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Horror Film Review: The Hideous Sun Demon (dir by Tom Boutross and Robert Clarke)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

“It’s never late until the sun comes up.”

Those words are spoken in the 1958 film, The Hideous Sun Demon.  Sultry pianist Trudy (Nan Peterson) may just be talking about her own nocturnal lifestyle and her job as the entertainment at a bar but those words also have a double meaning to scientist Gil McKenna (Robert Clarke).  Whenever the sun comes up, Gil is transformed into the Hideous Sun Demon!

In theory, of course, this is an interesting take on the werewolf legend or even a traditional vampire tale.  Typically, monsters aren’t supposed to come out until the sun goes down and they can move under the cover of darkness.  The werewolf is transformed by the moonlight.  The vampire is destroyed by the sun.  (Or, at least, he used to be.  Largely due to authorial laziness, many modern vampire tales have abandoned the whole idea of not being able to go out during the day.)  Gil, however, reverses the trend.  By night, he’s a handsome and brooding scientist.  By day, he’s not just the sun demon.  He’s the …. HIDEOUS SUN DEMON!

(Seriously, that can’t be good for his self-esteem.)

Like all great monsters, Gil doesn’t want to be the sun demon.  He tries to stay in his house until night falls so that he won’t be transformed into a monster.  But it’s difficult when he finds himself talking to Trudy and getting lost in their conversation.  The beach looks so nice at night but it looks even better at dawn!

Why is Gil found himself in this position?  It won’t shock you to know that Gil was once a research scientist who was working a new radioactive isotope.  That’s right …. it was the radiation!  In the 50s and the 60s, the radiation was blamed for just about everything.  There was literally nothing that the radiation couldn’t do.  The radiation woke up Godzilla.  The radiation turned a tree stump into a walking monster.  The radiation caused Col. Glen Manning to become the Amazing Colossal Man.  Wherever there was radiation, you could be sure that giant animals and deformed monsters would follow.  Tor Johnson was just fine until he drove out to Yucca Flats.  The aliens were so concerned about man’s love for radiation that they decided they had no choice but to raise the dead in an attempt to stop us from exploding atoms and the sunlight itself.  Some scientisteven  suspected that radiation — in this case, space radiation — led the first zombie apocalypse.  (Regardless, they were all messed up.)  In fact, the only thing that couldn’t be stopped by radiation was the Martian invasion.  We had to depend on good old germs for that!

As for Gil, he’s got a lot of scientists working on a cure for his condition but he knows it’s hopeless and he’s pretty bitter about it.  Poor guy.  I may not turn into a demon but I do have red hair so I could slightly relate to his feelings.  Redheads don’t tan as much as we just burn.  I guess that’s one reason why I love this time of year.  The skies are full of clouds and one can safely walk around during the daylight hours.

As for The Hideous Sun Demon, it is a ludicrous and fun B-movie, a quick 74-minute beach romp with a convincing performance from Robert Clarke and an effective monster costume.  The scientists investigating Gil’s case are all extremely sober while Gil is extremely mopey and Trudy is extremely sultry and George (Peter Similuk), a bar patron who also likes Trudy, is a true middle-aged 50s tough guy.  It’s very much a film for the 50s drive-in crowd and all the more entertaining because of it.

Horror On The Lens: Incubus (dir by Leslie Stevens)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Remember Esperanto?

Esperanto was an international language that was briefly promoted by one-world government weirdos but which never really caught on.  Four movie have been made in Esperanto but only one is still remembered.  1966’s Incubus features William Shatner, giving a very Shatnerish performance, as a solider who is tempted by a mysterious woman.  The cinematography of the legendary Conrad Hall gives this one a very dream-like feel, even before everyone starts to talk.

Yes, this movie has subtitles.  But, so what?  Who hasn’t wanted to see William Shatner speak Esperanto?

October Positivity: One Cop’s Journey (dir by Jason Campbell)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

In 2022’s One Cop’s Journey, Keith Knotek (Tim Perez-Ross) is involved in a traffic accident.  Because Keith is clearly intoxicated, he’s taken to jail.  Because it’s the start of the weekend, Keith is going to have to spend three days in jail before the Magistrate will see him and determine the amount of money that it will take to get him out.

Keith sits in a jail cell for three days.  Because he’s a cop, the other police officers treat him with perhaps a bit more sympathy than they would give the usual inmate.  You need a private cell?  Here you go.  You want us to call your wife?  No problem!  You want to get changed for court in the officer’s locker room?  Sure, why not?  Here’s a phone, go ahead and call your minister.

