Horror Film Review: Mark of the Witch (dir by Tom Moore)

Posted on October 7, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

If I had to guess, I’d say that there is probably nothing more dangerous than being the descendant of a witch hunter. Even though your ancestors may have found some success hunting witches back in 1622, the witch’s spirit always seems to stick around and wait for its chance to possess someone close to you and get revenge. Apparently, it’s impossible to get rid of the spirit of a witch once it’s sworn a curse upon you and your family. In fact, it would probably be better to save everyone the trouble and just leave the witches alone. At least, that’s what I’ve gathered from watching movies with the word “witch” in title.

Take for example 1970’s Mark of the Witch. The film opens with a bunch of witch hunter’s sacrificing The Witch (Marie Santell). The Witch announces that she will have her vengeance, right before she’s hanged. Jump forward a few centuries and The Witch possesses Jill (Anitra Walsh), a college student who made the mistake of accepting her professor’s invitation to a séance.

Now that Jill’s possessed, it’s time to go after the descendants of the main witch hunter. To help her out with this, she blackmails the professor (Robert Elston) and demands that he explain to her how modern life works. There are a few scenes that feel like they could have been lifted from one of those sci-fi shows where the robot or the alien requests to know why humans laugh when they’re happy. I mean, I don’t know what this witch has been doing in the spirit world but apparently, she hasn’t been keeping up with the times on planet Earth. Jill’s boyfriend (Darryl Wells) suspects that there’s something wrong with Jill. Can he save her from the Witch?

Mark of the Witch was an early indie film. It was shot in Dallas in the 60s and sat on the shelf for a while. The cast was made up of local actors and to call the acting inconsistent would be an understatement. That said, Marie Santell gives an enjoyably over the top performance as the Witch and Anitra Walsh is likeable as Jill. Both of them are required to give lengthy monologues about spells and revenge and magic and all the rest and they both do their best to bring some conviction to the occasionally florid dialogue. The film itself is a bit too talky to be scary but, visually, there are a few artfully composed shots. The opening scene, in which the Witch is executed, plays out with a certain dream-like intensity. It’s not a great film but it has its moments.

For the most part, Mark of the Witch is primarily interesting as an early example of outsider cinema. The budget was low and the cast and crew may have been amateurs but they still managed to get their movie made and it’s hard not to admire their dedication. When first released, the film apparently played in a handful of Dallas drive-in but now it can be seen by anybody who is willing to search for it on YouTube. Mark of the Witch lives on.

Horror On The Lens: The Devil Bat (dir by Jean Yarborough)

Posted on October 7, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

In the 1940 film, The Devil Bat, the owners of a company in the small town of Heathville are super-excited because they’re going to be given their head chemist, Dr. Paul Carruthers (Bela Lugosi), a bonus check of $5,000. However, since Carruthers’s inventions have made millions for the company, he is offended by the small check and decides that the best way to handle this would be to sue in court and demand fair compensation …. just kidding! Instead, Dr. Carruthers sends his army of giant bats to kill the families of his employers.

The Devil Bat was produced by Production Releasing Corporation, a poverty row studio that specialized in shooting quickly and cheaply. Going from Universal to PRC was technically a step down for Lugosi but The Devil Bat is actually an excellent showcase for Lugosi and he gives one of his better non-Dracula performances as the embittered Dr. Carruthers. Indeed, one can imagine that Lugosi, who played such a big role in putting Universal on the map, could relate to Carruthers and his bitterness over not being fairly rewarded for the work he did to make others wealthy.

Enjoy The Devil Bat, starring the great Bela Lugosi!

October Positivity: Day of Defense (dir by Adam Lawson)

Posted on October 6, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

In the 2003 film, Day of Defense, two Mormon missionaries show up in a small town. Elder Burke (John Foss) is an experienced missionary who always tries to be positive. Elder Davis (Allan Groves) is a younger, less experienced missionary who always seems to be in a bad mood and who spends a lot of time whining. Burke and Davis do not have a particularly good working relationship. One gets the feeling that Burke would rather work alone and that Davis would rather work in a big city.

