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 show is streaming on Youtube.

Monsters was an anthology series that ran, in syndication, from 1988 to 1991.  It was produced by Richard Rubinstein and Mitchell Galin, who had previously produced another anthology series called Tales From The Darkside.  Monsters, unlike Tales, almost exclusively focused horror stories and, as the title suggests, each story featured at least one monster.  As well, each episode opened with a family of monsters sitting around a television and looking for something to watch.

Sounds like fun!  I’m looking forward to watching and reviewing this series for Through the Shattered Lens.

Episode 1.1 “The Feverman”

(Dir by Michal Gornick, originally aired on October 22nd, 1988)

Timothy Mason (John C. Vennema) is in a panic because his daughter (Michele Gornick) has a contracted a fever and is now on the verge of death.  When Mason’s friend, Dr. James Burke (Patrick Garner), is unable to lower the girl’s fever, Mason decides to take her to see the Boyle (David McCallum), the feverman.  A disreputable fellow who is never seen without a glass of liquor in his hand and a dingy crystal hanging out around his neck, Boyle claims that he can pull fevers out of those suffering.  He charges a good deal of money for his services but he also claims that, unlike the doctors of the world, he’s never lost a patient.  Indeed, Boyle claims that, if anyone brought to him died, he would die as well.

Burke goes with Mason to Boyle’s house and, when Boyle announces that he must be alone with Mason’s daughter in order to cure her, Burke denounces him as being a charlatan.  Still, Mason agrees to leave his daughter alone with Boyle in Boyle’s basement.  However, as Burke and Mason wait for Boyle to return from the basement, they grow impatient and Burke pressures Mason to disobey Boyle’s orders.  Finally, Burke and Mason head into the basement and that’s where they catch Boyle wrestling with this thing….

It turns out that Boyle wasn’t lying when he said that he could literally bring the fever out of a patient.  However, when Burke and Mason interrupt him, that allows the fever monster to once again reenter Mason’s daughter.  The crystal necklace falls off Boyle’s neck.  Boyle explains to Burke that he is now dying and he can no longer fight the fever.  And, because it’s all Burke’s fault, it is now Burke’s obligation to wear the crystal and battle the fever.

Realizing that he’s at fault, Burke puts on the crystal and he wrestles with the fever monster.  Burke manages to destroy the monster but, afterwards, he discovers that he cannot take the crystal off.  As Boyle explains it, Burke is the new feverman and he will now wear the crystal until the day he dies.  Mason, happy that his daughter is now cured, still refuses to stick around to talk to Burke afterwards.  Burke is now an outsider.  Resigned to his fate, Burke starts drinking and prepares to meet his next patient.

This was an effective episode, featuring a wonderfully dissolute performance from David McCallum as Boyle and plenty of grimy atmosphere.  Maybe it’s just because I’m still getting over having the flu last week but the fever monster totally freaked me out.  I imagine that creature probably is what a fever really would look like.  This episode was the exact right way to start things off for Monsters!