Late Night Retro Television Review: Monsters 1.9 “Pool Sharks”

Posted on November 29, 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 Wednesdays, I will be reviewing Monsters, which aired in syndication from 1988 to 1991. The entire show is streaming on Tubi.

This week, the stakes are huge when two people play a game of pool.

Episode 1.9 “Pool Sharks”

(Dir by Alan Kingsberg, originally aired on December 17th, 1988)

Gabe (Tom Mason) steps into a run-down bar, carrying a pool cue with him. There’s only three other people in the bar, a bartender (Page Johnson), a nervous man named Lester (Irving Metzman), and a beautiful woman in a black dress who is named Natasha (Rebecca Downs). Natasha is easily beating Lester in a game of pool. Gabe says that he wants the next game.

Both Gabe and Natasha are pool hustlers and neither one makes much of an effort to hide it. Natasha makes a bet. If Gabe wins their game, Natasha will give him money. If Natasha wins, Gabe will …. well, Natasha doesn’t really make it clear what Natasha will win, beyond indicating that Gabe will enjoy it. As Natasha later explains, the bet is less important than getting Gabe to accept it. As Natasha puts it, accepting the bet is the same as inviting her in.

As the game progresses, it becomes clear that Gabe did not just randomly walk into the bar. He specifically tracked down Natasha and he’s not surprised when Natasha mentions that she has to be in bed before the sun rises. Nor is he particularly surprised to discover that Lester is actually Natasha’s servant. As they play, Natasha uses her eyes and a flash of her thigh to try to hypnotize Gabe. Gabe, meanwhile, makes sure that she sees the cross that is hanging around his neck.

Now, as you probably already guessed (and I guess this is a SPOILER if you’re planning on watching this episode on Tubi), Natasha is no ordinary pool hustler. She’s a vampire, one who feasts upon the men who lose to her in a game of pool. One of Natasha’s more recent victims was Gabe’s brother. Gabe came to the pool hall looking for revenge but the only way that he’ll be able to get it is if he beats Natasha at pool. That might not be easy, as Natasha has magic powers. But Gabe has a cross so this pool game becomes a battle between the profane and the sacred.

I really enjoyed this episode. Even though it was fairly obvious from the start that Natasha was a vampire (she was even called “Countess” by Lester at one point), the episode was full of sultry and ominous atmosphere. Tom Mason and Rebecca Downs were both perfectly cast as the rival players and there was a definite undercurrent of sexual tension to their conversations, one that brought a whole new layer to the show’s revenge plot. Past episodes of Monsters have struggled when it comes to finding an appropriate way to end each week’s story. This episode, I’m happy to say, had a perfect and very satisfying ending. This was a good and enjoyable episode, one that felt almost as if it could have been a mini-episode of True Blood.

Next week’s episode features a bed that eats people! Woo hoo!

Live Tweet Alert: Watch High Tension with #ScarySocial

Posted on November 25, 2023 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 2003’s High Tension!

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 Reviews: Friday the 13th: The Series 1.8 “Shadow Boxer”

Posted on November 24, 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 1987 to 1990. The show can be found on YouTube!

This week’s episode is a creepy one! Read on!

Episode 1.8 “Shadow Boxer”

(Dir by Timothy Bond, originally aired on November 21st, 1987)

Tommy Dunn (David Ferry) is a punch drunk boxer who barely makes a living working at a local gym. No one takes him seriously. The other boxers taunt him. The owner of the gym treats him like a slave and continually tells him that he’ll never be a champion. However, Tommy has a secret weapon. He’s found an old pair of boxer gloves. The gloves used to belong to a savage boxer known as the Killer. When Tommy puts the gloves on and touches his shadow, his shadow comes to life. While Tommy is throwing punches either in the gym or in the ring, his shadow is beating someone else to death. As long as his shadow is beating someone up, Tommy is unstoppable.

