Tag Archives: Horror

Late Night Retro Television Review: Monsters 2.1 “The Face”

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 Wednesdays, I will be reviewing Monsters, which aired in syndication from 1988 to 1991. The entire series is streaming on YouTube.

This week, we start the second season of Monsters!

Episode 2.1 “The Face”

(Dir by Allen Coulter, originally aired on October 1st, 1989)

The second season of Monsters opens with two redneck brother, Ray (Gregory Grove) and Clifford (Gary Roberts), breaking into a house that is owned by an old widow (Imogene Coca).  Because the woman is known for paying for everything in cash and doesn’t even have a bank account, the brothers suspect that she has a fortune stashed away somewhere in the house.  (I’m not really sure how the brothers know that she doesn’t have a bank account and, for that matter, neither one of them really come across like they could open a bank account either.  Maybe just don’t judge people on whether or not they have a bank account, you know?)  When the dumbass brothers stumble across the woman in her bedroom, a struggle leads to Ray suffocating her but not before she bites a chunk out of his hand.

The wound on Ray’s hand refuses to heal.  Instead, it starts to resemble the face of the old woman and soon, Ray is hearing her voice and the wound itself appears to be talking.  Yikes!  Is Ray being driven mad by his own guilt and paranoia or is the woman’s spirit truly haunting him?  And will Ray ever be able to get the voice to stop or will he end up doing something unthinkable to his hand?

Either way, that talking hand wound is not particularly pleasant to look at.  The second season premiere of Monsters takes it cue from both the body horror of David Cronenberg and the comedic grotesquerie of Sam Raimi and that means that we get a lot of closeups of Ray’s bloody hand and we also see every detail of the lengths that Ray goes to try to silence the wound.  I started this episode cringing and, by the end of it, I had my own hands over my eyes because some of the imagery was just way too …. icky.

While the imagery was undeniably effective in its nauseating way, the overall story really didn’t carry much of an impact.  Ray and Clifford were both such idiots that it was difficult to really care about any story involving them.  In the end, they weren’t even interesting enough to make their downfall fun to watch.  This episode worked best as an example of gross-out horror and, if I had to guess, I think the episode’s main aim was to let viewers know that season 2 was going to be even more graphic than season one.  The episode makes for a fine highlight real for the show’s VFX and makeup teams but, as a story, it just falls flat.

Live Tweet Alert: Watch Coherence with #ScarySocial

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

As some of our regular readers undoubtedly know, I am involved in a few weekly live tweets on twitter.  I host #FridayNightFlix every Friday, I co-host #ScarySocial on Saturday, and I am one of the five hosts of #MondayActionMovie!  Every week, we get together.  We watch a movie.  We tweet our way through it.

Tonight, for #ScarySocial, Deanna Dawn will be hosting 2014’s Coherence!

If you want to join us on Saturday night, just hop onto twitter, start the film at 9 pm et, and use the #ScarySocial hashtag!  The film is available on Prime.  I’ll probably be there and I imagine some other members of the TSL Crew will be there as well.  It’s a friendly group and welcoming of newcomers so don’t be shy.

Late Night Retro Television Review: Friday the 13th: The Series 1.22 “The Pirate’s Promise”

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, there’s something in the fog!  Can Micki and Ryan stop the horror of the thing in the fog?  FOG!

Episode 1.22 “The Pirate’s Promise”

(Dir by Bill Corcoran, originally aired on June 27th, 1988)

In the 18th century, a group of pirates killed their captain, Angus McBride, and stole his treasure.  They used the money to start a seaside village in New England and to become respectable citizens.  Over two hundred years later, the spirit of Captain McBride is hanging out in the fog and desiring vengeance on the descendants of his crew.

Hmmm …. this sounds familiar.

This episode has more than a little in common with John Carpenter’s The Fog.  This time, as opposed to it being the result of an anniversary curse, it’s a crazed lighthouse keeper named Joe Fenton (Cedric Smith) who summons the ghost of Captain McBride with a cursed foghorn but otherwise, much of the plot and the show’s imagery feels as if it was lifted directly from Carpenter’s classic horror film.  Captain McBride emerges from the fog several times during the episode.  He kills his victim’s with a hook and then tosses a few coins at Joe.

