October Positivity: Seventy Time Seven (dir by Josiah David Warren)

Posted on October 16, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

After you watch enough independent, low-budget, and semi-amateur films, you really do come to appreciate the value of a good sound crew.

I mean, seriously, film audiences often take clear sound for granted. They make the mistake of assuming that it’s easy to clearly capture all of the dialogue or to recreate the sound of a gunshot or an explosion. It’s only when you see a film that doesn’t feature a clear soundtrack that you start to appreciate just how much you take for granted.

Take the 2012 film, Seventy Times Seven. Now, in the film’s defense, the dialogue is clear in every scene. You can hear when people are talking and you can understand the words that are coming out of their mouth. Still, this film features a lot of scenes that were shot outdoors. Some scenes were shot noticeably close to a highway. You can hear every bird chirping, every car driving by, every insect buzzing nearby, and every gust of wind that hits the microphone. On the one hand, one could argue that the film is capturing the authentic sounds of reality. On the other hand, it does get to a bit distracting.

The film is all about the importance of forgiveness, which is something that I happen to feel pretty strongly about. I think most of the problems in the world are due to the fact that people have not only forgotten how to forgive but also they’ve forgotten why it was important to forgive in the first place. So, I can’t complain about the film’s message. The execution, on the other hand….

David Anderson (Josiah David Warren) appears to have it all. He’s got a nice house. He’s got a nice ranch. He’s got a beautiful new wife, Jacqueline (Tina Ballerina). And Jacqueline’s pregnant! David, who hopes to eventually become a father to seven children, is excited! (It’s easy to say you want seven children when you’re not the one who has to actually give birth to them.) Everyone’s excited, except for David’s sister-in-law Jenny (Erica Lloyd) and David’s somewhat sketchy best friend, Brayden (Timothy McGrath). Jenny is upset because she’s been unsuccessfully trying to get pregnant for over a year. Brayden is upset because he used to date Jacqueline and he’s never really gotten over her.

One day, David comes home to discover that someone has broken into the house and murdered Jacqueline! Convinced that the police don’t know what they’re doing (and this film does take place in Denver so it’s totally possible that David is right about this), David becomes determined to track down the murderer and get his own revenge. Even though Jacqueline once touched his heart with a story about how she forgave a man who once mugged her, David is convinced that the time for forgiveness is over.

So, who could the murderer be? Is it Jenny, who is just upset because she desperately wants to have a child of her own? Or is it Brayden, who spends his time smirking and talking about how he doesn’t believe in any of that God stuff. Jenny is the one who is eventually arrested but, from the moment Brayden refuses to take part in a prayer circle, we pretty much know who the guilty party is.

As I said, the film’s execution leaves a lot to be desired. The performances are stiff, the film is full of slow spots, and the dialogue is often awkwardly didactic. It’s the type of film where someone notices that David’s father still looks young and healthy and someone else earnestly responds, “He looks that young because of God.” It doesn’t help that the film makes Brayden’s guilt so obvious that it actually diminishes David as a character when David doesn’t automatically figure that Brayden killed his wife. Brayden might as well be wearing a scarlet M on his chest.

That said, the film’s overall message isn’t bad. Embrace forgiveness and refuse to allow hate to dominate your life. We should all give that a try.

Late Night Retro Television Reviews: Nightmare Café 1.3 “Fay & Ivy”

Posted on October 16, 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 Nightmare Cafe, which ran on NBC from January to April of 1992. The entire show is currently streaming on YouTube!

This week, Fay’s sister comes to visit!

Episode 1.3 “Fay & Ivy”

(Dir by Christopher Leitch, originally aired on March 13th, 1992)

The third episode of Nightmare Café opens with a young woman named Ivy (played by Molly Parker) coming to the big city with her boyfriend, Jesse (Peter Outerbridge). Ivy is totally excited to be in the big city because she thinks that she’s going to finally track down her older sister. Ivy’s sister left home ten years ago and Ivy isn’t even sure what she looks like. However, for ten years straight, Ivy’s sister sent her letters about how great life in the city was. The last of her sister’s letters invited Ivy to come out to the city herself.

