Horror Film Review: The Seduction (dir by David Schmoeller)

Posted on October 8, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Get to know your neighbors, people!

That’s really the main message that I took away from the 1982 film, The Seduction. In The Seduction, Morgan Fairchild stars as Jamie Douglas. Jamie is a anchorwoman for a local news channel in Los Angeles. She has an older boyfriend named Brandon (Michael Sarrazin). She has a sex-crazed best friend named Robin (Colleen Camp). She has a beautiful home in the Hollywood Hills. She’s doing wonderfully for someone whose main talent is the ability to read what’s on the teleprompter. Much like Ron Burgundy, she’ll read whatever is put on that teleprompter without even thinking about it. Some might say that indicates that Jamie is a fairly vacuous character and …. well, they’re right. She is.

Jamie starts receiving flowers at work and mysterious phone calls from someone named Derek. Derek (Andrew Stevens) is a fashion photographer. He’s young. He’s handsome. He’s charismatic. His assistant, Julie (Wendy Smith Howard), is absolutely in love with him. In fact, Derek would seem to have it all but he’s obsessed with Jamie. Soon, he’s breaking into Jamie’s house so that he can watch her undress and then confronting her at the mall. At one point, he shows up in her living room and starts taking pictures of her. Jamie screams. Brandon beats him up. After Derek leaves, Jamie and Brandon go to the police and ask if there’s something that they can do about Derek. The police say that there are not many options because Derek has not technically broken the law …. uhm, what? I get that things were different in the 80s but I still find it hard to believe that showing up in someone else’s living ro0om without an invitation and then refusing to leave would have been considered legal back then. As you probably already guessed, Derek’s obsession soon turns lethal.

Perhaps the weirdest thing about The Seduction is that Derek is basically Jamie’s neighbor but she doesn’t ever seem to realize it. Watching this film, there were time when I really had to wonder if maybe Jamie was just an idiot. As well, throughout the film, Jamie reports on an unknown serial killer who is terrorizing Los Angeles. The killer is dubbed the Sweetheart Killer and, when I watched this film, I wondered if the Sweetheart Killer and Derek were one in the same. I don’t think that they were but, still, why introduce an unknown serial killer without providing any sort of resolution? It’s all indicative of just how sloppy the plotting on The Seduction truly was. That’s especially true of the ludicrous ending of the film. A murder is committed in Jamie’s hot tub and when Jamie calls the police to report it, she’s put on hold. Meanwhile, Derek buries the body in Jamie’s backyard and somehow manages to do it without really breaking a sweat or being noticed by anyone. Derek’s big secret turns out to be not that much of a shock.

Morgan Fairchild’s performance isn’t great but that’s largely because she’s stuck with a character who is never allowed to behave in a consistent manner. Andrew Stevens is a bit more convincing as Derek, playing him as a photographer who doesn’t need cocaine because he’s already get his obsessive personality keeping up at nights. Michael Sarrazin, as Brandon, bellows nearly all of his lines and gives a performance that just shouts out, “Why did I agree to do this movie!?” He’s amusing. As for director David Schmoeller, he did much better with both Tourist Trap and Crawlspace.

Seriously, though, a lot of the horror and drama in this film could have been avoided by Jamie just getting to know her neighbors. I’ve been very lucky to have some very good neighbors over the years. When my Dad passed away, my neighbors Hunter and Hannah checked in on my nearly every day afterwards and let me use their hot tub whenever I wanted to. Neighbors, they can be pretty special.

Retro Television Review: Decoy 1.1 “Stranglehold”

Posted on August 28, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Thursdays, I will be reviewing Decoy, which aired in Syndication in 1957 and 1958. The show can be viewed on Tubi!

This week, we start a look at Decoy, a show that will hopefully be a considerable improvement on Malibu CA!

Episode 1.1 “Stranglehold”

(Dir by Don Medford, originally aired on October 17th, 1957)

“There are 249 of us in the Department. We carry two things in common wherever we go – the shield, called a “pottsy”, and a .32 revolver. We’re New York’s finest …. we’re police women.”

