October True Crime: To Catch A Killer (dir by Eric Till)

Posted on October 6, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Brian Dennehy was one of the great American character actors.

Rugged and exuding a sense of weariness, as if he were someone who had seen it all, Brian Dennehy cut a uniquely American figure. He was one of those actors who could play a New York fireman as easily as he could play a Tennessee farmer. He had those eyes that said, “Don’t mess with me,” but also the manner that made you feel everyone was welcome in his house as long as they didn’t think they were better than anyone else. He was one of those actors who could be both likable and intimidating. He was perfectly cast as Sheriff Teasle in First Blood because, even if he was a bit too hard on John Rambo when he first picked him up, it was still easy to see that Teasle didn’t mean to be a jerk. He was just doing his job. He thought he was keeping his town safe. Dennehy was just as credible playing a benevolent alien in Cocoon, a western outlaw in Silverado, or a burned-out cop in F/X. When Dennehy played a hero, you felt safe whenever he was onscreen. When he played a bad guy, he was absolutely terrifying.

Dennehy played one of the worst of the real-life bad guys in the 1992 television film To Catch a Killer. He plays John Wayne Gacy, a contractor considered a pillar of his community in the suburbs of Chicago. He runs a successful business. He hires young men who really need the money. He has a big smile. He’s involved in local politics and even has a framed picture of himself with President Jimmy Carter’s wife. In his spare time, he dresses up like a clown and entertains the children at the local hospital. He uses the name Pogo and paints sharp points at the corners of his mouth, giving him a somewhat sinister appearance. Everyone seems to like him. Of course, most people don’t know that Gacy is an ex-con who did time for sexually assaulting a 15-year-old boy in Iowa. This film takes place in the late ’70s, before anyone could just hop online and look up public records.

To Catch a Killer follows Detective Joe Kozenczak (Michael Riley) as he investigates the disappearance of a young man last seen being offered a job by Gacy. Joe suspects Gacy from the start, but he’s continually told that Gacy is a pillar of the community. What makes this film so effective is that Brian Dennehy plays Gacy as someone so arrogant he barely bothers to hide his guilt, but also as someone with such a victim complex that he won’t stop whining about being suspected of doing something he definitely did. The scene where Gacy demonstrates a handcuff trick is frightening because Gacy seems so desperate for companionship, and so goofy, even while he’s preparing to murder someone. Personally, I prefer it when Dennehy is playing a good guy (or, at the very least, a misguided bad guy like in First Blood), but that doesn’t change the fact that he was frighteningly believable as John Wayne Gacy. Dennehy was Emmy-nominated for his performance here.

As for the real John Wayne Gacy, he killed at least 33 people before he was apprehended in 1978. (It’s thought that the actual number is much higher.) He was executed in 1994, two years after this film aired. Reportedly, his last words were, “Kiss my ass.”

The TSL Horror Grindhouse: Back From The Dead (dir by Charles Marquis Warren)

Posted on October 6, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

In 1958’s Back From The Dead, pregnant Mandy Anthony (Peggie Castle) is on a California vacation with her husband Dick (Arthur Franz) and her sister, Kate (Marsha Hunt).

While staying at Dick’s vacation home (which overlooks the ocean), a tired Mandy grimaces when Dick starts playing a record. Dick insists that it’s her favorite record but Mandy’s reaction would seem to indicate the opposite. While the droning orchestral music plays, Mandy has a sudden seizure and passes out. Dick rushes her to the bedroom while Kate smashes the record. A doctor (Ned Glass) comes to check on Mandy and announces that she’s had both an epileptic seizure and a miscarriage. When Mandy wakes up, she’s suddenly demanding to be called Felecia and referring to Dick by an odd nickname, “Deacon.” Dick rushes out of the bedroom and refuses to reenter. When Kate demands to know what’s wrong, Dick reveals that Mandy is actually his second wife. His first wife was named Felecia and she always used to call him “Deacon.”