Jesse is a bit less excited about the prospect of finding Ivy’s sister. In fact, Jesse is a bit of a controlling jerk who “accidentally” drops one of the letters while he and Ivy are getting off the train. Jesse is coming to the big city so that he can find new ways to make money, like robbing a convenience store while the clueless Ivy waits outside.

As for the dropped letter, it’s picked up by Robert Englund’s Blackie, who reads the letter, has a good laugh, and then speaks straight to the audience. Blackie informs us that Ivy’s sister is Fay and that Fay probably doesn’t even remember inviting Ivy to come see her.

As Blackie puts it: “I wonder if she remembers issuing this invitation. She’d just as soon forget. You suppose the café will let her forget? I don’t.”

And, sure enough, Ivy and Jesse eventually end up in the Nightmare Café. were Fay is the waitress and Frank is the cook. Fay, who earlier was saying that she felt like there was still some things in her former life that she needed to take care of, is shocked to see Ivy. For her part, Ivy doesn’t recognize Fay. And, for Jesse’s part, he gets upset when Fay starts asking Ivy too many questions about her life back home. Jesse grabs Ivy and the two of them leave the café.

Frank leaves the café to search for Ivy and Jesse, saying that he’s getting bored with being stuck in the building. (In a mildly amusing subplot, the café actually gets offended by Frank’s comments and requires Frank to apologize before he’s allowed to later reenter the building.) Ivy and Jesse, meanwhile, end up in a tattoo parlor where Jesse gets a tattoo from none other than Blackie himself. (Robert Englund appears to be having a ball playing a tattoo artist.)

As for Fay, she uses the cafe’s phone to call her mother. When Fay identifies herself, her mother (Penny Fuller) refuses to believe that Fay is calling. Fay, realizing that her mother has never forgiven her for leaving home, tells her mom that Ivy is in the city and that she’s in trouble. Fay then has what appears to be a café-inspired hallucination in which she finds herself talking to her mother face-to-face and the two of them discuss their strained relationship. It’s a touching scene, well-played by Penny Fuller and Lindsay Frost.

In the end, everyone ends up back at the café. Jesse returns to the café to try to rob it and he drags Ivy (who now knows that Fay is her sister) with her. Frank returns to the café with Ivy’s mother, who says that she came to the city after having a weird dream in which Fay called her to tell her that Ivy was in trouble. Finally, Blackie shows up so that he can zap Jesse into the back of a police car.

With Jesse gone, Fay, Ivy, and their mother have a cup of coffee. While declining to mention that she’s actually dead, Fay does say that it’s a bit too late for her to fix her relationship with her mother. But there’s still time for her mom and Ivy to talk and get to know each other. Ivy and her mom, for their part, both think that Fay left home and disappeared because she works for the federal government.

This was kind of a sad episode, really. Fay wants to heal her relationship with both her mother and her sister but, in the end, she’s forced to accept that she’s dead and they’re not. Fay and Frank can help people live better lives but their own lives are pretty much over and they’re going to spend an eternity in the Nightmare Café.

I liked this episode, which was considerably more straight-forward in its storytelling approach than the previous two. What it lack in surreal imagery, it made up for in genuine emotion.

Next week, the café helps a dying detective sold one last murder!

Horror on TV: The Hitchhiker 5.16 “Hootch” (dir by Leon Marr)

Posted on October 16, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Tonight’s episode of The Hitchhiker depicts what happens with a greedy woman (Stephanie Zimbalist) attempts to force her Vietnam vet brother out of the house that has been his only sanctuary from all the troubles of the world. Needless to say, things do not go well.

This episode originally aired on September 16th, 1989.

