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.
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.
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.
It’s amazing the things that you see while you’re out running. Seriously, I start nearly every morning with a run and …. well, I’ve never seen any of the stuff that’s seen in this video but then again, I’m also not running in Portland.
Welcome to Late Night Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Tuesdays, I will be reviewing Baywatch Nights, a detective show that ran in Syndication from 1995 to 1997. The entire show is currently streaming on YouTube!
This week, Mitch and Ryan go to the future!
Episode 2.15 “The Mobius”
(Dir by David Livingston, originally aired on March 2nd, 1997)
Mitch and Ryan’s plans to attend the opening of a hot new club on the beach are interrupted by the arrival of Ashley (Laura Interval), who is an old college friend of Ryan’s. Ashley explains that her husband and colleague, John (Neil Roberts), has managed to open a portal to an unknown world and now he spends all of his time obsessing on it.
(Well, who wouldn’t?)
Accompanied by Teague, Mitch and Ryan go with Ashley to the laboratory. John is busy tossing a football into the portal. Something or someone on the other side throws the football back. Teague and Ryan are really impressed with the portal. Ashley and Mitch both think that the portal is something that shouldn’t be messed with. When Ashley accidentally stumbles into the portal and vanishes, Mitch and Ryan follow.
They find themselves in what appears to be the ruins of Los Angeles. Ryan speculates that they’re in a parallel universe while Mitch thinks that they might be in the future. (Technically, they’re both right. It is the future but it’s the future of a parallel universe.) Mitch finds a newspaper announcing that the world had caught on fire due to pollution burning a hole in the Earth’s atmosphere. In an amazing coincidence, they also stumble across one of Ryan’s professors. Professor Arnold (Kay E. Kuter) is old and dying but he still has his notes that detail what should have been done to prevent the end of the world.
Mitch, Ryan, and Ashley want to get those notes back to the present but it won’t be easy. Not only do they have to find the portal before it closes but they also have to avoid a bunch of mutated humans who now spend their time dressed like monks and chasing people around the ruins. Even when Ryan, Ashley, and Mitch do find the portal back, the professor’s notes burn up as they pass through.
“I guess we’ll have to figure it out for ourselves,” Mitch says, looking at the charred binder.
Yes, this episode has a message! Don’t pollute or Los Angeles will end up looking like a messy studio backlot and all your friends will join the Holy Order of Cannibal Mutations. One has to wonder whether or not this episode influenced Cormac McCarthy when he wrote The Road. Hmmm …. probably not.
Heavy-handed messaging aside, it’s not a bad episode. If there’s any actor who born to run through a messy backlot while fighting mutant monks, it’s David Hasselhoff. Especially when compared to the previous two episodes, The Mobius is fast-paced and it actually has a plot that the viewer can follow. It’s silly but it’s fun, in the way that a show like Baywatch Nights should be.
As the episode ends, the Hoff suggests that maybe, if the future’s bad, we should be sure to enjoy the present. That sounds like good advice to me! That’s the wisdom of the Hoff.
In this episode from 1961, Charles Bronson stars as Yank Dawson, an aging boxer who finds himself in haunted auditorium in England during World War II. Bronson was 39 years old when he starred as Yank Dawson and he gives a good performance. The role makes good use of both Bronson’s imposing physicality and also the smoldering anger that would eventually make Bronson a star in both Europe and, later, the United States.
The episode below first aired on January 10th, 1961.
Through the Shattered Lens 