Tag Archives: Horror

Late Night Retro Television Review: Friday the 13th 3.19 “The Tree of Life”

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 Johnny vs the Druids.

Episode 3.19 “The Tree of Life”

(Dir by William Fruet, originally aired on May 7th, 1990)

Johnny randomly runs into a distraught woman who claims that, years ago, her daughter was abducted and her husband murdered by obstetrician  Dr. Sybil Oakwood (Gale Garnett).  When Jack and Micki doubt the woman’s story, Johnny investigates on his own and discovers that Dr. Oakwood is kidnapping newborn girls and raising them in her fertility clinic.  It turns out that Dr. Oakwood is a druid and she’s trying to breed future Druidic priestesses.

(Don’t yell at me, this is the show’s interpretation of druidism.)

This was the next-to-the-last episode of Friday the 13th and it just feels like the writers were tired and uninspired.  Suddenly, for the first time in three years, Jack and Micki are skeptical about reports of the paranormal.  Johnny is back to being impulsive and, if we’re to be honest, kind of stupid.  He tells the distraught mother that her daughter is being held prisoner at the fertility clinic and then is shocked when the mother runs off to the clinic without waiting for Johnny to accompany her.  Once again, it all leads to a cult and an underground cavern.  This entire episode feels like it was recycled from previous episodes.

I’m not an expert on paganism so I’m not going to get into whether or not this episode accurately portrayed druidic beliefs.  I will say that the druids in this episode acted like every other cult that’s ever appeared on this show.  They’re just like the Satanic cult that showed up at the end of season 2.  Making them druids is probably one of those things that sounded good when the episode was pitched.  The word “druid” brings to mind Stonehenge and all the rest of that good stuff.  But, narratively, there was nothing gained nor lost by making them druids.  The show treated them like any other self-destructive cult.

This episode was a bit dull.  It felt like the show was taking one last shot at getting audiences to replace Johnny as Ryan’s replacement.  The whole thing just felt uninspired.  It certainly left your brave reviewer bereft of inspiration.

Next week, we come to the conclusion of Friday the 13th: The Series.

 

Brad’s “Scene of the Day” – Train of the Living Dead from TRAIN TO BUSAN (2016)

Posted on by Bradley Crain

Korean Actor Gong Yoo was born on July 10th, 1979, in Busan, Korea. He stars in one of my favorite South Korean films, TRAIN TO BUSAN, which also happens to be one of my favorite zombie films. I highly recommend it, and for those interested, it’s currently streaming on Netflix. In honor of Gong Yoo’s birthday, enjoy this graphic and intense scene from TRAIN TO BUSAN.

Late Night Retro Television Review: Monsters 3.24 “The Moving Finger”

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, Monsters comes to its conclusion.

Episode 3.24 “The Moving Finger”

(Dir by Kenny Myers, originally aired on April 26th, 1991)

Monsters comes to a close with an adaptation of a Stephen King short story.

Nerdy Howard (Tom Noonan) is shocked to discover that, every time he goes to any of the various drains in his house, a bony finger pokes out.  Howard’s wife can’t see the finger but Howard becomes obsessed with it, attacking it with a corrosive liquid and eventually a hedge trimmer.  No matter how much damage Howard does to it, the finger comes back, longer and stronger….

Despite the Stephen King pedigree and the presence of the usually reliable Tom Noonan, The Moving Finger makes for a disappointing conclusion to Monsters.  King’s style, and this is especially true of his short stories, often doesn’t translate well into visual adaptations.  The signature inner monologues and the building sense of dread can be difficult to recreate visually.  (One reason why The Shining is the best King adaptation is because Stanley Kubrick made the material his own and didn’t worry about trying to recreate all of King’s trademark  bullshit literary flourishes.)  Tom Noonan doesn’t have much of a character to play and the finger itself becomes less effective as the episode drags on.

