Icarus File No. 12: Birdemic (dir by James Nguyen)

Posted on October 5, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

First released in 2010, Birdemic: Shock and Terror is a film that has a very specific reputation.

Chances are that, even if you haven’t watched the entire film, you’ve come across clips from Birdemic online. It’s the film where the birds attack humanity because of global warming. When the birds attack, they dive bomb the buildings below, exploding when they make contact. Whenever a bird attacks, it sounds like an airplane. Though the majority of the birds are described as being Eagles, they all sound like sea gulls. The birds themselves are all the result of cartoonish CGI, which leads to several scenes of the birds hovering in the air while the actors vainly shoot at them or try to wave them away with a clothes hanger.

Birdemic is famous for its bad acting. It’s famous for the conference room scene where a bunch of engineers and salespeople are told that they’ve all earned their stock options and they proceed to spend the next ten minutes or so applauding. Birdemic is famous for the scene where Damien Carter performs “Hanging With My Family” while the film’s stars dance in such a way that indicates that they couldn’t hear the song while they were filming. Birdemic is famous for director James Nguyen’s attempts to pay homage to Alfred Hitchcock, from the birds to the Vertigo-inspired scenes of people in San Francisco. Tippi Hedren is listed in the end credits, even though she only appears on television at one point.

Whenever I watch Birdemic, I’m struck by just how boring it is. Seriously, it takes forever to get to all of the stuff that the film is famous for. The birds don’t start attacking until nearly an hour into the film. Instead, the first part of the film is made up of awkward scenes of salesman Rod (Alan Bagh) dating aspiring model, Nathalie (Whitney Moore, giving the only adequate performance in the film). (In a typical example of their sparkling dialogue, Nathalie informs Rod that she’s just been hired by Victoria’s Secret. “I’m sure you’ll look great in their lingerie,” Rod replies.) We watch as Rod meets Nathalie’s mother and takes her to the movies and goes out to eat with her and eventually, they perform their infamous dance to Hanging With My Family. They also go to see An Inconvenient Truth, which really inspires Rod to think about what humanity is doing to the planet. Rod announces that he’s getting a hybrid.

The main thing that distinguishes Birdemic from other bad movies is just how seriously it takes itself. With all of its talk about the environment and how the birds are angry over what humans are doing to their planet, it becomes very obvious the Birdemic is a film with a message and James Nguyen sincerely believed that the solution to climate change was to get people to watch his movie. Birdemic was a film made to make people think, in much the same way that An Inconvenient Truth inspired Rod to think about getting a hybrid someday. Al Gore may have used a power point presentation to win an Oscar for himself. James Nguyen used some bad CGI birds and he didn’t win anything, other than the hearts of viewers.

It’s true that Birdemic is a film that caused people to think. Of course, few of those thoughts had to do with protecting the environment. Birdemic may have been too ambitious for its own good but it has still established a place for itself in our culture. Birdemic will never be forgotten.

Previous Icarus Files:

Retro Television Reviews: Jennifer Slept Here 1.1 “Pilot”

Posted on October 5, 2023 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 Thursdays, I will be reviewing Jennifer Slept Here, which aired on NBC in 1983 and 1984. The entire show is currently streaming on YouTube!

Since it is October, I figured why not take a look at short-lived sitcom about a ghost? What’s the worst that could happen? (Heh heh….)

Episode 1.1 “Pilot”

(Dir by Charles S. Dubin, originally aired on October 21st, 1983)

Jennifer Farrell was, at one time, the world’s biggest movie star but then, in a tragic accident, an ice cream truck backed over here and she lost her life. Three years later, her former lawyer, George Elliott (Brandon Maggart, the father of Fiona Apple), has decided to move into her Hollywood home. Accompanying him is his wife, Susan Elliott (Georgia Engel), his 8 year-old daughter Marilyn (Mya Akerlin), and his teenage son, Joey (John P. Navin, Jr.)

Joey is not particularly happy about having moved from New York to California. First off, he left behind his girlfriend, Elizabeth. Secondly, a Hollywood tour bus keeps driving by and announcing that his new home is the former home of Jennifer Farrell. Finally, Jennifer’s ghost (Ann Jillian) is living in his bedroom, which is something that Joey discovers when he tries to close the window.

Jennifer, it turns out, likes to keep the window open so she can hear the tour bus announce her name.