The TSL Horror Grindhouse: Garden of the Dead (dir by John Hayes)

Posted on October 16, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The 1972 film, Garden of the Dead, takes place in a prison camp that sits out in the middle of what appears to the bayous. The prisoners spend their days working on the chain gang, breaking rocks and cleaning highways. The tough-as-nails guards spend their days watching the prisoners and carrying around their rifles. This is the type of prison camp where the prisoners are all talkative and boastful and the guards all wear sunglasses and every day is just like the next.

A group of prisoners are trying to brighten things up on the chain gang by using some experimental formaldehyde to get high. I’m sure that won’t lead to any complications! When the prisoners later try to escape from the prison camp, they’re quickly captured by the guards who proceed to violate all sorts of laws by gunning the prisoners down and then ordering the other prisoners to bury the dead bodies in the prison camp’s garden.

That night, the dead prisoners come back to life as zombies. Does this happen because they were getting high off of the formaldehyde or is it because the chemicals themselves were leaked into the garden? The film doesn’t make it particularly clear but it doesn’t matter. What’s important is that they’re now zombies. You really don’t need a whole lot of explanations when it comes to zombies. The dead prisoners are still obsessed with getting high and they start to kill everyone in the camp as a part of their effort to get their precious formaldehyde.

I’ll just admit right now that I absolutely love Garden of the Dead. Some of that is because Garden of the Dead is a very short movie, clocking in at barely an hour’s running time. It was a film that was obviously designed to be the second half of a double feature but no matter! That short running time means that there’s no need for extra padding and the action move quickly. The film ends before the viewer gets bored with the somewhat repetitive zombie action. Seriously, we need to normalize 50 minute films.

Another thing that I love about Garden of the Dead is that it is full of foggy bayou atmosphere. The film itself was obviously shot on a very low budget and on very cheap film but the grainy images actually contribute to the film’s nightmarish feeling. The film captures the feeling of being isolated in the middle of nowhere. One reason why the zombies in this film are frightening is because there’s literally nowhere safe to hide from them. Even if you can get out of the prison camp, you’ll still have to brave the wilderness that surrounds it.

Finally, I liked that the zombies in Garden of the Dead were smarter than the average zombies. Instead of just stumbling around and trying to eat every living thing that they met, these zombies worked together to get what they wanted. I especially liked the spazzy zombie who was always running around the prison camp and jumping and yelling at everyone. These are zombies who clearly enjoy being zombies and it makes Garden of the Dead all the more effective.

Garden of the Dead is a grindhouse gem!

<– October Hacks: Meatcleaver Massacre (dir by Ed Wood)

The Phillies Win Game One Of The NLCS –>

October Hacks: Meat Cleaver Massacre (dir by Edward D. Wood, Jr.)

Posted on October 16, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Filmed, reportedly over the course of a few days, in 1974 but not released until 1977, The Meatcleaver Massacre is known for two things.

First off, it’s known for opening and ending with on-screen narration for Christopher Lee. The distinguished-looking Lee begins the film sitting in what appears to be his own personal office. He talks to us about the history of the supernatural and the paranormal and he suggests that the story that we’re about to see, may very well change someone like me from being a skeptic into a believer.

Secondly, Meat Cleaver Massacre is known for being one of the last films to be directed by the infamous Edward D. Wood, Jr. Now, it should be understood that Wood didn’t have anything to do with writing or producing the film. And when filming started, the director was a guy named Ken Burns who I assume is not the famed documentarian. Unfortunately, Burns was judged not to be up to the role of directing and he was fired. Edward D. Wood, Jr., who by this point was living in alcoholic squalor in Los Angeles and making his money through writing pornographic books, was brought in as his replacement. When the film was released, the director was credited as being “Evan Lee.” It wasn’t until 2022 that the film’s cinematographer (who was not paid for his work on the film) posted on Facebook that Ed Wood was the director. The cinematographer’s claim was backed up by the film’s editor.

Now, my immediate reaction to learning this was to think: “Oh my God, Ed Wood directed Christopher Lee!”