However, it turns out that it really doesn’t matter whether or not David and Burke can get along because they’ve entered a town that is run by the Christian Town Council. Made up of five other members of the clergy, the CTC runs the town and has passed a law that states that you have to get a license if you’re going to preach. And they refuse to give issue a license to anyone who they consider to be non-Christian and that includes the Mormons. Elder Burke and Elder Davis are tossed in jail.

Now, at this point, the path forward seems clear enough. What the CTC is doing is clearly a violation of the first amendment of the U.S. Constitution. So, really, the Mormons should just take the CTC to court because there’s no way the law is going to survive a legal challenge.

Instead, Judge Nielson (Joan Peterson) decides that Burke and Davis should get a chance to make their case that Mormons are Christians before a jury of the town’s anti-Mormon citizenry. She assigns the town’s one public defender, Thomas (Andrew Lenz), to argue in favor of the Mormons. The town’s district attorney, James (Brooks Utley), and the head of the CTC, Rev. Williams (James Westwood), is assigned to make the case that Mormons are not Christian. The jury will decide whether Burke and Davis can stay in the town.

Uhmm….yeah. Basically, what we have here is the Mormon version of something like God’s Not Dead 2. In that film, instead of just arguing that the law states that a teacher (Melissa Joan Hart) is not allowed to promote religion in a classroom, the evil prosecutor (Ray Wise) decides that the entire case needed to be about proving that God was dead. In Day of Defense, instead of arguing that the CTC’s actions are a violation of the Constitution, the attorneys decide to prove once and for all whether or not Mormons are Christians.

The entire town shows up for the trial, heckling the Mormons. As well, a group of rednecks get it into their heads that the Mormon missionaries are going to try to steal their girlfriends. Thomas’s family demands to know why he’s defending the Mormons, despite being a Catholic. I imagine it has something to do with the fact that he appears to be the only defense attorney in the town. Rev. Williams and the other members of the CTC are all portrayed a mustache-twirling villains. There’s nothing subtle about this film.

In the end, the main thing that sticks out about this film is just how unlikable every single character in the film turns out to be. I mean, even the two Elders comes across as being jerks. Where I live, we have a sizable Mormon community and it’s not uncommon to see Elders riding their bicycles around. They’re always very polite and friendly and I always appreciate the fact that none of them smell like cigarette smoke. They’re all quite a bit nicer than the two Elders at the center of this film. Day of Defense was made to appeal to a Mormon audience but I think most Mormons would object to being portrayed as being so smug and angry.

There is a bit of tragedy towards the end of the film. It feels a bit contrived as does the film’s ending. In the end, this film wasn’t a victory for free speech as much as it was a defeat for good filmmaking.

Late Night Retro Television Reviews: Friday the 13th 1.1 “The Inheritance”

Posted on October 6, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Late Night Retro Television Reviews, a new feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Fridays, I will be reviewing Friday the 13th, a show which ran in syndication from 1988 to 1990. The show can be found on YouTube!

Despite the name of the series and the fact that producer Frank Mancuso was responsible for both the films and the show, Friday the 13th: The Series did not involve Camp Crystal Lake or Jason Voorhees. Instead, it was a supernatural-themed show about two cousins, Micki (Robey, who has red hair like me!) and Ryan (John D. LeMay), who inherited a cursed antique shop from their uncle, Lewis. When they discovered that Lewis spent the last few years of his mortal life selling cursed antiques, they realized that it was up to them to track down the evil items before they could cause too much harm to the world. Working with them was Lewis’s former partner, Jack Marshak (Chris Wiggins).