Soon, Mandy is demanding to be taken to see “her” parents, who are actually Felecia’s parents. Felecia’s mother (Ada Bradley) is revealed to be some sort of witch who apparently cast a spell that caused Felicia’s spirit to possess Mandy as soon as she entered the vacation home. (It turns out that terrible record that Dick insisted on playing was Felecia’s favorite.) Along with Dick’s neighbor (Marianne Stewart), Felecia’s mother is a member of a Satanic cult that is led by the mysterious Renault (Otto Reichow) The possessed Mandy is soon threatening not only Dick but also all of Dick’s friends. She even murders Dick’s dog. (Boo!)

There’s an interesting subtext to Back From The Dead, though I’m not sure it was intentional on the part of the filmmakers. Even before Mandy is possessed, Dick is hardly the model husband. He comes across as being cold and uncommunicative and when both Mandy and Kate say that they don’t want to listen to the record, he ignores them and insists that they both love it. Dick also doesn’t seem to be particularly upset by the loss of the baby. As well, he’s never even told his wife that he was married before. The only time that Dick really shows emotion is when he realizes that he can no longer control Mandy. Mandy spends the entire film either being ordered around by Dick or being possessed by Dick’s dead first wife. In the end, it isn’t Dick or any of the other men in the film who fights for Mandy’s freedom. Instead, it’s Kate, Mandy’s sister. Kate is the only person in the film who seems to care that Mandy has basically lost control over her own life. In the end, the film becomes about just how far one sister will go to protect the other. Kate fights to give Mandy back her life but it’s hard not to feel that it’s not much of a life to begin with. Much like Nicholas Ray’s Bigger Than Life, Back From The Dead ends with a false sense of happiness. For Mandy and Dick and Kate, nothing is ever going to be truly the same again.

Now, I should note that Back From The Dead is definitely a B-movie. It has the look of a well-produced episode of a 50s anthology show. All it really needed was Boris Karloff to host. Arthur Franz is a bit on the dull side as Dick but that’s largely the fault of a script that doesn’t allow him to do much other than seethe and glower. The film’s heart belongs to Masha Hunt’s fierce performance as Kate. Kate is a fighter and a protector and it’s impossible not to root for her. I can only hope to be as good as a sister as Kate but, then again, I don’t think any of my sisters are going to be possessed this holiday season. Let’s hope not!

The film has its slow spots but, for the most part, Back From The Dead is a 50s B-movie that holds your interest. You’ll never want to listen to vinyl record again.

Film Review: Voices From Beyond (dir by Lucio Fulci)

Posted on October 6, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Wealthy businessman Giorgio Minardi (Duilio Del Prete) dies of a massive internal hemorrhage. His last words are “Why?” Even though he dies surrounded by his family, none of them seem to be particularly upset about his passing. Every one of them — from his much younger wife to his stepmother to his son — is more concerned with who is going to get Giorgio’s money than the fact that someone murdered him by grinding up glass and putting it into his food. The only person who truly seems to be upset by Giorgio’s passing is his daughter, Rosie (Karina Huff). Even though Giorgio is dead and soon buried, his spirit remains and soon, he is showing up in Rosie’s dreams and imploring her to help him discover who murdered him.

Released in 1991, Voices From Beyond is one of the films that Lucio Fulci made for television towards the end of his career. By this point, Fulci was not doing well, personally or professionally. After the box office failure of films like Manhattan Baby and Murder Rock, Fulci found himself struggling to raise the money to produce the type of films that he wanted to make. Also, his critical reputation never recovered from the controversy surrounding the violence in The New York Ripper. There’s an undeniable bitterness at the heart of Voices From Beyond. Though the film features several close-ups of Giorgio’s decaying corpse and a few surreal dream sequences, the true horror comes from the way that the family reacts to Giorgio’s sudden death. No one cares that he died. No one cares that he was murdered. They just want what’s left of his estate. Giorgio, trapped in spirit form, discovers just how unloved he was. Watching the film, one gets the feeling that Fulci saw a lot of himself in Giorgio. The family becomes a stand-in for everyone who deserted Fulci during the final years of his life.

