Last summer, after her boyfriend Evan apparently shot himself in Fear Street Woods, Ellen moved away from Fear Street and her friends were left to attend Shadyside High without her. However, a few months have passed and Ellen now feels safe about returning to Fear Street, if just for a visit. Her friend, Meg, is super excited! Meg wants to throw Ellen a surprise party! Great idea, Meg! Meg wants to throw it in Fear Street Woods, at pretty much the same location where the dead body of Ellen’s boyfriend was found. Wait, what?
Meg is shocked when she starts to get phone calls from a mysterious stranger, telling her to cancel the party. She’s even more upset when someone destroys the invitations that she spent so long working on. Meg does exactly what I would do in those circumstances. She makes a list of all the people who she thinks might be responsible. A few people are put on the list for understandable reasons, i.e., being near the invitations before they were destroyed. The rest are listed because Meg dislikes them personally. One kid is listed because he’s way into playing Wizard and Dragons. Meg’s extremely petty suspect list is probably the most realistic thing about The Surprise Party. My suspects lists are always a combination of people who have blocked me on twitter and celebrities that I’m sick of hearing about. My Congressman is usually on the list because he supports the ProAct.
Anyway, it does turn out that there is more to Evan’s death than anyone originally realized. And yes, the truth comes out at the surprise party. And yes, all of the twists don’t really make that much sense. First published in 1989, this was the second of R.L. Stine’s Fear Street books and, to be honest, it’s a little bit disappointing. There’s nothing supernatural about anything that happens. Instead, it’s just one of those mysteries that can’t be solved because Stine doesn’t give us all the clues until the very last minute. I spent the whole book thinking Meg was the culprit because throwing a surprise party in the woods where your friend committed suicide is just incredibly insensitive. And, if this was a later Fear Street book, I have no doubt that Meg would have an evil twin or something. But no, this is an early book and Meg’s just dumb.
As I’ve said before, you don’t necessarily have to believe in ghosts to have fun searching for them.
Myself, I don’t believe in Ghosts, UFOs, conspiracy theories, or Bigfoot. But I still enjoy reading about them and occasionally visiting the places where they’ve supposedly been spotted. In fact, I would say that being a skeptic makes it even more enjoyable to visit a haunted house. On the one hand, you would think that, because you don’t believe in ghosts, you wouldn’t be frightened about the possibility of running into one of them. However, from my own personal experience, I’ve found the opposite to be true. Haunted houses are even scarier when you don’t believe because you’ve always got that voice in the back of your head saying, “What if you’re wrong?”
Haunted Places: The National Directory is just what the title on the cover says it is. It’s a listing of places across the country that some believe to be haunted. Some of the places are said to be inhabited by ghosts. Some of the places are better known for the UFOs that have supposedly visited. Some places have been visited by Bigfoot. There’s a few lakes that are rumored to be home to underwater monsters. It makes for interesting reading and, like many paranormal directories, it’s a treasure trove of potential inspiration for the aspiring horror writer. The latest edition of the book as published in 2002 so don’t expect to find information of recent hauntings and some of the locations may have been torn down in the past twenty year. It happens. That said, Jeff and I used this book to plan a road trip a few years ago and we had a great time, even if we didn’t see any ghosts.
In this 2019 film from Uruguay, four people spend the day at a quarry. Needless to say, things don’t go well.
Alicia (Paula Silva) grew up in the small town of Suarez but she has since moved to the big city. When she returns to her home to visit her parents, she brings along her new boyfriend. Bruno (Augusto Gordillo) is well-educated and apparently wealthy. He’s not a fan of hunting. He finds fishing to be barbaric. He doesn’t think much of Alicia’s small town and it’s obvious, from the first minute that we see him, that he is eager to get back to the city. However, Alicia wants to spend the day at the water-filled quarry (“It’s as close to the beach as we get,” someone explains) with two of her old friends, Tincho (Rafael Beltran) and Tola (Luis Pazos). Tincho is Alicia’s ex-boyfriend and is obviously still in love with her. He gets the day off to an awkward start by telling her that he’s ready to abandon Suarez and join her in the city. Tola, meanwhile, is a cheerful joker. While Bruno and Tincho spend their timed trying to one-up each other, Tola is content to just smoke weed and drink beer. While Alicia tries to keep the peace, the tension between Tincho and Bruno continues to grow.