After Tommy’s shadow murders the owner of the gym, Micki, Ryan, and Jack show up to investigate. (The gloves were, of course, bought from Curious Goods.) Micki brings her camera and takes pictures of all of the boxers so that Ryan and Jack can later look to see if any of them are wearing the “Killer” gloves. It doesn’t take them long to discover that Tommy is currently in possession of the gloves. When Micki flirts with Tommy at a diner, Ryan and Jack break into his apartment and search for the gloves. This leads to three things happening. First off, Micki has a really awkward date with a murderer. Secondly, Ryan and Jack fail to find the gloves before Tommy returns. Third, Tommy now knows that Ryan, Jack, and Micki are onto him.

During his next fight, Tommy sends his shadow after Jack but fortunately, Micki is waiting with a flashlight. Shining light on the shadow causes it to disappear and it also causes Tommy to get beaten unconscious in the boxing ring. With Tommy temporarily out of commission, Ryan steals the gloves. Tommy can no longer use the gloves to kill but, as Micki bitterly points out, Tommy will also never be prosecuted for all the people that he killed.

Of course, Tommy then shows up at Curious Goods and tries to force Micki to tell him where the gloves are. Ryan puts on the gloves and proceeds to beat up Jack, which leads to Ryan’s shadow beating Tommy to death. Jack isn’t particularly happy about getting beaten up but it does save Micki’s life.

This was a well-done episode. There weren’t many twists to the story but the sight of Tommy’s shadow following people around was undeniably creepy. The shadow was probably the scariest of all of the threats that have appeared on the show so far. Even when the shadow was saving Micki’s life by beating Tommy to death, it was still scary to watch. When Ryan hit Jack, it was left ambiguous as to whether or not he was trying to save Micki’s life or if the evil of the cursed gloves had briefly possessed him.

The only unfortunate thing about this episode is that it led to me going down the Wikipedia rabbit hole of researching boxers who have died in the ring. Boxing is a brutal sport, whether you’re fighting with cursed gloves or not!

Late Night Retro Television Reviews: Monsters 1.8 “Sleeping Dragons”

Posted on November 22, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, the lizard are leaping!

Episode 1.8 “Sleeping Dragon”

(Dir by Mark Rezyka, originally aired on December 10th, 1988)

Outside of Reno, Nevada, a stone capsule is found. Professor Merrick (Kin Shriner) believes that the capsule is from the prehistoric era and that it might prove his theory that there was a highly-developed society on Earth before the rise of human beings. Merrick brings the capsule to a lab that is located high in the mountains.

While a snow storm rages outside, Merrick and his colleagues, Jeffrey (Russell Johnson) and Jeffrey’s daughter Lisa (Beth Toussaint), examine the capsule. Jeffrey is skeptical of Merrick’s theories while Lisa thinks that the rock could actually be some sort of time capsule that was buried centuries ago. When the three of them leave the lab to get a Geiger counter and some more tools to try to pry the capsule open, a humanoid lizard (Wayne Toth) emerges from the stone.

The Lizard is not a friendly visitor and soon, he’s attacking anyone foolish enough to get close to him. The surviving humans know that he have to find a way to stop the lizard but how do you stop something that you can’t understand? With the blizzard raging outside, no one is leaving the lab until the battle between lizard and human is resolved.

This episode of Monsters had potential but it suffered because of its short runtime. If the episode had a bit more time to emphasis the claustrophobia of the lab and to also allow a bit more suspense as the Lizard tracked down the scientists, it would have been far more effective. As it is, the whole thing felt a bit rushed.

There are two things that I did like about this episode.

First off, it’s a huge plot point that the lab’s phone is dead, which means that the scientists can’t call for help. The scientists assume that the phone is dead either because of the blizzard or because of the Lizard but, in reality, the phone isn’t dead at all. It’s just that Lisa, while stumbling around the office, accidentally unplugged the phone and no one noticed until they actually tried to make a call. That felt like a realistic mistake that one might make while under pressure and it also encouraged the viewer to question whether or not the humans were actually smart enough to survive their lizard encounter.

