Tag Archives: Denis Forest

Late Night Retro Television Review: Friday the 13th: The Series 3.16 “My Wife As A Dog”

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Late Night Retro Television Reviews, a 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 entire series can be found on YouTube!

This week, it’s all about a man and his dog.

Episode 3.16 “My Wife As A Dog”

(Dir by Armando Mastroianni, originally aired on February 19th, 1990)

I knew I was going to dislike this episode as soon as I saw the title.

While Johnny and Micki spend their time trying to get the store up to code so that it can pass a fire inspection (and good luck doing that when there’s a literal portal to Hell located in the basement), Jack searches for a cursed leash.  Jack has no idea what the leash does.  He just knows that it’s cursed.  However, the leash’s owner — fireman Aubry Ross (Denis Forest, making his fourth appearance on the show) — has figured out that, by using the leash to strangle people, he can transport the mind of his dying dog into the body of his estranged (but not dying) wife.

Or something like that.  To be honest, I had a hard time following the particulars of this curse.  Fortunately, so did Jack.  This is the first episode that I can think of where Jack admits that he has no idea how a cursed objects works.  Even when he retrieves the leash at the end of the episode, he admits that he’s still not sure what Aubry actually did with it.  Jack being confused made me feel a little bit less dumb so I was happy with that.  The episode ends with Aubry in jail, being visited his panting wife.  She brings him his slippers because she’s now a dog in a human body.

Ugh.  This was an attempt to do a light-hearted episode and I respect the show for trying to do something different.  At the same time, it also featured four murders and a woman, who simply wanted to get a divorce from her creepy husband, being transformed into a dog.  Our regulars were barely in this episode and, when they did appear, we had to suffer through some awkward flirting between Johnny and Micki.  Denis Forest did a good job as Aubry but otherwise, this was an episode that I could just as soon forget.

Late Night Retro Television Review: Pacific Blue 1.7 “Heatwave”

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Late Night 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 Pacific Blue, a cop show that aired from 1996 to 2000 on the USA Network!  It’s currently streaming everywhere, though I’m watching it on Tubi.

This week, there’s a heatwave on the beach!

Episode 1.7 “Heatwave”

(Dir by Lyndon Chubbuck, originally aired on April 13th, 1996)

A heatwave has hit Santa Monica!  Everyone is sweltering and the cameras of Pacific Blue are there to record every drop of sweat.  The AC at Chris’s apartment is not working so, while she waits for it to get repaired, she moves in with TC.  What will TC’s girlfriend think of that?  Actually, she won’t think anything about that because her character disappeared after the pilot.

As I watched this episode, it occurred to me that the show’s writers really seemed to have no idea who the characters actually were.  Instead of coming across like actual human beings, every character has one personality trait that the writers insist on hammering into every scene.  Chris is always complaining about something.  Even after TC offers to let her stay at his apartment, Chris complains.  Chris complains so much that it actually becomes a bit whiny on her part.  But it’s not really Chris’s fault.  It’s the fault of the writers who obviously assumed that writing a “strong woman” meant making her act like a bitch no matter what the situation.  TC’s character trait is that he has a permanent chip on his shoulder even though every episode so far has essentially been a TC love fest.  He’s second-in-command of the bike cops.  He’s never held responsible for his mistakes.  He comes from a rich family.  Lt. Palermo praises him nonstop.  And yet TC always seems like he’s bitter about something.  And, as with Chris’s permanent bad mood, it’s just because the show’s writers didn’t bother to give him a personality beyond always acting like he has something to prove.  The episodes hints at an attraction between Chris and TC but they would really be a terrible couple.

This episode finds a radio sex therapist (Maura Peters) being stalked by Jordan Crane (Denis Forest, playing the same type of creepy psycho that he played on multiple episodes of Friday the 13th), a listener who is obsessed with her and who murders anyone who he thinks is getting too close to her.  TC has a crush on the sex therapist.  Chris dislikes the sex therapist and thinks TC is dumb because of course she does.  Chris and TC run afoul the homicide detective, Bart Browning (Barry Lynch), who is investigating the case.  Browning doesn’t have much respect for cops who ride bicycles.  Palermo, Chris, and TC go out of their way to change his mind.

So, yes, this is yet another episode where Pacific Blue tries to convince us that cops on bikes aren’t as dorky and useless as they look.  Every time Browning makes fun of them, we get a shot of the bike cops chasing a thief or investigating a lead.  The problem is that Browning does have a point.  The cops do look really silly on their bikes.  The fact that they often have to pick up and carry their bikes doesn’t help.  And listen, this is not an anti-bicycle thing.  I have a bike,  I occasionally ride it in the park.  (What I don’t do is ride it in the middle of the street.)  When you’ve got asthma like me, cycling is a good way to keep your lungs healthy.  But if I need the police, I want to see a squad car and I don’t want to have to deal with anyone wearing shorts.