I’ve seen Voices From Beyond advertised with a rather tacky pull quote — “The last good movie Fulci made!” While the quote is accurate in that the film is better than most of Fulci’s later films (even if it can’t match the delirious heights of Zombi 2, the Beyond Trilogy, or even The New York Ripper), to call it the last good film that Fulci made is to do the director a great disservice. Even Fulci’s lesser films were uniquely his own and, as a result, they were all good Fulci films regardless of whether or not they were good on any other level. To his credit, Fulci never really sold out. He did the best with what he had. Even this made-for-TV movie manages to open with a threesome and a rather gory knifing. The film features Fulci’s characteristic touches. The camera tracks through the darkness with style. Where it suffers is with a plot that makes the identity of the killer far too obvious and also with a less-than-inspired cast. Del Prete, unfortunately, doesn’t really have the charisma necessary to make us want to stick with Giorgio even after he’s died.

In the end, Voices From Beyond is interesting as a personal statement. It’s Fulci’s way of letting audiences know what he thought of those who had deserted him. The film ends with a dedication that is pure Fulci in both its spite and its vulnerability. Rest in peace to the maestro.

G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero (1983, directed by Dan Thompson)

Posted on October 6, 2026 by Jedadiah Leland

“G.I. Joe is the code name for America’s daring, highly trained special mission force. Its purpose: to defend human freedom against Cobra, a ruthless terrorist organization determined to rule the world!”

G.I. Joe has been doing a pretty good job defending human freedom from Cobra, though somehow Cobra Commander is still walking free and living in a gigantic temple that any halfway decent special mission force should be able to find. When Destro shows up at the temple with the MASS Device, it looks like Cobra will finally be able to rule the world. The MASS Device is a transportation unit that is fueled by three unique minerals. Cobra Commander decides to take over the world by using the device to… steal the Eiffel Tower? I’m starting to understand why Cobra hasn’t had much success in its quest to rule the world.

After their leader Duke gets abducted by the device and is forced to fight in Cobra-sponsored gladiatorial games, G.I. Joe tries to track down the minerals so that they can fuel their own transportation device. It leads to constant battles in which everyone is blowing things up and shooting laser guns but somehow no one gets injured. In the 80s, no organization provided better job security than being a member of Cobra and G.I. Joe. No matter how many times someone failed, no one was ever fired from Cobra. No matter how many battles they fought, no one was injured on either team.

G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero was the five-episode miniseries that introduced not only the G.I. Joe cartoon but also the G.I. Joe theme song. G.I. Joe is there, according to the song, and they are. Each episode takes the Joes to a different part of the world so that they can build their transporter. It’s entertaining in a way that a lot of bad things are entertaining once they are old enough to be viewed through the lens of nostalgia. Watching, I realized that Cobra was so inept that it seemed pointless to create an entire secret army to fight just them. It doesn’t really matter. It’s just a cartoon. What matters is that, as always, Snake Eyes is the man, Destro and the Baroness make evil look cool, and Scarlet can do backflips through any battle.

Evolver (1995, directed by Mark Rosman)

Posted on October 6, 2026 by Jedadiah Leland

The year is 1995, and all the cool kids are going to the arcade and playing a virtual reality laser-tag game. Kyle Baxter (Ethan Embry) is one of the best laser-tag players in the country and is on the verge of winning a nationwide contest when he gets taken out by another player, a girl named Jamie (Cassidy Rae, who every teenage male in the ’90s had a crush on at some point). Kyle’s friend, Zach (Chace Quinn), uses his hacking skills to make it appear as if Kyle won anyway. Kyle’s prize is an Evolver, a robot that will allow Kyle and his friends to play the laser-tag game in real life. The only problem is that Evolver takes the idea of winning very seriously. Each time Evolver is defeated, it “evolves.” It learns from its mistakes. It uses new weapons. It refuses to stop until it can say, “Kill confirmed.”

Evolver is a mix of Child’s Play and The Terminator. Evolver eventually evolves to the point where it can say cheesy one-liners before killing someone. When someone tells it that the game is over, Evolver replies, “The game is not over.” The main problem with the film is that Evolver is such a bulky and awkward robot that it’s hard to believe it could actually defeat anyone. The people who are killed by Evolver usually fall victim because they’re too dumb to step aside when Evolver approaches them. The best thing about Evolver is that it does accurately represent how most people played video games in the ’90s. The first day, you would be really excited and you couldn’t wait to play every chance you got. By the third day, you were bored and ready to get back to doing whatever it was you were doing to begin with. Not all games were as exciting as Lee Carvallo’s Putting Challenge.