Oh well!  Monsters was a generally uneven show so it’s perhaps appropriate that it ended on an unsteady note.  It’s the curse of the anthology format.  When Monsters was good, it was really, really good.  When it was bad, it was kind of boring.  There were a lot of good episodes that aired during the final season but, sadly, there were a few bad ones as well.  That said, the good Monsters episodes to outweigh the bad and forgettable ones.

That’s it for Monsters!  Next week, something new will premiere in this time slot.  What will it be?  I have no idea but I look forward to finding my next show!

Live Tweet Alert: Watch The Last Man On Earth 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 1964’s The Last Man On Earth!

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 Tubi!  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 Review: Friday the 13th: The Series 3.18 “Spirit of Television”

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, people are dying and somehow television is to blame.

Episode 3.18 “Spirit of Television”

(Dir by Jorge Montesi, originally aired on April 30, 1990)

Ilsa (Marj Dusay) claims to be a medium.  She uses a television set to summon the spirits of the dead for her rich clients and then, later on, the spirits kill her customers and Ilsa, who has a degenerative disease, gets another ten days added to her life.  If she doesn’t continually kill, her skin starts to look like rubber and her fingernails fall off.  Agck!

This was largely a Jack episode.  Jack is the one who, with his years of experience as a magician, assumes that Ilsa is a fake.  He’s also the one who recruits an old friend named Robert Jandini (Paul Bettis) to go undercover and check Ilsa out.  And when Robert is inevitably killed as a result, Jack is the one who has to live with the guilt.  One thing that I’ve always appreciated about Friday the 13th is that it doesn’t shy away from showing what a lifetime of battling the supernatural would do to someone’s psyche.  At the end of this episode, Jack is about as depressed as I’ve ever seen him.  The great Chris Wiggins was always Friday the 13th’s not-so secret weapon and he gives another stand-out performance here.

In fact, this episode is so focused on Jack, Jandini, and Ilsa that Micki and Johnny largely feel like bystanders.  There’s nothing wrong with that, to be honest.  Micki and Johnny just don’t have the same sort of enjoyable chemistry that Micki and Ryan had.  Still, watching Johnny in the background, it’s hard not to consider that the third season’s writers never really figured out who the character was meant to be or what they really wanted to do with him.  I have sympathy for Steve Monarque because he doesn’t come across as being a bad actor.  Instead, he comes across as being an actor who was saddled with an extremely inconsistent character.

As for this episode, it was nice to finally get an episode that was just about a cursed antique and that didn’t feel the need to try to reinvent the show’s format.  That said, the television seems likes a really bulky object to curse.  How did Ilsa even figure the curse out?  What if the television had been purchased by someone who wasn’t terminally ill?  Can Ilsa watch regular programming on the television or is it always a portal to Hell?  These questions go unanswered.

Still, it’s an atmospheric episode and Chris Wiggins gives a strong performance.  For a season 3 episode, this wasn’t bad.  It’s also the the third-to-late episode of Friday the 13th.  Only two more left to go.

I’m going to miss this show.

Late Night Retro Television Review: Monsters 3.23 “The Maker”

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 have the second-to-last episode of Monsters!

Episode 3.23 “The Maker”

(Dir by William Wesley, originally aired on April 18th, 1991)

Mack (Philip Anglim), a suit-wearing vagrant, wanders into what he thinks is an abandoned hotel.  Mack just wants a place to spend the night and he’s shocked to discover that the hotel is also occupied by Freddy Fredericks (Eddie Bracken), a former stage magician who is now an alcoholic.  When Mack asks how an abandoned building has electricity, Freddy explains that he can create things with his mind.  Mack is skeptical so Freddy creates an apple and a banana.  Mack asks for money and Freddy creates that.  It’s quite a power except there always seems to be some small mistake.  For instance, the money has Mack’s picture on it.  When Freddy tries to create gold, he creates brass instead.  Mack decides that the alcohol is holding Freddy back and he demands that Freddy quit cold turkey.

Bad idea.

When someone can create things just by thinking about them, the last thing you want is for that persons to get the DTs.

