There’s been a murder! Or has there? Edward Paige (Henry Bartell) swears that he saw someone murdered in a nearby apartment but, when the police investigate, they discover that the apartment appears to be totally deserted. Still convinced that he saw something, Edward is sent for a psychiatric evaluation from Dr. Mason (Boris Karloff, playing a sympathetic role for once). Dr. Mason says that Edward’s not making it up. Edward swears that he saw something. But what?

This is a pretty good episode. Think of it as being Rear Window with an extra twist. Boris Karloff hosts as well as co-stars.

Enjoy!

Horror on TV: The Veil Episode 7 “Destination Nightmare” (dir by Paul Landres)

Posted on October 10, 2019 by Lisa Marie Bowman

On tonight’s episode of The Veil….

Peter Wade, Jr. (Ron Hagerthy) is a rather timid man who would rather design planes than fly them. However, his father, Peter Wade, Sr. (Boris Karloff, who also hosted the episode), is a World War I veteran who has gone from being an aviation hero to owning his own aviation company. Peter, Sr. demands that his son become a pilot. And yet, every time that Peter, Jr. is flying, he’s haunted by ghostly face that 1) puts him in a trance and 2) tries to get him to crash his plane! Could it have something to do with a secret from his father’s past?

This episode is effectively creepy, as any show featuring a possessed pilot and a potential aviation disaster should be. As with some of the past episodes of The Veil, the main attraction here is really the chance to see Boris Karloff doing what he did best. Karloff was one of the great actors and it’s always fun to see him get a good character role.

Enjoy!

Creepshow, S1 Ep2,Bad Wolf Down/The Finger, Review by Case Wright, Spoilers, but worth it!

Posted on October 10, 2019 by casewright

Happy Halloween Havoc!!!! Is it enough for horror to just be fun and even funny? YES! American Werewolf in London or anything by John Landis really proves that. Creepshow on Shudder is all about just sitting back and having some gory fun. This show is so wonderfully over the top that the 90s have returned. Let’s all put away our black turtle necks and put on some Hammerpants and watch some great horror.

Bad Wolf Down is a werewolves in World War II story…Really! It was a lot of fun. Then, when I saw Jeffrey Combs (Re-Animator) playing a Nazi, I realized this show is THE AWESOMENESS! An american platoon gets trapped behind enemy lines and takes refuge in an abandoned police station. They find a woman in the jail who is a french werewolf. This seems relevant because they really spend a lot of time translating.

The Head Nazi (Jeffrey Combs) finds the american platoon and will wipe them out, but the platoon gets the french werewolf to turn them into werewolves and they go and kill a bunch of Nazis. That’s it…Really!

The Finger is your lonely guy adopts a self-regenerating-human-eating-Alien story. I know…I know .. another one?! Clark Wilson (DJ Qualls) is a twice divorced down and out guy who has nothing going for him- until he finds a finger. The finger looks alien and when he spills beer on it, it re-generates into a medium-sized alien and becomes his pet. He calls the alien Bob. Bob becomes Clark’s best friend and as any best friend would do, Bob eats all of Clark’s enemies. He also brings back body parts from the kill like my old cat did. Sidenote: I had a cat who used to bring me squirrel heads. He’d line them on my porch. Bob is like that. The police eventually arrest Clark for the murders, but Bob might break him out.

The finger is told by Clark in real-time narration, which really adds to the comedy. He looks dead into the camera, talking directly to us. Also, it’s especially fun watching DJ Qualls hang out with a bro-alien- Brolien. If you wanna chill, watch this!!!!

Horror on TV: The Veil Episode 5 “The Crystal Ball” (dir by Herbert L. Strock)

Posted on October 9, 2019 by Lisa Marie Bowman

On tonight’s episode of The Veil, a writer (Booth Colman) is heartbroken when his lover, Marie (Roxane Berard) leaves him so that she can marry his boss (played by Leo Penn, father of Sean). To help soften the blow, Marie gives the writer a parting gift, an ornamental crystal ball. However, it doesn’t turn out to be much of a gift because the only thing that the writer can see in the ball are visions of Marie cheating on her husband! Boris Karloff both hosts and plays the role of the writer’s uncle.

This is one of the lesser episodes of The Veil but it still has its entertaining moments, largely due to the performances of Roxane Berard and, of course, Boris Karloff. I guess my main problem with this episode is that it doesn’t so much end as it just stops. I was waiting for one big twist but …. oh well! Listen, it’s got Boris Karloff in it and you should always watch as much Karloff as possible in October!

Enjoy!

Horror on TV: The Veil Episode 3 “Food On The Table” (dir by Frank P. Bipas)

Posted on October 8, 2019 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Tonight’s episode of The Veil features Boris Karloff as not only the host but also the star of the show!

Karloff plays Captain Elwood, a sea captain who is desperate to be rid of his wife so he can marry a woman who is about to come into a large sum of money. Elwood plots out his wife’s murder but, as usually happens in stories like this, it turns out that getting her out of his life won’t be as simple as he originally assumed.