The second thing that worked about this episode is that lizard man really was frightening. It helped that he stayed in the shadows for most of the episode and, when he did appeared, he moved quickly enough that you really didn’t notice that he was essentially a guy in a rubber suit. He was an effective monster and, in the end, that’s what really matters when it comes to a show like this.

Next week, we’ve got another vampire story!

Live Tweet Alert: Watch Track of the Moon Beast With #ScarySocial!

Posted on November 18, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Tonight, for #ScarySocial, I will be hosting 1976’s Track of the Moon Beast!

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 and YouTube!. 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.

Late Night Retro Television Reviews: Friday the 13th: The Series 1.7 “Doctor Jack”

Posted on November 17, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week’s episode of Friday the 13th: The Series is actually really good!

Episode 1.7 “Doctor Jack”

(Dir by Richard Friedman, originally aired on November 9th, 1987)

Dr. Vincent Howlett (Cliff Gorman) has a reputation for being a miracle worker. He’s the surgeon who is called in to do the difficult operations that no other surgeon would have the courage to try. Somehow, despite all of the complex surgeries that he has been involved in, he has never lost a patient. The local Toronto hospital is very happy to have Dr. Howlett on staff.

However, Dr. Howlett’s success rate is not just a case of medical skill. He owns a special, lucky scalpel. He purchased it from a knife dealer who earlier purchased it from — you guessed it! — the cursed antique shop. The scalpel is from the Victorian era and it once belonged to none other than Jack the Ripper! The scalpel can make any surgery a success but it demands blood as payment. So, before every surgery, Dr. Howlett has to go out and find someone to murder.

Searching the scalpel as a part of their mission to track down all of the cursed antiques, it doesn’t take long for Ryan, Micki, and Jack to track the scalpel down to Dr. Howlett. However, when Ryan tries to steal the scalpel, a chase through the hospital ensues. When Jack distracts Howlett long enough for Ryan and Micki get away, Jack ends up getting thrown down an elevator shaft.

Jack survives his fall but he’s suffered some terrible internal injuries. In fact, he’s going to need surgery! Fortunately, the best surgeon in Canada is on staff at the hospital. As much as Ryan and Micki want to steal that scalpel, they know that Howlett is going to need it if he’s going to save Jack’s life.

Meanwhile, Jean Flappen (Eva Mai Hoover) is stalking the hallways of the hospital, carrying a gun and hoping to get revenge on Dr. Howlett for the murder of her daughter….

Yikes! Hospital’s are creepy in general but they’re even more creepy when the head surgeon is carrying around a scalpel that once belonged to Jack the Ripper. (Of course, in reality, it’s doubtful that Jack the Ripper was actually a doctor. In all probability, he was a butcher in all definitions of the word.) This episode makes great use of the hospital setting, creating an atmosphere of perpetual unease. It was a genuinely scary location and, for once, the fact that Friday the 13th didn’t have a huge budget worked to show’s advantage. The shots of the empty and shadowy hospital hallways, without even an extra or two populating them, were truly ominous.

Cliff Gorman also gave a wonderful performance as Dr. Howlett, playing him as the type of arrogant jerk who knows that he can get away with being unlikable because he’s the best at his profession. The scene where Howlett can’t find his scalpel and has a sudden meltdown really drives home the idea that the owners of the cursed antiques have become addicted to using them. As soon as Howlett can’t hold his scalpel in his hands, his smooth façade crumbles and he starts going through what can only be called withdrawal.

With its creepy atmosphere and Gorman’s sinister performance, Dr. Jack is the best episode of Friday the 13th that I’ve reviewed so far.

Last Night Retro Television Review: Monsters 1.7 “The Legacy”

Posted on November 15, 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 Wednesdays, I will be reviewing Monsters, which aired in syndication from 1988 to 1991. The entire show is streaming on Tubi.

Tonight’s episode of Monsters is …. surprisingly good!

