On tonight’s episode of Fear Itself, Wendell Pierce plays a veterinarian who gets bitten by a werewolf and then has to prove that he’s not the same werewolf who is currently on a killing spree. This episode was directed by Ernest Dickerson, who first came to prominence as Spike Lee’s cinematographer and subsequently directed several horror films and thrillers of his own.
This episode didn’t air because Fear Itself was put on hiatus in July of 2008. However, it was included when the show was subsequently released n DVD.
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 Daily Motion.
This week, the matriarch of a powerful Massachusetts political family comes to St. Eligius.
Episode 4.14 “Family Ties”
(Dir by Allan Arkush, originally aired on January 22nd, 1986)
After Elliot makes a clerical error that leads to one of his patients getting a mohawk, he’s more than happy to be assigned to check on a sick gorilla. Elliot not only diagnoses the gorilla as suffering from a brain tumor (luckily, it’s not malignant) but also gets a date with the animal’s keeper, Dr. Valerie Harding (Diana Canova).
When Fiscus freaks out about getting older, he tries to push up his wedding date with Mona and pressures her to abandon her career to start a family immediately. After Fiscus interrupts an operation to argue with her, Mona dumps him. (“I told you he was a bubblehead,” Dr. Craig says.) When Fiscus learns that his sperm has been used in an IVF procedure, he becomes obsessed with tracking down the woman who might be having his child. He then runs into Morrison’s ex-girlfriend, Clancy (Helen Hunt), and is soon flirting with her.
Why is Clancy back at the hospital? Morrison slipped on a wet floor and injured his knee. He has to have surgery. Clancy comes up with Morrison’s little-seen son, Pete. Pete, for his part, wanders over to Ken Valere (George Deloy), who, along with his wife (Deborah May), has been having second thoughts about whether to use a surrogate. Meeting Pete inspires the Valeres to adopt. So I guess that plotline is finally over, and I won’t have to ignore it anymore.
The majority of this episode is taken up with the arrival of Augusta Endicott (Dorothy McGuire), the matriarch of one of Massachusetts’s most powerful political families. She’s also the widow of a notorious anti-Semite, one who kept Auschlander from getting appointed to a state board in the 1960s.
From the minute Augusta and her family show up at the hospital, it’s obvious that they’re meant to be stand-ins for the Kennedys, even though Endicott is not an Irish name. (One gets the feeling the Endicotts are meant to be WASPy Episcopalians.) I always find it curious when an obvious Kennedy stand-in turns up on a television show. Does that mean St. Elsewhere takes place in a universe where the Kennedys don’t exist? The parallels are so obvious that it seems strange no one would point them out in-universe. This show is set in Boston. It seems as if someone would say, “Hey, Augusta Endicott sure has a lot in common with Rose Kennedy.”
Augusta is in the hospital for a checkup. She’s having heart problems, but she tells Dr. Craig that she would prefer to let nature take its course rather than spend the rest of her life having surgeries. Augusta also arranges for Auschlander to finally be appointed to the state medical board.
I’m getting the feeling that the Endicott family is going to be around for at least a few episodes. I can’t say I’m particularly enthused about the idea, but I get it. This is a show about Boston. You’ve got to have Kennedys.
Today, we have another comedic blast from the past from SCTV.
Like last week’s, this one features Joe Flaherty’s Count Floyd. It also features John Candy, Eugene Levy, and Catherine O’Hara. So, put on your 3D glasses and enjoy these scenes from Dr. Tongue’s House of Cats!
In 2022’s The Harbinger, Gabby Beans stars as Monique. At the height of the COVID hysteria, Monique and her family have done everything that they’ve been told to do. They’ve locked their doors. They’ve kept outsiders from entering their home. Monique always wears a facemask. For all of their attempts to be safe, Monique and her family still seem like the most anxious people on the planet. However, anyone who is honest about the COVID era and who doesn’t listen to the revisionists who insist that it was actually just a little inconvenience and not a major trauma-causing event will immediately recognize Monique and her family. Even those of us who didn’t lose our minds during the lockdowns all know someone who did.
(Three things that I’ll never forget about the COVID era: 1) all of my friends on Twitter changing their bio to “Wear your damn mask” and not understanding how pointlessly aggressive that sounded, 2) my cousin Allison in tears because she thought everyone in Tyler, Texas was trying to kill her by getting her sick, and 3) the fat lady at Target who screamed at me because I wasn’t wearing a mask because my asthma was acting up.)