Those are the words that end the first episode of Decoy and they’re delivered by Casey Jones (Beverly Garland), a former ballet dancer who now works undercover as a member of the NYPD’s Department of Policewomen. Casey holds up her revolver for the audience to see, leaving them no doubt that she’s telling the truth. A woman who know how to handle a gun!? Audiences in 1957 were no doubt stunned.

Of course, the audience had also just spent 25 minutes watching Casey work undercover. After a merchant seaman is murdered and a woman named Molly Orchid (Joanne Linville) is caught with some of his jewelry, Casey is sent to live across the hall from Molly. (Casey is also living in the dead man’s apartment. Casey, a true New Yorker, comments that she’ll do anything to get a good apartment.) After hiding her gun in a lighting fixture and hiding her badge under her blouse, Casey befriends Molly and tries to meet George, the mysterious boyfriend that Molly says gave her the jewelry.

Molly loves to talk about George but George never seems to be around. Molly says that George is a musician and that he’s often out of town. Casey comes to feel sorry for Molly, feeling that the emotionally vulnerable woman is being manipulated by George. Whereas the male cops would just as soon shoot Molly than try to negotiate with her (this entire show is from the pre-Miranda era), Casey does her best to reason with Molly. That is the difference between a policewoman and a policeman.

Of course, as you probably already guessed, there is no George. Casey eventually figures it out after she realizes that Molly has been going to the movies alone as opposed to meeting up with George. Molly, spotting Casey’s gun, grabs it and finally admits the truth. The merchant seaman tried to assault her and Molly strangled him in self-defense. George is a figment of her imagination, someone who she made up as a way to deal with her guilt. A policeman barges into the apartment and points his gun at Molly but Casey steps in front of him and then manages to talk Molly down.

The first episode of Decoy was distinguished by some on-location shooting in New York City and the performances of Joanne Linville and especially Beverly Garland. Garland’s empathetic but strong-willed performance dominates the show and it leaves us with little doubt that Casey Jones is the best at what she does. Meanwhile, Linville, in the role of Molly, may be dangerous but she’s also sympathetic. Her crime was initially one of self-defense and George was someone she created as her way of surviving in a world where no one was willing to look out for her.

Next week: Casey searches for a missing artist.

SHANE (The TV Series) – Episode 13: A Long Night of Mourning (originally aired December 3rd, 1966)

Posted on March 26, 2025 by Bradley Crain

Episode 13 of SHANE opens with a beautiful woman walking into Grafton’s General Store while Joey (Christopher Shea) is there looking at the candy jars. Since Joey doesn’t have a penny, she offers him one, which he immediately converts to 8 pieces of peppermint. She asks Joey his name, and when he replies “Joey Starett,” she asks back, “Is your grandpa, Tom Starett?” When Joey answers in the affirmative, this classy lady takes on the look of someone who has found what she’s been looking for. She takes a room at Grafton’s and tells Sam that someone will be joining her soon and that she’ll need a second room for when he arrives.

Back at the ranch that evening, Joey is telling Shane (David Carradine) and his grandpa Tom (Tom Tully) about the woman at Grafton’s. Tom immediately gets a troubled look about him when Joey tells him that her name is Lydia Montgomery (Joanne Linville). Coincidentally, Shane knows Lydia Montgomery because he had worked for her husband Dave awhile back in Springfield, IL, which is where Tom had lived before moving out west to Wyoming to be with his son Joe & daughter-in-law Marian (Jill Ireland). Shane asks Tom how he knew Dave Montgomery, and Tom surprisingly reveals, “I had him hanged.” It turns out that Tom had been a judge in his prior life. Convinced of her husband’s innocence and blaming “Judge Tom Starett” for his death, Lydia and her hired gun Lee (Bill Fletcher) have come to Cross Roads to kill him on the 5th anniversary of the hanging. Even Shane may not be enough to stop them.