From the start, it’s obvious that at least one member of the group is going to eventually end up trying to kill the others. It’s just a question of who is going to snap first. The film tells its story with a deliberate pace, capturing each moment of growing tension. When Bruno kicks away Tincho’s soccer ball, we wonder, “Is this the moment that’s going drive Tincho to murder?” When Tincho taunts Bruno into risking serious injury by diving into the quarry, we again wonder if this is the moment that Bruno is going to finally lose it. Even Tola occasionally seems somewhat suspicious. I mean, no one can be that laid back! As women have done since the beginning of time, Alicia tries to keep the men from killing each other in their attempts to impress her with their displays of machismo. It takes a while but the inevitable violence does arrive and I have to say that I was actually a little surprised to see who instigated it.
En El Pozo (the name translates to In The Quarry) is a well-acted and tense film. One thing that works to the film’s advantage is that no one in the film is one-dimensional. None of them are perfect but none of them are totally evil. Bruno is correct when he says that Tincho is trying to bait him but, at the same time, Bruno is also a bit condescending to both Tincho and Alicia. Tincho may be an immature jerk but his feelings for Alicia are real. And while I sympathized and related to Alicia, I did have to wonder why she thought it would be a good idea to have her new boyfriend hang out with her ex-boyfriend in an isolated quarry. The violence erupts suddenly and the events that happen afterwards are as much a result of panic as they are of maliciousness. En El Pozo is well-acted and well-directed, with the atmosphere becoming progressively more claustrophobic as the tensions continue to rise. It all leads to appropriately dark and downbeat ending. Así es la vida.
4 Or More Shots From 4 Or More Films is just what it says it is, 4 shots from 4 of our favorite films. As opposed to the reviews and recaps that we usually post, 4 Shots From 4 Films lets the visuals do the talking!
This October, I’m going to be doing something a little bit different with my contribution to 4 (or more) Shots From 4 (or more) Films. I’m going to be taking a little chronological tour of the history of horror cinema, moving from decade to decade.
Today, we take a look at 1990, 1991, 1992, and 1993!
8 Shots From 8 Horror Films: 1990 — 1993
Troll 2 (1990, dir by Claudio Fragasso, DP: Giancarlo Ferrando)
It (1990, dir by Tommy Lee Wallace, DP: Richard Lieterman)
Frankenstein Unbound (1990, dir by Roger Corman, DP: Armando Nannuzzi)
The People Under The Stairs (1991, dir by Wes Craven, DP: Sandi Sissel)
Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me (1992, dir by David Lynch, DP: Ron Garcia)
Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992, dir by Francis Ford Coppola, DP: Michael Ballhaus)
Witchboard 2: The Devil’s Doorway (1993, dir by Kevin S. Tenney, DP: David Lewis)
Cronos (1993, dir by Guillermo Del Toro, DP: Guillermo Navarro)
Released in 2000, The Watcher is one of those movies where a burned out FBI Agent finds himself locked in a game of cat-and-mouse with an overly verbose serial killer. The FBI agent doesn’t want to get involved and is struggling with a drug addiction. (It’s always either drugs or a wife who doesn’t feel like she knows him anymore.) The serial killer is surprisingly intelligent and well-spoken, despite the fact that most real-life serial killers are only a step or two away from blowing themselves up in a meth lab. Movies love the idea of a witty sociopath but it rarely happens in real life.
Anyway, you get the point. Probably just from reading the previous paragraph, you already know everything that happens in The Watcher. There’s not a single moment in this movie that will take you by surprise. In fact, this movie is so full of clichés that, when I watched it, I actually got mad at the film’s characters for not being able to figure out that they were all just characters in a predictable serial killer film. Seriously, if I woke up and discovered that I was only a character in a movie, I imagine that I would devote at least a few minutes to having an existential crisis. There is also a lot of random slow motion in this movie. The slow motion doesn’t create suspense or generate thrills or anything like that. It’s just kind of there.
Really, the only interesting thing about The Watcher is the cast. For a movie like this, it has a surprisingly good cast. James Spader plays the FBI agent. Marisa Tomei plays the agent’s therapist. (She’s also the only female character to have more than 10 lines in the entire movie. To be honest, it’s a role that anyone could have played but Tomei does her best with what she’s been given.) The serial killer, who is named David Allen Griffen because all serial killers have three names, is played by Keanu Reeves.
Keanu as a serial killer is strange casting. For the most part, Keanu’s appeal has always been that he comes across like someone who, to quote Mother Bates, wouldn’t hurt a fly. Keanu flashes his charming smile and speaks politely with his future victims and, at no point, does he make much of an effort to be a believable killer. Some of that may be because Keanu apparently didn’t want to do the film. Keanu has always said that one of his assistants forged his name on a contract, legally obligating Keanu to appear in this movie. That’s a strange story. When you hear it, you think to yourself, “This the type of thing that could only happen to Keanu Reeves.”