That minister is played by Dean Cain.  The cop calls the minister and admits to getting a DUI and maybe hurting some people in the car accident.

“We all make mistakes,” Dean Cain replies.

And isn’t that the truth!  One Cop’s Journey attempts to show the stress that would lead a cop to start drinking.  His partner and best friend is gunned down while pursuing a suspect.  Keith, himself, is nearly killed while conducting a routine traffic stop.  No one wants to hear the details of what a cop has to deal with on daily basis.  His wife has grown tired of him being depressed and emotionally withdrawn all the time and, when she discovers that he never told her about one traumatic incident that happened shortly before they were married, she considers it to be the same as telling her a lie.  Worst of all, his teenage daughter decides to attend an anti-police rally, holding a sign that reads “No Justice No Peace,” while her friends all hold signs that read, “Defund the Police.”

Since this is a faith-based film, Keith eventually finds redemption and hope through prayer and he goes on to write a book about the pressures of being a cop.  That’s to be expected and, to its credit, the film doesn’t get particularly preachy when it comes to the religious angle.  I imagine that most people who would regularly get offended by the religious subtext will be too busy getting upset over the film’s political subtext to really notice.

One Cop’s Journey is thoroughly and unapologetically pro-cop and that’s never more obvious than in the protest scene when the blue collar, salt-of-the-earth policemen find themselves being yelled at by a bunch of bitter geriatrics and a few smirking college students.  There’s nothing subtle about it but, then again, there’s nothing subtle about most left-wing movies either.  As is so often the case when it comes to political movies, how you react will depend on how you felt about the issue before the movie started.  (My own personal opinion is that police reform is something that needs to be considered, especially when it comes to the militarization of the police.  At the same time, the “abolish the police” folks were and are living in a fantasy world.)

One Cop’s Journey is only 63 minutes long and there is an effective dream sequence in which Keith finds himself looking at the headshots of everyone who he feels he has left down.  That said, the film still had far too many slow spots for so short of a production.  Putting Keith in the jail cell really did make the whole thing feel pretty stagey.  Still, the film did find the time to share some information about Post Traumatic Stress amongst first responders.  It’s heart was in the right place.

October Hacks: Grim Reaper (dir by James Ian Mair)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

In 2021’s Grim Reaper, escaped mental patient Victor Cunningham (Deron Cunningham) is wandering around a small country town and killing people.

That’s pretty much the entire plot.  Grim Reaper is only a 70-minute film and the majority of those minutes are made up of either Cunningham wandering around in his grim reaper mask, Cunningham’s victims being stalked, and the police being ineffective.  (The main detective wears a baseball cap that read: POLICE.  It’s a good thing that the guy was wearing that baseball cap because, otherwise, I would have just mistaken him for a local bartender.)  Our final girl has a big bruise on her face and is trying to escape an abusive relationship, which adds a level of poignance to her story.

There’s a tendency amongst many to be automatically dismissive of DIY slasher films like Grim Reaper.  It’s true that Grim Reaper has its amateurish moments and that the soundtrack leans a bit too heavy on the metal and it’s also obvious that most of the actors were not professionals but I have to admit that I kind of enjoyed the movie and not just in an ironic sense.  It helps that the film was obviously made by people who appreciate the genre and, watching the film, one gets the feeling that it was a fun set.  It may seem like a backhanded compliment to say that the film is comfortable with being what it is but you need only compare it to some of the current big budget horror films to see the difference between a horror film made be fans of the genre and people who think that they’re somehow better than the horror label.  Even shot on video, the film still had somewhat effective shots.  Director James Ian Mair appears to have a good eye and he even manages to make good use of natural light.  That’s the same thing that got Chloe Zhao an Oscar and a Marvel movie.

Sometimes, you just have to be willing to appreciate a film for what it is.

Charles Bronson interviews the slasher in 10 TO MIDNIGHT (1983)!

Posted on by Bradley Crain

Charles Bronson played a cop a bunch of times in the 1980’s, but my personal favorite is Leo Kessler from 10 TO MIDNIGHT. Kessler wants to be a better dad to his daughter Lori (Lisa Eilbacher), but first he needs to catch a psychotic killer who’s murdering beautiful young women. One of the most interesting things about 10 TO MIDNIGHT is the way it tries to fuse a badass cop film with the popular slasher films of the 1980’s. It’s arguably Bronson’s best Cannon film, and Gene Davis is a certifiable creep as the slasher, Warren Stacy. Enjoy this infamous scene where Kessler confronts Stacy about his, ummm… private sexual activities!