After mostly playing the kind old grandpa up to this point in the series, Tom Tully takes center stage in episode 13. It’s actually quite surprising because it reveals things about Tom’s past that had not even been hinted at in prior episodes. Not only do we learn that Tom was a judge, but we also learn that he was a terrible drunk who escaped out west to be with his son and daughter-in-law and get away from the guilt associated with decisions he made from the bench. His entire countenance changes from the man we’ve come to know the moment he hears the name Lydia Montgomery, and we watch him go through several stages that are quite predictable for a man living with guilt. First, we see him get extremely defensive and start lashing out at his family as he tries to explain why he sentenced Dave Montgomery to be hanged. This is clearly a man who doesn’t feel good about the decision. Next, we see him go back to the bar to get drunk, something he hasn’t done in many years, in order to numb his pain and help him forget, if even for just a little while. We can see that he almost feels that he deserves whatever he gets from Mrs. Montgomery, and her gunman. And finally, when he’s confronted by Mrs. Montgomery again at the end, he’s arrived at the point where he can plainly state the truth of what happened, admit his own shortcomings in the situation and accept whatever fate comes his way. I won’t reveal the entire circumstances of the case that brought all of this about, but I will say that it definitely points out the shortcomings of the American justice system where justice and the law don’t always coincide. Tully does a good job of presenting a much more complex man underneath the hardworking and kind grandpa character we’ve been presented with thus far. Tom is like the rest of us, we’ve all got our different stories and some of them aren’t so pretty when you scratch beneath the surface.

Guest star Joanne Linville is very good as Lydia Montgomery, the grieving widow who, in the years after her husband’s death sentence, has elevated him from being a mere mortal to a place of sainthood. Through her relationship with the gunman Lee Maddox, a man who clearly loves her, we learn that she has never come to terms with the reality of his life or death, and she certainly has never accepted that he’s really gone. Her obsession with taking revenge on one man, Tom Starett, has basically stopped her life in its tracks and she needs to deal with her emotions even more than Tom does. The rest of the cast doesn’t have that much to do in the episode, although there are a few good moments for them. Shane is mostly there to provide Tom some physical protection, while also questioning his decision on that fateful day from five years earlier. His interactions with gunman Lee Maddox are pretty good as they had worked together in the past and respect each other. They don’t want to have to go against each other, but they will if it comes down to it. Jill Ireland has a good scene as Marian where she confronts Lydia Montgomery about her plans to kill Tom. It’s a tense scene and the ladies go at it back and forth nicely. They don’t resolve anything, but it’s another effective way to beat home the moral dilemma the episode presents.

Prior to watching Episode 13, the last thing I was expecting was an installment of the series devoted entirely to Tom Starett, and I probably wouldn’t have really wanted one. With that said, I enjoyed it for what it was and I’m glad to be able to see Tom as a more complex man. This didn’t really leave any time for longing looks between Shane and Marian, but we did get a brief look of love at the very end, and I’ll take it.

Horror on TV: One Step Beyond 3.6 “Moment of Hate” (dir by John Newland)

Posted on October 21, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

On tonight’s episode of One Step Beyond, fashion designer Karen Wadsworth (Joanne Linville) believes that she has the power to cause people to die just by wishing death upon them. Her psychiatrist tells her that this simply isn’t possible and then dares her to try one little test of her supposed powers.

This episode features a good performance by Joanne Linville and, if nothing else, it perhaps makes the case that we should be a little bit less quick to wish the worst upon other people. Just imagine all of the damage that Karen could have caused if she had ever set up a twitter account.

This episode originally aired on October 25th, 1960.

Late Night Retro Television Reviews: Chips 1.3 “Dog Gone”

Posted on November 27, 2023 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 Mondays, I will be reviewing CHiPs, which ran on NBC from 1977 to 1983. The entire show is currently streaming on Freevee!

This week, Baker gets a dog and Ponch makes an enemy!