Episode 1.1 “The Inheritance”

(Dir by William Fruet, originally aired on October 3rd, 1987)

On a rainy night, antique store owner Lewis Vandredi (R.G. Armstrong) is literally dragged into the depths of Hell, the result of a long-ago deal that he made with the devil. The store is inherited by Lewis’s niece and nephew, Micki Foster (Robey) and Ryan Dallion (John D. LeMay).

Micki and Ryan, at first, don’t seem to have much in common. Ryan is a practical joker whose first reaction upon entering the store is to put on a rubber mask and wait for his cousin to show up so that he can startle her. The much more responsible Micki just wants to sell off whatever is in the store so that she can return home to her fiancé, an attorney who really doesn’t understand why she has to waste her time with any family stuff at all. The only thing that Micki and Ryan have in common is that neither one of them knows that their uncle made a deal with the devil to sell cursed antiques. That changes when Lewis’s former business partner, Jack Marshak (Chris Wiggins), shows up and not only tells them about Lewis’s supernatural activities but also finds the ledger where Lewis recorded all of his sales.

Uh-oh, it turns out that Micki herself has sold something from the shop. She sold an extremely ugly doll to Mr. Simms (Michael Fletcher), who in turn gave it to his bratty daughter, Mary (played by a 7 year-old Sarah Polley). Yes, the doll is cursed and yes, Mary is already using it to get revenge on anyone who annoys her. First, she uses the doll to kill her stepmother. Then, she uses the doll to kill the sweet babysitter who asked Mary to be polite about asking for snacks. When Micki and Ryan show up to retrieve the doll, Micki chases Mary to playground, where Mary uses the doll to make a statue breathe fire and a merry-go-round to spin dangerously fast. Fortunately, while Mary is tormenting Micki, Ryan walks up and snatches the doll away from her….

…. and that’s it!

Seriously, it’s kind of an anti-climatic ending but I get it. This was the first episode and, obviously, it was more important to establish why Micki and Ryan were the new owners of an antique store than to really offer up a complicated story of the supernatural. This was a pilot and it got the important part of the job done, introducing the premise and the characters. Robey and John D. LeMay were instantly likable as Micki and Ryan and the antique store was an intriguing location. The story with the doll may not have been anything special but the pilot did leave me looking forward to next week’s episode. And personally, I kind of liked how simple the solution was this week. Mary was an awful brat so there was something really satisfying about Ryan just snatching that doll away from her. Take that!

Next week: Ryan and Micki go to a monastery!

Horror On TV: The Hitchhiker 4.12 “Secret Ingredient” (Dir by Colin Bucksey)

Posted on October 6, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

On tonight’s episode of The Hitchhiker, Dean Paul Martin (son of Dean) plays a vitamin salesman who discovers that competition can be deadly! This episode features a wonderfully sleazy turn from Dean Paul Martin and enjoyably macabre ending. Sadly, this would be one of Dean Paul Martin’s final appearances before his death in a 1987 aviation accident.

This episode originally aired on May 5th, 1987.

October Hacks: Savage Vows (dir by Bob Dennis)

Posted on October 6, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Savage Vows is a shot-on-video slasher film from 1995.

It tells the story of what happens when Mark (Armand Sposto) loses his wife in a car accident and six of his friends decide to spend the weekend with him. Some of his friends sincerely want to help him. Some of his friends just want to hang out for the weekend and a funeral is as good an excuse as any to do so. Some of his friends are wondering how much money Mark is going to get from the insurance company and whether or not he might be willing to give them some of that money. To be honest, they’re not the most likable group of friends.

For his part, Mark just wants to sit on the couch and spend the entire weekend watching movies. In one of the few scenes in the film that doesn’t take place in Mark’s house, everyone heads down to the local, indie video store. Mark rents the Lion King. His friends insist on renting a bunch of horror films in order to keep Mark from being corrupted by a Disney cartoon. I mean, Mark may be in mourning and he may have just lost his wife and he might be very generously allowing everyone to stay in his rather small house but that doesn’t mean that he just gets to rent whatever movie he wants to rent! He’s got friends to think about!

