Tag Archives: review

TV Review: Fear the Walking Dead 7.3 “Cindy Hawkins” (dir by Ron Underwood)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

I finally watched the latest episode of Fear the Walking Dead earlier today and, believe it or not, I’ve actually come to like this show.

Considering that I originally stopped watching Fear the Walking Dead because I got bored with it during its first season, I’m as surprised as anyone to realize that the seventh season of Fear The Walking Dead has won me over.  But what can I say?  The first three episodes of the show’s final season have been so weird that it’s been impossible not to enjoy them.  Everything, from the radiation-scarred landscape to Colman Domingo’s wonderfully odd performance as Strand, has come together to make this show a rather lively look at a world dominated by the walking dead.  It also helps, of course, that most of the boring characters from season one are no longer on the show.  AMC figured out that audiences didn’t care about an emergency room doctor and her drug addict son.  They cared about Morgan and nuclear fallout.

Morgan showed up during the final minutes of the latest episode of Fear the Walking Dead, just long enough to discover that two of his allies had been, depending on how you look at it, either rescued or abducted by Strand.  He and Strand had a little argument over the radio.  Strand says that he’s going to remake the world, something that Morgan could never figure out how to do.  Morgan and Strand both appear to be batshit insane, which is what made the scene so compelling.  Would you want to live in a world created by either of them?

The majority of the episode revolved around John Dorie (Keith Carradine) and his daughter-in-law, June (Jenna Elfman), living in an underground bunker.  (Before I go any further, I should mention that is the first season of Fear the Walking Dead that I’ve regularly watched since the first one.  So, if I misinterpret anything that was established in a previous season, feel free to correct me in the comments but be kind about it.)  The bunker was formerly the lair of Teddy, who I assume was a serial killer who John pursued and framed during his previous life as a cop.  With June insisting that it was too dangerous to leave the bunker and John suffering from DTS, John became very interested in a hidden room that he and June discovered in the bunker.  The room was where Teddy used to embalm his victims and John soon found himself having conversations with the spirit of one of his victims, Cindy Hawkins.  Cindy’s body was never recovered and John became obsessed with finding it.  Apparently, he made a promise to Cindy’s mother,  The fact that Cindy’s mother was probably dead either as a result of zombies or radiation did not seem to matter with John.

The show left it ambiguous as to whether or not Cindy’s spirit was real or just a product of John’s delirious state.  But ultimately, it didn’t matter whether or not Cindy’s spirit was real.  Cindy was a symbol.  Finding Cindy’s body would bring John some sort of peace.  It would be a sign that there was still a place for men like John in the world of the walking dead.  Keith Carradine did a great job of portraying John’s torment and his single-minded determination to find some shred of hope, even while trapped in a combination of a zombie and a nuclear apocalypse.

It was a good episode, full of enjoyably weird imagery and distinguished by fine performance from both Keith Carradine and Jenna Elfman.  Both John and June ended the episode as guests of Strand.  Hopefully, they’ll both survive.  It’d be a shame for either one of them to exit the season early.

A Blast From The Past: One Step Beyond 3.15 “The Last Round” (dir by John Newland)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

In honor of what would have been Charles Bronson’s 100th birthday, today’s blast from the past is an episode of the old 1960s anthology series, One Step Beyond. The gimmick with this show was that every story was said to be based on fact, no matter how outlandish or improbable the story may be.

In this episode from 1961, Charles Bronson stars as Yank Dawson, an aging boxer who finds himself in haunted auditorium in England during World War II. Bronson was 39 years old when he starred as Yank Dawson and he gives a good performance. The role makes good use of both Bronson’s imposing physicality and also the smoldering anger that would eventually make Bronson a star in both Europe and, later, the United States.

The episode below first aired on January 10th, 1961.

The TSL’s Grindhouse: Satan’s School For Girls (dir by David Lowell Rich)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Have you ever wanted to enroll in a private school so that you could investigate a murder and maybe uncover some sort of occult conspiracy?  Sure, we all have!  Well, don’t worry …. there’s a place for you!  Welcome to Salem Academy, an exclusive all-girl’s college where students learn all the basic subjects, along with taking courses in art and human sacrifice!