The TSL Horror Grindhouse: The Toolbox Murders (dir by Dennis Donnelly)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

In 1979’s The Toolbox Murders, someone is murdering the female tenants of a building in Los Angeles.  The killer, who wears a mask and a leather jacket, uses tools.  One woman is killed by a hammer to the head.  Another is skewered by a power drill.  One is stabbed with a screwdriver.  Another is shot with a nail gun.  The identity of the killer would be a total mystery if not for the fact that we’ve already seen Cameron Mitchell’s name in the cast list.

Indeed, it’s a bit pointless to cast Cameron Mitchell in any sort of whodunit-type of film.  Nine times out of ten, Mitchell being in a movie means that that Mitchell (who, in the early days of his career, originated the role of Death of a Salesman‘s Happy Loman on Broadway) is going to be revealed as the murderer.  In this case, Mitchell plays Vance Kingsley, the owner of the building.  Vance has never recovered from the death of his daughter so he’s punishing women who he considered to be sinful.

The actual toolbox murders are pretty much finished after the first twenty minutes of the film.  The rest of the movie deals with Laurie (Pamelyn Ferdin), a 15 year-old girl who is kidnapped by Vance and his nephew, Kent (Wesley Eure).  Joey (Nicholas Beauvy), who is Laurie’s brother, attempts to find and then rescue his sister and turns out to very much not up to the task.  The film itself ends on a rather sick note, one that is followed by a title card that informs us that the film is based on a true story.  Yeah, sure, it was.

The Toolbox Murders has somehow earned a reputation for being a gory and shocking grindhouse film.  It was among the films that was banned in the UK for several years.  It’s actually not that gory and the use of tools to commit the murders is not quite as clever as the film seems to think it is.  Even the nail gun murder (which is the film’s best known moment) feels rather awkward as the victim (Kelly Nichols) never really makes a run for it despite the fact that Vance has to stop to reload after every nail that he fires.

The scenes with Laurie being held hostage are far more disturbing and weird, largely due to Mitchell’s characteristically over-the-top portrayal of Vance’s psychosis.  When you watch a movie called The Toolbox Murders, you’re probably not expecting a lengthy scene where Laurie — pretending to be Vance’s dead daughter — tells a long story about what it’s like in the afterlife.  In the role of Vance’s nephew, Wesley Eure is even more disturbing than Mitchell.  As opposed to the sinister-looking Mitchell, Eure actually has the look of a nice, young community college student and that makes his actions at the end of the film all the more icky to watch.

The Toolbox Murders doesn’t quite live up to its bloody reputation but it’s still a disturbing film nonetheless.  Did you know that Heaven smells like lollipops?  After this film, you’ll never forget.

Retro Television Review: Baywatch: Panic At Malibu Pier

Posted on 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 Saturdays, I will be reviewing Baywatch, which ran on NBC and then in syndication from 1989 to 2001.  The entire show can be purchased on Tubi.

Today, I start a new series of reviews.  Since I already did Baywatch Nights, it just made sense to go ahead and do Baywatch.  All together, this show ran for 11 and a movie so it should only take 241 weeks to finish up the series….

“Baywatch: Panic At Malibu Pier”

(Dir by Richard Compton, originally aired on April 29th, 1989)

It’s not easy being a lifeguard.

That would seem to be the main theme running through Panic at Malibu Pier, the two-hour movie that also served as a pilot for Baywatch.  Consider the drama:

Mitch Buchanan (David Hasselhoff) loves the beach and he loves getting in the water but it’s cost him his marriage and now, his ex-wife (Wendie Malick) is suing for sole custody of their young son, Hobie (Brandon Call).  Hobie doesn’t like going to school.  He doesn’t understand why he can’t just spend all day on the beach like his father.  Mitch, meanwhile, has been promoted to lieutenant of Baywatch and he’s now no longer supposed to do rescues.  He’s just supposed to supervise the other lifeguard.  His boss, Captain Thorpe (Monte Markham), is very insistent on that.  Mitch explains that he doesn’t even like wearing socks.  Ewwww.  You have to wear socks, Mitch!

Eddie Kramer (Billy Warlock) is a rookie lifeguard.  He finished at the top of his class but he’s also a tough kid from Philadelphia who grew up in the foster system.  Shauni (Erika Eleniak) is another rookie lifeguard who freezes up when she has to provide CPR to a drowned girl.  Her mentor, Jill (Shawn Weatherly), tells Shauni that it happens to every lifeguard.  I bet it’s never happened to Mitch.  Shauni seems to have a crush on Eddie and Eddie seems to be driven to prove himself.  Eddie has guts because he wears a Philadelphia t-shirt in California.