Well, sorry …. no. All the evidence points to Wood directing Meat Cleaver Massacre. It’s an Ed Wood film, even if it doesn’t feature Wood’s trademark obsession with angora. But the two scenes with Christopher Lee were apparently filmed for a different project, one that was abandoned. In 1977, the distributors of Meatcleaver Massacre purchased the footage of Christopher Lee and inserted it into their film, which was promptly sold as a Christopher Lee film. But the truth of the matter is that Lee’s footage was obviously meant for a far “classier” film than Meatcleaver Massacre and, judging from how dismissive Lee tended to be of the work that he did strictly for the money, it’s totally possible that he didn’t even know that he had become the star of Meatcleaver Massacre.

As for Ed Wood, he died a year after this film was released. At the time of his death, he had been evicted from his apartment and his landlord apparently threw away all of his scripts and movie memorabilia. Sorry, everyone. The first half of Ed Wood’s life story may be popular and funny but it definitely did not lead to a happy ending.

But what about Meat Cleaver Massacre, you may be asking. Well …. actually, it’s not terrible. It’s definitely a low-budget affair and none of the actors are particularly impressive but there are a few scenes that work when taken on their own terms.

James Habif stars as Professor Cantrell, who is first seen teaching a class on how to summon an Irish demon and then returning home to his family. Unfortunately, that night, one of this students, Mason (Larry Justin), orders his gang to break into Cantrell’s house. Mason says that he just wants to play a prank on the professor but instead, he and his idiot friends murder Cantrell’s family and leave Cantrell in a paralyzed state. That said, Cantrell may be paralyzed but he can still summon the demon Morak to hunt down and kill all of Mason’s friends, one-by-one. The deaths are grisly, with Mason’s home invasion bringing to mind the crimes of the Manson’s family and the demon’s acts of vengeance ranging from a disembowelment in the desert to an accident in a garage to an exploding movie projector.

As with most of Ed Wood’s film, the pacing is a bit off and the film is edited in such a way that it’s sometimes difficult to keep track of how much time has passed between scenes. The acting isn’t great, though it’s really not any worse than the acting you would expect to find in a low-budget 70s horror film. The scene in which one of Mason’s gang meets his fate in the desert is actually rather well-done and intentionally surreal. To be honest, there’s not much about the film that would make you think it was an Ed Wood production. As I said before, there’s no references to angora. There’s no Kelton the Cop. Criswell doesn’t make an appearance. By most accounts, Ed spent the final decade of his life broke and doing whatever he had to do to scrounge up enough cash to pay his rent and keep drinking. Doing whatever he had to do included directing films like Meatcleaver Massacre. I wonder how many other films were secretly directed with Ed Wood?

Anyway, if you’re a Christopher Lee or Ed Wood completist, Meatcleaver Massacre is currently available on Tubi.

Horror Film Review: Goodnight Mommy (dir by Matt Sobel)

Posted on October 16, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Poor Naomi Watts.

I mean, let’s just be real here. Naomi Watts is an excellent actress. One could argue that she’s one of the best actresses working today. She’s someone who can be convincing in just about any genre. She can do drama. She can do comedy. She can do horror. She can star in small indie films and expensive blockbusters. She can play suburban housewives and sultry femme fatales with equal skill. She’s an actress who has played a wide variety roles and has shown a willingness to take risks in her career.

And yet, far too often, she gets cast in disappointing and misconceived films. Indeed, it sometimes seem like David Lynch is the only director to really understand just how good Naomi Watts can be, whether he’s working with her in Mulholland Drive, Inland Empire, or Twin Peaks: The Return. Watts provided Twin Peaks: The Return with a heart and the scene where she tells off the two crooks who are extorting money from her husband still carries a punch. She brought a lot of genuine and needed emotion to a miniseries that would have otherwise been cold and impersonal. Unfortunately, not every director has the insight or the skill of a David Lynch.

Just consider 2022’s Goodnight Mommy, a thoroughly unnecessary remake of a 2014 Austrian film. Watts is cast as the Mother, a former Hollywood actress who now lives on an isolated farm and who spends most of her time drinking and sulking in her room. Due to some recent plastic surgeon, the Mother’s face is completely and totally bandaged.