When Monique learns that her best friend, Mavis (Emily Davis), is currently being haunted by nonstop nightmares that are threatening her sanity, Monique makes a momentous decision. She decides to leave her house, drive through New York, and check on her friend. What she discovers is that Mavis, locked away in her apartment and even wearing a mask when she’s inside and alone, is even more anxious than her. In the apartment above her, there’s a child who is sick and in quarantine and who, in theory, could infect everyone with COVID. Meanwhile, Mavis’s neighbor thinks the whole masking inside thing is ludicrous and refuses to put on one. Monique loses some points, in my book at least, when she confronts the neighbor and points to a sign that says masks are required in the building. The movie tries to hedge its bets with the neighbor character, as if it’s saying, “See? We’re on the right side!” What’s funny is that, when I watched this movie with the #ScarySocial live tweet group, most of the people watching were pretty much on the neighbor’s side.
Soon, Monique is having nightmares, both about the sick kid upstairs and also about her family back home. The nightmares are the film’s strongest element. The Harbinger really does capture the feeling of finding yourself in a dream that feels like real life, and I have to admit that it succeeded in fooling me more than a few times. The film really does keep you off-balance as to what is real and what isn’t. Ultimately, the film suggests that a monster is feeding off of all of the fear and anxiety in the world. If such a monster did exist, the COVID era is definitely when it would show up.
The Harbinger has its flaws. Like a lot of “elevated” horror films, the pace is a bit slow at times. There was an interesting subtext to the intensity of Monique and Mavis’s friendship that felt a bit unexplored. But the dream sequences are effectively done and the film does capture the bleak worldview that many held during the COVID era. (We tend to forget that The New York Times referred to the pre-COVID era as “the before times.”) Today, as the truth about the COVID era itself is being rewritten by revisionists, this film almost feels like a time capsule.
First released in 1955 and directed by the legendary Ed Wood, Bride of the Monster is a classic mix of a haunted house, a mad scientist, a lumbering assistant, and a giant octopus. The plot may be impossible to follow but it doesn’t matter when you’ve got Tor Johnson grunting and Bela Lugosi giving a surprisingly good performance as the persecuted Dr. Vornoff, a man who “tampered in God’s domain.”
A lot of people consider this to be Wood’s best film. Personally, I would go with Plan 9 From Outer Space but Bride of the Monster is still an entertaining look at monsters and madmen.
As some of our regular readers undoubtedly know, I am involved in a few weekly watch parties. On Twitter, I host #FridayNightFlix every Friday and I co-host #ScarySocial on Saturday. On Mastodon, I am one of the five hosts of #MondayActionMovie! Every week, we get together. We watch a movie. We tweet our way through it.
Tonight, at 10 pm et, I will be hosting #FridayNightFlix! Join us for 1992’s Buffy The Vampire Slayer!
If you want to join us this Friday, just hop onto twitter, find Buffy The Vampire Slayer on Prime, start the movie at 10 pm et, and use the #FridayNightFlix hashtag! I’ll be there happily tweeting. It’s a friendly group and welcoming of newcomers so don’t be shy.
Today’s song of the day the main theme from Dario Argento’s The Cat O’Nine Tails. Ennio Morricone’s score brought a lot of atmosphere to Argento’s classic giallo.
In 2013’s Storm Rider, Dani Fielding (Danielle Churchan) is a rich, spoiled teenager who loves to compete in horse shows with her horse, Admiral. However, when Dani’s father (C. Thomas Howell), is arrested and charged with financial fraud, Dani’s life changes forever. The government seizes Admiral and sells him to Dani’s rival. When Dani’s younger half-brother, Jordan (Jacob Buster), is sent off to live with his gold digging mother, Dani is sent to live with her uncle, Sam (Kevin Sorbo).
Sam is a taciturn veterinarian who lives on a ranch in …. well, I assume it’s Montana. Don’t most of these movies take place in Montana? Wherever the film was shot, the scenery is absolutely gorgeous. Sam’s not really comfortable with people in general and he has no idea how to deal with teenage girl, especially one who doesn’t eat meat. As for Dani, she’s initially miserable because she’s been separated from her former life and her former horse.
