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

Posted on April 19, 2024 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 February 16, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

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 October 23, 2023 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 October 20, 2023 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 October 26, 2021 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.

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

Posted on October 2, 2021 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.