Joey refuses to accept that Jennifer is a ghost but then his father enters the bedroom and says that he can’t see the woman that Joey claims is standing at the window. Then, after his father leaves, Joey tries to grab Jennifer and his hand goes through her shoulder.

Remarkably, it doesn’t take Joey that long to accept that his house is haunted by a ghost that only he can see. Perhaps that’s because Joey isn’t planning on sticking around the house for long. He’s planning on running away from home and catching the next flight back to New York City. Fortunately, Jennifer is there to grab the suitcase from his hand (and yes, we get a shot of the suitcase floating up the staircase with the wires barely visible) and explain to him that everything that he needs is in the house, with his family. She also encourages Joey to flirt with the girl who lives next door. Problem solved!

It’s a remarkably simple pilot. In fact, it’s a bit too simple for its own good. Joey is a bit too quick to accept that ghosts are real but, even more importantly, his parents and his best friend, Marc (Glenn Scarpelli), are surprisingly quick to ignore the fact that Joey keeps talking to himself and yelling at someone who they can’t even see. As well, it’s never really explained why George decided to move his family into Jennifer’s home, especially since George continually refers to Jennifer as being both his worst client and as being a “tramp.” That said, the pilot did what a pilot was supposed to do. It introduced the characters and it spread the seeds for future storylines. The majority of the cast seemed a bit lost but Ann Jillian delivered her lines with just the right amount of ghostly sassiness. The main problem with the pilot is that it wasn’t particularly funny but traditionally, pilots are usually the weakest episode of any sitcom. So, let’s see how things go over the next few weeks!

Horror Novel Review: The Bad Girl by R.L. Stine

Posted on October 5, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

In 1999’s The Bad Girl, Dawn and Jan are high school students who, while fooling around in the chemistry lab, accidentally create a serum that they subsequently discover can bring the dead back to life.

At first, they just bring a frog back to life. Then, they bring a dog back to life. Dawn and Jan are apparently more powerful than God and they’re just in high school! Still, being all powerful doesn’t make it any easier for Dawn to balance her boyfriend, Clint, with her secret boyfriend, Will. Nor does it make their classmate Cindy any less annoying. Cindy is the type who always follows the rules and who is quick to snitch to the teachers if anyone does anything wrong. Everyone went to school with someone like Cindy and no one could stand her. Of course, today, the Cindys of the world spend their time on social media, reporting people for violating the terms of service and telling everyone to “wear the damn mask.”

(Remember when the folks on twitter suddenly decided that Nurse Ratched was actually the hero of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest? We live in a world of Cindys.)

Anyway, Jan and Dawn may not like Cindy but they still feel bad after they accidentally run her over in their car. So, they usually their special formula to bring Cindy back to life. Cindy returns but she doesn’t seem to be too happy about that and soon, she’s seeking revenge on everyone who she feels has mistreated her. It doesn’t help that having been brought back from the dead has not only given Cindy super strength but it has also made her impervious to harm, as Jan and Dawn discover when they continually try to kill her. Eventually, they do find out that the serum can cause those recently risen to explode but how do they trigger the explosion? I’m just going to go ahead and be a spoiler and say that the explosions are triggered by ridicule. So, bullying is the solution, regardless of what Dr. Phil might say.

As far as the Fear Street books are concerned, this was pretty dumb but I did like the fact that Dawn and Jan just happened to accidentally create a serum that can bring the dead back to life. I mean, what are the chances of just accidentally creating something like that? I imagine that there are scientists who have spent their whole lives trying to do what Dawn and Jan managed to do in just two minutes of dumping together random chemicals in the chemistry lab. I mean, this is the equivalent of an episode of Saved By The Bell where Zack and Slater accidentally bring back Becky the Duck and Artie the Chameleon. The fact that these two idiots can do it just by randomly mixing chemicals together leads me to suspect that maybe I’ll accidentally discover the formula as well someday. Of course, I’ll be a bit more careful about it than our protagonists were. Seriously, just because you can do something doesn’t mean that you should!

October True Crime: Easy Prey (dir by Sandor Stern)

Posted on October 5, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The 1986 film, Easy Prey, tells the story of Tina Marie Riscio (Shawnee Smith), a 16 year-old who was approached in a mall by man (Gerald McRaney) who claimed to be a photographer looking for models. The man told the insecure Tina that he wanted to take her picture but that he needed her to come out to his car and sign a release. At first, Tina was reluctant to follow the man out to his car but when he acted embarassed and apologized for making her feel uncomfortable, Tina decided to sign the release. Later, she would say that the man reminded her of her father.