Micki and Ryan show up in town to retrieve the foghorn.  (This is another episode in which Jack is not present.)  It’s interesting how these cursed antiques often tend to end up in small towns, like the one in this episode or The Quilt of Hathor.  The previous few episodes featured Ryan having to say goodbye to someone as a result of a cursed item.  This time, it’s Micki whose heart is broken when the sweet proprietor of the local history museum is stabbed with a saber while trying to protect her.  The episode ends with Micki sobbing while Ryan tries to comfort her, which is quite a change from how these things usually go.  For once, Micki is the one who gets to show emotion while Ryan is the one who takes a more pragmatic approach to dealing with the horrors of the cured antiques.

As for the episode, it wasn’t bad.  Director Bill Corcoran did a good job of creating a properly ominous atmosphere and Cedric Smith was perfectly creepy as the evil lighthouse owner.  The low-budget was evident by the fact that the time itself seemed to be nearly deserted.  Even though the town was described as being small, it still seems like it should have been home to more than just a handful of people and I found myself wondering if maybe the show decided to save money by not hiring extras.  That minor quibble aside, this was an effective episode as long as you were willing to overlook the plot’s similarity to Carpenter’s film.

Next week, hopefully, Jack will come back and maybe Micki will have cheered up.  Someone likeable dies in every episode so you would think they would be used to it by now.

Late Night Retro Television Review: Monsters 1.24 “La Strega”

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 Wednesdays, I will be reviewing Monsters, which aired in syndication from 1988 to 1991. The entire series is streaming on YouTube.

This week, the first season of Monsters come to an end.

Episode 1.24 “La Strega” 

(Dir by Lizzie Borden, originally aired on May 27th, 1989)

Vito (a young Rob Morrow) enters a pawn shop shortly before closing.  He tells the proprietor, Lia (Linda Blair), that he’s shopping for something for his girlfriend.  But, as soon as Lia turns her back, Vito draws a knife and announces that he’s actually come to kill her.  Lia, however, has a gun and without flinching, she shoots at the floor.  Vito, who is far less calm than Lia, drops the knife.

Lia takes Vito to her apartment above the shop.  He tells her that he knows that she’s “La Strega” and that, ten years earlier, she put a curse on his mother (played by Maria Tucci) when she and Lia had a dispute over a ring that his mother brought to the shop.  His mother has just died as a result of the curse and Vito wants vengeance.

Lia explains that she’s not a witch and that Vito’s mother’s dispute was actually with Lia’s mother.  Lia also suggests that it was Vito’s mother who tried to steal the ring.  Lia says that Vito will spend the next two weeks working for her and seeing what type of person she actually is.  If, at the end of the two weeks, he still wants to kill her, she’ll accept that it is fate.  Vito agrees.

For the next two weeks, Vito works in the shop and lives in Lia’s apartment.  (I guess someone else is handling his mother’s funeral.)  Vito is haunted by dreams in which both Lia and his mother attempt to seduce him and beg him to kill the other.  Vito starts to fall in love with Lia and, as the two weeks come to a close, Lia says that she wants to enjoy what might be her last night on Earth….

Directed by feminist filmmaker Lizzie Borden, this episode ends the first season of Monsters on a rather moody note.  Vito is never quite sure whether or not he can trust either Lia or the angry spirit of his mother and, in the end, no one’s motives are really that clear.  The episode ends on a rather enigmatic note, which is a polite way of saying that it’s confusing as Hell.  That said, Rob Morrow, Maria Tucci, and Linda Blair all give good performances and Borden does a good job of creating an appropriately dream-like atmosphere.  In the end, the main impression one takes from this episode is that Vito, for all of his bluster, was essentially just a pawn in a supernatural battle between two powerful women, even if Vito himself wasn’t smart enough to realize it.  This episode is not a bad note for the first season to end on.