For more than Keanu, James Spader is convincing in his role. Spader spends the entire movie looking like 1) he’s going through massive drug withdrawal and 2) like he’s on the verge of losing his mind. So much of acting is expressed through the eyes and, throughout this movie, Spader’s eyes are bloodshot and exhausted. It’s a superior piece of acting and it’s hard not to feel that it’s probably more than this movie deserved.
Today’s Horror on the Lens is a classic film that really needs no introduction! Released in 1922, the German silent film Nosferatu remains one of the greatest vampire films ever made. It’s a film that we share every October and I’m happy to do so again this year!
The 2016 film, Remember the Goal, is all about running track.
Well, actually, I guess it’s not all about running track. It’s also about the importance of teamwork. It’s also about the importance of remaining humble, respecting authority, and doing what your coach tells you to do. In short, it’s a film that makes me happy that I wasn’t on the track team in high school. I’m not really a fan of authority or doing what other people tell me to do. For that matter, I’m not really much of a team person. I’m an individualist who enjoys being around other individualists. I’m a big believer that people can work together while still allowing everyone to do their own thing and at their own pace.
In short, Coach Courtney Smith-Donnelly (Allee Sutton Hethcoat) would probably not want me on her track team and that’s okay. Though I will say that, a few years ago, I took up running because I was told that it might help to ease my asthma and it totally has. I start nearly every morning with a good run. I enjoy running. It helps me to clear my head and get my thoughts in order. Plus, it keeps my legs looking good.
But anyway, back to the film.
Courtney is the new coach at the local Christian school. Unfortunately, her coaching techniques prove to be controversial. She wants the members of the track team to pace themselves and to only run at a certain tempo, even if it means losing the race. Courtney is trying to teach the team how to conserve their energy so that they’ll still have it when they get to State. All of the parents, though, are upset because they want their daughters to win every race instead of spending all of their time preparing for the state competition. They’re also not happy when Courtney starts tells them that they need to stop putting so much pressure on their children and instead just have faith in Courtney’s plans.
Meanwhile, the five girls on the team all deal with typical high school problems. One of them likes a guy but her father has forbidden her from dating and, since this is a Christian film, she decides to honor her father’s wishes. Another girl has just started smoking weed and, when confronted about it, she replies (quite correctly) that the Bible doesn’t say anything about smoking. She also points out that most teenagers her age are experimenting with new things. “An alcoholic starts with just one drink!” her friend replies, “A drug addict starts with just one joint!” Uhmmm, that’s not really true but it’s enough to get her friend to give up the weed with roots in Hell.
This is another Dave Christiano film that takes a popular genre — in this case, a sports movie — and uses it to push a faith-based message. The coach continually quotes Corinthians and the end of the film literally compares coaching a cross country team to Jesus raising the dead. It’s a bit much, even if it’s not quite as preachy as his earlier films. (No one is condemned to Hell in this film, for example.) Christiano makes the unfortunate decision to have the final race play out in slow motion. That’s several minutes of nonstop slow motion. Unfortunately, slow motion and running are not a great combination, especially when some members of the cast are obviously more experienced runners than others.
Anyway, the main message here (beyond the religious one) seems to be that there’s no “self” in team. What fun is that, though? I’ll keep running for myself.
Tonight, on Circle of Fear, bratty Robert (played by Leif Garrett) discovers that an upstairs door in his family’s new apartment building leads to someplace very unexpected. His older sister, Peggy (Susan Dey), doesn’t believe him but she soon learns the error of her ways.
This episode is really creepy and atmospheric and I don’t want to spoil too much of it. It was written by Jimmy Sangster, who also did several Hammer films, and it was directed by Daryl Duke. To be honest, this episode reminds me of the episode of Lost where Jack stumbles across the ghosts of Ben’s parents outside of the cabin. It has a similar, dream-like feel to it.
The episode originally aired on January 26th, 1973.
This 1960 film tells the story of Bill Allison (Robert Clarke), an air force test pilot who flies his test craft into space and then returns to discover that Earth has totally changed!
The Air Force base where he previously worked is now deserted and desolate. After he’s captured by a group of silent soldiers, Allison is taken to an underground city known as the Citadel. He meets the head of the city, an older man known as The Supreme (Vladimer Sokoloff). The Supreme explains that only he and his second-in-command, The Captain (Red Morgan), can speak and hear. The rest of humanity communicates through telepathy. Though the Supreme’s granddaughter, Princess Trirene (Darlene Tompkins), telepathically insists that Allison is not a threat, the Supreme and the Captain still exile him to live with a bunch of angry, bald mutants who are determined to destroy the city. Allison meets three other exiles and discovers that they too are time travelers. The scientists explains that Bill has found himself in the far future. The year is no longer 1960. No, the year is …. 2024!