This is an enjoyably macabre little ghost story. Karloff gives a great performance as a truly despicable man. From what I’ve read, the real Boris Karloff was an unfailingly polite and very kindly gentleman so it’s always interesting (at least to me!) to consider that he would become famous for playing monsters and madmen. He certainly gives a good performance here!

Enjoy!

Guilty Pleasure No. 42: Harper’s Island

Posted on October 8, 2019 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Oh my God, do you remember Harper’s Island!?

Way before The Walking Dead and American Horror Story made death and gore safe for mass consumption, Harper’s Island was the scariest show on television. I have to admit that, when I first heard about the show, I wasn’t expecting it to be. Way back in 2009, whenever the commercials for the show would air and that little girl would go, “One by one,” I would roll my eyes so hard that I once nearly gave myself a concussion.

“Really?” I would say, “A slasher television show where at least one person dies every week? And it’s going to be on network TV? There’s no way this is going to be bloody or scary enough to be worth watching.”

However, I did watch the first episode because I figured that I could at least be snarky about it on twitter. (I had joined just a few months before the show premiered. Harper’s Island was the first show that I ever live tweeted, even though I didn’t even know that there was such a thing as “live tweeting” way back then.) The episode opened with a man tied to the propeller of a boat, screaming as the engine started. The episode ended with Uncle Marty (played by special guest star Harry Hamlin) getting chopped in half by an unseen assailant.

“AGCK!” I said.

I was hooked from that episode on.

Believe it or not, Harper’s Island wasn’t just killings. It actually did tell a story, about a young woman named Abby (played by Elaine Cassidy) who returns to her childhood home, on Harper’s Island, for her best friend’s wedding. Many years ago, Abby’s mother was among those who was killed by a serial killer named John Wakefield. From the minute that Abby arrives, she feels that something bad is going to happen and it turns out that she’s right.

Of course, Abby’s not the only one on the island. There’s the other members of the wedding party. There’s the island’s inhabitants, the fishermen and the deputies and the cafe owner and the local reverend whose destined to lose his head in the woods. They’ve all got their quirks and subplots. Boisterous Malcolm (Chris Gauthier) is in desperate need of money. Local fisherman Jimmy (C.J. Thomason) is still in love with Abby. The groom, Henry (Christopher Gorham), has issues from his past that he needs to deal with. Some of them are likable. Some of them are annoying. Some of them, like spoiled Chloe (Cameron Richardson), are meant to be annoying but become likable as the series progresses.

And, in the end, none of their hopes and dreams really mattered because, by the end of the show, everyone was pretty much dead. The ads for Harper’s Island promised a bloodbath and that’s what the show delivered. It wasn’t just that at least one person died per week. It was also that they usually died in the most macabre and disturbing ways possible. This was the type of the show where the most likable groomsman ended up getting chopped into pieces and then tossed into an incinerator. Another wedding guest chose to drown herself rather than be attacked by the killer. Sometimes, the killers didn’t even have to be around for someone to get killed. Who can forget poor Booth (played by Sean Rogerson), accidentally shooting himself in the leg and bleeding out while America watched?

And yes, you did watch every week because you wanted to see who would be the next to die. (That’s where the guilty part of the pleasure comes in.) But you also watched because the show was produced and directed so well. The island was a wonderfully atmospheric location and the cast really committed themselves to bringing the show’s morbid reality to life. At the time, it was the darkest show on television and it could have been even darker because, originally, the plan was for the killer to get away with it. In the end, karma caught up with the killer but not before we were all traumatized upon discovering just who was responsible. Harper’s Island‘s mystery was as intriguing as its deaths were bloody.

Being ahead of its time, Harper’s Island struggled in the ratings and it was never a big hit with critics. But, with the help of Netflix and the the occasional marathon on SyFy, Harper’s Island‘s reputation has improved and grown over the years. Looking back, it’s easy to see that Harper’s Island was not only the forerunner to American Horror Story but it was also a far better series. American Horror Story tends to condescend to the horror, keeping the genre at arm’s length through misdirected pretension. It’s a show for people who think that they’re too good for horror. Harper’s Island, on the other hand, fully embraced both the horror and the melodrama and it did so without apology.

Seriously, what Halloween is complete without a trip to Harper’s Island?

Previous Guilty Pleasures

Horror on TV: The Veil 1.2 “Girl on the Road” (dir by George Waggner)

Posted on October 7, 2019 by Lisa Marie Bowman

From 1958, it’s The Veil!

The Veil was a horror anthology series that, because of financial difficulties at Hal Roach Studios, were never actually aired on television. 10 episodes were filmed before production was abruptly canceled. Each episode was hosted by (and often starred) Boris Karloff. Karloff later stated that he was never actually paid for his work on the show but his work as the host did eventually lead to him being hired to host Thriller, a horror anthology series that eventually did air.