Al Gibson (Richard Jaeckel) is the veteran lifeguard who is reaching retirement age and who dies at the end of the episode and gets a big lifeguard funeral on the beach.

Trevor (Peter Phelps) is the Australian lifeguard who calls everyone “mate.”

Finally, Craig Pomeroy (Parker Stevenson) is the attorney who prefers to spend his time in his lifeguard tower.  Even when he should be at the office and working for his clients, Craig just hangs out at his tower.  He saves the life of a disturbed teenager named Laurie (Madchen Amick).  Laurie subsequently becomes obsessed with him.  When the married Craig tells her to stay out of his lifeguard tower and stop taking off all of her clothes, she accuses Craig of assaulting her.  Later, she tries to murder Craig’s wife (Gina Hecht).  This all could have been avoided if Craig had just gone to his office like he was supposed to.

This pilot film for Baywatch has everything that the show would make famous — stiff line deliveries from the supporting cast, red swimsuits, David Hasselhoff’s earnestly goofy sincerity, slow motion, and plenty of musical montages.  Amongst the guest cast, Madchen Amick stands out at the obsessive Laurie, showing an ability for handling melodrama that would be put to good use on Twin Peaks.  Take a drink every time Mitch says, “Rescue can,” and see how long you can go before passing out.  Unlike a lot of pilots that don’t really resemble the eventual show, Panic at Malibu Pier is unmistakably Baywatch.

And, watching it, you can see why the show eventually became a success.  The beach scenery is nice.  The men are athletic, the women are pretty, and the slow motion is cool the first time you see it.  Of course, the most important thing about the pilot — and the show itself — is that it doesn’t require a good deal of attention.  It’s one of those things where you can step away from the screen for a few minutes and then come back without having worry about having missed anything important.

Panic at Malibu Pier was a ratings hit.  Baywatch followed.  We’ll get into that next week.

Horror Scenes That I Love: Charlton Heston In The Omega Man

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Today would have been the 102nd birthday of actor Charlton Heston.

This scene that I love comes from one of the few horror films in which Heston appeared.  An adaptation of Richard Matheson’s I Am Legend, 1971’s The Omega Man featured Charlton Heston as Robert Neville.  By night, Neville protects his house against the mutant horde.  By day, he tracks those sleeping mutants down and watches Woodstock over and over again.

“They don’t make them like that anymore.”

October True Crime: Drew Peterson: Untouchable (dir by Mikael Salomon)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

From the years 2007 to 2013, it’s hard to think of anyone who was as universally despised as Drew Peterson.

Drew Peterson was the Illinois cop who first came to national attention when his fourth wife, Stacy, went missing.  Stacy had been on the verge of completing her nursing degree at the time of her disappearance.  Though Drew was a cop, he wasn’t the one who reported her missing.  Instead, it was her sister who called the police after she failed to hear from Stacy.  When Drew was asked about Stacy, he seemed unconcerned and even cocky as he claimed Stacy had run off with another man.  Few people believed him.  It had only been three years since another Peterson had been convicted of murdering his wife and, like Drew, Scott Peterson also claimed that his wife left their home and vanished.

The investigation into Stacy’s disappearance led to authorities taking another look at the death of Drew Peterson’s third wife, Kathy Savio.  Kathy death had originally been found to be an accidental drowning, though how one can drown in an empty bathtub was never really explained.  A second autopsy revealed evidence of a struggle and, in 2013, Drew Peterson was convicted of her murder.  Drew Peterson is currently in prison and Stacy is still listed as missing.

The thing that sticks out about Drew Peterson is how smug he always seemed.  Like Dennis Rader (who was a serial killer by night and a neighborhood compliance officer by day), Drew Peterson was the ultimate nightmare authority figure.  He had a uniform and he had a badge and he had an attitude that said, “I can do whatever I want and if you complain, nobody will believe you.”  When we looked at Drew Peterson, we saw every cop who had ever pulled someone over for a busted taillight or he had ever tried to hit on someone after stopping them for speeding.  Even when he had people accusing him of killing Kathy, Drew would appear on television and smirk and basically dare you to do anything about it.  If you want to know what we mean when we use terms like “mansplaining,” go watch an interview with Drew Peterson.

