October Positivity: Held For Ransom (dir by Bruce Lood)

Posted on October 18, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This 1976 movie opens with a title card that assures us that we are about to see a true story.

The film deals with a kidnapping. Two kidnappers — one of whom is cocky and arrogant and the other of whom is naïve and speaks with a slight stutter — abduct a middle-aged woman in Minnesota. They toss her into their car and then drive her to an abandoned house. They tie her up. They put a blindfold over her eyes. Otherwise, they’re actually fairly polite about the whole thing. They’re not there to hurt anyone. They just want to get some money.

The woman’s husband is a wealthy banker. The younger, more naïve of the two kidnappers calls the man at his office and informs him that he needs to get all the money that he can gather and leave it at a phone booth at the corner of “66th and Lindale.” Obviously, this isn’t a particularly well thought-out crime. Not only do the kidnappers fail to give a definite ransom demand (“all the money you can get” could be interpreted in many different ways) but they also come up with a drop point that would be ludicrously easy for the cops to track down. Still, the husband agrees to pay the ransom. He also calls the police, which gets the FBI involved. The husband goes home and prays.

Meanwhile, at the abandoned house, the woman prays as well. In fact, she has such a cheerful attitude that the kidnappers even let her remove her blindfold a few times. The younger kidnapper asks the woman to explain why she’s able to handle so things. The woman talks to him about her religious faith….

You can probably guess where this low-budget film is leading. Eventually, the police do catch the kidnappers and the woman is reunited with her husband. At the end of the movie, the actual people involved appear, standing in front of their house. The man says that he did pray as much as he was shown praying in the film. His wife says that one of her kidnappers has written her from prison, asking her to forgive him and thanking her for leading him to God. It’s an interesting moment because the real people are notably awkward in front of the camera and one gets the feeling that neither one was quite as recovered from the experience as the film suggests.

I assume that Held for Ransom is one of those films that was specifically made to be viewed in church basements. It’s a low-budget film with what appears to be a semi-amateur cast. That said, it’s also a well-meaning and earnest film and not one that allows itself to become preachy. The film has its slow spots but watching it feels like the equivalent of stepping into a time machine and going back to 1976. Regardless of whether you agree with the film’s message or not, you are glad that things worked out in the end.

October Positivity: Step Over The Edge (dir by Bruce Lood)

Posted on October 9, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Oh, Trevor.

Played by Scott Wallace, Trevor is the main character and the narrator of the 1976 film, Step Over The Edge. Trevor is a young Christian who gets involved with something called the Vanguard Program. In Vanguard, young people are taken to the wilderness and are forced to go on hikes and climb mountains and brave rapids, all so that they can then spend three days alone with their thoughts and a journal. Trevor, writing in his journal, informs us that he knows that it’s weird for a guy to keep a diary but he’s glad that he did.

At the start of the program, Trevor was a bit of a jerk. He didn’t like any of the other campers. None of them measured up to his standards of what a mature and intelligent believer should be. The girls were either too giggly or too insecure or too popular. They either cared too much or cared too little. Either way, Trevor didn’t think much of them. As for the other boys, Trevor judged most of them to be idiots who were always either complaining or making stupid jokes. Trevor was especially hard on CJ, who Trevor judged to be too close to his mother and a “loser.” When CJ didn’t want to rappel down a mountain, Trevor acted like it was a personal affront. When another camper nearly died in the rapids, Trevor acted like it was everyone’s fault but his own.

Fortunately, Trevor spends his three days alone thinking about his behavior and staring at the sunset and he suddenly comes to realize that he was indeed being too judgmental. The film is only 65 minutes long and Trevor doesn’t actually go off by himself until about 55 minutes in. So, that means that the viewer has to sit through nearly an hour of Trevor being a jerk just to get to ten minutes of Trevor having a sudden epiphany. Watching the film, I got the feeling that perhaps the Vanguard Program was a real thing and this movie was meant to be a bit of infomercial for it. The film seemed to be saying, “Look at what we were able to do for even this jerk!”