Fortunately, Sam owns a lot of animals. Dani notices an orphaned mule named Stormy and she takes it upon herself to train him. Taking care of Stormy helps Dani let go of her bitterness. Soon, she’s watching the blossoming romance between Sam and Jody Peterson (Kristy Swanson) and she’s got a romance of her own going with Kevin Winslow (Darien Willardson). Kevin’s father owns a horse that Dani starts to train in the hopes that she can enter a regional horse show with her.
However, when Sam, Jordan, and Kevin’s father get stranded in the mountains, it’s Stormy who helps Dani find them. When night falls and they find themselves surrounded by wolves, will they even make it back to civilization?
It would be a really depressing movie if they didn’t! Fortunately, Storm Rider is not a movie that was made to spread depression. Instead, it’s a rather heart-warming tale about a young woman who conquers her anger and discovers that a mule can be just as strong and brave as the biggest horse. This is very much a film that was designed to make viewers smile and feel good about life and, for the most part, it succeeds. Of course, I still cried constantly while watching the film because I kept thinking about my mom and my dad and how much I miss both of them. This film definitely made me emotional. Often, the best thing that a film can do is to make you cry. Sometimes, I think people forget just how important it is to cry when you’re feeling sad.
As I think I’ve said in the past, I’ve always has a weakness for films about angry or rebellious girls who find peace and grace through taking care of an animal. Whether it’s a cat or a dog or a horse or anything else, there’s something undeniably wonderful about winning the trust of another creature. “You can’t be a jerk and love animals,” someone once said and I imagine that’s true. This film, well-acted and featuring beautiful mountain scenery, made me smile even when I was crying,
Welcome to Late Night 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 Hunter, which aired on NBC from 1984 to 1991. The entire show is currently streaming on Tubi and several other services!
This week, Hunter faces off against a scarred killer wearing a mask! Pretty scary, kids!
Episode 2.5 “Killer In A Halloween Mask”
(Dir by Sidney Hayers and Michael Peerce, originally aired on October 26th, 1985)
After getting the bill for yet another high-speed chase involving Hunter and McCall, Captain Wyler (the great Bruce Davison) decides that they need to take a week off from causing trouble. He assigns them to work as technical advisors for a cop show called Street Heat.
At first, everything seems fine. Hunter hits on the publicity woman. The star of the show, J.J. Hendrix (Stephen Shortridge), asks McCall out to dinner. But then, one night, a man in a cheap plastic mask breaks into Hendrix’s house, bashes in his skull in with a fireplace poker, and sprays acid on the star’s face! (I guess he wasn’t a fan of the last season of Welcome Back Kotter.)
A masked killer is targeting the cast and crew of Street Heat! Hunter and McCall suspect that it might be Dave Tolan (Gary Graham), the former star of the show whose career ended when he set himself on fire while freebasing. The horribly scarred Dave now works at a wax museum and has access to all sorts of chemicals and acids. Plus, Hendrix was dating Dave’s ex-girlfriend….
And, of course, Hunter and McCall are correct. We know that they’re correct because we see Dave plotting the murders at the start of the episode. I have to admit that I spent the entire episode waiting for some sort of twist. I thought Dave would have an accomplice or something similar. But nope, it’s just Dave. It all leads to a confrontation in the wax museum. During a struggle with Hunter, Dave gets impaled. Hunter doesn’t say, “Works for me,” but you can tell that he’s thinking it.
There weren’t any big surprises in this episode but I still enjoyed it. It aired on October 26th and it was obviously produced with Halloween in mind. The late Gary Graham gave an appropriately unhinged performance as Dave. The scenes on the set of Street Heat also served as a commentary on Hunter as a show. After watching Hendrix “shoot” a suspect in a scene that felt like it could have been lifted from any episode of Hunter, McCall and Hunter commented that Street Heat wasn’t very realistic.
Fans of washed-up politicians will be happy to see Jesse “The Body” Ventura in this episode. He shows up at the start of the show. He’s been arrested for attacking his dentist. Ventura complains about his toothache. Hunter knocks the tooth out of his mouth. Ventura thanks him. Whenever I see Jesse Ventura in an old TV show or movie, I always regret that Arnold Schwarzenegger was the only other future governor that he co-starred with. If Fred Dryer had later been elected governor of California, this episode would have been legendary.