This concerns her twin sons, Elias (Cameron Crovetti) and Lukas (Nikolas Crovetti). They worry about how strange the Mother has been acting ever since they moved out to the farm with her. (While the Mother was getting plastic surgery, the twins were living with their father.) The Mother orders them to stay out of her room and hardly speaks to them. When Elias notices that his mother’s formerly blue eyes now appear to be green, he worries that his real mother may have been replaced with an imposter.

As I mentioned earlier, Goodnight Mommy is based on a 2014 Austrian film. The original film, if I remember correctly, was effective creepy, well-acted, and full of atmosphere. The remake feels more than a bit pointless and slow. The big twist that was so effective in the Austrian film falls flat in the American remake, largely because the kids playing the brothers in the remake are both directed to give boring and inauthentic performances. The remake of Goodnight Mommy mistakes a slow space for a creepy atmosphere.

That said, Naomi Watts gives a good performance as the Mother, one that will probably keep viewers guessing if they haven’t already seen the original film. In fact, Watts is so good that it just makes it all the more disappointing that the film itself feels so pointless. When it comes to Goodnight Mommy, go with the original and ask your local film producers to give Naomi Watts a role in a decent movie.

Retro Television Reviews: Miami Vice 1.6 “Calderone’s Return Part 2: Calderone’s Demise”

Posted on October 16, 2023 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 Mondays, I will be reviewing Miami Vice, which ran on NBC from 1984 to 1989. The entire show is currently streaming on Tubi!

This week, Crockett and Tubbs finally get their revenge on Calderone!

Episode 1.6 “Calderone’s Return Part 2: Calderone’s Demise”

(Dir by Paul Michael Glaser, originally aired on October 26th, 1984)

This episode of Miami Vice opens with Crockett and Tubbs interrogating an associate of the hitman who Calderone (Miguel Pinero) sent to kill Sonny during the previous episode. Crockett and Tubbs yell at the man and basically threatened to beat the crap out of him unless he tells them where Calderone is hiding in the Bahamas. They eventually get the information that they want but it’s hard not to compare their methods to the methods that the “bad” cops previously used to get a false confession from the Haitians in episode 4.

Of course, in this case, it’s personal for Crockett and Tubbs. Calderone killed Tubbs’s brother. Calderone’s assassin killed Lt. Rodriguez and nearly killed Sonny’s wife and son. And besides, how could any viewer spend too much time worrying about the ethics of how they got their information when it leads to an extended sequence of Crockett and Tubbs stoically standing in one of Crockett’s speed boats as they race across the ocean to the Bahamas?

Miami Vice has often been described as being the ultimate example of style over substance and, while I think that’s an oversimplification because Miami Vice definitely had something to say about greed and the war on drugs, it is true that this episode proves just how many illogical plot developments an audience is willing to accept as long as the story is told with a certain amount of visual fliar.

Because, seriously, at no point does Crockett and Tubbs’s plan make any sense.

Basically, Crockett and Tubbs are planning to work undercover on the island so that they can get close to Calderone. Here’s the thing, though — Calderone has seen both Crockett and Tubbs so it’s not like he’s not going to recognize them if he spots them. (Calderone even sent a hitman to kill Crockett.) As well, since neither Calderone nor anyone in his entourage actually met the hitman, Crockett is planning on pretending to be the hitman and demanding more money for his services. However, the hitman is from Argentina and there’s absolutely nothing about Don Johnson (or Sonny Crockett) that suggests that he could be from anywhere in South America. Finally, one has to be willing to accept that Calderone no longer has any contacts in Miami who could call him up and say, “Hey, your hitman’s dead and Sonny Crockett is still alive.”

