Tag Archives: Horror

Late Night Retro Television Review: Monsters 3.14 “Household Gods”

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 meet a chauvinistic demon.

Episode 3.14 “Household Gods”

(Dir by Michael Warren Powell, originally aired on December 30th, 1990)

Deborah (Deborah Van Valkenburgh) is a married woman who is trying to balance her career with taking care of her baby.  No matter how hard Deborah tries to keep it together, it seems like there’s just one household crisis after another and her husband (Jeffrey Ware) doesn’t appear to have any sympathy for her predicament.  Deborah hires a nanny (Priscilla Shanks) who tells Deborah that her attitude has upset the Household God, a little misogynistic monster who punishes women who want a life outside of the home.  Deborah is skeptical but, this being an episode of Monsters, it turns out the nanny was right.  There is a messy and self-centered deity living in her house and he’s going out of his way to make her life difficult.  He’s played, under a good deal of makeup, by Michael Anderson, the actor who played “The Man From Another World” on Twin Peaks.

This episode had potential.   The idea that there’s a little sexist demon that is responsible for making it so difficult to balance family and career was an intriguing one and also one that was ripe for satire.  Tonally, though, this episode never quite came together.  This was one of those episodes that couldn’t seem to decide if it wanted to be a comedy or a horrific drama and as a result, it just kind of fell flat.  Deborah Van Valkenburgh gave about as good a performance as one could, considering that the show itself often didn’t seem to know how it felt about her character and her predicament.  But, for the most part, this episode was a good idea that was poorly executed.

It happens.

Live Tweet Alert: Watch The Stepfather 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 1987’s The Stepfather!

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!

 

Late Night Retro Television Review: Monsters 3.13 “Malcolm”

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 an episode directed by Tom Noonan and starring Ed Lauter!  Come discover what’s eating Malcolm….

Episode 3.13 “Malcolm”

(Dir by Tom Noonan, originally aired on December 23rd, 1990)

When he was younger, Malcolm (Ed Lauter) was a romantic who played the clarinet.  Now, he’s just a boring old businessman.  When his wife (Carole Shelley) asks him to play the clarinet again, he collapses in pain.  Their doctor (Farley Granger) discovers that Malcolm has what appears to be a tumor in his stomach.  Of course, the glowing tumor is actually alive.  It’s a weird, giant worm that gives Malcolm his musical talent.  The worm is removed but now, Malcolm has lost his talent.  One night, the worm shows up again….

This was an odd and moody episode, which I guess is not surprising as it was directed by Tom Noonan, a director and actor who specializes in the odd and moody.  Moving at its own deliberate pace, the episode benefitted from a good performance from Ed Lauter, a good deal of atmosphere, and some Cronenbergian body horror.  The worm was obviously a stand-in for the self-destructive nature of many artists.  The worm gives Malcolm his talent but it also has the potential to eat him from the inside.  When the worm returns, Malcolm makes his decision and the whole thing plays out like a moody nightmare.

In other words, this was a good episode, one that was willing to be both surreal and a bit grotesque.  Tom Noonan and Ed Lauter made for an excellent combination.

Live Tweet Alert: Join #ScarySocial for Strange Invaders!

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?  Strange Invaders!

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.

Strange Invaders is available on Prime!

See you there!

Film Review: The Black-Eyed Children (dir by Jozsef Gallai)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

I’ve never been much for camping.

I’ve probably mentioned this before.  I’ve certainly reviewed enough films about deadly campgrounds and fatal walks through the woods that there’s no way that I haven’t talk about camping in the past.  It’s just not for me.  Even though I grew up largely in the country and I tend to think of myself today as being a country girl in the city, I have to admit that staying out in the wilderness has never appealed to me.  I don’t like bugs.  I don’t like the threat of wild animals suddenly appearing out of nowhere.  I’ve seen enough horror movies to know that I should run if I ever see a guy walking through the woods while wearing a hockey mask.  (Not that it would do any good, of course.  I’m such a klutz that there’s no way I wouldn’t trip over a stick or something.)  The fact of the matter is that I find the wilderness to be very creepy.  The dark shadows, the feeling of being surrounded by trees that tower of above me, the isolation of it all …. nope, not for me!

The Black-Eyed Children, an upcoming horror from from director Jozsef Gallai, does a very good job of capturing just how creepy being alone in the wilderness can be.  Kata Kuna stars as Claire, a young psychology major who is totally excited to have gotten a job as a counselor at St. Beatrice, a camp for children with special needs.  Claire wants to make the world a better place and this seems like a wonderful opportunity to do so.  (Honestly, I hate camping but if you told me that doing so would make life better for a child who hasn’t been given much in the world, I would be the first to head down to the sporting goods store and buy a tent.)  However, when Claire enters the woods and finds herself at St. Beatrice, it’s not at all what she was expecting to find.