While this is going on, Victor and Cory investigate a thief who hires strippers to perform in stores and bars.  While everyone is distracted, the thief robs the place.  This storyline actually did make me laugh a little.  All of the male witnesses could perfectly describe the strippers but none of them even saw the man sneaking behind the counter with a gun.  In the end, the thief is captured in an elaborate undercover sting.  Cory and Chris pretend to be the dancers while Palermo pretends to be the bartender and the thief soon discovers everyone else in the bar is a cop as well.  At least in this storyline, Chris’s bad mood had to do with being annoyed with the objectification of women as opposed to being mad because someone offered her a place to stay so she wouldn’t die of heatstroke.

Finally, Elvis discovers a lot of holes on the beach and thinks that the aliens are coming.  It turns out that a local golf course was just stealing the sand for their sand traps.  I’m glad that worked out!

As much as I’ve complained, this episode of Pacific Blue was a slight improvement over the previous few episodes, if just because the the subplots were vaguely interesting and/or amusing.  Chris and TC continue to be the weakest part of the show.  Hopefully, they’ll get some new personality traits soon.

#SundayShorts with WEDLOCK (1991)!

Posted on by Bradley Crain

Since Sunday is a day of rest for a lot of people, I present #SundayShorts, a weekly mini review of a movie I’ve recently watched.

Master diamond thief Frank Warren (Rutger Hauer) pulls off a big job with the help of his fiancé Noelle (Joan Chen) and his best friend Sam (James Remar). Unfortunately, after the job is finished, Noelle unceremoniously ends her courtship with Frank when she shoots him multiple times because she’s now hooked up with Sam. The next time we see Frank, who somehow survived the close-range shootings, he’s on a bus to a prison called Camp Holliday, which is run by Warden Holliday (Stephen Tobolowsky). Camp Holliday is a high-tech prison where each inmate is gifted a collar containing an explosive device that also happens to be electronically connected to another inmate. As long as the two prisoners are within 100 yards from each other, it’s all good. If they are separated by more than 100 yards, their collars will explode leaving a bloody nub where their head used to be. And since nobody knows who their “wedlock partner” is, trying to escape is not a strong option. One day fellow prisoner Tracy Riggs (Mimi Rogers) comes to Frank and tells him that she’s his wedlock partner. Through a variety of circumstances, the two are able to escape, but they still must maintain their 100-yard proximity as the authorities try to track them down. Meanwhile, Sam and Noelle, and even Warden Holliday, have all teamed up to try to find where Frank stashed the diamonds prior to heading to prison. And what about Tracy, who’s side is she really on?

I didn’t have the Home Box Office channel when I was growing up, so I wasn’t aware of this film until it premiered on home video as “DEADLOCK.” Of course, being a huge fan of Rutger Hauer, I rented it as soon as possible. The key to lower budget, made-for TV movies working will always be tied to three things: an entertaining premise, a game cast, and a director who can put the movie together. I’m happy to report that WEDLOCK has each of these things. Even though we had seen exploding neck collars in prison before in THE RUNNING MAN (1987), I like the way this film ties one prisoner’s fate to another’s. That extra dimension makes for some exciting moments in the film. Rutger Hauer is especially good in WEDLOCK. If any other actor was in the lead, I honestly doubt I would have enjoyed it as much, but with him it becomes a fun movie. And the fact that he’s tied to the beautiful Mimi Rogers for most of the movie makes it that much more fun. The remainder of the cast goes pretty far over the top, but that’s okay because subtle character portrayals are not part of the equation in these types of movies. James Remar and Joan Chen are fun as the initial betrayers and current pursuers, Basil Wallace is effectively evil as a bully and fellow inmate, and Stephen Tobolowsky is his usual fun self as Warden Holliday.  Director Lewis Teague has a pretty nice resume of interesting films leading up to WEDLOCK, including ALLIGATOR (1980), FIGHTING BACK (1982), CUJO (1983), CAT’S EYE (1985), and NAVY SEALS (1990). He does a fine job here, as the movie has many well executed scenes that play out at a nice pace. Overall, I’ve always been a fan of low budget action movies that are done well. This one fits the bill for me.  