To be honest, horror films have pretty much ruined me when it comes to viewing films like this through innocent eyes. Whenever I see any movie that features a bunch of teenagers camping in the wilderness, I automatically start looking for Jason Voorhees hiding behind a tree. Step Over The Edge features a perfectly innocent scene in which everyone sits around a campfire and talks. Rather than appreciating the fact that everyone was opening up, I was sitting there waiting for a monster to come jumping out of the woods.

Step Over The Edge is a low-budget film with grainy cinematography and imperfect performances. The film’s message, which essentially came down to “Don’t judge others,” was a positive one but, in the end, the film really only succeeded in making me happy that I’ve never been one for camping.

Seriously, you never know what might be hiding out there.

October Positivity: Senior Year (dir by Bruce Lood)

Posted on October 15, 2022 by Lisa Marie Bowman

First released in 1978 and undoubtedly played at dozens of church youth group retreats for years afterwards, Senior Year tells the story of Steve and Angie.

Steve and Angie are both high school seniors. (Hence, the name….) They’re also both Christians. Steve used to be a jock who enjoyed drinking and having a good time. However, over the summer, he decided to give all that up and dedicate his life to Christ. The rest of his classmates aren’t sure how to deal with this. They all wonder what happened to the Steve that they used to know. They’re all worried that this new Steve is going to constantly try to preach to them. Steve confirms their suspicions by constantly trying to preach at them. As he quickly discovers, it can be awkward forcing your beliefs on people, especially when they’re just trying to make it from class to class. Still, the local young minister encourages Steve to keep trying.

Joe has no interest in what Steve is saying. Joe is a jock who doesn’t get all of that Christian stuff and kind of takes it personally the Steve is now religious. Joe decides that he’s going to date a Christian girl, just to upset Steve! Joe’s a real jerk. However, Joe starts to develop real feelings for her. He even trades in his van for a sports car, all in an effort to seem more respectable. Anyway, as things often go in these type of movies, it all leads to a tragedy that leaves one person in wheelchair but which also inspires everyone in the high school to start reading their bible. Steve finally manages to successfully witness to one of his coworkers. At no point does it seem to occur to anyone that maybe there was another way that message could have been spread that didn’t involve paralyzing someone for life.

Senior Year is a pretty typical faith-based high school film. One thing that I’ve noticed about these films is that they always take place in these upper middle class suburban high schools where nearly the entire student body is vehemently anti-Christian. I went to an upper middle class suburban high school and my experience was markedly different. That could just be because I’m from Texas but still, there was an element of paranoia to this film that felt more than a bit forced. It wasn’t enough for Joe to just not be interested in reading the Bible or going to church. No, Joe had to be a full-on sociopath who specifically tried to ruin a girl’s reputation just because she was a Christian. It’s all a bit melodramatic. It also doesn’t help that Steve comes across as everything that Joe claims he is. Despite the film’s intentions, Steve does come across as being preachy and a bit self-righteous. The actor playing him is believably awkward but also kind of creepy. Anyone who has ever had the experience of having a complete stranger start grilling you about your religious beliefs will empathize with those who don’t want to get trapped in a conversation with Steve.

After watching this film, I checked out its imdb page. I found two pieces of trivia. I have no idea if either of these are correct but, for the record, imdb claims that John Travolta was offered the role of the youth minister. That’s possible, I suppose. Though the film was released in 1978, it features a theater marquee advertising Marathon Man and Two-Minute Warning, which both came out in 1976. If the film was shot in 1976 than it was probably in pre-production in 1975. If the film was in pre-production in 1975, it’s totally possible that a relatively unknown John Travolta may have been offered the part. The other piece of trivia is that Kevin Costner appears as an extra during a high school basketball game. Costner was 21 in 1976 and was studying acting in college so, again, its possible. I certainly didn’t see him but, then again, I wasn’t looking.

Anyway, regardless of whether Costner is lurking in the background or not, Senior Year is forgettable. Today, it’s best viewed as being a time capsule of the era in which it was made. I mean, selling a van is a major plot point! This film couldn’t be more 70s if it tried.