Tonight’s episode of Friday the 13th: The Series finds Micki, Ryan, and Jack investigating a series of slashings that might be connected to a renowned surgeon named Vincent Howlett (played by Cliff Gorman, who also played an actor based on Dustin Hoffman in Bob Fosse’s All That Jazz). Howlett has a 100% success rate and he owes it all to his antique scalpel. Unfortunately, it turns out that there’s a deadly and bloody price for Howlett’s success in the operating room….
This episode was written by Marc Scott Zicree, who also wrote the definitive guide to the original Twilight Zone. The plot — with its theme of a man doing great evil so that he can do great good — certainly feels like it wouldn’t have been out of place as an episode of Rod Serling’s classic anthology series.
This episode originally aired in 1987, on November 9th (hey, that’s my birthday!)
Tonight’s episode of Friday the 13th: The Series is a Halloween episode!
For some reason, Ryan and Micki decide that it would be a good idea to throw a Halloween party in a cursed antique store. Unfortunately, their evil Uncle Lewis is determined to return from Hell and what better time to do that than on the greatest holiday of them all!?
This episode is distinguished by the presence of the great character actor R.G. Armstrong, going totally over-the-top as Lewis and having a lot of fun while doing it! Something to keep an eye on during the Halloween party are the costumes. You’ll see a lot of sheets and leotards. You won’t see many familiar characters, largely because it would have cost money to feature any of them. That’s not a complaint, though. Personally, I like it when people make their own Halloween costumes, as opposed to just copying whatever’s popular.
This episode originally aired on October 26th, 1987.
On tonight’s episode of Friday the 13th: The Series, a cursed cupid statue is causing trouble!
Now, I’ll just be honest here. The idea behind the cupid statue is not a bad one. The statue causes people to fall in love with the owner of the statue, with the unfortunate twist being that the owner is then required to kill them. However, the sight of incel Eddie Munroe (Denis Forest) carrying around that statue is often unintentionally funny.
That said, even if this isn’t necessarily the strongest episode of the series, I wanted to share it because it was directed by future Oscar nominee, Atom Egoyan. Friday the 13th: The Series was filmed in Canada and this was an early credit for Egoyan. Later, Egoyan would go on to direct films like The Sweet Hereafter, Exotica, and Where The Truth Lies, making him one of the most important Canadian filmmakers not named Cronenberg, Villeneuve, or Arcand.
This episode, the third of the series, originally aired on October 17th, 1987.
During the month of October, we like to share classic episodes of horror-themed television. That was easier to do when we first started doing our annual October horrorthon here at the Shattered Lens because every single episode of the original, black-and-white Twilight Zone was available on YouTube. Sadly, that’s no longer the case.
However, there is some good news! Twilight Zone may be gone but there are other horror shows on YouTube! For instance, I’ve discovered that every episode of Friday the 13th: The Series is available. Though I had never seen an episode of this show before coming across it on YouTube, I had read about it in Crystal Lake Memories, an excellent oral history about the Friday the 13th franchise, and it just seems like the right show for October!
Friday the 13th: The Series was a syndicated horror show that ran from 1987 to 1990. It followed the adventures of two cousins who inherited an antique shop. Their uncle, it turned out, was in league with the devil and he used the shop to sell cursed antiques. So, the cousins and a mysterious friend of their late uncle worked together to try to track those antiques down. Personally, I love antique shopping and Erin and I inherited about half of our mother’s doll collection. We’ve got over a 1,000 antique dolls here in the house. Some of them may be cursed, who knows?
This show was filmed in Canada and produced by Frank Mancuso. Mancuso also produced the original Friday the 13th films, starting with the second one. Beyond the title, though, the show didn’t have much to do with the films. John D. LeMay, who played one of the cousins, did go on to star in Jason Goes to Hell but that was actually the first Friday the 13th film (other than the first installment) to not be produced by Mancuso so that may have just been a coincidence.
Here’s the first episode of Friday the 13th: The Series, which aired on October 3rd, 1987. The episode was directed by exploitation vet William Fruet and stars Sarah Polley, in one of her first roles, as a child who uses a doll to kill people. Fortunately, I’ve been around dolls my entire life so I don’t have a fear of them. As for the rest of you …. enjoy Friday the 13th!
Through the Shattered Lens 