Five Fast Facts:

  1. Rutger Hauer and Joan Chen worked on 3 films together, including WEDLOCK. I have a soft spot in my heart for their film THE BLOOD OF HEROES (1989) and recommend it. I thought their other movie, PRECIOUS FIND (1996) was pretty bad. I watched it one time in the 90’s and haven’t watched it since.
  2. WEDLOCK received a Primetime Emmy nomination for “Outstanding Individual Achievement in Sound Editing for a Miniseries or a Special.”
  3. Even though WEDLOCK was set “in the future,” early in the film we see a movie theater marquee showing the Steven Seagal movie MARKED FOR DEATH (1990). I found that interesting considering that Basil Wallace is a bad guy in WEDLOCK, and he played twin brother bad guys in MARKED FOR DEATH. Danny Trejo also has small parts in both WEDLOCK and MARKED FOR DEATH.
  4. Mimi Rogers starred in another film in 1991 called THE RAPTURE. It’s a thought-provoking film that some people love, and some people hate. I personally found it intriguing, and it features a really strong performance from Rogers.
  5. In 1995, the film DEADLOCK 2 was released. It’s not a sequel as it doesn’t build on the events of the first film or bring back any of the characters, but it is set in a world of exploding prison collars. The film stars Esai Morales and Nia Peeples.  

When I rented the film in the early 90’s, it was called DEADLOCK. I’m sure I owned it on VHS at one point in my life.

Check out the trailer below:

Late Night Retro Television Review: Friday the 13th: The Series 2.17 “The Mephisto Ring”

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

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.

 

Late Night Retro Television Review: Friday the 13th: The Series 1.26 “Bottle of Dreams”

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

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, season one comes to a close with a trip down nightmare lane.

Episode 1.26 “Bottle of Dreams”

(Dir by Mac Bradden, originally aired on July 25th, 1988)

It’s clip show time!

To be fair, the first season finale of Friday the 13th does come up with a clever way to justify being a clip show.  Micki and Ryan get trapped in the vault of Curious Goods with an ancient, Egyptian urn that causes people to confront the memories of their worst fears.  Not surprisingly all of Micki and Ryan’s worst fears are connected to the cursed antiques that they’ve spent the past year seeking out and dealing with.

So, once again, we get to see the cursed doll that started the series.  We see the weirdo wandering around with his cursed cupid statue.  We see the vampire.  Oddly enough, we don’t see the pirate ghosts or the gangster who killed Micki’s boyfriend, even though both of those events were very traumatic for Micki.  We don’t see the magic pipe that killed Ryan’s father, despite the fact that episode ended with Ryan in tears.  We don’t see the newscaster who killed Ryan’s girlfriend or the cursed quilt that nearly caused Ryan to get burned at the stake.  In short the clips seem to be a little bit arbitrary and they also all seem to come from early in the season, which leads me to suspect that this episode was put together long before it actually aired.

The cursed urn and the flashbacks are all a part of yet another attempt by Uncle Lewis (R.G. Armstrong) to return to the world of living.  Fortunately, Jack’s friend Rashid (Elias Zarou) shows up and helps to push Lewis back into the netherworld.  It’s always nice when one of Jack’s associates shows up to help.  It creates the feeling that there’s an entire magical underground out there, all dealing with cursed antiques and malevolent spirits.  While Ryan and Micki deal with their bad memories, Jack and Rashid are the ones who save the day and it makes for a nice conclusion for the first season.  Our heroes may have started out as skeptical amateurs but now they’re a strong team.  Micki and Ryan know that they can count on Jack, which is good considering that almost everyone else that that they get close to ends up dead.

The first season of Friday the 13th: The Series was pretty good.  The horror was effective.  The cast had a lot of chemistry.  With a few exceptions, the cursed antiques were all interesting and worked in genuinely clever ways.  The show had a sense of humor but it never let it get in the way of mayhem.  Even the fact that the show claimed to be set in America even though it was clearly filmed in Canada and filled with Canadian actors only served to increase the dream-like atmosphere.

Will the second season live up to the first?  We’ll start to find out next week!

Late Night Retro Television Review: Friday the 13th 1.18 “Brain Drain”

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

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, Jack falls in love but, unfortunately, someone is stealing brains.

Episode 1.18 “Brain Drain”

(Dir by Lyndon Chubbuck, originally aired on April 25th, 1988)

Jack, Ryan, and Micki go to the Natural History Museum of Ontario to try to retrieve a trephinator, which is a device that the ancient Greeks apparently used to measure the size of people’s heads.  The belief was that the bigger head someone had, the more intelligent they were.  While at the museum, Jack runs into a former girlfriend, Dr. Viola Rhodes (Carrie Snodgress).  Jack is so happy to run into Viola that he soon seems to forget about the trephinator but instead finds himself planning their upcoming wedding.