Episode 1.3 “Dog Gone”

(Dir by Michael Caffey, originally aired on September 29th, 1977)

When an adorable sheepdog puppy ends up on the Los Angeles highway, Baker and Ponch manage to rescue it, though not before it causes a minor wreck on an overpass. The official CHiP policy is that all stray animals should immediately be turned over to the shelter but Baker takes one look at the puppy and decides that he can’t just leave it with anyone else. In fact, every member of the highway patrol quickly falls in love with the dog.

Everyone except for Sgt. Getraer, who is allergic to dogs and makes it clear that the puppy is not to be kept around the station.

At first, Baker tries to keep the dog in his apartment but it turns out that the dog likes to bark. So, Baker heads out to the trailer park where Ponch lives in an RV and apparently spends all of his time watching football while only wearing his boxer shorts. (One gets the feeling that Erik Estrada had an “at least one shirtless scene per episode” clause in his contract.) Baker leaves the dog in the RV and then runs off before the half-naked Ponch can protest.

Fortunately, for Baker, Ponch decides that he loves the dog, which he named Fido.

Unfortunately, for Ponch, Fido’s owners eventually show up at the station and ask if anyone has seen their dog. The dog — who even I, while admittedly not being a dog person, has to admit is cute — is reunited with his family and I guess Ponch is alone again.

Meanwhile, three really stupid criminals — Boots (Bill Adler), Zero (Jeffrey Druce), and Little John (James Crittenden) — are really angry with Ponch because, at the scene of the earlier accident, Ponch prevented Boots from threatening another motorist. Boots and his friends hops into their dune buggy and decide to stalk Ponch and Baker. Boots even decides to sabotage Ponch’s motorcycle by loosening the front bolt so that the wheel will eventually come off while Ponch is riding it. However, these three criminals are so stupid that they sabotage the wrong motorcycle. As a result, the entire second half of the episode is full of close-ups of Baker’s front tire wobbling as he speeds down the highway.

The subplot with the criminals is really dumb but the way it plays out shows that Larry Wilcox had a point when he complained about the show’s producers always favoring Erik Estrada. Not only is Ponch the one who faces off against Boots at the scene of the accident but he’s also the one who gets to save Baker’s life at the end of the episode. When a guilt-stricken Zero goes to Getraer and tells him about what Boots did to the motorcycle, it doesn’t take long for Getraer to figure out that they accidentally sabotaged Baker’s motorcycle instead of Ponch’s. With Baker unable to hear his radio due to being involved in a high-speed chase, it falls to Ponch to chase after Baker and warn him. The bike still crashes but Baker is not seriously injured and Ponch …. well, Ponch is just a big damn hero!

(Admittedly, there is a scene earlier in the episode where Baker performs mouth-to-mouth recitation on a motorist who has had a heart attack and saves the man’s life. But even then, Ponch is the one pushing on the man’s chest to try to get his heart going again. Baker’s a good cop, the show tells us, but Ponch is a big damn hero.)

This episode …. well, at least the dog was cute! And the California scenery was lovely to look at. Still, a cop show like this needs to have some smart or at least intimidating criminals for the cops to do battle with and Boots was such an idiot that it was hard to take anything he and his gang did seriously. In the end, this was a typical episode of CHiPs, full of stiff acting but impressive motorcycle stunt work. Probably the most interesting thing about this episode was discovering that Baker was the one with a swinging bachelor pad while Ponch was the one living a solitary life in a trailer park. I’m just happy that the dog was reunited with its family.

Horror on TV: One Step Beyond 3.6 “Moment of Hate” (dir by John Newland)

Posted on October 19, 2019 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This episode originally aired on October 25th, 1960.

Lisa Cleans Out Her DVR: Scorpio (dir by Michael Winner)

Posted on June 13, 2017 by Lisa Marie Bowman

(Lisa is currently in the process of cleaning out her DVR! Having recorded over 150 movies since last January, she understands that this might be an impossible task but she’s going to try anyway! She recorded the 1973 spy thriller, Scorpio, off of Retroplex way back on January 24th!)

On the surface, Jean Laurier (Alain Delon) would appear to be the perfect man.