The man, however, was Christopher Wilder. At the time that he approached Tina, Wilder was already a suspect in several murders and had been placed on the FBI’s Most Wanted List. In many ways, Wilder did not seem to fit the typical profile of a serial killer. Born in Australia, he was a naturalized American citizen who had started his own business and lived what seemed to be a glamorous lifestyle. He was a millionaire. He owned a Porsche. He was a race car driver who competed in races across the country. Even with his receding hairline, he was considered to be charming and handsome. It was only under a close examination that cracks started to appear on his perfect surface. He had a criminal record in Australia. His girlfriends described him as being paranoid, insecure, and abusive. His business partners said that, despite his apparent wealth, Wilder was always one step away from financial ruin.

Because Wilder was killed by the police while resisting arrest, it’s not known how many women he murdered over the course of his six-week crime spree in 1984. It is believed that he definitely murdered eight but the actual number is thought to be much higher. (He’s a suspect in the disappearance of actress Tammy Lynn Lepert, who appeared in Scarface as the woman who distracted Steven Bauer while the latter should have been keeping track on what was happening with Tony’s meeting with the Colombians.) However, he did not kill Tina Marie Riscio. Instead, after kidnapping and assaulting her, he drove across the country with her. After using her to lure victims in both Indiana and New York, Wilder eventually drove Tina to Boston and bought her an airplane ticket home. While Tina was flying back to Los Angeles, Wilder was heading for Canada. (He would be shot and killed by police near the border, in New Hampshire.)

Easy Prey follows Wilder and Tina as they drive from location-to-location. Along the way, Tina is shown to develop a case of Stockholm Syndrome. As much as she hates Wilder, she still fails to take advantage of many chances to escape from him. Unfortunately, the film’s script itself doesn’t provide much insight into how this happened, beyond the fact that Wilder reminded Tina of the father who earlier abandoned her. The film does feature two strong performances, from Shawnee Smith and Gerald McRaney. Smith gets a a powerful monologue, in which she talks about how easy it was for Wilder to take advantage of her insecurity. Meanwhile, McRaney plays Wilder as being a pathetic man who is desperate to convince the world that he is actually a dynamic businessman and adventurer. If he were alive today, there’s little doubt Christopher Wilder would be on twitter, siding into people’s DMs and posting a bunch of “alpha male” nonsense. Wilder was a monster who still feels very familiar.

Horror Film Review: Who Can Kill A Child? (dir by Narciso Ibáñez Serrador)

Posted on October 5, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The 1976 Spanish film, Who Can Kill A Child?, opens with a series of documentary clips, all detailing the world’s inhumanity to children. We hear about how children were experimented upon in Auschwitz. We see displaced refugees from the Korean War. We saw the famous footage of a naked Vietnamese child running down a road after her village has been napalmed by American forces. We see footage of Nigerian children being forced to serve as soldiers. The footage is disturbing but it’s also a necessary reminder that, as much as everyone claims to love children, they are often those most harmed by the wars that are waged by adults.

The film then segues into the story of Tom (Lewis Fiander) and Evelyn (Prunella Ransome), an English couple who are vacationing in Spain. Evelyn is pregnant with their third child and this vacation is their last getaway before they have to focus on raising a child. (It is mentioned that this is their third child. Presumably, they left their other two children behind in the UK while they jetted off to Spain.) Finding the beaches to be too crowded and loud, Tom and Evelyn head off to a nearby island in hopes of having some time to themselves. When they arrive at the island’s main village, they find it to be populated almost entirely by children. At first glance, there doesn’t appear to be any adults around.

As Tom and Evelyn explore the village, they discover that almost all of the buildings appear to be abandoned. They also can’t help but notice that the children seem to be watching their every move. Eventually, Tom does spot one adult but that adult is quickly attacked by a group of children who beat him to death. Tom realizes that the children have killed the adults in the village and now, they’re planning on killing him and his pregnant wife.