Tubbs, meanwhile, pretends to be an art gallery owner so he can approach Angelina (Phanie Napoli), the artist who he believes to be Calderone’s mistress. It’s not until after Tubbs has slept with her that he discovers that she is actually Calderone’s daughter and she believes her father to be a legitimate businessman. Despite having known her for only a day, Tubbs tells Crockett that he’s falling in love with her.

By that point, Calderone has already figured out that Sonny and Tubbs are on the island and they’ve already been through one exciting car chase. Logic would suggest that Sonny and Tubbs should now leave the island but, instead, they decide to put on masks so that they can attend the carnival. The masks, however, don’t do fool anyone as they’re both grabbed by Calderone’s men and taken to Calderone’s mansion where Calderone ends up getting gunned down while Angelina screams, “NOOOOOO!” Needless to say, that’s pretty much the end of Angelina’s romance with Tubbs.

As I said, the plot doesn’t always make much sense. The whole storyline is dependent on Tubbs, Crockett, and Calderone almost always choosing to make the most illogical choices. Calderone could have easily killed Tubbs and Crockett at the carnival but, for some reason, he brought them to his home. Tubbs and Crockett could have arrested Calderone for jumping bail and taken him back to Miami but, instead, they came up with an undercover plan that was doomed to failure. It makes no sense but it’s so stylish that it doesn’t matter. The slow motion shootouts, the car chases, the masks, the beautiful island scenery, the spacey comedic relief provided by Sam McMurray in the role of a stoned resort manager, all of that comes together so nicely that the plot ultimately doesn’t matter. It’s pure style and both Johnson and Thomas are so charismatic as Crockett and Tubbs that they’re a pleasure to watch even when they’re doing stupid things.

Next week: Edward James Olmos arrives at Vice.

Horror Film Review: Bloody Pit of Horror (dir by Domenico Massimo Pupillo)

Posted on October 16, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

First released in 1965, the Italian horror film, Bloody Pit of Horror, tells the story of the Crimson Executioner.

Back in the 17th century, The Crimson Executioner was one of the most feared men in Italy. Well-known for his red mask, red tights, and his cape, The Crimson Executioner was one of the best executioners that the Vatican ever had but then it was discovered that he was taking his work home with him and executing people in his own private dungeon. As these murders were sanctioned by neither the Church nor the State, the Crimson Executioner was forced into his own Iron Maiden and executed.

Centuries later, the Crimson Executioner’s castle is owned by a retired actor named Travis Anderson (played by body builder Mickey Hargitay). Travis enjoys living in the castle, where he is waited on by two henchmen who wear blue striped shirts and who look like they should be playing revolutionaries in a Monty Python parody of a Jean-Luc Godard film. Travis especially likes that, despite the fact that the Crimson Executioner was executed for having the stuff, no one ever got around to cleaning out the torture dungeon. All of the torture devices are still down there but, unfortunately, Travis doesn’t really have anyone to use them on.

Then, one day, a group of people arrive at the castle. The group is made up of photographers, a writer, a publisher, and several attractive models. They’re looking for a location where they can take pictures that will be used to illustrate an upcoming horror book. At first, Travis tells them that he doesn’t want them taking picture at his castle and he doesn’t really want them hanging out either. But then, after seeing the models, Travis changes his mind. The group heads down to the torture dungeon so that they can start snapping pictures while Travis dresses up the like The Crimson Executioner and prepares to torture everyone to death, one-by-one. Yikes!

A lot of the torture devices that are seen in the dungeon do look frightening and I’ll admit that I snapped, “No, what are you thinking!?” when the only male model agrees to lay down under a bunch of very sharp spikes so that his picture could be taken. (Needless to say, that didn’t go well.) A lot of the torture devices involved the use of fire and again, that totally made me cringe. That said, it should also be pointed out that a few of the other devices weren’t that impressive. A scene of Travis spinning two models around while pushing several swords closer and closer to them was less than effective because the torture device itself just looked incredibly stupid.

