Freddy’s Nightmares Late Night Retro Television Review: Freddy’s Nightmares 1.3 “Killer Instinct”, Case Wright

Posted on August 8, 2025 by casewright

GUEST REVIEWER ALERT!!! Welcome to Late Night 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 Freddy’s Nightmares, a horror anthology show which ran in syndication from 1988 to 1990. The entire series can be found on Plex!

I am your guest reviewer for the next few “Freddy’s Nightmares”. I have watched three of them and can tell you without a doubt that this show was never really meant to be. At this time, there were two other similar and better shows that were in production or getting greenlit: “The Twilight Zone (reboot)” and “Tales from the Crypt”. This show likely wanted to be “Tales from the Crypt” and I guarantee that the Boomers who wrote “Freddy’s Nightmares” were fans of “Tales”. This story and the other two I watched were likely failed pitches for “Tales” and “Zone”.

The show struggled because network television was not ready for a blood and guts story and certainly not one where Freddy Kreuger, a child murderer pedo, is heavily in the stories. Therefore, he had the role of Crypt Keeper. I’m sure that this was frustrating for Miramax and Wes Craven because Nightmare had amassed nearly 500 Million Dollars. Also, this show was 16 years before Supernatural premiered where audiences craved and demanded gore. The Freddy stories themselves didn’t really lend to horror as much as they were morality play Outer Limits episodes with a story McGuffin to push the clumsy narrative forward.

However, the show could have been saved, IF it were a 30 minute show. In every episode that I watched, the stories ached to roll credits at the 30 minute mark, but the show had an hour slot and the writers tacked on 3 additional act breaks that were always a big oogey mess. Twilight Zone was an hour, but broken into two stories. Tales was 30 minutes and got to do all the gore and nudity it wanted because it was on HBO. Freddy’s overlong padded stories and the FCC restrictions killed what could have been an aggressively mediocre show.

This episode: “Killer Instinct” had a good beginning. Chris Ketchum (Lori Petty) just lost her mother and she wants to honor her by winning track meets even it means losing her soul. BOOM- That is a story- A 30 minute story. At the 30 minute mark, I had seen enough, but I kept going. Chris has heart, but she is losing out to the faster and cuter Nickie (Yvette Nipar) who always beats her in every race and unbeknownst to Chris, Nickie also want to knock boots with Chris’ boyfriend. Chris’ track coach doesn’t help because she is written inconsistently- one moment she’s booting Chris from the team for not trying hard enough and the next she’s giving her evil costume jewelry…. that can kill!!!

Chris gives the evil McGuffin a try and she: runs blurry-fast (which would likely blow out her joints), kills a teacher by choking him with cotton (Yes, that happened), and causes Nickie’s treadmill to go a little faster- it doesn’t hurt Nickie, but Nickie’s workout was slightly more difficult. Wes Craven really needed to give this story another pass. Before Chris can eliminate Nickie (Yvette Nipar) permanently, Nickie strikes first and steals the costume jewelry of doom TCJOD! Nickie uses TCJOD to kill Chris by causing the finish line tape to either decapitate her or break Chris’ neck. It’s unclear how Chris dies, but she does.

The story devolves into a quasi-ghost-zombie-hallucination story. Chris wants revenge and so she sleeps with her boyfriend all gnarly with rotting flesh and she demands that her boyfriend tries to kill Nickie. He doesn’t though- I guess sleeping with a dead person just isn’t what it’s all cracked up to be. Chris starts showing up everywhere in Nickie’s life to drive her insane – including dinner parties and it works really quickly- very quickly. Before the end of the week, Nickie is bludgeoning her boyfriend to death with a…. track trophy, but in her defense she thought it was Chris’ boyfriend! Confused? Yeah, it’s that kind of show. I guess Nickie came in first place in murder!

See you soon!

Retro Television Review: Miami Vice 4.10 “Love At First Sight”

Posted on July 7, 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 Mondays, I will be reviewing Miami Vice, which ran on NBC from 1984 to 1989. The entire show can be purchased on Prime!

This week, as the drug epidemic rages out of control, Sonny searches for a serial killer.

Episode 4.10 “Love At First Sight”

(Dir by Don Johnson, originally aired on January 15th, 1988)

What the Hell, Miami Vice?

