Kathleen marie Archer – 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 Mondays, I will be reviewing Crime Story, which ran on NBC from 1986 to 1988. The entire show can be found on Tubi!

This week, a member of the Taskforce has an issue.

Episode 2.3 “Always A Blonde”

(Dir by Robert Dalva, originally aired on October 20th, 1987)

Since they apparently have nothing better to do, Torello and the members of the Task Force are trying to bust the Vegas marijuana syndicate. This episode opened with Torello and the boys at a jazz club and, at first, I was worried that Abrams would show up with his saxophone and start playing like he used to do during the first season. (Those scenes were always a bit cringey.)

Instead, the attempted jazz-club sting falls apart because the youngest member of the Task Force, Joey (Billy Campbell), leaves his post when he spots his high-school girlfriend, Doreen (Britta Phillips), walking along the Vegas Strip. It turns out that Doreen is now a prostitute who is working for a notoriously sadistic pimp named Ray Keech (Tony Maggio).

Last week, the Task Force put their actual job on hold so that they could help out Torello’s ex-wife. This week, they do it to help out Joey. When Ray discovers that Doreen is planning on leaving him, he murders her. This leads to a chase through Vegas and a well-shot scene where Joey beats up Ray with the city’s neon glowing behind them.

One thing that I’ve noticed about Crime Story is that, other than Torello and Abrams, the other members of the Task Force often come across as ciphers. We really don’t know much about them, beyond the fact that Joey is young, Danny is Torello’s best friend, Walter is old, and Nate once had a gambling problem. We don’t know much about their families, other than the fact that all of them were able to move from Chicago to Las Vegas without it being too much of an issue. We do know that they’re all loyal to Torello, sometimes to an almost cult-like degree. With this episode, we learn a little about Joey, but it’s still not really enough to make this rather predictable story compelling. If anything, this episode made Joey look totally unprofessional and erratic. Should he even be on the Task Force if he can’t even take part in a simple stakeout?

The absence of Luca and Pauli continues to be felt. Is it really Crime Story if half of the story is missing?

The 1974 film, Satan’s Children, tells the story of unfortunate Bobby Douglas (Stephen White).

Bobby is a teenager who lives in a hideous suburban house with his stepfather (Eldon Mecham) and his stepsister (Joyce Molloy), who looks old enough to be Bobby’s mother. Bobby’s a rebellious kid who doesn’t understand why he should always have to cut the grass while his stepsister hangs out by the pool. Bobby is sick of the whole scene, man. When his stepfather yells at Bobby for having a small stash of marijuana in his room, Bobby decides to run away from home. Seriously, that scene was totally melvin so I don’t blame Bobby.

Bobby goes to a bar, where an old man tries to talk to him until Jake (Bob Barcour) tells the old man to get lost. Jake tells Bobby that he has to be careful because there are perverts all over the place. Bobby nods and laughs because Bobby’s not a square. He knows what’s up. Jake invites Bobby to come hang out at his place and Bobby is like, “Cool, way too friendly stranger, I’ll get you in your rape van.” Bobby goes home with Jake and is promptly raped. With Bobby naked and bound, Jake calls all of his friends over and Bobby is then gang raped. The scene where Jake and his friends drive the bound Bobby around is pure nightmare fuel and I can only imagine how audiences in 1974 reacted to it.

The next morning, a group of hippies found Bobby lying in a field and they take him back to their commune. Of course, these folks aren’t just hippies. They’re also Satanists! Sherry (Kathleen Marie Archer) wants to let Bobby stay with them while she nurses him back to health. Joshua (John Edwards), an older member of the group, says that Bobby isn’t welcome because Bobby is probably “queer.” Simon (Robert C. Ray II), the turtleneck-wearing leader of the group, is also hesitant to allow Bobby to stay and again, it’s because Simon assumes Bobby must be gay. Simon also makes it clear that he doesn’t want any lesbians in his Satanic cult either. He just wants people who are prepared to carry out a blood sacrifice….

(I swear, that Satan. Not only is he the ruler of Hell and the tormenter of souls and the fallen angel responsible for getting Adam and Eve kicked out of the Garden and bringing sin into the world, he’s also apparently a massive homophobe!)

While the Satanists torture Sherry for displeasing Simon, Bobby tries to figure out a way to escape. Fair warning: the majority of the film’s finale involves Bobby running around in tighty-whities, which get progressively more and more mud-stained as the movie goes on. Seriously, ew! On the other hand, not one but two people manage to die as a result of accidentally wandering into quicksand. If nothing else, it’s a reminder that Bobby isn’t the only incredibly stupid person in the movie.

This is a weird movie. I imagine it was made to capitalize on the notoriety of the Manson Family but, with its extended opening scenes in the suburbs, it instead becomes an ennui-drenched look at how far people will go to escape conventional society. Despite all the of the truly terrible things that happen to him, Bobby is not a sympathetic or likable character. In fact, he comes across as being just the type of idiot who probably would get sucked into a cult. That said, the film is truly a unique (if rather slow) experience and the brutal ending took me totally by surprise. Like many grindhouse film, Satan’s Children is an oddity that you truly can’t look away from.