(Just to make clear, Micki canceled her engagement so she could spend the next few years of her life tracking down cursed antiques but Jack can apparently just decide to get married out-of-the-blue without it being an issue.)

Well, Jack may have other things on his mind but that trephinator is still out there and it’s dangerous!  It has been incorporated into a chair that allows a formerly developmentally challenged man to steal the brain fluid of others and use it to increase his own intelligence.  Stewart Pangborn (Denis Forest) used to be a test subject but now he’s a scientist.  When he decides that Viola will be his next victim, Jack’s wedding plans are put in danger.

Even after watching this episode, I have no idea what a trephinator is, what it looks like, or how it was incorporated into the big bulky chair that Pangborn used to steal other people’s brain fluids.  Was the trephinator the big needle that would be forcibly inserted into the base of the skulls of Pangborn’s victims?  I don’t know but I do know that the whole point of Friday the 13th was that Chris, Jack, and Micki were searching for cursed antiques.  Overall, it’s helpful to actually be able to look at the screen and say, “Oh, there’s the antique.”

The episode had quite a few flaws, from the bulkiness of the chair to the apparent ease by which Pangborn was able to set himself up as a scientist at the museum.  (Do they not do background checks in Canada?)  The episode’s dialogue had a “It’s only first draft, we’ll think of something better later” quality to it and the performances, even from the usually reliable Denis Forest, felt subpar.  The idea of Jack meeting an ex-girlfriend and falling in love had potential but there was very little chemistry between Chris Wiggins and Carrie Snodgress.  If anything, Jack’s romance reminded the viewers of how strange it was that neither the handsome Ryan nor the beautiful Micki ever seemed to have any amorous admirers.

It was a disappointing episode this week but apparently, next week will feature Ryan joining some sort of Amish death cult.  That sounds promising!

Late Night Retro Television Reviews: Nightmare Café 1.4 “The Heart of Mystery”

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Late Night Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past!  On Mondays, I will be reviewing Nightmare Café, which ran on NBC from January to April of 1992.  The entire show is currently streaming on YouTube!

This week, a dying detective is allowed a chance to solve one last case.

Episode 1.4 “The Heart of Mystery”

(Dir by John Harrison, originally aired on March 20th, 1992)

This week’s episode of Nightmare Café is the first to largely focus on a guest star.  While Jack Coleman and Lindsay Frost do play roles in this week’s episode and Robert Englund’s Blackie actually gets to do more than usual, the majority of the episode is still dominated by Timothy Carhart as Detective Stan Gates.

One dark night, Stan chases a young thief (played by Alfonso Quijada) into a dark alley.  When the thief pulls a gun on him, Stan explains that he’s a police officer and he’s not trying to take the thief to jail.  He explains that he knows the young man is on drugs and is not in full control of his actions.  He asks the young man to give him the gun.

Meanwhile, in the nearby Nightmare Café, a bored Frank and Fay are playing a game of Clue.  (Colonel Mustard did it.)  Stan walks into the café and asks for a cup of coffee.  Robert Englund’s Blackie suddenly appears sitting in a booth and eating from a bag of popcorn.  He introduce himself to Stan and then leads Stan over to a window.  Looking through the window, Stan can see himself and the thief in the alley.  The thief has fired the gun and the bullet appears to be suspended in the air.  Blackie explains that the café has slowed down time to give Stan the chance to solve one last case before the bullet hits and kills him.

The case involves the death of Charlotte Bening (Laura Mae Tate), a wealthy woman with whom Stan was in love.  One night, when Stan was investigating a break-in at her mansion, Stan fired his weapon at what he believed to be the burglar.  Someone hit him from behind, knocking him out.  When Stan woke up, he discovered that the person who was actually shot was Charlotte!  While the police ruled it an accidental shooting, Stan was convinced that someone specifically set him up.  Could it have been Charlotte’s brother, a frustrated artist named Philip (Denis Forest, who also appeared in last week’s episode of Friday the 13th)?  Or could it have been …. well, there is no one else, actually.  The great Lochlyn Munro does make a brief appearance as one of Charlotte’s more aggressive suitors but he’s only onscreen for a few minutes.  There’s not much suspense to this mystery.

That said, I did enjoy this episode of Nightmare Café, which not only pays homage to film noir but which also features Robert Englund at his quippy best as he passive-aggressively pushes Stan into solving the case.  Fay does briefly leave the café so that she can pretend to be the producer of a true crime series and interview some of the people who knew Charlotte and Stan but, for the most part, this episode is centered around Timothy Carhart and Robert Englund and both of them carry things nicely.  Though the episode’s format probably confused those who, on the basis of the previous three episode, didn’t realize that Nightmare Café was originally envisioned as being an anthology series, The Heart of Mystery holds up very well.