Anyway, Mark is so depressed and he spends so much time either watching movies or running blindly through his neighborhood that he doesn’t even notice that there’s a black-gloved killer murdering his friends. Who could the killer be? The natural suspect would seem to be the redneck neighbor who keeps talking about how he’s a sign of the apocalypse but then that neighbor gets killed down at the cemetery so I guess it wasn’t him. The identity of the killer is eventually revealed but don’t ask me to explain what exactly was motivating this particular person to kill. I assume that an explanation was given but, for me to have heard it, this film would have had to have done a much better job of holding my attention. I’ve only got a three-minute attention span.

I was going to be even snarkier than I’m currently being when it came to describing this film but, to be honest, it feels a bit churlish to be too critical of a film that was obviously made over a weekend by a group of friends who had access to a video camera. This was a direct-to-video film that was shot in someone’s house with a semi-amateur cast and an obvious eye towards selling it in the type of video store that shows up in the movie. That doesn’t make Savage Vows any sort of secret masterpiece or anything like that. To be honest, it’s a pretty inept film and it barely even qualifies as a work of outsider art. But, in the end, you have to admire the fact that the film not only got made but, nearly 30 years later, it can still be viewed on sites like Tubi. Good for the people who made this film!

That said, Savage Vows still sucks.

The TSL Horror Grindhouse: Snuff (dir by Michael Findlay, Horacio Frederiksson, and Simon Nuchtern)

Posted on October 6, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

For a film that has a reputation for being one of the most controversial ever to be released, Snuff is incredibly boring.

Filmed in Argentina in 1971 as Slaughter, the majority of this film deals with a cult leader whose name is Satan (Enrique Larratelli). Satan pronounces his name with the emphasis on the second syllable, so that it sounds less like the name of the Lord of the Darkness and more like, “Sah-TAN.” I guess even he understood that the importance of not being too obvious when it comes to naming yourself. That said, everything about Satan indicates that he worships the Devil so I’m not really sure why he felt the need to get all fancy with the pronunciation of his name. Interestingly enough, Satan does not have a last name. I imagine that if he did have a last name, he would be one of those pretentious people who would try to spruce up his last name with a “von” or “de,” like Satan von Smith or Satan de Jones.

Anyway, Satan has a group of followers. They’re all young women who ride motorcycles and who look like hippies but they’re actually knife-wielding murder groupies. Over the course of the film, they seduce several men and then kill them. One of them carries a knife in the waistband of her panties, which is not something that I would ever have the courage to do because, seriously, if you sit down at the wrong angle or trip and fall, you’re probably going to have blood everywhere.

An actress named Terry London (Mirta Massa) comes to Argentina with her boyfriend and producer, Max Marsh (Aldo Mayo). They’re going to be making a movie but mostly, Terry just wants to sleep and hang out around their mansion. Some of Terry’s decadent Hollywood friends show up for the carnival. Someone dies and I assume he was a friend of Terry’s. Satan and his followers start plotting to attack and kill all of the Hollywood phonies and their rich friends. Satan is especially offended that one of them is the son of an arms dealer. Satan is about world peace, don’t you know.

Anyway, if you’re dumb enough to actually get caught up in the story of Satan and his followers, prepare to be disappointed because that story ends abruptly and without resolution. Instead, some woman that we’ve never seen before suddenly declares that the movie is turning her on and an actor who is supposed to be the director of the movie proceeds to dismember her while the cameras roll. The idea is that the crew of the movie actually murdered a woman, filmed it, and then decided to release the move into theaters because it’s not like people get prosecuted for murder or anything….

Of course, the murder footage was faked. It’s painfully obvious that it was faked, just as its obvious that the footage was shot long after filming was completed on Slaughter. It’s not even the same film stock. But, in 1976, when Slaughter was released under the name Snuff, there were actual protestors who showed up at the theaters and claimed that the footage was real. Some of those protestors were hired by the film’s distributor but reportedly, some of them were actual grass roots activists who believed what they had heard. As a result, this extremely dull film became a box office success. In New York City, it was the number one film in theaters for three weeks.

