I think it’s fairly safe to say that wax museums are inherently creepy.
I mean, don’t get me wrong. If I see a wax museum off of the side of the road, I’m definitely going to visit it, if just so I can find the Hall of Presidents and give the finger to FDR. (It’s a long story.) But that said, wax museums are definitely not some place where you would want to get accidentally locked in.
Well, in tonight’s episode of Suspense, that’s exactly what happens to one unfortunate college student. AGCK!
This episode originally aired on October 4th, 1949 and it has a very impressive cast that will be familiar to anyone who has ever spent a few hours watching TCM: Anne Francis, Hume Cronyn, Ray Waltson, Evelyn Varden, and Mike Kellin are all featured.
Last night, I was so excited about watching It’s The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown that I even missed the first 30 minutes of the World Series so that I could watch it! (Go Astros!)
I really love It’s The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown. (I even wrote about it!) There are a lot of scenes that I love in this special but I think my favorite moment is when Lucy, Charlie Brown, Pigpen and the rest are trick or treating. I love the spooky music in the background. I love that almost everyone’s a ghost and that Charlie Brown had trouble with his costume. And I especially love that, if you watch for it, you can actually see the rocks getting thrown into Charlie Brown’s bag.
Someday, Charlie Brown will get real candy on Halloween and Linus will see the Great Pumpkin. Until then, happy early Halloween!
Tonight’s episode of Suspense features Boris Karloff as the mysterious Mr. Bronson, a scientist living in London in 1897. Bronson gives lodging to Hettie (Felicia Montealegre) on the condition that she do the housework, that she never got out alone, and that she never enters his laboratory. However, when Bronson discovers that Hettie has struck up a relationship with Tom (Douglass Watson), Bronson uses his scientific knowledge to seek revenge.
Perhaps not surprisingly, Karloff is the main reason to watch this episode of Suspense. He’s wonderfully creepy here, playing one his more villainous roles.
“We are students…..we are seekers…..and sometimes we are warriors. And each time we help someone, I feel like I’m one step closer to finding the truth…”
The words opened up all 86 episodes of Paranormal State, a “reality” show that ran on A&E from 2007 to 2011. They were delivered by Ryan Buell, who was the head of the Pennsylvania State University Paranormal Research Society. Buell also narrated every episode of Paranormal State and perhaps the most memorable thing about the show was the strangely robotic sound of his narration. Buell delivered his lines in a memorably flat monotone, one that rarely betrayed a hint of emotion while talking about the spirits that the Team supposedly dealt with in each and every episode. Even when Buell talked about the demon that had supposedly been stalking him since childhood, he did so with all the emotion of Alexa confirming a grocery list.
Paranormal State was one of those shows where people would around in a dark house with an infrared camera while randomly saying stuff like, “Did you feel that? I felt a suddenly cold wind in this room. You’ll just have to take my word for it.” Occasionally, a light would get knocked over or a door would close on its own. Along with asking each other if they had felt anything, the members of the Paranormal Research Society were also fond of asking, “Did you hear that?” and “Oh my God, did you just see that?” I always liked it when they would review the film in slow-motion and point at a barely visible smudge on the image and say, “There it is. There’s the spirit.” Ultimately, it would usually lead to a medium being called in and wandering around the house and going, “It’s time for you to move on, spirit. Whisper something if you’re here. Oh my God, did you hear that?”
It was all pretty obviously staged and kind of dumb but I still enjoyed the show because I liked the idea of a bunch of college students skipping class so that they could spend the night in a deserted barn while waiting for the ghost of a angry farmer to push over a pitchfork or something. I mean, if my college had given credit for ghost hunting, I totally would have done it! The show may have been fake but it was fun to pretend that it was real.
After the show ended, Ryan Buell had his personal difficulties, which I’m not going to dwell on. As for the show, it actually lives on. I recently came across reruns on the FYI network and I’ve lost track of the number of people I’ve met who, like me, can recite that opening narration by heart. Seriously, it just gets in your head.
Suspense was an anthology series that aired from 1949 to 1953. As you can probably guess from the show’s title, each episode was a thriller of some sort. Occasionally, the episodes were also horror-themed. Suspense was also a live production, with each episode essentially functioning as a 30-minute play.
Tonight’s episode of Suspense originally aired on April 26th, 1949 and it features Boris Karloff. It deals with four thieves hiding out in a British Inn, after having stolen a ruby eye from a holy statue in India. Needless to say, that was not a particularly wise decision.
For this year’s horrorthon’s final episode of One Step Beyond, we have the …. final episode of One Step Beyond!