If the voice of Evolver sounds familiar, that’s because it was supplied by none other than William H. Macy. A year later, Macy would star in Fargo, and he would presumably never have to voice another angry robot again.

Retro Television Review: Saved By The Bell: The New Class 2.21 “Feuding Friends”

Posted on October 6, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Tuesdays, I will be reviewing Saved By The Bell: The New Class, which ran on NBC from 1993 to 2o00. The show is currently on Prime.

We’re back at the ski lodge!

Episode 2.21 “Feuding Friends”

(Dir by Don Barnhart, originally aired on November 26th, 1994)

At the ski lodge, Mr. Belding’s sprained ankle appears to have healed. However, Tommy still has a broken leg and it’s strange to me that he’s still even at the ski lodge. I mean, this is a school trip and a broken leg is not a minor injury. It seems like most school trips would be abruptly cancelled if a student got drunk and suffered a serious injury as a result. Has anyone called Tommy’s parents?

While everyone else is enjoying the slopes, Megan stays behind and keeps Tommy company. Soon, Megan and Tommy realize that they like each other and they decide to have dinner together. Lindsay freaks out. How dare Megan date her ex-boyfriend!? Bobby gets mad too. How dare Tommy go out with the girl that Bobby likes!? At first, Rachel is neutral but then Lindsay suggests that Megan would date Brian if he ever broke up with Rachel. Rachel gets mad at Megan for something she hasn’t done yet. Brian tries to remain neutral (“I’m swiss,” he says) and Rachel calls him a wimp.

Meanwhile, a snooty fashion photographer sees Screech on the slope and takes a lot of pictures of him. How will Screech take it when he discovers that the photographer is planning to use him as an example of how not to look?

This episode …. actually, I enjoyed this episode. Yes, the whole thing with the photographer and Screech was pretty stupid. But, when it came to everyone getting mad at each other, I could actually relate to that. When Rachel got mad over something that hadn’t happened but which could happen, I felt very seen. In its undeniably Saved By The Bell way, this episode captured the dynamic of what often happens with people who have been friends forever. You fight over stupid stuff but, in the end, you always make up.

This was a good episode. I’m as shocked as anyone.

That said, I’ll be even more shocked if the Tommy/Megan romance is ever mentioned again. Saved By The Bell always has a way of creating couples and then forgetting about them one episode later.

Lifetime For October: Deadly Dorm (dir by Brent Ryan Green)

Posted on October 6, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This is one of those Lifetime films that has several different titles. The poster says Deadly Dormitory. Letterboxd claims that the title is Deadly Dorm. If you want to watch this film on Prime, you’ll have to look up College Professor Obsession. Me, I’m going to go with Deadly Dorm because that’s the easiest to say and the quickest title to type.

First aired in 2021, Deadly Dorm tells the story of Jenny Willis (Grace Patterson), a high school track star who is recovering from a knee injury. She’s finally well enough to accept a partial scholarship to an exclusive college. She tells her parents that she’s willing to go to a state school, but her parents insist that they will be able to pay for college. The whole opening of the movie reminded me of that old commercial they would show where recent high school graduates would record themselves saying, “I am going to college,” as if that was some sort of rare thing. I remember one guy who said, “It’s oh-fish-ee-al,” and I was just like, “Maybe don’t say it like that once you’re on campus.”

Anyway, Jenny enrolls in the college and moves into the dorm. Everyone she meets acts shocked when they hear which dorm room she’ll be moving into. It turns out that the room was previously occupied by a girl who died under mysterious circumstances. She was on the roof of the dorm, and she either fell, was pushed, or jumped. Jenny freaks out when she realizes that she’s going to be sleeping in the dead girl’s bed. Seriously, Jenny, just buy some new sheets and calm down.

Jenny is scandalized when her psychology professor (Randy Wayne) tells her that, if she wants to get better grades, she should try dressing a little better and showing off her legs and cleavage when she comes to class. Jenny is upset, and she has every right to be, even though I do agree that Jenny’s wardrobe is a bit on the frumpy side. Jenny’s roommate and new best friend, Beth (Johanna Liauw), says that the professor is a jerk but he also has tenure, so maybe it would be a good idea for Jenny to just give him what he wants.

