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: The Love Boat 5.26 “Pal-I-Mony-O-Mine/Does Father Know Best?/An ‘A’ for Gopher”

Posted on April 30, 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 Wednesdays, I will be reviewing the original Love Boat, which aired on ABC from 1977 to 1986! The series can be streamed on Paramount Plus!

This week, Ted Lange presents three stories of cruise ship love.

Episode 5.26 “Pal-I-Mony-O-Mine/Does Father Know Best?/An ‘A’ for Gopher”

(Dir by Ted Lange, originally aired on April 10th, 1982)

Dr. John Hanson (Ben Vereen) boards the ship with his new girlfriend, attorney Jenny Brooks (Denise Nicholas). John is shocked to discover that his former girlfriend, Ellen (Lynne Moody), is also on the cruise. Jenny befriends Ellen and, after listening to all the details of how Jenny supported John while he was going through medical school, she suggests that Ellen should sue John for palimony. Jenny even offers to help Ellen and John figure out how much John owes her. John agrees. As he and Ellen itemize their former relationship, they come to realize that they’re still in love. Sorry, Jenny! Jenny leaves the boat alone. John and Ellen leave the boat engaged. (Jenny does give them a bill for her legal services. John and Ellen have a good laugh.)

WOW! That’s not the type of story that you regularly see on The Love Boat. It’s rare for a passenger to leave as angry as Jenny did. What’s surprising is that neither Ellen nor John seemed to feel that bad about Jenny getting her heart broken. Then again, what was Jenny thinking when she invited Ellen back into their lives to begin with? This is why you’re never friendly with your significant other’s exes. I don’t care how nice they seem or act. They’re all potential enemies! I don’t care how polite they are when they approach you outside the Dallas Museum of Art and start speaking in their fakeass British accent, don’t trust them …. well, anyway, let’s move on.

Gopher is super-excited when his junior high English teacher, Susan Wilkham (Susan Strasberg), boards the ship. Gopher explains that he’s always had a crush on her and, now that Gopher is an adult, Susan appears to also now have a crush on him. (Don’t freak out, she doesn’t even realize he was a former student until he specifically mentions that he was in her class.) Except …. oh no! Captain Stubing has a crush on her as well! Well, don’t worry. Things work out for Gopher. While Vicki does not get a stepmother, Gopher gets a girlfriend who we will probably never hear about again. Fred Grandy and Susan Strasberg made for a surprisingly cute couple. (It helped that they both appeared to be the same age, despite the show’s effort to cast her as being “the older woman.”) Good for Gopher, it’s about time something good happened to him.

Finally, a father (Lloyd Bochner) encourages his nerdy son (Kevin Brophy) to hit on a beautiful but snobbish blonde (Kristina Wayborn). The son prefers the blonde’s shy best friend (Patty Freedman). On every episode of The Love Boat, there’s one story that doesn’t amount too much and that what this story was.

Hey, this episode was directed by Isaac Washington himself, Mr. Ted Lange! Obviously, The Love Boat isn’t really a show that demands or even allows an auteurist approach but I will say that this was one of the better acted episodes that I’ve seen. Vereen and Moody, Grandy and Strasberg, they all had plenty of chemistry. This was a truly pleasant cruise, despite Jenny’s anger.

The Unnominated: The Long Riders (Dir by Walter Hill)

Posted on March 10, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Though the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences claim that the Oscars honor the best of the year, we all know that there are always worthy films and performances that end up getting overlooked. Sometimes, it’s because the competition too fierce. Sometimes, it’s because the film itself was too controversial. Often, it’s just a case of a film’s quality not being fully recognized until years after its initial released. This series of reviews takes a look at the films and performances that should have been nominated but were, for whatever reason, overlooked. These are the Unnominated.

First released in 1980, The Long Riders is one of the many films to tell the story of the James/Younger Gang.

A group of former Confederate guerillas who became some of the most notorious bank robbers to roam post-Civil War America and who were based in Missouri, the brothers who made up the James/Younger Gang were hunted by the Pinkertons and beloved by the citizens who viewed them as being 19th Century Robin Hoods. Following a disastrous attempt to rob a bank in Northfield, Minnesota, the Younger brothers were captured by the government while Jesse and Frank James made it back to Missouri. Jesse was shot in the back by Bob Ford while Frank subsequently surrendered to authorities and made a good living on the lecture circuit.

The Long Riders tells the story of the gang, from their first encounter with the heavy-handed Pinkertons to the Northfield raid to Frank’s eventual surrender. Director Walter Hill both celebrates the legend of the James/Younger Gang while also emphasizing that all the members of the gang were also individual humans who had their strengths and their flaws. Hill emphasizes the idea of the gang being a group of post-war rebels, still fighting a war against a government that is more interested in protecting banks than looking after people. The Long Riders deconstructs the legend while also celebrating it.