Seriously, remember when this show was about Crockett and Tubbs going after drug dealers while Phil Collins played in the background? Season 4 feels like a completely different show.

This week’s episode finds Sonny going undercover (*massive eye roll as Sonny does his, “My name is Sonny Burnett” routine for the thousandth time*) and joining a video dating service. The plan is for Sonny to bust prostitutes but instead, he finds himself as the latest client to be targeted by a serial killer.

Sonny goes on dates, never knowing if the woman he’s with is a killer. One woman approaches him with something behind her back. Is it a knife? No, it’s a vibrator! “I can see the headlines now — Undercover cop slugs woman after assault with a sex toy!” Sonny says while wearing a yellow sweater and having a nice grapefruit breakfast at his mansion.

Meanwhile, cocaine is flooding Miami, the crack epidemic is spiraling out of control, there are communist taking over Central America, Fidel Castro is still alive, there’s a lot of going on out there and apparently it’s being ignored so Sonny can be used as serial killer bait — hey Vice Squad, why don’t you let the homicide detective deal with the murders while you get back to what you’re supposed to be doing?

Caitlin, Sonny’s wife, worries. Oh, how she worries. Her best friend tells her that she’s knew what she was getting into when she married a cop. If Sonny is trying to maintain his undercover identity, should Caitlin be telling people that she married a cop? Shouldn’t she be like, “I’m married to drug dealer! His name’s Burnett and he just looks like that guy who used to play college football?” That Sheena Easton was not a professional actress is pretty obvious in this episode. When she previously appeared, she was a singer playing a singer and that brought some authenticity to her performance. Now, she’s having to pretend to be the worried wife of a cop and her acting limitations are much more easier to see.

The killer is eventually revealed to be a woman (played by David Bowie’s future wife, Iman) with multiple personalities. When she feels threatened, she turns into her brother and uses a knife to castrate the men from the dating service. Will Sonny survive? Yes, he does.

Don Johnson directed this episode and usually, when a cast member directs an episode of their show, their character tends to take a background role so they can concentrate on directing. Not our Don! This episode is so much about Sonny that the rest of the Vice Squad is barely in it.

This episode really made me miss the subtlety of Brian Dennehy playing a televangelist or James Brown kidnapping people for aliens. Get it together, Miami!

Guilty Pleasure No. 80: Point Break (dir by Kathryn Bigelow)

Posted on April 15, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Some films are so ludicrous and self-aware of their absurdity that you can’t help but love them and that’s certainly the case with 1991’s Point Break.

Consider what Point Break offers us:

First, you’ve got Keanu Reeves playing a former college football star who, after blowing out his knee, ended up joining the FBI. Keanu, who looks like he’s barely out of high school in this film, plays a character with the wonderful name of Johnny Utah. Keanu gives a relaxed performance. You can tell that he’s having fun in this movie and Johnny Utah’s enthusiasm is infectious. Personally, I prefer Johnny Utah to John Wick.

Secondly, you’ve got Patrick Swayze as Bodhi, the ruthless bank robber who is also a surfer. Much like Reeves, Swayze could occasionally be a stiff actor but in this film, you can tell he’s having fun and again, it’s hard not have fun watching him as he spouts his surfer philosophy, jumps out of planes, and dreams of dying while mastering a 50-foot wave. Swayze is so charismatic as Bodhi that you totally buy that Johnny Utah would like him despite all the times that Bodhi tries to kill him.

You’ve got Bodhi’s bank-robbing gang, who call themselves the Ex-Presidents. Bodhi wears a Ronald Reagan mask. Other members of the gang wear LBJ, Nixon, and Carter masks. “I am not a crook!” Nixon says. The wonderful thing about the Ex-Presidents is that they seem to truly enjoy robbing banks. Of course, they also enjoy surfing.

Gary Busey plays a character who is not Gary Busy. Instead, he’s Johnny’s partner. Everyone in the FBI laughs at him when he says the bank robbers are surfers but guess who knows what he’s talking about! Seriously, though, it’s always interesting to see Gary Busey in the years when he was still a somewhat serious actor.

