Jeanetta Arnette | Through the Shattered Lens

Welcome to 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 St. Elsewhere, a medical show which ran on NBC from 1982 to 1988. The show can be found on Hulu and, for purchase, on Prime!

This week. Dr. Craig finally gets to perform his first heart transplant.

Episode 2.4 “Qui Transtulit Sustinet”

(Dir by Victor Lobl, originally aired on November 16th, 1983)

It’s a busy day at St. Eligius.

While Morrison struggles to come to terms with the death of his wife, her heart is transplanted into Eve Leighton. Morrison tells Westphall that he wants to keep working at the hospital and that he doesn’t need any time off. Westphall tells Morrison that he’s too distraught to be trusted with patients and that he has to take some time off. Westphall actually has a point, even if he does come across as being a bit cold when talking to Morrison. Even Peter White, that drug-addicted sleazebag, tells Morrison that he’s needs to take some time. Seriously, I think this is the first time that Dr. White’s been correct about anything since this show began.

Dr. Craig finally gets to perform a heart transplant but afterwards, in a wonderfully-acted scene, he tells Westphall that he feels a bit let down. After all the anticipation and the preparation, Craig isn’t sure what to do now that he’s actually performed the surgery. For once, he doesn’t want to talk to the press, regardless of how much the city of Boston expects him to. It’s a nicely human moment, one that we don’t often get from Dr. Craig.

Nurse Rosenthal attempted to console another breast cancer patient and met with Mark Harmon’s Dr. Caldwell to discuss getting breast reconstruction surgery. Nurse Rosenthal’s breast cancer storyline has consistently been well-acted and well-written and it has also been consistently difficult for me, as someone who lost her mother to cancer, to watch and write about. That was certainly the case for me with this episode.

Meanwhile, Fiscus and Luther pool their money to make an investment in silver but, at the last minute, Fiscus pulls out of their investment. His nerves get the better of him. Luther makes a lot of money. Fiscus doesn’t. Hey, guys — Morrison’s wife is dead. Show some respect and save the comedy for another episode.

This was an intense episode but it ended on a beautiful note, with Dr. Morrison listening to the sound of his wife’s heart beating in someone else’s body. A beautiful note but also a very sad one. I’m worried about Jack Morrison. I’m worried about the recipient of the heart. I’m worried about Helen Rosenthal. I’m worried about the entire hospital!

Here’s hoping for happier days ahead.

A truly odd film that was first released in 1978, The Redeemer opens with a young boy named Christopher (Christopher Flint) emerging from a country lake, fully clothes and also completely dry. Christopher walks to a road, where he’s picked up by a church bus. He’s dropped off at the church, where he sings in the choir and then listens as a preacher (T.G. Finkbinder) delivers a fire-and-brimstone message about the nature of sin and how six 1967 graduates of a nearby abandoned high school have all grown up to live a life of nonstop sin.

Those six graduates all receive invitations to a reunion at the old high school but, when they arrive, they discover that, with the exception of a janitor, they’re the only ones there. The janitor allows them to enter the high school and to celebrate their mini-reunion. Of course, it’s not long before one of the graduates stumbles upon the rotting, maggot-covered corpse of the real janitor.

The Redeemer of the title has invited the six graduates back to the school specifically so he can kill them as a way to punish them for representing what he considers to be the sins of the world. John Sinclair (Damien Knight) is a criminal defense attorney who will defend anyone as long as the price is right. Terry (Nick Carter) is a lazy mooch who still doesn’t have a real job. Roger (Michael Hollingsworth) is an impossibly vain actor. Jane (Nikki Barthen) is a superficial, upper class housewife. Cindy (Jeanetta Arnette) is still too busy partying to grow up. And finally, Kirsten (Gyr Patterson) coldly refuses her girlfriend’s request to attend the reunion with her because she doesn’t want her former classmates to know that she’s a lesbian. The six of them find themselves being pursued by a killer who can apparently change his appearance at will, going from being the janitor to a seemingly friendly hunter to even a clown. This is definitely not a film to watch if you have a thing about clowns.

As I said at the start of this review, The Redeemer is a bit of an odd film. On the one hand, it’s a slasher film, complete with the usual collection of victims, a masked killer, and an isolated location. On the other hand, because it was released the same year as Halloween and before the success of films like Friday the 13th defined the rules of the genre, The Redeemer is a bit different than some of the other slashers of the era.

For one thing, the killer is considerably less quippy than some of the slasher killer who would follow. There are no snappy one-liners in The Redeemer. Instead, the killer spends most of his time ranting about “avarice, lust, decadence” and everything else that he considers to be a sin. Compared to the slasher film that followed, The Redeemer is a grim film, one that offers little in the way of deliberate humor and next-to-no-hope for the prospect of a final girl who will somehow get the upper hand on the killer. If other slasher films were defined by the stupidity of their victims, the unfortunate people in The Redeemer die not because they were stupid but because this is a film that offers up absolutely no chance of survival. It’s a dark and ominous film, with the a supernatural element giving the film a surreal edge. It’s a film that requires a bit of patience on the part of the viewer, especially since the opening few minutes are so disjointed that it’s next to impossible to know what’s really going on. But the kills are memorable and the acting is adequate, particularly when compared to some of the other low-budget, indie horror films of the era. The Redeemer is a memorable villain. Horror fans will find much to enjoy here, even if they’ll also probably find plenty of things that will leave them scratching their head.

As was often the case with films like this, The Redeemer was released under several different titles. It’s also known as Son of Satan, which I guess is a reference to the mysterious Christopher emerging from that lake. Finally, The Redeemer has been released on video under the title Class Reunion Massacre. Personally, I prefer The Redeemer as the film’s title. As a title, it’s enigmatic …. just like the film itself.