The camp appears to be totally deserted.  The children who were supposed to be there are gone.  The other counselors who were presumably employed there have disappeared.  Claire walks through the camp, checking cabins and searching for an explanation.  Finding the files on the kids who were supposed to be at camp, Claire starts dialing phone numbers and what she discovers shocks her.  And no, I’m not going to tell you what she discovers.  The Black-Eyed Children is scheduled for a late 2025 release so you can watch it then and find out the secret of St. Beatrice.

The Black-Eyed Children is a found footage film.  Luckily, Jozsef Gallai is one of the best when it comes to working with the found footage genre and the film is full of creepy and atmospheric imagery.  St. Beatrice and the woods surrounding it all give off a vibe of steady menace, leaving the viewer frightened about what might jump out of the shadows.  Kata Kuna does a great job as Claire and what she discovers at St. Beatrice will leave you feeling uneasy, especially if you know about the urban legend that gives this film its name.  Clocking in at 70 minutes, The Black-Eyed Children is an effective and creepy horror film.  It’ll definitely keep you out of the woods.

Live Tweet Alert: Watch ZOMBI 3 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 1988’s Zombi 3!

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!

 

Late Night Retro Television Review: Friday the 13th: The Series 3.7 “Hate On Your Dial”

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, Johnny screws up, making the type of mistake that Ryan never would have!

Episode 3.7 “Hate On Your Dial”

(Dir by Allan Eastman, originally aired on November 6th, 1989)

This week’s cursed antique is an old car radio from 1954.  Smear it with the blood of someone who has just died and the car will transport you back to …. 1954.  That seems like an oddly specific curse and a kind of pointless one.  What if the car radio ends up in the possession of someone who doesn’t care about 1954?

(And, to make clear, Jack does specifically state that the curse involves going back to 1954.)

The car radio does end up in the possession of Ray Pierce (Michael Rhoades), a racist auto mechanic who uses the car to go back to 1954 so that he can hang out with his father in Mississippi.  His father (Martin Doyle) is a member of the Klan, along with his friend, Joe (played, in an early performance, by Henry Czerny).  The 1954 scenes are filmed in black-and-white.  When the show travels back 1954, the first thing we see is an “I Like Ike” billboard, featuring Dwight Eisenhower and a Confederate flag.  Obviously, someone in the show’s Canadian writer’s room didn’t know who supported segregation in 50s and who didn’t.  There was a political party wrapping itself in the Confederate flag in 1950s Mississippi but it wasn’t the Republicans and their candidate wasn’t Dwight Eisenhower.

This episode features Johnny making another one of his trademark mistakes, this time selling the cursed radio to Ray’s “slow” brother, Archie (played by Cronenberg regular Robert A. Silverman).  Only after Johnny sells it does he realize it was probably cursed.  Micki yells at him for not checking the manifest before selling it.  Then Jack yells at him too.  Jack remains angry with him for nearly the entire episode.  It’s understandable that Jack would be upset but then again, maybe they shouldn’t have left inexperienced Johnny alone in the shop in the first place.  Maybe they shouldn’t even be selling antiques at all.  That would definitely solve the problem.

Anyway, this episode featured some of the worst Southern accents that I’ve ever heard and it also featured a cursed objects that didn’t make much sense.  Johnny learned an important lesson about being careful about selling things and I guess that’s a good thing.  That said, Ryan never would have made that mistake!

Insomnia File #68: Mind, Body & Soul (dir by Rick Sloane)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

What’s an Insomnia File? You know how some times you just can’t get any sleep and, at about three in the morning, you’ll find yourself watching whatever you can find on cable or streaming? This feature is all about those insomnia-inspired discoveries!

If you’re having trouble sleeping tonight, you can go over to Tubi and watch 1992’s Mind, Body & Soul.

Brenda (Ginger Lynn) has a new boyfriend!  After years of getting stuck with duds, Brenda is happy to finally be dating Carl (Jesse Kaye), who is handsome and successful and has a thing about wanting her to drip hot candle wax on his body.  Everything’s going fine until Carl asks her to come hang out with some friends of his.  It turns out that they’re all Satanists and they’re planning on sacrificing a woman.  Fortunately, the police arrive before the sacrifice can be carried out.  Unfortunately, all the Satanists run off and leave innocent Brenda takes the blame.

After she’s arrested and spends several days in jail, Brenda is finally bailed out by defense attorney John Stockton (Wings Hauser).  Because Carl apparently blew up her apartment (and, the police say, himself with it), Brenda doesn’t have anywhere to stay.  She accepts John’s offer to stay at his place.  John promises to be a perfect gentleman.  He’s a former probation officer and he just wants to help.

And Brenda definitely needs some help!  She suspects that Carl isn’t really dead.  She keeps having bizarre visions of the robed and masked leader of the cult.  She suspects that the cult might still be after her and, when she agrees to appear on a local talk show to tell her story, she finds herself stunned to be sitting across from an actual witch.  Her former cellmate, Rachel (Tamara Clatterbuck), has just been released from prison and is willing to help Brenda out.  Again, Brenda needs the help.  The cult is after her and it’s going to take a lot of intelligence to survive and that’s probably going to be Brenda’s downfall because it’s hard to think of a dumber character than Brenda.