OH MY GOD, WE’VE ONLY GOT TWO YEARS LEFT!
Actually, we’ve probably got less than two years left. This is October and the film appears to be taking place in the summer so we’ve probably only got 18 months to go!
(Cue Jennifer Lawrence: “We’re all gonna die!” Cue Leonardo Di Caprio: “I’m so scared!” Okay, tell them both to shut up now.)
Anyway, Allison assumes that society must have collapsed due to a global war but the scientists explain that the first manned spacetrip to the moon actually ushered in an era of peace. (Wow, how did I miss this?) In fact, humans had colonized the Moon, Mars, and Venus by 1970. (Woo hoo! Yay, humanity!) However, years of nuclear testing had weakened the Earth’s atmosphere and, in 1971, the planet was bombarded by cosmic rays. (Uh oh….) Humanity was forced to move into underground cities. Some of them developed telepathy and became super advanced. Others became bald mutants. Unfortunately, everyone is now sterile and the Supreme probably expects Allison to impregnate Trirene and do his part to repopulate the planet.
On the one hand, Allison and Trirene are falling in love. Allison is handsome and strong. Trirene has pretty hair and is the only citizen of the Citadel who gets to wear anything flattering. They’re a cute couple. On the other hand, if Allison sticks around the repopulate the planet, he’ll never be able to go back to his present and warn everyone about the upcoming cosmic ray plague. Plus, it soon becomes clear that the scientists have an agenda of their own. Allison finds himself torn between the two factions trying to control the Citadel.
Made for next to no money and filmed at Fair Park in Dallas, Beyond The Time Barrier is a surprisingly good film. It was directed by Edgar G. Ulmer, an Austrian director who started out as an associate of Fritz Lang’s and who followed Lang to the United States. Ulmer made films for the Poverty Row studios and he was a master of creating atmosphere on a budget. He was one of the pioneers of film noir and he brought that same style to his horror and sci-fi films. As envisioned by Ulmer in Beyond The Time Barrier, the future is full of menacing shadows, dangerous con artists, and untrustworthy authority figures. It’s a fatalistic film, one that ends on a surprisingly downbeat note. Even if Allison can save humanity, will it really be worth all the trouble? Much like Detour, Ulmer’s best-known film, Beyond The Time Barrier plays out like a deliberately-paced dream, full of surreal moments and ominous atmosphere.
Beyond The Time Barrier is available on YouTube and Prime. Watch it now before we have to go underground.
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 Hang Time, which ran on NBC from 1995 to 2000. The entire show is currently streaming on YouTube!
It’s time for championship so let’s get to it!
Episode 1.13 “Game Day”
(Directed by Howard Murray, originally aired on December 2nd, 1995)
The final episode of Hang Time‘s first season opens not with the team practicing or Coach Fuller coaching. Instead, it opens with the Deering High gym dark and deserted, with the exception of Samantha. Samantha sits in the bleachers, writing in her diary. As I watched this scene, it occurred to me that, after 12 episodes, we know next to nothing about Sam beyond the fact that she works at the Sports Shack, she’s the equipment manager, and she’s dating Danny. Does she have a family? Does she have parents who wonder why she’s hanging out at the gym in the middle of the night? Why can’t she write in her journal at home? I get the feeling that Sam’s home life must have been some sort of Dickensian nightmare.
Anyway, this episode revolves around Sam remembering the days leading up the championship game and the game itself. She writes that she had never seen Coach Fuller “so pumped,” which means that we get a flashback of Fuller talking to the team in the locker room and yes, he does seem pretty excited. Fuller tells the team that “I know the Huskies are undefeated …. but I know we’re going to win tonight because we’re a family!”
(Here’s my thing, though. The Huskies are undefeated but the Tornadoes are not. So why is the championship being played at Deering High instead of wherever it is that the Huskies are from?)
Fuller leaves the locker room and everyone starts fighting! Oh no! There’s trouble in basketball world! Michael thinks he’s jinxed! Danny and Sam are arguing! Chris and Julie aren’t even talking!
“But I’m getting ahead of myself,” Sam writes, “This all started Monday morning.”
And so, we go even further into the flashback machine. Julie gives Chris a massage outside the school but gets upset when Chris accidentally calls her “Mary Beth.” “It just slipped out!” Chris replies, something that he probably says to Julie a lot. Julie gets upset.