Drew Peterson’s legal troubles were so drawn out that the 2012 Lifetime film, Drew Peterson: Untouchable, actually went into production before Peterson had even been convicted of anything.  (Peterson actually filed a cease and desist letter demanding that production be halted.)  The film ends not with Drew Peterson being convicted of killing Kathy but instead with Rob Lowe (playing the paunchy, middle-aged Peterson) doing a slow motion strip tease after being arrested.  The film does a very good job of not outright accusing Peterson while, at the same time, reminding viewers of why so many of them instantly disliked him.

Of course, when the film was first aired, it received a lot of attention for casting the amiable and handsome Rob Lowe as Drew Peterson, a man who was neither of those things.  Lowe gives an excellent performance as Peterson, capturing the somewhat desperate swagger of a man who doesn’t want to admit that he’s aging.  Lowe captures Peterson’s cockiness and his manipulative nature and, even more importantly, he captures the arrogance of a man who believes that, because he wears a uniform, he can get away with anything.  As his victimized wives, both Kaley Cuoco and Care Buono gave poignant performances.

I don’t know where Drew Peterson is but, wherever he’s serving his time, I hope he’s being forced to watch this movie at least once a day.

Horror Film Review: The Wind (dir by Nico Mastorakis)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

In 1986’s The Wind, Meg Foster stars as Sian Anderson.  Sian is a novelist who lives in Los Angeles with her wealthy boyfriend, John (David McCallum).  How wealthy is John?  He’s so wealthy that he can sit out by his pool with a telephone.  (That’s 80s wealthy!)  He’s so wealthy that, when Sian says that she’s going to go to Greece so she can work on her next novel, John rents out the Goodyear Blimp and has it say, “Bon Voyage.”

(It would have been funnier if it had said, “The World Is Yours.”)

On the Greek isle of Monemvasia, she rents the home of Elias Appleby (Robert Morley), an eccentric man who tells her that she must be careful during the night because the heavy winds can be deadly.  He probably also should have warned her that the handyman, Phil (Wings Hauser), was crazy.  No sooner has the wind started howling outside and Sian has started work on her latest novel (which, from what we hear of her writing, sounds absolutely awful), then wild-eyed Phil starts acting crazy and homicidal.  Isolated and too stupid to figure out how to use a Greek phone (and yes, that actually is a plot point), Sian tries to survive the night.

The Wind was directed by Greek journalist-turned-filmmaker Nico Mastorakis.  Anyone was has seen a previous Mastorakis film will immediately be able to spot that The Wind is a product of his somewhat unique aesthetic vision.  As with almost all of Mastorakis’s films, The Wind is both a thriller and a travelogue.  Yes, Phil is trying to kill Sian but — hey!  Look at how pretty the island is!  As well, in typical Mastorakis fashion, the cast is a hodgepodge of familiar faces who don’t all seem as if they belong in the same movie.  Along with Meg Foster, Wings Hauser, Robert Morley, and David McCallum, the film also features Steve Railsback as a friendly sailor who, stranded on the island by the wind, attempts to help Sian out.

The other big Mastorakis trademark is that none of the characters in the film seem to like each other.  That makes sense when it comes to Sian and Phil.  But what is one to make of the scene where Appleby gives Sian a tour of the home and the two of them, who have just met, immediately start snapping at each other for no reason?  They’ve just met and they really don’t have any reason to be arguing with each other.  But that’s what they do because this is a Nico Mastorakis film.

For me, the funniest part of the film involves John.  Worried that Phil is going to kill her, Sian finally gets to talk to John on the phone.  The connection is bad but John, who is sitting out by his pool, still clearly hears Sian say that someone is trying to kill her.  The line then goes dead.  John contacts the international operator and says that he has to make an emergency call to Greece but he’s not sure about the exact number.  The international operator replies that a call cannot be made with an exact number.  So, what does John?  He shrugs, hangs up,  gets in the swimming pool, swims a few laps and nearly misses it when Sian, hours later, calls him again.  To reiterate: John, a wealthy man with Goodyear Blimp connections, heard that the love of his life was isolated and in fear of her life and his response was to go for a swim.

On the plus side, The Wind is actually decently paced and Nico Mastorakis makes the use of his limited locations.  Meg Foster and Wing Hauser are both such eccentric performers that it’s impossible not be entertained by the sight of them acting opposite each other.  Even by his usual standards, Hauser is memorably unhinged here.  This film is ludicrous and a lot of fun.  It’s a Nico Mastorakis film, after all.