This, the second-to-last installment of Monsters, was definitely an effective episode.  It wasn’t perfect.  It got off to a slow start and Eddie Bracken occasionally went a bit overboard as Freddy.  But the idea of Freddy’s alcoholism inhibiting his powers was a good one and the episode took it in a pretty clever direction.  The monster — half snake/half-woman — that was created by Freddy’s DTs was genuinely frightening and the episode’s final twist not only made sense but it also worked.  All in all, it was a very good episode.

Next week, we’ll finish up Monsters with a Stephen King adaptation starring Tom Noonan.

Scenes I Love: House of The Devil

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Yesterday, #ScarySocial watched House of the Devil, one of my favorite horror flicks.  Here’s my favorite scene from that film!

I love this scene because I usually do the exact same thing whenever I have the house to myself.

Live Tweet Alert: Join #ScarySocial for House of the Devil!

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, Deanna Dawn will be hosting #ScarySocial!  The movie?  House of the Devil!  

If you want to join us this Friday, just hop onto twitter, start the movie at 9 pm et, and use the #ScarySocial hashtag!  It’s a friendly group and welcoming of newcomers so don’t be shy.

The film is available on Prime!

Late Night Retro Television Review: Friday the 13th: The Series 3.17 “Jack-In-The-Box”

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’s episode is a sad one.

Episode 3.17 “Jack-In-The-Box”

(Dir by David Winning, originally aired on April 23rd, 1990)

After her lifeguard father drowns, a young girl named Megan (Marsha Moreau) uses a cursed jack-in-the-box to get revenge of those who she blames for his death.  Seeing the jack in the box when it opens leads to people drowning.  A janitor drowns in a pool.  One guy drowns in a car wash.  The deaths are grisly but it brings back the spirit of Megan’s death father.  Or, at least, that’s what Megan thinks.  Personally, I think the spirt was a demon in disguise because some of the things he suggested were really out there.

This was a really sad episode.  In an amazing coincidence, Micki knew the lifeguard’s family and she spent most of this episode on the verge of tears.  Meanwhile, Megan’s mother dealt with her sadness by becoming an alcoholic and Megan killed  a number of people just so she could spend some time with her “father.”  This episode was well-acted and well-written and really not the right sort of thing for me to watch at a time when the one-year anniversary of my Dad’s passing is quickly approaching.  This was an episode that not only left Micki in tears but it left me in tears as well.

Okay, enough sadness!  This was a good episode.  The third season has been uneven and I still miss Ryan’s character but this episode showed that Friday the 13th was still capable of being effective even as the show came to a close.

Late Night Retro Television Review: Monsters 3.22 “Hostile Takeover”

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, Monsters takes a look at what is required to get ahead in the cut-throat world of corporate finance.

Episode 3.22 “Hostile Takeover”

(Dir by Randall Moldave, originally aired on February 24th, 1991)

Ruthless but not particularly intelligent corporate executive Laurence Bauer (Dennis Christopher) thinks that he has figured out the perfect way to take over the business from CEO Tom Hart (William Lanteau).  He teams up with a voodoo priestess named Matilde (Pam Grier) and, with her help, he manages to force Hart out.  However, Matilde explains that all of this comes with a price.  The Voodoo Gods want a piece of Bauer’s body.  Bauer responds by killing Matilde.

In his office, getting faxes from the Voodoo Gods and dealing with taunting messages on his computer screen, Bauer decides to sacrifice the janitor, Ed (Tracey Walter).  However, Ed turns out to be not just any old janitor.  He’s a demon who reacts to Bauer’s condescension by plucking out his right eye.

“You’re my boy now!” Ed shouts.

Agck!  Scary!

This was a good episode.  Christopher, Walter, and Grier all gave memorable performances and the demon effects were genuinely disturbing.  The final season of Monsters wasn’t perfect.  I’ve reviewed more than a few bad episodes from season 3.  That said, it was still a marked improvement over the first two seasons, as demonstrated by episodes like this one.  The whole point of the show was to show off the Monsters and this episode featured a truly effective one.

Two more episodes to go and then a new show will be premiering in this time slot!