There have been many films made about killer kids but it’s hard to think of any of them that are as grim and downbeat as Who Can Kill A Child? There’s really not a moment of humor to be found in the film and even the movie’s most infamous scene, in which an unborn child rebels against his mother, is played with total seriousness. The children are frightening not just because they’re adorable kids but because they’re relentless in their violence and their determination to kill every adult in their path. In many ways, they’re like the fast zombies from Umberto Lenzi’s Nightmare City. The main difference is that, because their children, they’re given a benefit of the doubt that would not be given to older homicidal maniacs. Even as the children attempt to use a battering ram to burst into the room in which they’ve locked themselves, Tom and Evelyn are still hesitant to fight back because their attackers are just children. When Tom does fight back, it backfires on him because, to the rest of the world, he’s not a man fighting for his life but instead a man attacking innocent children. Even when a four year-old aims a gun at Evelyn’s head, his playful smile leaves the viewers wondering if he truly understands that guns kill or if he just thinks he’s playing a game.

Who Can Kill A Child? plays out at its own deliberate pace. It’s nearly two hours long and there’s a lot of footage of Tom and Evelyn walking around the deserted village but director Narciso Ibáñez Serrador does such a good job of creating and maintaining an atmosphere of impending doom, the film itself never feels slow. The deserted village is a wonderfully creepy location and Serrador makes sure that the viewers realize just how many spaces there are where the killer children could be hiding and waiting for someone to walk by. When the children suddenly show up in a group, coldly watching as Tom and Evelyn explore the island, it’s a truly chilling scene. The film also benefits from the performances of Lewis Fiander and Prunella Ransome, who are well-cast as Tom and Evelyn. At first, both characters seem to be a bit too complacent to be sympathetic but, as the film progresses, both Fiander and Ransome win the viewers over. Ransome, in particular, will break your heart.

The film’s conclusion is appropriately downbeat but one can’t help but feel that the children are merely doing what they’ve seen adults do for years. The children may be dangerous, violent, and ruthless but the film suggests that they learned from the best.

Horror Film Review: Elevator Game (dir by Rebekah McKendry)

Posted on October 5, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

If nothing else, Elevator Game does open with a truly chilling sequence.

A teenage girl named Becki (Megan Best) boards an elevator in an office building. She’s playing a game, one that, if played correctly, will lead her to the spirit world but, if played incorrectly, will lead to her being torn apart by the spirit of an evil woman. Why exactly anyone would want to play this type of game, I’m not sure. I mean, I wouldn’t play it and I don’t even believe in ghosts or spirit worlds.

Anyway, Becki travels from floor to floor, in a specific, pre-determined order. When she reaches the 5th floor, she is to keep her eyes shut from the moment the elevator doors open until they close. When she opens her eyes, she is not to look to see if anyone is standing behind her. It’s on the fifth floor that the game player is supposedly joined by the Fifth Floor Woman. The Fifth Floor Woman apparently doesn’t have anything better to do than to kill anyone who fails to follow the rules of the game. It seems like kind of a boring existence. I mean, if I was the Fifth Floor Woman, I would have an existential crisis about having to spend my entire “life” enforcing the arbitrary rules of an elevator game but again, some people are just really into rules. Some people have a panic attack if there isn’t a clearly defined rule book for them to follow and I guess that’s just as true among the dead as among the living. As for Becki, she does keep her eyes closed on the fifth floor but then she makes the mistake of using her phone to check over her shoulder, which gets her in trouble with the Fifth Floor Woman.

Again, the entire opening sequence is very well-done and suspenseful, with Megan Best immediately earning our sympathy as Becki. The scene where she reaches the fifth floor is genuinely scary, as is the moment when we realize that she is no longer alone on the elevator. Unfortunately, the opening is so strong that the rest of the film has a difficult time topping it.

After Becki disappears, her brother Ryan (Gino Anania) gets an internship with a group of streamers who film themselves investigating paranormal rumors and visiting places that are supposedly haunted. They play “scary games in scary places,” but they’ve also managed to tick off their only advertiser and now they desperately need to film something quick and on the cheap. Ryan, without bothering to share his personal connection to the case, tells them about what happened to Becki and he encourages them to film themselves playing the elevator game. Ryan is hoping that they can help him find Becki and, it’s hinted, he also wants revenge against of the streamers, Kris (Alex Russo), because Kris is the one who told Becki about the elevator game in the first place. The streamers play the game but, instead of finding Becki, they instead bring the Fifth Floor Woman into their world. Death follows.