Meanwhile, while having a picnic in the gym (again, with the gym), Sam tells Danny that she loves him. Danny panics and replies, “I like you a lot.” AGCK! Bad move, Danny. It’s bad enough that Sam is apparently not allowed to leave the gym. She’s also got a coward for a boyfriend.
At practice, Coach Fuller tells everyone that they have to play as a team. Fuller says that Chris’s playing has sucked over the past few weeks. What could Chris be doing differently than before? Let’s see. When Chris was playing well, he was dating Mary Beth. Now, he’s dating …. uh oh. Mary Beth overhears and mentions that she used to always kiss Chris before every game. Now, of course, Chris is dating Julie and Julie apparently doesn’t believe in showing affection so it sucks to be Chris.
At lunch, Julie tells Sam that she grew up with four brothers and they can play “every Led Zeppelin song through use of their armpits.” I don’t know if I believe that. Some of those songs are pretty long. Stairway to Heaven is like a 50-minute song if I remember correctly. Julie is worried Chris isn’t over Mary Beth. Sam says that she has nothing to worry about and then writes, “Sometimes, you have to lie through your teeth.”
Danny tries to apologize to Sam, explaining the he thinks people are too quick to use the “L-word.” Sam says she understands but then Danny casually mentions that he “loves” tuna fish. Meanwhile, Earl freaks out because Michael walks under a ladder. Everyone’s getting a storyline in this episode!
Chris also gives into his superstition, sharing a kiss with Mary Beth before the game. Actually, he shares several. He’s so busy kissing her that he doesn’t notice Julie coming out of the locker room until the last minute! Uh-oh.
The game begins with everyone angry at each other. Myself, I’m more concerned that the other team is being played by people who obviously were basketball players and, as a result, they tower over the Deering Tornadoes.
(Incidentally, I spell Tornadoes with an E. Judging by the banners hanging in the Deering High gym, this show does not. However, I’m the one writing the review.)
Before the game begins, Julie tells Chris that she’s not going to be a runner-up to anyone. (But seriously, Mary Beth is so cool that if you were going to be runner up to someone….) Julie then kisses Earl to show that she can have any guy she wants. Earl does the chef’s kiss motion while Chris stares on horrified.
Despite their problems, the Deering High Tornadoes still take the lead. However, Coach Fuller is angry because the score is still too close in his opinion. Hey, Coach, they’re winning! A win is a win. Fuller does praise Chris for playing a great game. We all know who deserves the credit for that. Mary Beth better get the game ball.
In a subplot that is so stupid that I’ve been tying to avoid mentioning it, Michael has been trying to play the game without stepping on any cracks on the gym floor. (He doesn’t want to break his mother’s back. I told you it was stupid.) Fuller yanks him out of the game and sends in a previously unseen player as a replacement. The new player’s name is Bryan Kuta, which feels like such a random name that I’m assuming that was either the actor’s real name or the name of someone on the show’s crew. Later, when Fuller tries to send Michael back into the game, Michael refuses because there’s only 13 seconds left in the quarter. I would make fun of Michael but, to be honest, I refuse to use odd numbers. If you’ve ever wondered why I always use four periods for an ellipsis instead of the standard three …. well, now you know. Anyway, Fuller gives Michael a piece of tape and tells him to use it as a good luck charm.
Danny gets knocked to the ground. Samantha runs out on court to make sure that he’s okay. Michael interrupts the game by grabbing a microphone and announcing, “Samantha Morgan, I love you.” Awwwwwww! Yes, it’s cringey but Sam and Danny are a cute couple so it works.
With only 30 seconds left in the game, Coach Fuller pulls Chris and Julie off the court and replaces them with the second-string players. Of course, the Tornados are up by ten. Let’s see if Fuller would be so nice if it was a one point game! Chris tells Julie that all of the luck came from Julie and not Mary Beth. Personally, I think we all know that Mary Beth deserves all the credit.
The Tornadoes win the championship 84-75. “Well, congratulations,” Fuller tells the players, “You’re the champs.” That wasn’t much of a speech but …. Yay, I guess.
And so, the first season comes to an end. Chris and Julie are a couple! Danny and Sam are in love! Michael is going to be a star! Earl already is a star! I can’t wait to see what happens to all of them next season….
Oh, alright. I’ll tell you what happens next season. Chris, Sam, Michael, and Earl are written out of the show and all of tonight’s storylines are forgotten about. Join us next week for …. THE NEW HANG TIME!
Through the Shattered Lens 