In this, the series’s very last episode, a Boston newspaper reporter in 1883 somehow manages to write a firsthand account of one of the greatest natural disasters in human history, the volcanic eruption of Krakatoa. Making his accomplishment all the more amazing is that he not only filed the story the day before it happened but he also says that he has no memory of writing it! What’s going on? Take one step beyond and find out!
This episode originally aired on July 4th, 1961.
Enjoy and tomorrow, we start a new series here on the Shattered Lens!
On September 13th, 1974, audiences that tuned into CBS saw the premiere of a new TV show with a familiar premise.
The episode opened with a spaceship crashing on an Earth-like planet. One of the astronauts was killed. Two of the astronauts — Alan Virdon (Ron Harper) and Peter Burke (James Naughton) — survived. Virdon and Burke discovered that the planet was inhabited by humans who, despite it being the year 3085, were living in medieval villages. The humans were kept in a state of serfdom by the Apes who ruled the planet. The Apes spoke English and had formed their own society of militaristic gorillas and scientific-minded chimpanzees. Looking through an old book, Virdon and Burke discovered that they had crash landed on Earth, far in the future!
You know the drill. Planet of the Apes was based on the famous series of films, with the first pilot episode featuring Virdon and Burke discovering in less than an hour what took Charlton Heston a journey into the forbidden zone to figure out. Because the humans had “blown it up,” the Earth was now ruled by Apes!
As fugitives from ape justice, Virdon and Burke spent the next fourteen episodes being pursued by the fanatical General Urko (Mark Lenard), who was determined to capture the two astronauts before they revealed that Apes had not always been the planet’s masters. Traveling with Virdon and Burke was a sympathetic chimpanzee named Galen (Roddy McDowall). Usually just one step ahead of Urko, Virdon, Burke, and Galen traveled from village to village, seeking a way to fix their spaceship so that they could escape the Planet of the Apes.
Planet of the Apes got off to a strong start with an exciting and concise first episode but the series quickly ran out of gas. Because Virdon, Burke, and Galen had to flee to a new village at the end of every episode, the show was never able to devote much time to exploring the most intriguing thing about the original Planet of the Apes films, the culture of a world where humans were subservient to apes. Because Virdon and Burke were largely interchangeable with little in the way of backstory or personality, the show very quickly ran out of a stories to tell. It didn’t take long for Planet of the Apes to start repeating itself with multiple episodes in which Virdon or Burke got involved in local village drama before Urko showed up and forced them to flee again.
There were some good moments, though. Probably the highlight of the series was the third episode of the series, The Trap. In this episode, Virdon, Burke, Galen, and Urko all reach the ruins of San Francisco at the same time. After an earthquake buries Burke and Urko in a subway tunnel, the two of them are forced to work together to survive. Burke and Urko make an unexpectedly good team and Urko seems like he’s on the verge of a change of heart when he spots an old poster for the San Francisco zoo, one that features a caged gorilla being gawked at by humans. Urko’s angry reaction to seeing the poster is well-acted by Mark Lenard and, for a few minutes, his obsession with capturing Virdon and Burke can be understood. It wouldn’t last but, in that moment, Urko went from being just another villain to being a complex character with his own clearly defined motivations.
The show also benefited from Roddy McDowall, who, by this point, was an expert at acting while wearing chimpanzee makeup. McDowall brought heart and humor to the role of Galen, even if he was too often treated like a servant by Burke and Virdon. Whenever the two humans were scared to go out in public, they sent Galen off to gather information. Galen did a good job but he still deserved better.
Finally, Planet of the Apes had one of the coolest opening title sequences of all time! Take a look:
Though cancelled after only 14 episodes, Planet of the Apes The Television Series lives on. Episodes can currently be seen on MeTV.
On tonight’s episode of One Step Beyond, fashion designer Karen Wadsworth (Joanne Linville) believes that she has the power to cause people to die just by wishing death upon them. Her psychiatrist tells her that this simply isn’t possible and then dares her to try one little test of her supposed powers.
This episode features a good performance by Joanne Linville and, if nothing else, it perhaps makes the case that we should be a little bit less quick to wish the worst upon other people. Just imagine all of the damage that Karen could have caused if she had ever set up a twitter account.
This episode originally aired on October 25th, 1960.
If tonight’s episode of One Step Beyond seems familiar, that’s because it’s a remake of a story that was originally filmed as an episode of The Veil.
This time, instead of witnessing a murder occurring in another apartment, it’s a suicide that is witnessed by artist Anthony March (Michael Higgins). Of course, when he investigates, he discovers that the apartment in empty. Is Anthony hallucinating or has he gone one step beyond and is he seeing the future? Watch to find out!
By the way, that’s future Oscar winner Louise Fletcher playing Anthony’s model.
Through the Shattered Lens 