by Gil Kane
This cover is from 1973. I think there’s a lesson here about the granting people their final wishes and also avoiding open casket funerals, especially if the deceased has reason to be angry with you.
Today’s music video of the day is for the title track of Duran Duran’s 2023 Halloween-themed album. It’s a good video, one that gives off a definite Tim Burton Before He Want Hollywood sort of feel.
All bands should put out special Halloween albums and videos. It would certainly make my job a lot easier.
Enjoy!
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, there’s something in subways!
Episode 2.19 “Far Below”
(Dir by Debra Hill, originally aired on February 25th, 1990)
Alex Kritz (John Scott Clough) is a city bureaucrat who has been sent to do an audit and discover why one subway maintenance crew is getting paid so much despite the high rate of turnover on the crew. The head of the crew, Dr. Vernon Rathmore (Barry Nelson), not only overpays his workers but he also offers them full insurance and a pension. Kritz not only wants to understand why Dr. Rathmore is spending so much money but also how he has been able to get away with it for so long.
Dr. Rathmore invites Kritz to watch a monitor so he can observe two of his workers gunning down what appears to be a Yeti with glowing white fur. Kritz is outraged, accusing Rathmore of killing a homeless man. Rathmore explains that his section of the subway is full of prehistoric, ape-liked monsters who feast on human flesh. Rathmore has taken it upon himself to keep the population under control.
When Kritz again accuses Rathmore of genocide, Rathmore reveals that he actually has two of the monsters locked away in the office. And one of them is his wife! It turns out that she has quite the appetite for nosey bureaucrats….
This was a simple but entertaining episode of Monsters, one that was well-acted by Nelson and Clough and which made great use of two sets, Rathmore’s office and the atmospheric and dark subway tunnels where Rathmore’s men work. The escalating tension between Rathmore and Kritz was well-handled, with Rathmore growing more and more annoyed with Kritz’s questions. Based on all of the urban legends that have sprung up over the years about monsters living in the subways and the sewers (check out Raw Meat for another example), this was an effective episode that managed to tell a complete and interesting story in only 20 minutes. Monsters was a frequently uneven show, as is true of most anthology series. Fortunately, for every couple of bad episodes that the viewer got, the viewer would also occasionally get a masterpiece like Far Below.
Far Below was directed by Debra Hill, who is probably best-known for co-producing several of John Carpenter’s early films, including the original Halloween. This episode was Hill’s directorial debut and it was one of only two things she directed. (The other was an episode of a 90s sitcom called Dream On.) She did an excellent job with this episode and it’s a shame that she didn’t direct more.
Finally, this was the final performance of actor Barry Nelson. Nelson was the first actor to ever play James Bond, playing an Americanized version of the character in a 1950s television adaptation of Casino Royale. (Nelson technically played “Jimmy Bond.”) Modern horror fans know Nelson best for his wonderful performance as the blandly professional Mr. Ullman in The Shining. The scene where Nelson (as Ullman) cheerfully talks about what happened to the last caretaker and his family is one of my favorite bits of acting of all time. Nelson retired after this episode of Monsters and it’s nice to able to say that he went out on a high note.
On tonight’s episode of One Step Beyond, a down-on-his-luck writer checks into an Alaskan motel with his wife. After glancing through a cheap guidebook, the writer is inspired to write a story. After the story is published, the writer is shocked to discover that the story he thought of as being fiction might actually be true!
This episode originally aired on January 17th, 1961. Alaska had been a state for a little over a year when this episode was broadcast. It was still a land of mystery.
(For many of us, it still is!)
The fraternity is throwing their “Winter Luau,” the biggest and wildest party of the year. It’s a night of drugs, drink, sex, and pranks. It’s just too bad that the members of fraternity ripped open a hole to another world in their basement and now an evil spirit is offing every last one of them.
Shot on a camcorder to give it that Blair Witch feel, Haunting on Fraternity Row‘s budget is low and the members of the cast are convincingly obnoxious. One member of the fraternity puts on a bunny suit and I could not wait for him to hurry up and meet the evil in the basement. It takes forever to get to the supernatural part of the story. Instead, most of the movie is the fraternity setting up for the party and then throwing the party. I think the people behind the film just wanted to throw a rager and they came up with all of the supernatural stuff as a way to convince people to give them money. Good for them. The party looks fun. Why didn’t my college ever throw any parties like that?
Don’t watch if you’re expecting sympathetic or even likable characters. Don’t watch if you want a plot that makes sense. Don’t watch if you’re expecting to see anything like the picture to the left. Do watch if you just can’t get enough beer pong.
Continuing today’s Atlantis theme, here’s a song about the lost continent from Donovan.
It’s kind of a silly song. I mean, just listen to Donovan’s opening monologue. But that chorus is next to impossible to get out of your head and, even more importantly, the song is iconic due to its use in Martin Scorsese’s Goodfellas. Try to listen to this without thinking about Billy Batts and that night at the club.
Known as both Atlantis Interceptors and Raiders of Atlantis, Ruggere Deodato’s 1983 film imagines what would happen if the lost continent of Atlantis rose from the ocean in the vicinity of Florida.
In today’s scene that I love, the Atlanteans make their first appearance and they turn out to be a bunch of refugees from Mad Max. Seriously, why would an underwater civilization need that many motorcycles? And who knew that punk rock was so big in Atlantis?
That said, the guy with skull mask is definitely menacing.
For today’s horror on the lens, we have 1973’s The Night Strangler.
This is the sequel to The Night Stalker and it features journalist Carl Kolchak (Darren McGavin) in Seattle. (After all the stuff that happened during the previous movie, Kolchak was kicked out of Las Vegas.) When Kolchak investigates yet another series of murders, he discovers that paranormal murders don’t just occur in Las Vegas and aren’t just committed by vampires.
I actually prefer this movie to The Night Stalker. The Night Strangler features a truly creepy villain, as well as a trip down to an “underground city.” It’s full of ominous atmosphere and, as always, Darren McGavin is a lot of fun to watch in the role in Kolchak.
Enjoy!
One of the great oddities of the horror genre and the world of grindhouse films is that 1980’s Cannibal Holocaust has got one of the most beautiful soundtracks ever recorded. Composed by Riz Ortolani, here is the amazing Main Theme From Cannibal Holocaust.
by Sam Cherry
He’s getting the point.
Through the Shattered Lens 