jaime gomez | Through the Shattered Lens

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 Freddy’s Nightmares, a horror anthology show which ran in syndication from 1988 to 1990. The entire series can be found on Plex!

This week, who the Hell knows?

Episode 1.10 “The Bride Wore Red”

(Dir by George Kaczender, originally aired on December 18th, 1988)

This was a dumbass episode.

The first half of the episode dealt with Gavin (Eddie Driscoll) and his anxiety about his upcoming wedding to Jessica (Diane Franklin). His friends take him out to a bar (called the Ball and Chain) where a stripper (Michele Pawk) ties him up and then taunts him about how bad marriage is going to be. At the wedding, Gavin keeps seeing a mysterious woman (Katherine Moffat) who is dressed in red. Then, we flash forward and see how miserable Gavin and Jessica are as a married couple. Jessica no longer wear dresses and instead spends all day in sweatpants. Gavin only kiss her when he wants sex. He spends all of his time at the office. Suddenly, we’re back at the church and Gavin says, “I do,” and kisses Jessica while the woman in red watches from her pew.

Obviously, the flashforwards were all a part of Gavin’s fantasy while standing at the altar. But if the flashforwards were the fantasy, what are we to make of the equally cartoonish scenes at the bar? Was all of that supposed to be real? Even more importantly, who cares one way or the other? There really wasn’t much of a story here.

The second half of the episode opened with Jessica and Gavin returning from their honeymoon. Jessica is upset when she learns her father wants them to come over for dinner. Jessica then goes out on her own, picks up a married man, ties him to a hotel room bed, and takes his picture. She has an entire album full of pictures so apparently, she’s been doing this for a long time.

A dream sequence reveals that, when Jessica was a child, she caught her father cheating on her mother and he told her that if she ever told anyone, it would lead to divorce and Jessica would be carved up like a Thanksgiving turkey.

Back in the “real” world, Jessica and Gavin arrive for dinner but Jessica freaks out when she sees that her father (Arthur Roberts) is holding a carving knife. Jessica reveals that her father cheated on her mother (Margaret Shinn) but her mother reveals that she already knows. Jessica runs from the house and is kidnapped by the guy she previously photographed. Soon, she’s the one who is tied to a bed while the guy sharpens a knife….

But then, suddenly, Jessica is tied down to a bed in a mental hospital and her husband is telling a doctor that “this always happens” whenever she has dinner with her parents. Hey, Gavin — maybe y’all should just stop having dinner with her parents. Just a thought.

Despite the presence of the talented Diane Franklin, this episode felt pretty superfluous. Gavin’s story felt pointless. Jessica’s story at least had a point but it still fell flat. I’m not sure why Freddy would waste his time with either one of these nightmares.

After I finished writing my review of Lavalantula, it was time to bitch about my sprained foot to anyone who would listen. After that, it was time to have dinner and then it was time to lay on the couch and try to get some rest and finally, after all that, I got back to the task of cleaning out my DVR. The film that I ended up watching was Ominous, a SyFy film which was originally broadcast on October 10th.

Ominous opens with recovering alcoholic Michael Young (played by Barry Watson) putting his car into reverse and promptly running over his six year-old son, Jacob (Gavin Lewis). Michael and his wife, Rachel (Esme Bianco), rush Jacob to the hospital but it’s too late. Jacob dies. Later, as they’re driving back from the funeral, Rachel demands to know if Michael was drunk when he ran over Jacob. Michael says that he wasn’t drinking and that it was just an accident and then, as if to prove that he really is the worst driver in the world, Michael promptly runs over a dog.

When they arrive home, a man is waiting for them. Known only as The Stranger (and played, in properly sinister style, by Mark Lindsay Chapman), the man says that he can bring Jacob back to life. All Michael and Rachel have to do is dig up their son and bring his body back to the house. And then, to prove his point, the Stranger brings the dog back to life.

So, of course, Michael and Rachel go out to the cemetery and dig up Jacob. They bring him back to the house. The next morning, Jacob is suddenly alive. Yay! Of course, Jacob promptly re-kills the dog, which is our first clue that Jacob is not quite himself.

We then jump forward a few months. The Youngs have moved to a new town and appear to be living as normal a life as you can when your six year-old son is demon-possessed hellspawn. (Actually, he’s the Antichrist and don’t even pretend like that was a spoiler.) Michael fears his son, especially after Jacob has a seizure in church and causes a priest to burst into flames. Rachel continues to make excuses for her son, even when he does stuff like summon a sudden dust storm that manages to kill everyone on a playground.

There’s a scene early on in the film in which Jacob asks his mother if they can get a cat.

“I don’t think so,” Rachel replies, “Daddy’s allergic.”

“What about when Daddy’s dead?” Jacob cheerfully asks.

That scene pretty much tells you everything you need to know about Ominous. This is an unapologetically over-the-top demon child film, one that doesn’t make much sense but which is never boring. It’s easy to recognize which films are being ripped off — The Omen, The Visitor, The Birds — but the film is so shameless in its thievery that it’s easy to be forgiving. Is Ominous a rip-off or an homage? How about both?

Barry Watson actually does a pretty good job as a recovering alcoholic and his performance is reminiscent of some of Patrick Muldoon’s better work. Mark Lindsay Chapman is properly intimidating as the Stranger. Full of gore, melodrama, metaphysical posturing, and children with creepy demon eyes, Ominous is more entertaining than you might expect.