Jenny starts to investigate on her own, and she soon comes to believe that the dead girl was also harassed by the professor. What if the professor killed the girl who used to live in Jenny’s dorm room? What if the professor has killed several people on campus? Does tenure cover that? It probably does at a private institution like this one. Jenny really should have gone to a state school.

On the one hand, I appreciated that this film had a lot of twists and turns in the plot. It embraced the melodrama, and I support that. I have to admit, though, that Jenny and her overprotective mother (Jocelyn Saenz) both kind of got on my nerves. Jenny was such a generic character that I actually felt sorry for her roommates. One character ends up seriously injured as a result of helping out Jenny, and it was hard not to notice that Jenny didn’t really seem to feel much guilt about that. When it came to college friendships, my firm rule was that I didn’t want to be dragged into anyone else’s drama, and Jenny doesn’t seem like she would have respected that.

The best scene in the film was when Jenny tried to stand up to her professor in the middle of class and the professor responded by announcing that she had borderline personality disorder and all of the other students just nodded in agreement. That felt like the most realistic scene in the film, as it captured how people will believe anything as long as it’s said by someone in authority.

Happy Birthday to Elizabeth Shue, my first movie star crush!

Posted on October 6, 2026 by Bradley Crain

The lovely actress Elizabeth Shue was born on October 6th, 1963. She is very special to me because back in 1984, an 11-year-old Brad Crain wanted to be Daniel LaRusso, aka the Karate Kid. He knew karate, beat the bullies in the All-Valley tournament, and had an awesome friend and teacher like Mr. Miyagi. But even more important than all of that, his girlfriend was the beautiful Ali Mills, played by Elizabeth Shue. I was smitten with her, and I can honestly say she was the very first movie character I had a crush on!

In honor of her birthday, and also recognizing that we’re in the midst of Horrorthon here at TSL, I thought I’d share this clip of her in the horror flick LINK, a movie that came out a couple of years after THE KARATE KID. It’s about Jane Chase (Shue), a zoology student who’s invited to a remote seaside mansion to assist primatology professor Steven Phillip (Terence Stamp) with his experiments involving chimpanzees. Soon, dangerous events begin to occur, all involving the intelligent 45-year-old chimp, Link. I’ve never actually seen this one before, but I do remember seeing the VHS box at my local rental shops back in the day. In the spirit of the season, I may just have to finally give it a watch!

Book Review: The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction Movies by Phil Hardy

Posted on October 6, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Oh, how I love Half-Price Books!

Whenever I browse through Half-Price Books (and yes, you can order from the store online, but a used bookstore really is someplace you should visit in person), I always hit the Film, TV, Music aisle immediately after checking out the American History section. That was where I found The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction Movies. I purchased it. I can’t remember how much it cost, but I didn’t care. It was an encyclopedia of movies. I had to have a copy.

It’s a great collection of reviews. The films are listed by year, so you can actually chart how the genre developed, and flipping through this book definitely helped me develop a better understanding and appreciation of science fiction movies. (And, of course, quite a few of the films reviewed were also horror films that happened to have science fiction elements.) Now, of course, I should mention that this book was published in 1986 and, as a result, it ends with the year 1985. But you know what? I don’t really need a guide to recent films. I’ve either seen or heard about most of the recent science fiction films. What I do need is a guide to the films that were made before I was even born. This book has introduced me to films that I otherwise would never have heard about. That’s the most important thing that a film guide can do!

The reviews are short, well-written, and opinionated. Because the book was published in the UK, a lot of American films that were made for television are reviewed as feature films, because that’s what they were in Europe. It’s an entertaining book, one that you can happily flip through with the knowledge that you’ll find something worth examining on each page.

This book can be ordered from all the usual suspects. I’ve seen it going for as little as $4. Don’t look for it at Half-Price Books. I grabbed the last copy.

The Covers of Strange Terrors

Posted on October 6, 2026 by Dazzling Erin

Strange Terrors was a pre-code comic book that ran from 1952 through 1953. Only seven issues were published but those issues are today eagerly sought by collectors who view the series as being a classic example of what horror comics were like before the introduction of the Comic Codes Authority.

Here are the seven covers of Stranger Terrors.