The main thing that sets The Long Riders apart from other films about the James/Younger Gang is the fact that the brothers are played by actual brothers. David, Keith, and Robert Carradine plays the Youngers. Randy Quaid plays Clell Miller while Dennis Quaid assumes the role of the cowardly Ed Miller. Nicholas and Christopher Guest make a memorably creepy impression as Charley and Bob Ford. And finally, Jesse and Frank James are played by James and Stacy Keach. (The Keaches also worked on the film’s script). And while Stacy is definitely the more charismatic of the Keach brothers, the film makes good use of James’s rather stoic screen presence. While the rest of the gang enjoys the outlaw life, James Keach’s Jesse is rigid, serious, and ultimately too stubborn and obsessive for his own good.

Now, the casting might sound like a gimmick but it works wonderfully. When Clell chooses the gang over Ed, it carries an emotional weight because we’re watching real brothers reject each other. The comradery between the Carradines carries over to the comradery between the Youngers and it also informs their occasional rivalry with the better known James brothers. While it is Stacy Keach and David Carradine who ultimately dominate the film, every brother in the cast makes a strong impression. Also giving a memorable performance is Pamela Reed as a defiantly independent Belle Starr, who loves David Carradine’s Cole Younger but marries Sam Starr (James Remar). The knife fight between Carradine and Remar is one of the film’s highlights, as is the violent and disastrous attempt to rob the bank in Northfield.

The Long Riders is an exciting and ultimately poignant western but sadly, it received not a single Oscar nomination, not even for the stunning cinematography or Ry Cooder’s elegiac score. Fortunately, just like the legend of the James/Younger Gang, The Long Riders lives on.

Previous entries in The Unnominated:

Horror On The Lens: Time Walker (dir by Tom Kennedy)

Posted on October 4, 2016 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Today’s horror on the lens is 1982’s Time Walker!

Time Walker tells the story of what happens when a mummy that’s actually an alien awakens on a college campus. As you might guess, mayhem and bad fashion choices ensue. To be honest, Time Walker is not the best horror film ever made. In fact, it’s actually pretty bad. However, it is definitely a time capsule of the era in which it was produced and it has one of those WTF endings that you kind of have to see for yourself.

Enjoy!

Horror Film Review: Hell Night (dir by Tom DeSimone)

Posted on October 23, 2015 by Lisa Marie Bowman

It’s pledge initiation night at Generic University! Four students are hoping to join the Alpha Sigma Rho fraternity and its sister sorority. Denise (Suki Goodwin) is English and never goes anywhere without a supply of quaaludes and a flask of Jack Daniels. Seth (Vincent Van Patten) is the blonde jock, who wants to spend the entire night hooking up with Denise, despite the fact that Denise keeps calling him, “Wes.” Jeff (Peter Barton) is the sensitive rich kid who fears that the only reason he’s getting into the fraternity is because of his family’s money. And Marti (Linda Blair) is the girl from a poor family who works on cars during her spare time. In order to pass the initiation, they have to spend the night in deserted Garth Manor.

However, they won’t be alone in Garth Manor. The president of the fraternity, Peter (Kevin Brophy), is planning on spending the entire night playing pranks on them. Helping him will be his girlfriend, May West (Jenny Nuemann) and his nerdy best friend, Scott (Jimmy Sturtevant). Unfortunately, what Peter did not realize was that the four pledges are all smart enough to know that he’s going to be trying to scare them. As a result, they just ignore his best efforts to make things creepy.

Of course, what none of them know is that the legend of Garth Mansion is actually true. As Peter explains at the beginning of the film, it has long been rumored that Mr. Garth murdered his entire family, except for his horribly deformed son Andrew. They say that Andrew still lives in the mansion, waiting for a chance to attack and kill all trespassers…

And that’s pretty much exactly what happens!

But you know what? For a relatively straight forward slasher film from 1981, Hell Night is not a bad film at all. In fact, with its relative lack of gore, nudity, and painfully stupid victims, it can probably be argued that Hell Night is a slasher film for people who don’t like slashers. Hell Night emphasizes atmosphere over easy shocks and actually devotes some time to characterization. Even if the majority of the characters are familiar horror film types, you still care about them. Even poor Denise, who has the thankless role of being the sexually independent girl who you know is doomed from the minute she first appears on screen, gets a few good lines.

(Plus, the film opens with a costume party so, of course, all of the outfits are to die for!)

One of the things that really made Hell Night effective is that the characters are not idiots. They don’t just stand around waiting to be picked off. At first, they just assume that any and all strangeness is a result of Peter trying to scare them. When it becomes obvious that Andrew Garth is alive, one of them manages to escape the manor and goes straight to the cops. And how do the cops react? They tell him that they’re tired of dealing with drunk frat boys and order him to go home, adding to the hopelessness of the situation.

(But, honestly, if some random guy told you that a deformed monster was trying to kill him, would you believe him?)

Hell Night is full of scary atmosphere, clever lines, and good acting. As far as early 80s slasher movies go, it’s one of better examples of the genre.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQzN99Nsesc