Late Night Retro Television Reviews: Friday the 13th 1.3 “Cupid’s Quiver”

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

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, a show which ran in syndication from 1988 to 1990.  The show can be found on YouTube!

Tonight’s episode is directed by a future Oscar nominee and a multiple Genie winner!

Episode 1.3 “Cupid’s Quiver”

(Dir by Atom Egoyan, originally aired on October 12th, 1987)

This week’s cursed antique is a statue of Cupid that shoots neon arrows at women and causes those targeted to fall madly in love with the statue’s owner.  Unfortunately, the curse kicks in when the owner of the statue is then forced to murder the woman who is now in love with him.  Yikes!  What a mean statue.

When we first see the statue, it belongs to a frat boy who uses the statue at a club.  After the frat boy is arrested for murder, possession of the statue falls to a total loser named Eddie Monroe (Denis Forest).  Eddie is a janitor and groundskeeper at a local college.  He’s the type of guy who hardly anyone ever notices and even those who do notice him think that he is a complete creep.  Eddie is obsessed with a student named Laurie Warren (Carolyn Dunn), following her around campus and taking pictures of her.  He’s even built an elaborate shrine to her in his apartment, one where he’s cut the heads off of the people that Carolyn was with and replaced them with his own head.  (Double yikes!)  Laurie, of course, wants nothing to do with Eddie.

Could Eddie’s new statue help him out?  He hopes so and he even takes it to the club to test it on someone else beforehand.  Eddie is determined to force Carolyn to love him, even if he’ll be required to kill her almost immediately afterwards.  Fortunately, Ryan, Jack, and Micki are on campus, searching for the statue.

This episode is often cited as one of the best of the show’s run, largely because it was directed by a future Oscar nominee, Atom Egoyan.  (Amongst Egoyan’s films: Exotica, The Sweet Hereafter, Felicia’s Journey and Where The Truth Lies.)  It’s certainly not a bad episode, as Egoyan approaches the storyline with a sense of humor.  The scenes of the frat boy and then Eddie wandering around with their cupid statue are more than a little silly and Egoyan seems to understand that.  He does a good job contrasting the ludicrousness of the statue with the seriousness of the consequences of using it.  The ultimate message is that both the statue and the men who carry it with them are more dangerous than they look.

I also enjoyed the scenes in which Ryan and a far more reluctant Micki went to a frat house to search for the statue.  The frat house is a stereotypical den of debauchery, full of empty beers can and a black bra hanging from a ceiling fan.  Ryan, not surprisingly, is right at home.  Micki cannot wait to escape and I have to say that, as often happens when I watched episodes of this show, I definitely related to Micki.  Watching Ryan and Micki wander through various frat parties in search of Eddie and his statue, I had to ask myself which is worse, a cursed antique or a fraternity?

Horror on TV: Friday the 13th: The Series 2.17 “The Mephisto Ring” (dir by Bruce Pittman)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Tonight, for our horror on the lens, we have the seventeenth episode of the 2nd season of Friday the 13th: The Series!

In tonight’s episode, Denis Forest plays a gambler who gets an cursed 1919 World Series Ring! It allows him to pick all the winners but it’s fueled, as these cursed antiques often are, by murder! Anyway, consider how excited my sister is over the World Series starting tonight, I had to go with this episode!

This episode originally aired on April 15th, 1989.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxrq_2WdsKs

Horror on TV: Friday the 13th: The Series 1.3 “Cupid’s Quiver” (dir by Atom Egoyan)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

On tonight’s episode of Friday the 13th: The Series, a cursed cupid statue is causing trouble!

Now, I’ll just be honest here.   The idea behind the cupid statue is not a bad one.  The statue causes people to fall in love with the owner of the statue, with the unfortunate twist being that the owner is then required to kill them.  However, the sight of incel Eddie Munroe (Denis Forest) carrying around that statue is often unintentionally funny.

That said, even if this isn’t necessarily the strongest episode of the series, I wanted to share it because it was directed by future Oscar nominee, Atom Egoyan.  Friday the 13th: The Series was filmed in Canada and this was an early credit for Egoyan.  Later, Egoyan would go on to direct films like The Sweet Hereafter, Exotica, and Where The Truth Lies, making him one of the most important Canadian filmmakers not named Cronenberg, Villeneuve, or Arcand.

This episode, the third of the series, originally aired on October 17th, 1987.

https://youtu.be/nNRctQySrgo