Category Archives: TV Review

Horror On TV: One Step Beyond Episode 1.4 “The Dark Room” (dir by John Newland)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

On tonight’s episode of One Step Beyond, Cloris Leachman plays Rita Wallace, an American photographer in France.  She’s looking for a model whose face will serve as the ultimate symbol of the country.  One day, a haunted-looking man (Marel Dalio) shows up at her apartment.  She thinks he’s a model.  The truth, needless to say, is something quite different….

This episode features good performances from both Leachman and Dalio.  In real life, Dalio was an icon of French cinema and a favorite of Jean Renoir’s.  When the Nazis invaded France, the Jewish Dalio fled Paris and, after a harrowing journey, eventually made it to America.  In America, he played the croupier in Casablanca and appeared in several other films.  Tragically, the rest of his family did not escape and were murdered by the Nazis.  Dalio returned to France after the end of the war and remained an in-demand character actor for several more decades, making his final film appearance in 1980.

The Darkroom originally aired on February 10th, 1959.

Creepshow, S1, Ep3, All Hallow’s Eve, The Man in the Suitcase, Review By Case Wright

Posted on by casewright

Creepshow.jpg

Happy Horrorthon! I’m am once again reviewing Creepshow.  It is officially a true Guilty Pleasure, but come on, aren’t those all of our go to pleasures anyway? To the uninitiated, Creepshow is a GOOD horror anthology series, but really it’s a showcase for short-films.  How? It’s broken down into two stories and neither of them are over 23 minutes.  Aside from giving writers like Christopher Buehlman his big break (before this he’d only written skits for Renaissance Faires….really), they are the short short brought to life.

Many of Stephen King’s short stories are made into movies, but they are always lengthened into something (usually better) than their original quick-paced short story.  Creepshow keeps that fast pace…mostly.  Well, they keep it for the second story.  The second story is always the better story and moves at the quick pace that you’d expect in a short story.  Even at 22 minutes, the first story tends to drag.

All Hallow’s Eve follows 5 youths trick or treating in a terrified neighborhood.  It was obvious to anyone with a pulse that these kids were dead and out to cause trouble.  Turns out that during a vigorous D&D session in their treehouse, some bullies from the neighborhood thought it would be funny to set it on fire, with the D&D nerds in it.  As you do.  Well, their door gets stuck and they all die.  So, they haunt the neighborhood setting fire to one bully each Halloween until they are all briquettes.

The acting in story A is ….ok.  Story A is a bit slow-paced, which is really hard to do in 20 minutes, but here we are.  I still watched it and so should you.  It’s not like 2 Sentence Horror we are talking about, which is garbage wrapped in rotten bacon.

Story 2 was The Man in the Suitcase, which could’ve worked as a twilight zone episode.  Justin is a loser stoner who is dumped by his girlfriend and used by his roommate.  He is arriving home after visiting his family and he gets a carry-on from the airport and it’s not his stuff that’s inside; it’s a Middle-Eastern man bent so he can fit into the carry-on.  It turns out the Man wants to leave the suitcase, but every time Justin tries to move him, it causes the Man pain, which in turn causes the Man to spit out a gold coin.

Well, Justin isn’t sure what to do, but Justin’s roommate and his ex-girlfriend do and they all decide to torture the man in the suitcase so that he’ll spit out loads of gold.  The torture gets pretty gross, but Justin eventually has a change of heart and tries to free the Man, but his girlfriend and roommate want to keep the gold so she tries to kill Justin with a wrench, which is just lying about.  I won’t spoil what happens next because this was a lot of fun and really makes Shutter worth my subscription fee.

This story really had some good pacing.  Yes, it was predictable and very over the top, but that is just the Creepshow way.

Again, relax and enjoy!

 

Horror on TV: One Step Beyond 1.2 “Night of April 14th” (dir by John Newland)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

For today’s televised horror, we have an episode of the 1960s anthology series, One Step Beyond.  One Step Beyond was like (and aired at the same time as) The Twilight Zone, except that it often claimed that it’s stories were all based on fact.

In this episode, a young Englishwoman is haunted by dreams of drowning.  Try as she might, she can’t get the feeling of doom out of her mind.  Perhaps her upcoming trip to New York will help to relax her.  Her fiancee even tells her that they’ll be traveling to New York on the most luxurious ship ever built.  The name of that ship?  Why, the Titanic, of course.

For the record, there actually were quite a few people who apparently did have psychic premonitions of doom when it came to the Titanic.  Perhaps the most infamous example was the author Morgan Robertson, who wrote a novel in 1898 that was called The Wreck of the Titan: Or, Futility.  That book managed to perfectly predict that sinking of the Titanic, right down to the iceberg and the number of lives lost.

This episode originally aired on January 27th, 1959.

Enjoy!

Horror On TV: The Veil Episode 11 “Jack the Ripper” (dir by David MacDonald)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

For our final episode of The Veil, we have a look at one of the most infamous real world monsters of all time, Jack the Ripper.

In this atmospheric episode, a London clairvoyant (Niall MacGinnis) is haunted by visions of the Whitechapel murders.  Unfortunately, his attempts to help the police only leads to them treating him like a suspect!  Each episode of The Veil was usually described as being “based on a true story.”  In this case, it’s actually true.  A medium named Robert Lees — renamed Walter in this episode — actually did go to the police with claims that he had seen the murders and could identify the killer.

This is the only episode of The Veil in which Boris Karloff acts only as host.  That’s because this episode was not originally made for the series.  Instead, it was intended for an unrelated British anthology show.  The producers of the Veil later bought the episode and tacked on an introduction by Boris Karloff.  Of course, because The Veil itself never actually aired on television as a result of the production company running into financial problems, Jack the Ripper never aired in the U.S.  It was, however, later included in an anthology film that was put together using four episodes of The Veil.

Enjoy!  That’s it for The Veil.  Tomorrow, we start a whole new series!

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

Posted on 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 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 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 by casewright

Creepshow.jpg

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 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 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!