As for The Veil, the ten episodes that were produced were never actually sold to a network but, in the 60s, several episodes were edited together to create films that aired on late night television. It wasn’t until the 90s that the episodes were actually released on video. For that, we largely have Something Weird Video to thank.

Each episode of The Veil opened with Karloff promising the lift the veil on a strange, perhaps supernatural, event. (Most of the stories were supposedly based on true stories.) Karloff would also play a role in each episode. For instance, in tonight’s episode, he plays Morgan Debs.

Tonight’s episode is called Girl on the Road. It’s a nicely atmospheric tale about a man (Tod Andrews) who picks up a mysterious woman (Eve Brent) who is stranded on the side of the road. What is the woman’s secret and why is she terrified of Morgan Debs? Why does everyone in the town refuse to talk about her? Watch to find out!

This episode was directed by George Waggner, who is perhaps best known for directing the original Wolf Man.

Enjoy!

Horror on TVL Degrassi 11.30-31 “Nowhere to Run” (dir by Pat Williams)

Posted on October 6, 2019 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Degrassi goes slasher!

Well, kinda.

In this episode, the latest batch of students at Toronto’s Degrassi Community School decided that the perfect way to end their summer is to go up to an isolated cabin in the woods. I know, it doesn’t make much sense to me, either. No one invites Clare because, by this point in the series, Clare had started to transform into Canada’s most dramatic yandere. However, because Clare is upset over her mom marrying the father of her ex-boyfriend, she goes up to the cabin anyway and ends up getting lost in the woods.

Of course, all sorts of weird things are happening around the cabin. Are the Degrassi students about to fall victim to the Canadian version of Michael Myers? Or do they just have an overactive imagination?

This episode originally aired on October 24, 2011, in Canada. It didn’t make it’s way over to the U.S. until November 18th, which definitely diluted its horror-themed impact. In many ways, it’s typical of later-era Degrassi, in that the plot is kind of fun and cute but you can’t help but think about how much more fun it would be if it was Ellie, Emma, Manny, Craig, and Spinner in the cabin instead of their replacements. But then again, that’s true to life. No one stays in high school forever.

Anyway, enjoy the horrorthon’s final episode of Degrassi! Tomorrow, we start a new show!

Two Sentence Horror Stories, Series Review By Case Wright (Dir/Created by Vera Miao) – The New Coke of Horror

Posted on October 6, 2019 by casewright

Happy Horrorthon! Being lectured to by Two Sentence Horror Stories is as fun as going to an office meeting, at 4 pm, on Friday, December 24th, there are 102 slides, and you have to pee. In short, I watched this so you don’t have to. It’s really been awhile since I watched something so mediocre that it only excelled at being hamfisted trash.

I’ve written many times that horror and science fiction can be great at making political points and raising awareness: Twilight Zone wove great stories with salient issues to America’s living rooms, Night of the Living Dead looked civil rights right in the eye, and Friday the 13th exposed how hockey goalies had taken over the Summer Camp industry.

What do all of the above have in common that Two Sentence Horror Stories does not? They were entertaining and good stories first. I get that some people are angry, but that is no excuse for making terrible television. You have an opportunity to use great stories and subtlety to express yourself and CHANGE people’s minds, but if all you have is a political statement and a boring story- you devolve into lecture and people tune out. The point of using political messages in Horror is BECAUSE your goal is to get through to the other half of the country who disagrees with you.

The greatest example of horror with a message is Night of the Living Dead. Wes Craven discussed Night of The Living Dead and “At the end you realized [George Romero] made a political statement.” AT….THE….END!!!

People have their views. People have views that are different. People have views that are straight up wrong. Now, we are totally and openly polarized so getting people to see your point of view takes the MOST care and effort. It is not the time for hamfisted mediocrity. It’s the time for brilliance!

Two Sentence Horror Stories starts with the social evil right out of the gate and hammers us endlessly with their point of view. Every single episode has the worst mixture of terrible dialogue, confusing plot points, and amateurish camera shots. In essence, it is a failure and shouldn’t even be watched on the elliptical.

Two Sentence Horror Stories- begins with the first sentence of a horror cliche’. Then, you see someone beleaguered by a social evil. No one supports them until it’s almost too late. Then, the social evil is easily smacked in the face. The second sentence of the horror cliche’ appears. Lastly, we get a take home assignment and have to watch Ken Burns’ lesser known works.

The show puts the dilemma right in your face without nuance. I agree with the social message, but it’s as subtle as a brick to the face and the messages in this show aren’t even ground breaking.

They build the story around the message instead of the message around the story. You need to entertain first, get the audience to identify with your protagonist, and then get us to think. This is never done. Lastly, the messages they’re spoon-feeding us aren’t even new ideas and everyone is on board with these ideas. Therefore, the show fails to even break new ground when it’s haranguing us. It’s like they’re shouting at the Mayo Clinic to stop using leeches.

In summary, this show is boring, not scary, and preachy about issues that no one is disputing! Maybe, next week’s episode will be on how we all have to start drinking water and stop drinking bleach.