Alex Zamm | Through the Shattered Lens

Welcome to Late Night Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Wednesdays, I will be reviewing Monsters, which aired in syndication from 1988 to 1991. The entire series is streaming on YouTube.

This week, Jerry Stiller is a werewolf!

Episode 2.17 “One Wolf’s Family”

(Dir by Alex Zamm, originally aired on February 11th, 1990)

In this rather heavy-handed episode of Monsters, Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara star as Victor and Greta, two immigrants who have built a successful life for themselves in America. Victor is very proud of his heritage and his success. He’s even more proud of the fact that he and Greta are pure-bred werewolves. He expects his daughter, Anya (Amy Stiller), to marry a purebred werewolf.

(Ben was apparently busy when they shot this episode.)

So, how will Victor react when he discovers that Amy’s fiancé, Stanley (Robert Clohessy), is a were-hyena!?

*sigh*

Okay, I will give some credit here. The scene where Victor meets Stanley and they all gather around the kitchen table for dinner does have some funny moments. Stanley, being a hyena in human form, cannot stop laughing, even when he’s being insulted. And when Jerry Stiller launches into a rant about how no daughter of his is going to hang out on the roadside and eat trash, I did laugh. This was largely due to Jerry Stiller’s delivery of the line. Jerry Stiller was always funny whenever he started to rant.

Otherwise, this episode was pretty disappointing. There’s a subplot about a nosey neighbor named Agnes (Karen Shallo). Agnes is upset to discover that her neighbors are werewolves that keep dead bodies in their refrigerator so that they’ll have something to snack on. “It’s bad enough that they’re immigrants!” Agnes says. And yes, I get it. Agnes is supposed to be a small-minded suburbanite who doesn’t understand that America is a country of immigrants and all the rest. The problem is that, regardless of how Agnes feels about immigrants, she has every right to be concerned about living next door to a werewolf who keeps a dead body in his refrigerator. When she sees Victor eating a foot, it totally makes sense that she would be upset about it. The show’s satire would have worked if Agnes’s sole objection to them had been that they were immigrants. (It would have been even funnier if Agnes has absolutely no problem living next door to werewolves as long as they were born in America.) But by making them werewolves and having Agnes be upset by the fact that they were werewolves, the show instead suggests that Agnes might have a point.

Not that it matters. Stanley turns into a hyena and rips off Agnes’s head and brings it to Victor and Greta as a gift. Stanley is accepted into the family while Jerry Stiller howls a the moon.

Political satire is always hit-and-miss and this episode was definitely a mess. It’s a shame because Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara were definitely funny people. (If you’ve ever seen the documentary Have A Good Trip, there’s a scene where Ben Stiller tells a story about accidentally taking several tabs of LSD in college and, in a panic, calling his father for help. “I know what you’re going through,” Jerry told him, “I once smoked an entire Pall Mall cigarette.” “My father was Jerry Stiller, not Jerry Rubin,” Ben explains.) This is one of those episodes that I was really hoping would be good but it just didn’t work.

Then the mask turns a little more to reveal the subtitle “Don’t Think About It”. It’s hard not to think about the fact that Emily Osment is one of the Disney Channel stars who sings when you have her do it over the ending credits.

I watched the three other R.L. Stine movies for October. Not sure why I wound up going in reverse chronological order, but I did. This one really should be called R.L. Stine’s The Haunting Hour: How Many Other Movies Can We Reference?

The movie opens up with this kid in his room scared that something is in his closet. But really, this kid should be more frightened by the fact that his pillow changes between cuts. It was like this before he got up.

Then as he moves closer to the closet, it changes back. As for the supposed monster in the closet, Major Payne (1995) taught us what to do about that.

Of course that can’t happen here because his sister Cassie played by Emily Osment is in there. That would make for a really short movie. But while shenanigans are going on inside, this guy is outside kindly posing to reference the poster for The Exorcist (1973), and maybe trying to look like El Topo from El Topo (1971)

Now we go to The Knoxville Jr. High School and get a good look at Cassie.

Yes, Cassie is every 90s Goth girl rolled into one except she’s missing the Nine Inch Nails T-Shirt.

And that’s Priscilla (Brittany Curran) in the middle and a friend of her’s on the right who apparently could go as actress Stacey Farber for Halloween. I’m not exactly sure what she’s looking up at, but I’m guessing it’s what shows up from the top of the screen a little later.

After we find out that Cassie has no idea how to deal with Priscilla, She-Devil of Knoxville Junior High to get the attention of blondie boy toy Sean (Cody Linley), we meet the stranger from the street. Cassie finds him in a Halloween Store tucked away in a tiny alleyway. He’s played by Tobin Bell who proves once more that once you’re captured by the Hallmark/Lifetime/Disney/ABC/Nickelodeon net, you never escape. And he appears to be selling a copy of the Necronomicon.

It’s been awhile since I saw Army Of Darkness (1992) or Evil Dead II (1987), but I’m sure there’s a scene where Ash sells it to this guy. Of course Cassie buys it, opens it, and reads from it even though it says “Do Not Read Aloud”. This of course brings about evil things immediately such as the boom mic popping in from over this kid’s head.

Funny, considering this came out the same year as Twitches Too where the boom mic also popped down into the frame. Hmmm… the kid is black and there’s the boom mic. This must be young Dolemite. Well, Cassie should have no problem with monsters now. Just make friends with this kid. If he’s Dolemite, then he doesn’t even have to touch you to hurt you.

It also leads to the parents playing a really stupid game involving squirrels and popcorn with XBOX 360 controllers.

Now the movie just becomes a series of references to other movies.

Priscilla gets the Carrie treatment with roaches.

I’m guessing this kid is Captain Jack Sparrow if he were a vampire and had the Rocky Horror lips.

One of several times this movie will reference Jurassic Park (1993). This is when the monster Cassie unleashed takes away a Papa Johns pizza delivery boy. They really do have the tastiest delivery boys. Dominos has the tastiest delivery girls. Actually, it will turn out that the monster is taking people in order to create a scene that references the Alien movies.

This isn’t a reference, but kudos this movie for reminding me of how kids like to pad out writing assignments.

There’s also a scene here with ectoplasm. After that Scared Topless movie, I can never enjoy a movie with ectoplasm again. Thanks a lot, Dave Zani!!!

While Cassie’s younger brother is attacked by more Jurassic Park references in his room we get what appears to be a reference to the creepy monkey from Close Encounters Of The Third Kind (1977).

All of this leads up to a scene where Cassie and blondie need to go and save delivery boy, her younger brother, and apparently also Priscilla. This scene references Alien and what I’m assuming must be Shivers (1975) and/or Slugs: The Movie (1988) after monster babies break out of eggs and slither across the floor. Of course we all knew this reference was coming.

Yep, the scene from Say Anything… (1989) where John Cusack held up a boom box to lure the monster out of the house in order to kill it. It’s probably been about 15 years since I saw that movie, but my memory never fails!

After they vanquish the monster and the pizza boy hits on Priscilla, the movie takes the opportunity to reference The Lord Of The Rings when they go to burn The Evil Thing. The book is saved from destruction and ends up in the hands of the parents who proceed to read from the book. Then Emily Osment starts singing over the credits. Can’t say I knew that Dave Mustaine was her producer.

All jokes aside, this movie and The Cabinet Of Souls are the best of the four R.L. Stine movies I’ve watched so far. I recommend The Cabinet Of Souls first, then this one.