Episode 1.7 “The Legacy”

(Directed by Jeffrey Wolf, originally aired on December 3rd, 1988)

Dale (David Brisbin) is a film teacher and a writer who is hoping to make his name and reputation by writing the authoritative biography of actor Fulton Pierce. Pierce was silent film horror actor who, much like Lon Chaney Sr, was noted for his ability to physically transform himself into the monsters that he was playing. Dale not only wants to write about the events of Pierce’s life but he also wants to explain how Pierce was able to play so many different monsters.

In order to get into Pierce’s mind, Dale moves into Pierce’s former home. When Dale comes across Pierce’s old makeup box, he is convinced that he’s finally found the secret of Pierce’s success. When he opens the makeup box and looks at the mirror within, he seems not his face but instead the face of some of Pierce’s most fearsome characters, including a disfigured monster and a cackling mad scientist.

For the record, the mirror apparitions are inspired by The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, Thomas Edison’s Frankenstein, Phantom of the Opera, and maybe London after Midnight.

Dale’s girlfriend, a model named Debbie (Lara Harris), fears that Dale is wasting his time on a book that no one is going to care about. When she drops by the house and discovers that Dale hasn’t even been able to come up with an opening line for his masterpiece, she gives him an ultimatum. He can either spend the rest of his life trying to write his book or he can marry her but she’s not going to wait forever. She tells him to “Make up your mind!” Dale latches onto the phrase “Make up your mind!,” shouting that he now knows how Fulton Pierce pulled off his amazing transformations.

I was pretty much wearing the same outfit when I watched this episode.

At first Debbie thinks that she has made a real break-through with Dale but later, that night, she wakes up to find Dale standing in front of a mirror and staggering around like one of Fulton Pierce’s monsters. She also discovers that the first chapter of the book is just the phrase Make Up Your Mind written over and over again. Has Dale’s obsession led him to madness or has he truly been possessed by the spirit of Fulton Pierce?

Someone’s losing it.

This episode of Monsters was based on a short story by Robert Bloch and certainly, the plot is more intriguing than any of the stories that preceded it. How exactly does an actor become a character and, more importantly, can you play a monster without becoming one yourself? Can one enter the mind of a madman without becoming mad themselves? (One wonders if Bloch, who was reportedly very much a no-nonsense personality, was satirizing the excesses of method acting.) Though the episode is only 21 minutes long, the story doesn’t feel rushed and the deliberate pace helps to create a properly ominous atmosphere. Add in two strong performances from David Brisbin and Lara Harris and you have the best episode of Monsters so far.

Film Review: Unseen (dir by Yoko Okumura)

Posted on November 13, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Up in Michigan, Emily (Midori Francis) is a doctor who has been kidnapped by her psychotic ex-boyfriend, Charlie (Michael Patrick Lane). Charlie takes her to a cabin in the woods, where he ties her up and brags about the revenge that he’s going to take on her. Emily manages to break free and temporarily incapacitate Charlie but, in the process, she breaks her glasses. Nearly blind, Emily stumbles out into the wilderness. Despite not knowing where she is and not being able to see more than a few inches in front of her, Emily has to find her way back to civilization before Charlie finds her.

Down in Florida, Sam (Jolene Purdy) arrives for another day of work at a gas station where she spends most of her time dealing with a broken Slurpee machine. From the start, it’s not a good day, with a rich woman named Carol (Missi Pyle) demanding a refund just because she accidentally put the cheapest brand of fuel into her BMW. Sam finds herself looking down at the card that she has from the suicide prevention hotline and we immediately know that Sam is not happy with her life. Then, suddenly, her phone rings.

Emily and Sam don’t know each other but when Emily tries to use her phone to call for help, Sam is the one who ends up getting the call. Once Sam realizes that Emily is being stalked by her murderous ex, Sam agrees to become Emily’s eyes through video call. Sam guides Emily through the woods, keeping her informed of whether or not Charlie is nearby. Along the way, they talk about their different lives and how they came to be in their current situations. Sam gives Emily the strength to keep fighting for her survival while Emily gives Sam a reason to keep on living. And while Emily is having to constantly deal with Charlie and his attempts to re-capture her, Sam has to deal with things like exploding slushee machines, a dying phone battery, and eventually Carol and an apparently insane (and heavily armed) man who appears to be her husband.