Actually, speaking of looking incredibly stupid, Travis really does himself no favors by dressing up as The Crimson Avenger. With his red, rubber mask and his tights and his cape, he looks like a character who would be the comic relief villain in a Marvel movie, like the incompetent, wannabe crook who Spider-Man captures before the real villains show up. Mickey Hargitay was a body builder who was married to Jayne Mansfield and who is today perhaps best-remembered as being the father of Law & Order: SVU’s Mariska Hargitay. Mickey’s performance in this film is over the top without being entertaining. It’s impossible to take him seriously as an intimidating menace and it doesn’t help that the models at the castle are often just as likely to die from their own stupidity than from anything that Mickey did. (One model literally stumbles in front of him right before he fires a crossbow at someone else.)

This film does have a brief scene with a big, fake spider and giant, booby-trapped web. That scene is so ludicrous that, for a few minutes, Bloody Pit of Horror becomes just weird enough to be entertaining. Otherwise, this is a fairly forgettable horror film. The opening credits claim that the film is based on the writing of Marquis de Sade. If that’s true, I can only conclude that he should never have been rescued from the Bastille.

(Seriously, they tried to execute Thomas Paine but they let the Marquis de Sade go free? What was up with the French Revolution?)

Horror Scenes That I Love: Boris Karloff in The Bride of Frankenstein

Posted on October 16, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

By most standards, Boris Karloff (who has born William Henry Pratt) was a true Edwardian gentleman, a reserved but polite man who treated people with respect and who was a generous co-star to his fellow cast members. Early on in his acting career, he played a wide variety of character but, due to his performance as Frankenstein’s Monster and a host of other iconic characters, Boris Karloff would join Bela Lugosi as the first horror star of the sound era. As opposed to Lugosi, who struggled with his resentment over being typecast and soon found himself ostracized from mainstream Hollywood, Karloff remained a popular character actor and horror star for his entire life. Karloff’s dissatisfaction with the hours that he was expected to spend in makeup to play both Frankenstein’s Monster and the Mummy led to Karloff serving as one of the founding members of the SAG.

In this scene, from 1935’s The Bride of Frankenstein, Karloff’s monster briefly finds a friend. Unfortunately, as so often happened, that friendship is quickly ruined by the ignorance of others.

Horror Novel Review: Weekend by Christopher Pike

Posted on October 16, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The 1986 novel, Weekend, involves the most memorable senior ditch day ever!

9 friends, who have a tangled web of personal relationships and conflicting feelings towards each other, head down to Mexico for the weekend. They’ve got a mansion to stay in, one that belongs to the absent parents of their friend Robin. Robin once had a great singing voice and a great future but, at the last party that her friends threw, someone spiked her drink with insecticide. Now, Robin can barely speak and is only being kept alive by a dialysis machine. The weekend in Mexico starts out as a fun but soon, secrets are being revealed, live are being put at risk, and who knows who will survive to the end!

The majority of the story is told through the eyes of Shani, who is a well-written and complicated character. As opposed to the characters who populate the majority of R.L. Stine’s Fear Street books, Shani is nether perfect nor totally evil. Instead, she’s someone who has very real emotions and, even more importantly, very real reactions to everything that’s going on around her. (Christopher Pike’s novels have always felt a little less generic than R.L. Stine’s. That said, Pike’s novels also have a tendency to be a bit more unnecessarily complicated than Stine’s.) That said, the other characters are not as well-written as Shani and, with a total of 9 people staying at that mansion, it can get a bit difficult to keep straight of who is who. Keep a notebook nearby so you can jot down who betrayed who at which pep rally because it’s not always easy to keep track of it all.

I always enjoy books about people stranded with a killer for the weekend and Weekend does a good job of keeping you guessing as to who is responsible for what. The finale, in which everything is explained, is enjoyably over the top. Pike, wisely, chooses to embrace the melodrama when it comes to wrapping everything up.

Weekend is an enjoyably over-the-top novel. If nothing else, this book might make you appreciate your own occasionally overdramatic friends. Because as dramatic as they may be, they’re nowhere near as bad as the folks in Weekend.