Elevator Game suffers from a lack of compelling characters. The streamers are all clichés and not even Ryan is a particularly likable character. I mean, you really do have to wonder just what exactly Ryan thought would happen when he tricked a bunch of other people into playing the same stupid game that Becki played. Why did he believe that dragging all of them into it would somehow make it easier to him to find Becki? Once people start dying, it’s pretty much Ryan’s fault and it’s hard not to get annoyed with the fact that no one really seems to call him out on it. If anything, Ryan’s actions were so selfish that one could argue that he’s as much of a villain as the Fifth Floor Woman, despite the film’s attempts to portray him as being a loving brother.

That said, there are a few effectively creepy sequences and the scene where Ryan visits the so-called “Red World” was extremely well-done and vividly visualized. Even though the film tests just how many times a viewer can be expected to watch people ride an elevator from one floor to another, I’ll admit that my heart started to beat a little bit harder whenever anyone stopped at the fifth floor. “You forgot to shut your eyes!” I yelled at the screen at one point. Of course, it didn’t do any good. Rules are rules.

Elevator Game is currently streaming on Shudder.

Horror Film Review: The Invisible Man’s Revenge (dir by Ford Beebe)

Posted on October 5, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

1944’s The Invisible Man’s Revenge opens with Robert Griffin (Jon Hall) arriving in England.

Despite his last name and the fact that he’s played by the star of Invisible Agent, this Robert Griffin would not appear to be in any way related to the previous invisible men. Instead, he is someone who has just escaped from a mental institution in South Africa. He has already murdered two orderlies and now, he’s come to England to take vengeance on Sir Jasper Herrick (Lester Matthews) and his wife, Lady Irene (Gale Sondergaard), two old friends who the paranoid Robert thinks tried to kill him in Africa so that they could steal his money. When Robert sees Sir Jasper and Lady Irene, he informs them that they can either give him half of their fortune or they can allow him to marry their daughter, Julie (Evelyn Ankers). Lady Irene responds by drugging Robert and having him kicked out of the house.

Dejected, Robert eventually comes across the cottage of Dr. Peter Drury (John Carradine, giving a surprisingly low-key performance in the mad scientist role). Dr. Drury reveals to Robert that he has developed a serum that can turn living things invisible. Drury goes on to “show” Robert all of the invisible pets that he has hanging out around the cottage, from an invisible dog to an invisible parrot. When Robert asks how long the invisibility lasts, Drury says that it will last until the invisible person dies. That sounds pretty good to Robert so he volunteers to be Drury’s latest test subject.

Soon, Robert is invisible and going out of his way to haunt that Herrick family. Some of Robert’s antics are merely playful. He helps a cobbler (Leon Errol) win a game of darts and later turns the man into his personal servant. Robert’s other actions are a bit more destructive. Robert, after all, was a murderer to begin with and using a serum that cause additional insanity is definitely not helping him with his temper. When Robert decides that he wants to be visible again, he discovers that there’s only one temporary way to do it and it involves a lot of blood.

After being portrayed as being a hero in Invisible Agent, The Invisible Man is once again a villain in The Invisible Man’s Revenge and it just feels right. There’s just something inherently sinister about the idea of someone being invisible. Jon Hall, who was so boring in Invisible Agent, is far more compelling here, playing Robert as a paranoid megalomaniac who has so convinced himself of his own cleverness that he can’t even understand that he’s writing the script for his own downfall. This is a good, solid Universal horror movie. The true hero of the movie is Drury’s dog, played by a talented canine actor named Grey Shadow. It takes more than invisibility to fool that dog!

Previous Universal Horror Reviews:

Horror on the Lens: Phantom Ship (dir by Denison Clift)

Posted on October 5, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

In December of 1872, a sailing ship called the Mary Celeste was found adrift and deserted in the Atlantic Ocean. When the ship left New York in October, it had a captain and a full crew. The captain’s wife was among the passengers sailing on the ship. When the Mary Celeste was discovered, not only was no one on board but there was no evidence as to where everyone had gone or what caused them to abandon the ship in the first place. The crew of the Mary Celeste appeared to have vanished into thin air and none of them were ever seen again.

As you might guess, this led to years of speculation about what happened. Some people blamed pirates. Some blamed food poisoning. Some blamed ghosts and sea monsters. More modern theorists have blamed UFOs.