Unseen is a bit of a disjointed film. The scenes in Michigan are very serious and very intense, with Emily suffering serious injury as she flees from Charlie. At one point, Emily begs Sam to call her mom so that Emily can say goodbye to her and it’s a genuinely emotional scene. At the same time, the scenes in Florida are often broadly comedic, with Sam sliding across the floor and, at one point, locking herself behind bullet-proof glass while Carol and her husband, who is dressed like a yacht captain, scream at her to come out. The tonal shifts between the two locations can be a bit jarring but the film is still effective, largely due to the sincerity of the performances of Midori Francis and Jolene Purdy. Their friendship feels real and it’s hard not to get a little misty-eyed at the film’s final moments.

Unseen deserves a lot of credit for only being 76 minutes long. It tells its story quickly and without any unnecessary padding. This is a film that does not waste any time getting to the point and, in this time when even the simplest of genre films will often run for more than two hours, it’s hard not appreciate the nicely paced efficiency of Unseen.

Live Tweet Alert: Join #ScarySocial for Unseen!

Posted on November 11, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Tonight, at 9 pm et, Tim Buntley will be hosting #ScarySocial! The movie? 2023’s Unseen!

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.

Unseen is available on Prime!

See you there!

Late Night Retro Television Reviews: Friday the 13th 1.6 “The Great Montarro”

Posted on November 10, 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 1987 to 1990. The show can be found on YouTube!

This week’s episode of Friday the 13th is all about magic, blood, and costumes!

Episode 1.6 “The Great Montarro”

(Dir by Richard Friedman, originally aired on November 2nd, 1987)

This week’s episode opens with a magician named Fahteem (August Schellenberg) performing his signature trick. He steps into the Cabinet of Doom and, once he’s sealed inside, several sword blades are driven through the cabinet. Somehow, Fahteem always survives without a scratch and the audience is always amazed. What the audience doesn’t know is that the Cabinet is a cursed antique. Before each performance, Fahteem drugs a woman and locks her in another cabinet. The blades kills whoever is in that cabinet while leaving Fahteem untouched. Of course, if no one is in the other cabinet than the blades will kill whoever is in the Cabinet of Doom. That is something that Fahteem discovers when an unknown perpetrator decides to take the cabinet away from him.

After Fahteem is murdered, Jack, a former musician who was an unfriendly acquaintance of Fahteem, discovers that the Cabinet of Doom was actually purchased from the antique store. Jack decides to return to the world of magic and magicians so that he can track down the cabinet. Helping him, and getting to wear a cute assistant’s uniform, is Micki. Ryan also helps but he doesn’t get anything cute to wear.

It turns out that the cabinet is now in the possession of the Great Montarro (Graeme Campbell) and his wife, Lylah (Lesleh Donaldson). Realizing that Jack is trying to take away the cabinet, Montarro and Lylah are soon targeting him and trying to make his signature trick into a fatal one. Seeing as how that trick involves Jack being tied up in a sack that is then set on fire, that might be an easier task than it sounds.

This is the bloodiest episode of the show yet, with the camera focusing on the gory results of every failed trick. Blood drips from cabinets. Blood spreads across stages. Watching the show, you really do find yourself watching why there’s so many spikes and blades just lying around. Apparently, audiences for magic shows are not satisfied unless there’s a chance that they might see someone die in a terrible fashion. In the role of Jack, Chris Wiggins appears to be having a ball performing magic tricks and, as a result, both Micki and Ryan spend most of the show standing off to the side. Fortunately, Wiggins is a lot of fun to watch in this episode. The joy that he takes from pulling off the perfect trick is contagious. The overall episode is a bit too slowly paced but at least almost everyone gets to wear a nice costume.

Next week, Jack, Ryan, and Micki try to recover a cursed scalpel!