He’s handsome. He looks really good in a suit. He’s wealthy. He’s French. And — get this — he loves cats! He’s the type of guy who, when he discovers a stray cat in his hotel room, immediately starts to pet it and then gives it a saucer of warm milk. He and his girlfriend (Gayle Hunnicutt) spend their spare time looking at cats and talking about how cute they are. At one point, even though he’s just killed a man, Jean pauses when he sees a stray cat watching…

Oh, did I mention that Jean kills people for a living? Well, he does but I’m sure they’re all bad guys. Seriously, he’s just so charming (and he really, really loves cats) that you really can’t hold it against him that he’s an independent contract killer. Add to that, his code name is Scorpio.

I have to admit that the film’s title — Scorpio — is the main reason that I chose to record this movie. I’m a scorpio myself. In fact, I’m such a scorpio that if I believed in astrology, I would point to my existence as proof that the stars actually do determine our fate. Seriously, you don’t want to mess with us scorpios. We’re scorpions. We sting.

But anyway, back to the movie.

When Scorpio is busted on a trumped-up narcotics charge (or maybe it was a legitimate narcotics charge, it was kind of hard to keep track), the CIA gives him a choice. He can either go to prison or he can do a job for them. Apparently, the CIA believes that Scorpio’s friend and mentor, Cross (Burt Lancaster), is a double agent who has been selling information to the Russians. They want Cross eliminated.

Scorpio takes the job but it’s not going to be easy. Cross is a veteran spy. He has connections all across the world and he’s a ruthless killer, the type who forces a man to swallow a cyanide pill and then says, “You’ve got 30 seconds to live.” In fact, the only person that Cross seems to care about is his wife (Joanne Linville) but he still doesn’t hesitate to abandon her when he realizes that their house is being watched

Cross taught Scorpio everything that he knows but there’s one lesson that Scorpio is still learning and that is to trust no one. Is Cross actually a spy or is he being set up? And, if Cross is being set up, what’s to prevent the same thing from happening to Scorpio?

Scorpio is probably one of the most cynical films that I’ve ever seen. If Scorpio was a political protest, it would be full of people carrying cardboard signs reading, “Nothing Matters” and “All Is Darkness.” Remember that annoying as Hell scene in SPECTRE where James Bond got drunk and demanded to know who a rodent was working for? Well, imagine the disillusionment of that scene stretched out for two hours.

Fortunately, no one in Scorpio is as whiny as Daniel Craig was in SPECTRE. In many ways, Scorpio is a triumph of old-fashioned movie star charisma. Burt Lancaster is perfectly cast as the world-weary Cross while Alain Delon makes for a compelling Scorpio. Both of them are believable killers and the film becomes as much about the competition between Lancaster’s old school Hollywood style of acting and Delon’s more refined (and very French) style of cool as it is about the competition between Scorpio and Cross.

Scorpio‘s a good little spy thriller, more than worth keeping an eye out for.

Insomnia File #24: A Star is Born (dir by Frank Pierson)

Posted on April 25, 2017 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? This feature is all about those insomnia-inspired discoveries!

If you found yourself awake and unable to sleep at 2:30 this morning, you could have always turned over to TCM and watched the 1976 film, A Star is Born.

A Star is Born gets off to a good start by having Gary Busey give Kris Kristofferson a hit of cocaine. As I pointed out on twitter, no movie that starts with Gary Busey offering cocaine to Kris Kristofferson can be all bad.

Anyway, Kris is playing John Norman Howard. John Norman Howard is a big 70s rock star, which means that he has a beard and a bad case of ennui. Despite all of the cocaine and whiskey, his career is on a downward spiral. Part of the problem appears to be that he only sings one song and, half the time, he still can’t bring himself to remember all of the lyrics. The song opens with John growling, “Are you a figment of my imagination or am I one of yours?” and John always ends up storming off stage before we can hear the rest of it.

Anyway, John ends up at this club in Hollywood that looks a lot like the place that Ryan Gosling opened up at the end of La La Land. While at the club, John gets into a fight with Robert Englund (who I assume was playing a young Freddy Krueger) and totally interrupts the performance of the Oreos.