Controversy sells and Snuff will always have a place in the history of grindhouse films. That said, the film itself is pretty much unwatchable. If you’re going to watch it, hire someone to come march outside of your house with a sign to keep things interesting. Otherwise, prepare for boredom.

The Eric Roberts Horror Collection: Dark Image (dir by Chris W. Freeman)

Posted on October 6, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

2017’s Dark Image tells the story of two twins.

Jessica and Jayden Browne (April Eden) were two musical prodigies who spent their entire youth either practicing or performing under the guidance of their mother, Phyllis (Leslie Easterbrook). One night, while Phyllis was at the opera with her brother, Alex (John Aprea), someone broke into the house and murdered one of the twins. The surviving twin had a nervous breakdown and soon found herself in a mental hospital, where she was watched over by her uncle Alex.

Assigned to investigate the case was Detective Billy Watts (Thomas Downey), who quickly came to believe that the murderer was the groundskeeper, Ogden Edwards (Ed O’Ross). After one particularly grueling interrogation, Ogden left the police station, got drunk, and then drove to Watts’s home to confront him. Unfortunately, the drunk Ogden not only crashed his car on Billy’s lawn but he also ran over Billy’s son, who only wanted to stay up late so he could watch fireworks. When Ogden was acquitted of murder, Billy swore vengeance and was quickly suspended from the force by Captain Fanning (Eric Roberts).

Now, the surviving twin has finally stopped hearing voices and is planning on spending the weekend at the house where the murders took place. She’s hoping that staying at the house will lead her to remember something. Alex sends his daughter, Lindsey (Eve Mauro), along to keep an eye on the twin but that turns out to be a bit of a mistake as Lindsey is kind of a drunk. Alex also asks Billy to keep an eye on the house but, again, that plan falls apart when Billy sees Ogden Edwards stumbling around the property.

From the minute she and Lindsey arrive at the house, the surviving twin starts to hear voices and see shadows moving in the dark. When she and Lindsey go out to a bar, everyone in the place briefly appears to be a faceless demon. Could it perhaps be connected to a mysterious note that the twin found in the house, the one that featured a reference to Dante’s Inferno and suggested that the house itself might be a gateway to Hell? Well, that’s always a possibility!

There are plenty of things about Dark Image that don’t make much sense. For instance, the twin is continually freaking out and screaming about her visions but nobody around her ever seems to view that as being particularly strange. The twin’s plan for going back to the house doesn’t make much sense (though, to the film’s credit, it does offer up an explanation as to just why exactly the twin actually did decide to return) and it also doesn’t make sense that Lindsey would agree to accompany her. As soon as Lindsey arrives at the house, she’s drinking wine and joking about picking up men at the bar and you have to wonder why she’s apparently not creeped out about the idea of spending the weekend at the house where one her cousins was brutally murdered by a killer who was never captured. The fact that Lindsey’s an alcoholic can only excuse so much.

That said, though, Dark Image is entertaining as long as you don’t spend too much time worrying about the film’s logic. If you just watch it for the atmosphere and for April Eden’s intense performance, Dark Image is a perfectly serviceable horror thriller that has a decent number of twists and one effectively creepy scene where Eden is menaced by a shadowy figure while taking a shower. Ed O’Ross does a good job playing Ogden Edwards and the ending of the film is properly macabre. It’s an effective film when taken on its own terms.

As for Eric Roberts, he only appears in two scenes but it’s always fun to see him. He plays the somewhat sarcastic police captain who is constantly telling his detectives to do it by the book. Eric Roberts is always entertaining when he’s playing a character in a bad mood.

