Tag Archives: Manny Coto

Late Night Retro Television Review: Monsters 2.5 “Love Hurts”

Posted on 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 Wednesdays, I will be reviewing Monsters, which aired in syndication from 1988 to 1991. The entire series is streaming on YouTube.

This week, horror comes to the DMV!  Seriously, there’s nothing scarier than renewing your license….

Episode 2.5 “Love Hurts”

(Dir by Manny Coto, originally aired on October 29th, 1989)

Smooth-talking Vance (Henry Brown) is a ne’er-do-well who has a job working at the DMV in New Orleans.  He works with his disapproving father-in-law, Mr. Brownell (Fred Pinkard), who was responsible for getting Vance the job and who is always quick to make sure that Vance knows that he can cause Vance to lose his job as well.  Oddly enough, it appears that Vance and Mr. Brownell are the only employees at the DMV and the DMV itself is housed in a rather small building.  On the plus side, there’s never a line.  Do people just not drive in New Orleans?  I’ve been to the city and I saw a lot of cars while I was there.

Anyway, Mr. Brownell knows that Vance regularly cheats on his wife, Cora (Renn Woods).  In fact, Vance is currently cheating with Jewel (Olivia Brown, who also played Trudy on Miami Vice).  Mr. Brownell watches in silent disapproval whenever Jewel comes down to the DMV and hangs out at the front desk.  Jewel wants Vance to herself so she turns to her friend, Angie (Valentina Quinn).  Angie just happens to be a voodoo priestess.

The first spell that Jewel and Angie cast simply causes Cora and her father to fall ill with a terrible skin condition.  While Cora and her father are at the doctor’s office, Jewel and Vance get to spend some alone time behind the desk at the DMV.  When Mr. Brownell unexpectedly shows up at the office, he snaps at Vance not to have sex behind the desk at the DMV.  Apparently, the DMV is a sacred space.

The next spell that Jewel and Angie cast causes Mr. Brownell to die.  Without Mr. Bronwell constantly threatening to fire Vance for cheating on Cora, Jewel assumes that Vance will now leave his wife.  Except …. Cora’s pregnant!

The next spell that Jewel casts is designed to join her soul to Vance’s.  Unfortunately, this spell has some unintended consequences as the episode ends as a horribly mutilated and zombified Vance approaches Jewel.  Agck!

The gore at the end was very much appreciated, at least by this viewer.  Vance and Jewel were such unlikable characters that it was definitely a pleasure to see them get what was coming to them, the gorier the better.  The ending was effectively macabre but the rest of the episode was far too mild for its own good.  The script was weak, the actors were all a bit too theatrical in their performances, and the story itself played out at a surprisingly slow pace.  Ending aside, this was one of the more forgettable episodes of Monsters.

Cover-Up (1991, directed by Manny Coto)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

After an overseas U.S. army base is bombed by terrorists, L.A. Times reporter Mike Anderson (Dolph Lundgren) is sent to Israel to get the story.  Before he became a reporter, Mike was a Marine and he has connections within the U.S. intelligence services.  Mike quickly figures out that CIA honcho Lou Jackson (Lou Gossett, Jr.) is covering something up about the bombing.  The terrorists who bombed the base have also stolen an experimental nerve gas.  Mike is ordered to stay out of the investigation but after Mike’s best friend, Jeff Cooper (John Finn), is blown up by a car bomb, Mike is determined to get justice.  He’s also determined to sleep with his dead best friend’s girlfriend (Lisa Berkley), who is also Mike’s ex.  It turns out that it’s a lot easier to betray a friend’s confidence than to stop terrorists from stealing nerve gas.

When it came to the second-tier action stars of the 90s, Jean-Claude Van Damme was the one who could actually do everything that he did on screen in real life, Steven Seagal was the one who never seemed to get the joke, and Dolph Lundgren was the one who could actually act.  Even in a film that was pure schlock, like Cover-Up, Lundgren usually gave a good performance.  Unfortunately, Lundgren’s performance couldn’t make up for Cover-Up‘s anemic action scenes and incoherent plot.  No one seems to be sure what they’re supposed to be doing in this movie.  Lou Gossett, Jr. survives by playing his role as being pissed off all the time.  Lundgren survives by playing Mike as being even more confused than Gossett.  There’s a weak car chase and a weak shower scene.  Mike really doesn’t waste any time when it comes to hooking up with his best friend’s girl.

Cover-Up was filmed on location in Israel and it does work as a travelogue.  Towards the end of the film, Lundgren runs through a mass of people who are reenacting the Twelve Stations of Christ.  The people were actually in Israel to celebrate Easter and no one informed them that they were about to become a part of a movie.  When Lundgren comes barreling through the crowd, their shock is authentic.  It’s the best part of the movie, even if it did lead to Lundgren being temporarily detained by security.  Fortunately, production was able to clear-up the misunderstanding and Lundgren was freed so that he could go on to star in Universal Soldier and reprise Ivan Drago in Creed II.  I’m glad the Lundgren survived filming but Cover-Up is otherwise forgettable.

Bad Medicine: Dr. Giggles (1992, directed by Manny Coto)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

In 1957, the citizens of the town of Moorheigh discovered that their local doctor was doing experiments on his patients, removing their hearts and using them to try to bring his dead wife back to life.  The townspeople responded by executing Dr. Rendell and chanting a poem that goes, “This town has a doctor named Rendell/Stay away from his house because he’s the doctor from Hell.”  They would have killed Dr. Rendell’s son too, except that Evan, Jr. escaped by sewing himself up in his mother’s corpse and then later using a scalpel to cut his way out.

Thirty-five years later, Evan, Jr. (Larry Drake) returns to Moorheigh, looking to get revenge on the town.  Because of his evil laugh, he is now known as Dr. Giggles and he has a medical-related one liner for every occasion.  When Dr. Giggles learns that Jennifer (Holly Marie Combs) needs a heart monitor, Dr. Giggles decides to stalk her while killing all of her interchangeable friends.  Dr. Giggles says that he wants to give her a new heart, preferably one that he’s ripped out of someone else’s body.  Jennifer is not very appreciative.

Dr. Giggles was meant to be a franchise started, in the fashion of the Nightmare on Elm Street and Friday the 13th films.  It was a franchise that would never be because there wasn’t much that could be done with Dr. Giggles that wasn’t done during the first film.   Larry Drake was a good actor but, other than the scene where he used a scalpel to cut himself out of a dead body, there was nothing about Dr. Giggles that distinguished from all the other horror movie slasher.  He wasn’t a dream weaver like Freddy or indestructible like Jason.  He was just a dude dressed like a doctor who giggled too much.

For a better film featuring Larry Drake as a villain, do yourself a favor and watch Sam Raimi’s Darkman.

Horror On TV: Tales From The Crypt 3.10 “Mournin’ Mess” (dir by Manny Coto)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Tonight’s excursion into the world of televised horror is the 10th episode of the 3rd season of HBO’s Tales From The Crypt!

Steven Weber plays an alcoholic reporter who thinks that he has found the story of his career!  Someone is preying on the homeless and our reporter is determined to find out who and why.  (Not because he actually cares about the homeless, of course.  He just needs a big story to save his career.)  However, the reporter quickly discovers that 1) all charities are not charitable and 2) you should always be careful about biting off more than you can chew…

This well-acted episode was directed and written by Manny Coto and it originally aired on July 31st, 1991.

Enjoy!