Who are the Oreos? They’re a folk-singin’ power trio. There’s One (Venetta Fields) and Two (Clydie King). (According to the credits, that’s actually their names.) And then there’s Esther Hoffman, who has a truly horrid perm and who is played by Barbra Streisand. One and Two are black. Esther, who stands right in the middle whenever they perform, is white. And they’re called The Oreos!

Uhmmm, yeah…

Anyway, we really don’t learn anything about One or Two, beyond the fact that they are totally and completely devoted to Esther. When Esther gets them fired from recording a cat food jingle, they just smile and laugh. Sure, why not!? After all, it’s not like struggling musicians need money or anything. When Esther interrupts a performance to yell at John, One and Two smile and laugh. When Esther, under John’s tutelage, becomes a big star and basically abandons the Oreos, One and Two show up at a recording session and smile and laugh.

Last night was my first time to actually see A Star is Born, though I had heard and read quite a bit about it. Of all the versions of A Star is Born, this one made the most money at the box office but it also got the worst reviews. Reportedly, the film’s production was a trainwreck with Barbra Streisand and then-boyfriend Jon Peters fighting with … well, everyone.

And yet, like so many cinematic trainwrecks, you simply cannot look away from it. This version of A Star is Born gets so many things wrong that it becomes rather fascinating to watch. Perhaps the scene that epitomizes A Star is Born comes when John refuses to perform his one song at a benefit concert and instead, brings out Esther and has her perform her songs. First off, John’s hard rock band suddenly transforms into a Broadway orchestra and John’s audience — who presumably had paid money to hear that growling song about imagination — is overjoyed to instead have to listen to Esther’s style of lite pop/rock. (Actually, to even call it rock is to needlessly stretch the definition of rock to its breaking point.) Making the scene even more bizarre is that 1) John is basically exploiting a benefit concert to launch Esther’s career and 2) since the concert was being performed to support the American Indian Movement, the disembodied head of a Native American woman keeps appearing over Esther’s shoulder while she’s performing songs that have absolutely nothing to do with the cause that the concert is supposedly supporting. It’s kind of the cinematic equivalent of that Kendall Jenner Pepsi commercial.

Anyway, things get even better when John buys an empty field and, in a ten minute montage, John and Esther literally build a house. Seriously, I’m not kidding. At no point do we see anyone other than John and Esther working on that house and yet, within a matter of minutes, they have an adobe mansion to live in. I had no idea it was so easy to build a house. It makes me wonder why people waste money buying houses when they can just buy an empty field and build their own.

(Maybe they’re scared of the poltergeists. Imagine how different this version of A Star Is Born would have been if it ended with Esther grabbing John and screaming, “YOU MOVED THE HEADSTONES BUT YOU LEFT THE BODIES, DIDN’T YOU!? YOU LEFT THE BODIES!”)

Kris Kristofferson is well-cast as John Norman Howard but the film is pretty much centered around Barbra. That, in itself, wouldn’t be a problem if not for the fact that Barbra is completely miscast. She’s a great singer but she’s not a rock singer. You never believe that the same people who want to hear John sing his one song would also want to hear any of Esther’s songs. The fact that the film is basically 140 minutes of everyone insisting that Esther is the future of music only reminds us of the fact that she’s not. Her style is throwback to the past, which is one reason why everyone’s grandmother loves Barbra Streisand.

This wouldn’t be such a big deal if Barbra and Kris actually had any chemistry but they really don’t. There’s a scene where Barbra and Kris take a bath together and Barbra puts makeup on Kris’s face. Between two people who have chemistry, that would be sexy and sweet. Between Kris and Barbra, it’s just kind of icky and you find yourself wondering who took the time to light the hundreds of candles surrounding them. Whenever Barbra and Kris kissed, I worried for her just because all I could think of was the stubble burn that Esther would have to deal with later.

Yet, in the end, the film makes so many mistakes that it becomes one of the most watchable movies ever made. It may not be good but it sure is entertaining.