(Seriously, if my boyfriend took me to a Satanic cult meeting on a date, I would be out of there before they even got around to the human sacrifice part of the night.)

This film is so incredibly dumb that I don’t even know where to begin.  Occasionally, I’ll see an incoherent horror film and I’ll give it a good review because the incoherence can sometimes add to the terror.  Two of my favorite directors, Lucio Fulci and Jean Rollin, both deliberately made horror films that didn’t make sense because they were tying to capture the feeling of being in a nightmare.  Mind, Body & Soul makes sense as long as you accept that Brenda, Rachel, and almost every other character in this film is mind-numbingly dumb.  The plot works as long as you accept that there is not a shred of intelligence to be found amongst any of the characters, including the bad guys.  This is a dumb film that is never scary.  It does feature a fair amount of nudity, which I imagine was probably meant to be the film’s main selling point.

On the plus side, Wings Hauser is always entertaining.  You’ll be able to guess the big plot twist that involves his character but no matter.  With his quick smirk, he at least seems to be enjoying himself.  As was so often the case, Hauser’s performance is the only one in this film that feels like an actual performance.  Wings Hauser was an actor who always gave it his all, even while appearing in something like this.

Previous Insomnia Files:

  1. Story of Mankind
  2. Stag
  3. Love Is A Gun
  4. Nina Takes A Lover
  5. Black Ice
  6. Frogs For Snakes
  7. Fair Game
  8. From The Hip
  9. Born Killers
  10. Eye For An Eye
  11. Summer Catch
  12. Beyond the Law
  13. Spring Broke
  14. Promise
  15. George Wallace
  16. Kill The Messenger
  17. The Suburbans
  18. Only The Strong
  19. Great Expectations
  20. Casual Sex?
  21. Truth
  22. Insomina
  23. Death Do Us Part
  24. A Star is Born
  25. The Winning Season
  26. Rabbit Run
  27. Remember My Name
  28. The Arrangement
  29. Day of the Animals
  30. Still of The Night
  31. Arsenal
  32. Smooth Talk
  33. The Comedian
  34. The Minus Man
  35. Donnie Brasco
  36. Punchline
  37. Evita
  38. Six: The Mark Unleashed
  39. Disclosure
  40. The Spanish Prisoner
  41. Elektra
  42. Revenge
  43. Legend
  44. Cat Run
  45. The Pyramid
  46. Enter the Ninja
  47. Downhill
  48. Malice
  49. Mystery Date
  50. Zola
  51. Ira & Abby
  52. The Next Karate Kid
  53. A Nightmare on Drug Street
  54. Jud
  55. FTA
  56. Exterminators of the Year 3000
  57. Boris Karloff: The Man Behind The Monster
  58. The Haunting of Helen Walker
  59. True Spirit
  60. Project Kill
  61. Replica
  62. Rollergator
  63. Hillbillys In A Haunted House
  64. Once Upon A Midnight Scary
  65. Girl Lost
  66. Ghosts Can’t Do It
  67. Heist

Late Night Retro Television Review: Monsters 3.12 “A New Woman”

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.

Let’s celebrate Christmas early with Monsters!

Episode 3.12 “A New Woman”

(Dir by Brian Thomas Jones, originally aired on December 16th, 1990)

It’s the day before Christmas and businessman Tom (Thomas McDermott) is dying.  His wife, Jessica (Linda Thorson), want him to sign over the deed for several building that he owns so that she can kick out everyone who isn’t paying their rent.  His son (Dan Butler) thinks that is an inhumane thing to do on Christmas.  Tom’s doctor (Mason Adams) informs Jessica that she will be visited by three spirits that will help her change her ways….

And indeed, she is!  But these aren’t the ghosts that Charles Dickens made famous.  Instead, they’re horrifying zombies that are being led by Tom’s vengeful spirit.  That’s enough to scare Jessica into changing her ways.  She doesn’t want to become a zombie!  Who would?  It’s a Merry Christmas for all!

Monsters’s take on A Christmas Carol actually isn’t bad.  It takes a while to get going but the zombies are effectively frightening and Jessica’s terrifying night is full of ominous atmosphere and effective scares.  I guess my main problem with this episode was that the pacing was odd.  It seemed to take forever to get around to that doctor telling Jessica she would receive visitors from the other side.  And when the visitors did arrive, it was effective but it still felt a bit rushed.

Still, it was nice to see Monsters not only do a Christmas episode but also, in a rarity for this show, one that had a happy ending.

Live Tweet Alert: Join #ScarySocial for Food of the Gods!

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?  Food the Gods, from director Bert I. Gordon!

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.

Food of the Gods is available on Prime!

See you there!