Previous Eric Roberts Films That We Have Reviewed:

Retro Television Reviews: T. and T. 1.17 “The Game” and 1.18 “A Victim of Fashion”

Posted on October 6, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a new feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Fridays, I will be reviewing T. and T., a Canadian show which ran in syndication from 1987 to 1990. The show can be found on Tubi!

This week, Mr. T plays the game!

Episode 1.17 “The Game”

(Dir by Robert Malenfant, originally aired on May 2nd, 1988)

“In this episode,” Mr. T explains, “Amy and I disagree on tactics as I try to bring an end to a very dangerous game.”

Pam Richards (Cynthia Preston) and her boyfriend Nash Weaver (David Orth) are two spoiled rich kids, playing a dangerous game. Nash steals some expensive dishes and silverwear from the home of his father (who is judge, no less) and, with Pam’s help, puts it in the locker of one of their shy classmates, Greg Walker (Victor Erdos). Nash then calls the police, gives them an anonymous tip, and Greg is arrested. Greg is only 14 but it appears that he’s going to be tried as an adult! Canada is going to make an example out of him!

Fortunately, Greg’s attorney is Amy Taler and that means that T.S. Turner is on the case! It doesn’t take T.S. long to figure out what happened.

“The way I see it,” he tells Amy, “the girl played decoy so they could plant stuff in Greg’s locker! These are the type of games these kids are into. I’m going to see if I can play too.”

T.S. stakes out Pam’s house. Nash orders a pizza for him. “I don’t eat while on duty,” T.S. growls.

That night, Nash and Pamela leave Nash’s house and break into a neighbor’s house. T.S. follows them, just to discover that they’ve already left the house. In the kitchen, T.S. finds a balloon that looks like an eyeball. The balloon pops, revealing a note that reads, “We’re watching you too.” Suddenly, the cops show up and arrest T.S!

Waiting outside the house, Nash tells T.S. to “give my regards to the boys in blue.”

“Give it to them yourself,” T.S. replies.

Nash and Pam claim that they were just going in the house to water the plants and T.S. is not charged with breaking and entering. Detective Jones assures T.S. that he doesn’t like Nash much either, saying that the kid has been in trouble before but he’s never been charged.

“Why?” T.S. snarls, “Because his father’s a judge?”

T.S. returns to staking out Nash’s house. (He’s eventually joined by Greg, who simply cannot believe that Pam would frame him.) “These kids are not playing kid games!” T.S. says. Eventually, Nash and Pam drive off to small warehouse. When T.S. follows them, Nash pulls a gun on them.

“You want to go to prison?” T.S. demands, “You know what prison’s like? Being locked up in the small cell, 24 hours! After you shoot me, who is next? Is it Pam? How about your father …. BECAUSE HE’S A JUDGE!”

(T.S. is really hung up on that.)

Nash points the gun at his own head.

“It’s not worth it, brother!” T.S. shouts.

A sobbing Nash surrenders himself.

Later, T.S. tells Amy, “Nash was just a little frightened kid, reaching out for love and attention.”

Here’s the thing — this all happened over the course of 30 minutes running time. As a result, Nash’s surrender seemed to come out of nowhere. This is an episode that would have benefitted from a full hour. As it is, this episode ends on a jarringly abrupt note and therefore, Nash’s surrender is neither as effective nor satisfying as it should have been.

Episode 1.18 “A Victim of Fashion”

(Dir by Don McCutcheon, originally aired on May 9th, 1988)

“In this episode,” Mr. T tells us, “the world of fashion loses its glamour as threats and murder come into play.”

“I’m not going to hire no tux and go to no bourgeois fashion show and that’s that!” T.S. Turner tells Amy when she informs him that he has no choice but to accompany her to an uptown fashion show. This leads to a genuinely amusing scene in which Amy leads T.S. onto an elevator, where T.S. is suddenly grabbed by two men who proceed to …. get his measurements so they can rent him a tuxedo.

