David McKnight | Through the Shattered Lens

Welcome to Late Night Retro Television Reviews, a new feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Fridays, I will be reviewing Friday the 13th: The Series, a show which ran in syndication from 1987 to 1990. The show can be found on YouTube!

This week, Micki and Ryan search for a cursed World Series ring.

Episode 2.17 “The Mephisto Ring”

(Dir by Bruce Pittman, originally aired on April 10th, 1989)

In 1982, a gambler is shot and killed by an unknown assailant.

Seven years later, that gambler’s son, Donald Wren (Denis Forest), has developed a problem of his own. Despite his mother (Doris Petrie) begging him not to follow in his father’s footsteps, Donald has become a compulsive gambler. Unfortunately, Donald is not particularly talented at picking winners and, as a result, he’s deep in debt with the mob. Donald has dangerous men after him who want to know where their money is. However, when Donald discovers his father’s ring, things start to change for him.

The ring is a 1919 World Series ring and, as you probably already guessed, it’s cursed. All Donald has to do is put the ring on someone else’s finger and, after the ring kills that person, Donald will receive a vision of how a sporting event is going to end. Donald discovers who is going to win a basketball game, a horserace, and a UFC match. As Donald continues to use the ring, he starts to lose his mind. Friday the 13th has always felt like a show that’s actually about drug addiction, with the cursed objects not only killing people but also corrupting the minds of the people who own them. Donald goes from being a wimp to being someone who laughs maniacally while watching gangsters violently die.

With Jack away, it falls to Micki and Ryan to retrieve the ring. Donald’s mother wants him to give up the ring because she saw what it did to his father. But Donald refuses to surrender the ring, even when his use of it eventually leads to evil gangster Anthony Macklin (James Purcell) abducting his mother. Donald is able to convince Macklin to wear the ring. Macklin is promptly killed but, when Donald still refuses to give up the ring, his mother ends up shooting Donald in the head. As she explains to Micki and Ryan, she had to do the same thing to Donald’s father. After putting the ring in the vault, Micki and Ryan agree to keep the mother’s history of murder a secret.

This was an okay episode. The most interesting thing about it was that Micki and Ryan, even while they were searching for the ring, were pretty much bystanders to the drama involving Donald, his mother, and the gangsters. Other than a scene where Micki pretended to be flirt with Donald in order to get him to leave a bar with her, neither Micki and Ryan really did much in this episode. Denis Forest, making his second appearance on Friday the 13th, gave a good performance as Donald and even managed to generate some sympathy for the character. The gangsters felt like they were left over from an episode of T and T. As I said, it was an okay episode but not one that made a huge impression.

Ike (Glynn Turman) is a nice guy. He’s a law student living in New Orleans. When not studying, he makes money driving a taxi cab. He has a beautiful and loving wife named Christella (Joan Pringle). He has a nice but modest apartment. When we first see Ike, he is calmly and rationally breaking up a fight. Perhaps the only real complain that can be made about Ike is that he’s actually too nice. There’s nothing dangerous about Ike. He works hard. He studies. That’s about it.

When Christella and their friends tell him that he needs to take a night off from studying, Ike is reluctant. However, he finally agrees to go out with them. They start out at a strip club in the French Quarter and eventually, they end up watching a hypnotist. Ike is one of the men randomly selected to go up on stage. Amazingly, rational and mild Ike is easily hypnotized. The audience loves watching as Ike and the other men all reacts to hypnotic suggestion. What they don’t know is that, while in his trance, Ike has been … possessed!

That’s right! The ghost of J.D. Walker has entered Ike. Who is J.D. Walker? As we learn from a series of gauzy flashbacks, J.D. Walker was a gangster in the 1940s. He wore a fedora. He wore nice suits. He was every bit as flamboyant as Ike is mild. But then, one day, J.D. was killed, gunned down by his former business partner, Theotis Bliss (Fred Pinkard).

Soon, Ike starts to act … well, not like himself. Suddenly, Ike is using 1940s slang. He’s wearing 1940s clothes. He’s gambling. He mugs an old lady who gets in his cab and then abandons her on the wharf. When his wife asks him why he’s acting like a 1940s gangster, he gets violent. Soon, Ike is speaking in a different voice and dancing.

What does J.D. want? He wants revenge against not only the man who shot him but also Theotis’s younger brother, a popular preacher named Elijah (Lou Gossett, Jr.). As wild as the possessed Ike may be, he’s got nothing on Elijah. Elijah was a boxer before he became a man of God and he’s still liable to throw a punch or two during his sermons. Elijah, however, is also rather naive and has no hesitation about inviting J.D. to become a member of his congregation. Theotis, who is now Elijah’s manager, is a bit more suspicious…

An oddly paced film that never quite escapes the lengthy shadows of all of the horror films that inspired it, J.D.’s Revenge is worth seeing for the performances Glynn Thurman and Lou Gossett, Jr. Gossett is all energetic charisma in the role of the reverend, giving a performance that features just enough ambiguity that you’re never sure whether you should trust Elijah or not. Meanwhile, Thurman is very good as the mild-mannered Ike but he seems to be having an absolute blast whenever he gets to play the psychotic J.D. During the final confrontation between Ike/J.D. and the Bliss Brothers, Thurman’s performance is so bizarre and over the top that you simply cannot stop watching him.

J.D.’s Revenge was filmed in New Orleans, which add a little bit of gothic atmosphere to the film. As I write this, a lot of our readers may currently be in New Orleans for Mardi Gras. I wish them all well but I hope they’ll remember the lesson of J.D.’s Revenge. Just say no to hypnosis!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ANlCUGoGt5w