The first season of Monsters was uneven.  When it was good, it was really good.  When it was weak, it was really weak.  For the most part, though, it was enjoyable and most of the stories were memorably macabre.

Next week, we’ll see if that trend continue as we start the second season of Monsters!

Here’s The Teaser For Alien: Romulus

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Here’s the teaser for Alien: Romulus, which is being sold as a return to the Alien franchise’s roots as being a haunted house film in space.

I doubt this film will raise quite as many questions as some of the previous Alien films.  However, director Fede Alvarez previously did good work with Don’t Breathe and his reboot of Evil Dead has its fans as well.

Live Tweet Alert: Join #ScarySocial for The Overnight!

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

As some of our regular readers undoubtedly know, I am involved in a few weekly live tweets on twitter.  I host #FridayNightFlix every Friday, I co-host #ScarySocial on Saturday, and I am one of the five hosts of #MondayActionMovie!  Every week, we get together.  We watch a movie.  We tweet our way through it.

Tonight, at 9 pm et, Tim Buntley will be hosting #ScarySocial!  The movie?  2022’s The Overnight!

If you want to join us this Friday, just hop onto twitter, start the movie at 9 pm et, and use the #ScarySocial hashtag!  I’ll be there tweeting and I imagine some other members of the TSL Crew will be there as well.  It’s a friendly group and welcoming of newcomers so don’t be shy.

The Overnight is available on Prime!

See you there!

Late Night Retro Television Review: Friday the 13th: The Series 1.21 “Double Exposure”

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, a reporter uses a cursed camera to make the news!

Episode 1.21 “Double Exposure”

(Dir by Neill Fearnley, originally aired on May 16th, 1988)

As you may remember, at the end of the previous episode, Ryan reluctantly left the Pentite Community and returned to Toronto so that he could continue to help Micki and Jack track down the cursed antiques.  When he left, he promised Laura that he would always love her.

Well, that didn’t last long.  This episode opens with a Ryan in a photobooth, taking pictures of himself and his new girlfriend, Cathy!  RYAN, YOU CAD!  Now, in Ryan’s defense, Cathy is played by Catherine Disher (who previously played the supercool Sophie in the first season of T and T) and she seems like a much better match for Ryan than the somewhat dour Laura.  Cathy and Ryan actually have fun together!  Of course, this is Friday the 13th and that means that all fun is temporary.

There’s a serial killer stalking Toronto and Ryan just happens to witness him murdering his latest victim in an alley.  To Ryan’s shock, the killer appears to Winston Knight (Gary Frank), a television news anchorman who is currently getting huge rating because of his reporting on the killings.  But how can that be?  When Ryan witnesses the murder, Winston is live on the air, delivering the news.  Winston even gets a phone call from someone claiming to be the murderer.

Winston speculates that the killer might be an obsessed fan who is wearing a Winston Knight mask.  Of course, the truth of the matter is that Winston is using a cursed camera to take a picture of himself.  The picture then turns into a doppelganger of Winston.  The Doppelganger commits a murder, Winston reports on the tragedy, and then, after five hours, Winston sets the negative on fire and the Doppelganger is destroyed.  If Winston doesn’t destroy the negative after five hours, Winston will be the one who is destroyed and the Doppelganger will become human.  It all sounds a bit complicated, to be honest.  You have to wonder how Winston managed to figure all of this out.

Anyway, the important thing is that Winston is eventually exposed as the murderer.  While trying to kill Ryan at the antique store, the Doppelganger is stabbed by Ryan.  It doesn’t hurt the Doppelganger until Winston fails to burn the negative and vanishes from existence.  The Doppelganger becomes human and then promptly drops dead of his wound.  Ryan conquers another cursed antique but, unfortunately, not before the Doppelganger murders Cathy.  The episode ends not on a note of triumph but instead with Ryan looking at a picture of Cathy and tearing up.