John C. McGinley does the uptight boss thing. Lori Petty is the waitress who teaches Johnny Utah how to surf. The surf footage is beautifully shot. A soaked Johnny give the camera a thumbs-up. Director Kathryn Bigelow keeps the action moving quickly and, just as she did with Near Dark, uses the film’s genre trappings to explore the bond that holds together a group of outsiders.

It’s an over-the-top and cheerfully absurd film and it’s impossible not to love it. I haven’t felt the need to watch the remake. Why would I? The original has everything I need.

Previous Guilty Pleasures

In Memory of Robin Williams #2: Cadillac Man (dir by Roger Donaldson)

Posted on August 20, 2014 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Cadillac Man is a film that I had never heard of until I came across it while skimming what was available OnDemand last week. It was a film that I only watched because it starred Robin Williams. I have to admit that I have mixed feelings about including it in a tribute to Robin Williams because Cadillac Man was definitely one of his lesser films. However, while Cadillac Man may not be a very good movie, it does feature a very good performance from Robin Williams.

Released in 1990, Cadillac Man tells the story of Joey O’Brien (Robin Williams), who is the type of car salesman who has no problem approaching a widow at a funeral and telling her that now is the time to consider buying a new car. Joey’s a good salesman but he’s also deep in debt. He not only owes alimony to his ex-wife (Pamela Reed) but he also supporst two mistresses, a married one (a hilarious Fran Drescher) and a single one (Lori Petty). He’s also owes money to the local mafia don and, as the film begins, he’s been told that he has to sell 12 cars in two days or else he’ll lose his job.

On top of all that, Joey also has to deal with Larry (Tim Robbins), an insane jerk with a motorcycle and an assault rifle who takes the entire car dealership hostage because he’s convinced that his wife (Annabella Sciorra) is cheating on him. Larry spends most of the movie firing his rifle up in the air and screaming at the top of his lungs (and yet, it’s also clear that the audience is supposed to like him). As the cops surround the car dealership, Joey attempts to keep Larry under control while also trying to get back together with his ex-wife…

After I watched Cadillac Man, I looked up the rest of director Roger Donaldson’s credits. What I discovered was that Donaldson has directed a lot of movies (including guilty pleasure Cocktail and the upcoming The November Man) but only one of them has been a comedy. The majority of his films are dramas like Thirteen Days and action films like November Man. In short, Roger Donaldson is not a comedy director. And when directors who aren’t experienced with comedy attempt to make a comedy, they almost always resort to having all of the actors shout their lines and run around like characters in a live-action cartoon. That is certainly the approach that Donaldson took in Cadillac Man and the end result was a film that far too often tried to substitute chaos for genuine comedy.

(As just an example of Donaldson’s lack of comedic touch, Annabella Sciorra went through almost the entire film with a bloody cut on her forehead. Even if her lines or her character had been funny, I would have never known it because I was spending too much time worrying about what the eventual scar would look like.)

And yet, here’s the thing. As bad as Cadillac Man turned out to be, Robin Williams was actually pretty good in it. Joey isn’t exactly a likable character but you root for him because of who is playing him. What’s interesting is that the role, even though it was definitely comedic, didn’t lend itself to the manic intensity that was the trademark of much of Williams’s comedy. Instead, the humor comes from the way that, while everyone else in his life is essentially going crazy, Joey O’Brien struggles to maintain his facade of calm and confidence. Williams portrays Joey as being the ultimate salesman and when Joey has to try to convince Larry to release his hostages, he approaches it almost as if he’s trying to sell Larry a car and it’s impossible not to admire Joey’s determination to close the sale without anyone else getting shot. As played by Tim Robbins, Larry is thoroughly unhinged. In fact, it’s probably one of the worst performances of Tim Robbins’ career but it’s obvious that he and Williams enjoyed playing off of each other. Whenever Robbins’ performance goes over-the-top, Williams’ performance brings things back down to Earth and provides whatever pleasure one can hope to get from a film like this.

And that’s why, despite the fact that Cadillac Man is not a particularly good film, it’s an appropriate tribute to the talent of Robin Williams. It’s one thing to give a good performance in a good film. However, it takes true talent to give a great performance in a total misfire.

And that’s exactly what Robin Williams did in Cadillac Man.