Fashion designer John Merrick (Richard Monette) has hired Amy and T.S. because he was mailed a slashed up picture of his top model, Anita (Tonya Williams). Anita doesn’t know that she’s being stalked and Merrick wants T.S. to be her bodyguard without explaining why. Tonya, for her part, is just happy to be famous enough to require a bodyguard.

“Please,” T.S. tells her, “call me T.S.”

“Okay,” Anita replies, “if you’ll tell me what it stands for.”

“Tree Surgeon.”

Who could the stalker be? Could it be the long-haired man wandering around with a camera? Of course it is! This is only a 30 minute show so it’s not like there’s time to develop a lot of suspects. However, it turns out that Lonzo (Patrick Brymer) was not really stalking Anita as much as he was demanding that Merrick admit to stealing Lonzo’s designs. When Merrick tries to murder Lonzo, T.S. is there to save the day! Yay!

Again, just as with the other episode I looked at this week, this is an episode that would have been considerably more effective with a 60-minute running time. With only 30 minutes to tell the story, it felt rushed. There was a lot of comedic potential to the idea letting Mr. T loose in the fashion world but sadly, there was enough time to get to any of it.

Next week — T.S. quips his way through another case! Evildoers beware!

Horror Novel Review: The Stepbrother by R.L. Stine

Posted on October 6, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The 1998 novel, The Stepbrother, tells the story of Sondra.

Sondra is a teenager living in Shadyside. Like many of the town’s teenagers she comes from a broken home but she also has a cute boyfriend named Zach and three close girlfriends, the main one of whom is named Mallory and who somehow is an expert in hypnotism. Seriously, how does one become an expert in hypnotism before even graduating from high school? I would think that hypnotism would be one of those things where you would have to spend years in training before you were allowed to even try it out on anyone. But Mallory is just casually hypnotizing everyone! I wouldn’t even know where to begin when it comes to hypnotizing people, though I’ve been told that I do know how to cast a spell whenever I enter a room. I said that with a wink and a smile, by the way.

Sondra also has a new stepfather and a stepbrother named Eric. Zach is totally jealous of Eric and everyone does keep commenting on the fact that Sondra and Eric do kind of look like they belong together. Seriously, it’s not like they’re blood-related so why not? I mean, he is right there! (I never had a stepbrother in high school but if I did, I can only imagine what would have happened.) Still, Zach shouldn’t worry because Sondra is too busy freaking out over the possibility of dying in a fire to seriously consider cheating on him. Sondra keeps having feelings of deja vu. Mallory suggests that maybe Sondra is the reincarnation of a girl who died in a fire back in the 50s. And maybe Eric is the reincarnation of the person who was responsible for the fire!

Yeah, okay. Whatever. If I’m not very enthusiastic about this book, it’s because I don’t believe in reincarnation and I always find reincarnation stories to be pretty boring. This one features Sondra flashing back-and-forth from the 80 to the 50s and trying to avoid dying in a second fire but it all felt way too predictable to be effective. If you’ve seen one movie or read one book about reincarnation, you’ve pretty much seen and read them all.

(That said, if I did believe in reincarnation, I would assume that I was probably Edie Sedgwick in a past life. Or maybe Alice Roosevelt. Or perhaps Victoria Woodhull or Evelyn Nesbit. I once had a dream where I was Mary Kelly, Jack the Ripper’s final victim, in a past life. One thing I find interesting about reincarnation is that everyone’s past life was always so exciting and melodramatic. Nobody was ever just some slop in a past life. Instead, they were a wealthy celebrity who died under the most tragic of circumstances.)

Finally, the whole hypnotism subplot was silly even by the standards of R.L. Stine. Of course, I have to admit that I’m also not a big believer in hypnotism. I went to a hypnotism demonstration in college and I’m proud to say that I could not be hypnotized, largely because my ADD and my own stubbornness made it impossible for me to clear my mind. Everyone else at the demonstration was rather easily hypnotized but not me! I’ve always taken a good deal of pride in that.