Wow, what a dark episode!  Sometimes, it’s easy to forget that, on this show, Ryan is basically a very naive and very earnest teenager.  He falls in love easily, he always believes that things will turn out for the best, and his heart is broken nearly every time he has to retrieve an antique.  Jack is used to the pain and Micki is a bit of a cynic but Ryan is still trying to balance happiness with the psychological damage that comes from seeing the worst things possible on a weekly basis.  John D. LeMay and Catherine Disher were adorable together and it was hard not to get a bit upset when Cathy fell victim to the Doppelganger.  This episode was sad but undeniably effective.

Poor Ryan!

Late Night Retro Television Reviews: Monsters 1.23 “Mannikins of Horror”

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 Wednesdays, I will be reviewing Monsters, which aired in syndication from 1988 to 1991. The entire series is streaming on Tubi.

Uh-oh!  Here come the Mannikins of Horror!

Episode 1.23 “Mannikins of Horror”

(Dir by Ernest Farino, originally aired on May 20th, 1989)

In a dystopian future, a once renowned surgeon named Dr. Collin (William Prince) is a “patient” in a mental health facility that is more of a prison than a hospital.  Dr. Collin is obsessed with dying but he believes that he has found a way to transfer his soul into the very detailed, anatomically-correct clay figurines that he has made in his cell.

Dr. Jarris (Glynis Barber) thinks that Dr. Collin can be cured but the new head of the asylum, Dr. Starr (Brian Brophy), disagrees.  Starr believes that Collin is beyond saving and of no use to society.  And, in the future, those who do not have a use are euthanized.  Dr. Starr does not care that Dr. Collin once saved thousands of lives during the world’s most recent war.  He doesn’t care that Dr. Collin truly believes that he can make the world a better place through his research.  Dr. Starr has not time for imagination or speculation.  He is all about following procedure and observing protocol.  The arrogant Dr. Starr even takes away Dr. Collin’s figurines.

That’s a mistake because guess what?  Those figurines are alive!  And when Dr. Starr drinks a bit too much Vodka and passes out in his office, one of the figurines picks up a scalpel and stabs Dr. Starr in the eye, killing him.  When Dr. Jarris discover what has happened, she smashes the figurine’s head against Dr. Starr’s desk.  Dr. Collin screams in his cell as his face collapse in on itself, leaving behind a bloody mess.  Dr. Jarris huddles in a corner and starts to scream as the end credits roll.

YIKES!

Seriously, this was a really good episode.  The clay figurines were certainly creepy and the scene where they attacked Dr. Starr was so graphic that I’m a bit surprised the show was able to get away with it.  That said, what truly made this episode frightening was its portrayal of a society without compassion.  Dr. Starr, who is more of a bureaucrat than a doctor, has the power to decide who is useful to society and who is not.  And, if you’re deemed to not be useful, you’re marked for death.  It’s a harsh worldview and an example of cold pragmatism taken to its logical extreme.  It’s also feels like a pretty accurate representation of the attitude that many government and medical officials took during the COVID pandemic.  Just as many seemed to be gleeful about the idea of the pandemic wiping out those who they considered to be undesirable, Dr. Starr can barely suppress his joy in punishing Dr. Collin for not being properly compliant.  The little clay figures were scary but Dr. Starr was horrifying.

Monsters has been a fairly uneven show so far but Mannikins of Horror is a triumph.

Live Tweet Alert: Watch The Children With #ScarySocial!

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

 

As some of our regular readers undoubtedly know, I am involved in a few weekly live tweets on twitter.  I host #FridayNightFlix every Friday, I co-host #ScarySocial on Saturday, and I am one of the five hosts of #MondayActionMovie!  Every week, we get together.  We watch a movie.  We tweet our way through it.

Tonight, for #ScarySocial, I will be hosting 1980’s The Children!

If you want to join us on Saturday night, just hop onto twitter, start the film at 9 pm et, and use the #ScarySocial hashtag!  The film is available on Prime!  I’ll be there co-hosting and I imagine some other members of the TSL Crew will be there as well.  It’s a friendly group and welcoming of newcomers so don’t be shy.