First released in 1935 and originally entitled The Mystery of the Mary Celeste, Phantom Ship offers up a theory of its own. It speculates about what happened during the final voyage of the Mary Celeste and why its crew vanished. One of the members of the crew is played by Bela Lugosi. Lugosi was still riding high from his starring role in Dracula when he starred in Phantom Ship and, playing a veteran sailor who appears to be a bit unstable, Lugosi gives an enjoyably over the top performance. Admittedly, Phantom Ship has its slow spots and, at times, it threatens to get bogged down in a subplot about the love triangle involving the Captain, his wife, and the Captain’s best friend. But Lugosi makes the film worth watching and, towards the end, there are some wonderfully atmospheric shots of the nearly deserted ship.

Along with being one Lugosi’s non-Dracula horror films, Phantom Ship is also well-known for being one of the first films to be produced by the British film company that would eventually become known as Hammer Pictures.

Enjoy!

October Positivity: Exodus of the Prodigal Son (dir by Andy Rodriguez)

Posted on October 4, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

As you can tell from looking at the poster for this 2020 film, Eric Roberts is in Exodus of the Prodigal Son. Even though he’s given top-billing on the poster and is pictured as being at the center of all of the characters, Eric Roberts doesn’t really do much in this movie. This is one of those films where Eric Roberts probably shot all of his scenes in a day. Whenever we see him, he is relaxing behind his desk. I don’t think he even bother to change his clothes between scenes, despite the fact that the film plays out over a few days.

Eric Roberts is playing Chief Roberts, which really does contribute to the feeling that he just showed up on set and decided to be a part of the movie. Chief Roberts is always encouraging his detectives to go out and catch the bad guys. Apparently, there’s been a string of child murders and Roberts sure would like to capture whoever was responsible for them. But it also appears that the Chief mostly just wants an arrest. He really doesn’t seem to care if the people who are arrested are guilty or not. It’s a bit hard to know what to make of Chief Roberts. Then again, it’s difficult to know what to make of anyone in this movie.

The plot is damn near incoherent but, as far as I can tell, Jordan (Ronnie Alvarez) and Eddie (Pablo Nunez) are brothers who were raised in the church and taught to follow the straight and narrow path. But then Eddie stops going to church and starts hanging out with wannabe gangsters like Mark (Adam Mendoza). Mark is big into Santeria and his idea of flirting is to talk about how he gets good luck from sacrificing goats on an altar that’s built for La Santa Muerta. When Eddie’s friend, Steve (Samuel Warburton), stops by Jordan and Eddie’s place to talk to Eddie about returning to church, Mark gives Steve a drink that has been laced with some sort of drug. Steve overdoses. Eddie goes to the hospital with Steve. Meanwhile, Mark decides to pull a knife on Jordan which leads to a struggle in which Mark somehow stabs himself in the neck and dies. Now, with the help of his biker uncle, Jordan has to go on the run.

Who is the prodigal son in this scenario? I’m not really sure. The whole point of the parable of the prodigal son is that the prodigal chose to leave home on his own. He wasn’t fleeing the police or anything like that. So, Eddie would seem to be the prodigal son but he’s not the one who goes into hiding or learns a spiritual lesson. Instead, that’s what happens to Jordan but, again, Jordan didn’t leave home because he wanted to. He left home because the cops were after him. It’s probably best not to worry too much about it. The plot here was obviously not meant to be followed.

There’s a lot to criticize about this film but really, the thing that took this film from bad to terrible was the sound. Some of the dialogue is muffled. Some of it is unreasonably loud. In one of his first scenes, Eric Roberts keeps bumping his wristwatch against the sound of his desk and the effect is deafening. Later, in the hospital, the beeping of Steve’s EKG monitor is so loud that it’s impossible to understand what anyone is saying. People, I think, tend to underestimate the importance of clear sound in a movie. It’s something we take for granted but when it’s not there, it’s enough to make you want to throw something at the screen.

Finally — and this is a spoiler — the film commits the sin of ending on a “It was all a dream!” note. So, does that mean that Eric Roberts was a part of the dream or did he really exist? It’s a question that’s far more intriguing than anything else about this particular film.

Previous Eric Roberts Films That We Have Reviewed:

Late Night Retro Television Reviews: Monsters 1.1 “The Feverman”

Posted on October 4, 2023 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 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!