Salem Academy is overseen by the feared and intimidating Mrs. Williams (Jo Van Fleet), who keeps a close eye on her students and tries to make sure that they aren’t distracted or corrupted by any outside influences. However, not even Mrs. Williams can keep Martha Sayers (Terry Lumley) from fleeing the school and going to her sister’s house in Los Angeles. When Martha’s sister, Elizabeth (Pamela Franklin), returns home, she discovers that Martha has been hanged. The police say that it was suicide. Elizabeth believes that it’s something else.

So, Elizabeth does what any vengeance-seeking sister would do. Using an assumed name, she enrolls in Salem Academy herself. She meets and befriends three other students (played by Kate Jackson, Jamie Smith Jackson, and Cheryl Ladd). She gets to know two rather suspicious teachers, Prof. Delacroix (Lloyd Bochner) and Dr. Clampett (Roy Thinnes). She also manages to raise the concerns of Mrs. Williams, who doesn’t like the fact that the new girl keeps asking so many questions about why so many students at Salem Academy have died recently.

Still, Elizabeth continues to investigate. Perhaps the secret can be found in a mysterious painting that she comes across, one that appears to be of Martha? Perhaps the teachers and the students know more than they’re telling. But who can Elizabeth trust?

A made-for-television film from 1973, Satan’s School For Girls is frequently as silly as its name.  Fortunately, the film, which was produced by Aaron Spelling and directed David Lowell Rich, seems to understand just how ludicrous it is and it totally embraces both the melodrama and the silliness of its plot. This film is totally product of the time in which it was made, from the dialogue to the hairstyles to the fashions to the ending that you’ll see coming from a mile away. At the same time, that’s also why this film is a lot of fun. It’s such a product of its time that it doubles as a time capsule. Do you want to go back to 1973? Well, go over to YouTube and watch Satan’s School For Girls.  After you’ve watched it, step outside and ask anyone who the president is and they’ll probably say, “Richard Nixon.”  And if you ask them who they’re favorite Brady is, they’ll look at you like your crazy because everyone know that Marcia is the best Brady.  If you even have to ask, it’s obvious that you don’t really watch the show.  After that, you should probably try to find a way to get back to 2021 before you change the future or something.  You know how tricky time travel can be.

As for Satan’s School for Girls, it’s just a really fun movie so check it out and be sure not to be late for class!

What Lisa Marie Watched Tonight: The Love Boat 2.7 “Ship of Ghouls” (dir by Roger Duchovny)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Today, after I finished up Halloween, I switched over to MeTV and I watched a Halloween episode of that very 70s series, The Love Boat!

Why Was I Watching It?

A special Halloween episode of the silliest television series ever!?  And one featuring Vincent Price as an illusionist!?  How couldn’t I watch?

What Was It About?

For the ship’s Halloween cruise, the Amazing Alozno (Vincent Price) has been hired to do his act.  He’s quite the illusionist.  Through a combination of hypnotism and magic, he transforms the ship into a magical wonderland where people turn into donkeys and the pool briefly appears to be a giant ice cream sundae.  But will Alonzo also be able to conjure up love or will he continue to ignore his devoted fiancée and instead, only worry about keeping his fans happy?

Meanwhile, a model (Barbara Anderson) who is recovering from a serious car accident has absolutely no use for illusion.  She just wants to stay in her cabin but her friend, who also happens to be the cruise director, demands that she enjoy the cruise.

What Worked?

Vincent Price as an illusionist!?  Hell yeah!  Okay, the illusions were kind of dumb and never really made sense and the show never actually explained how he could turn Gopher and Doc into donkeys but …. well, isn’t the silliness kind of the point?  The important thing is that he was Vincent Price and he appeared to be having time of his life.  Good for him!

Barbara Anderson actually gave a pretty good dramatic performance as the model.  Admittedly, it did feel a little strange to have this extremely dramatic story playing out beside scenes of Vincent Price turning people into donkeys and transforming the ship’s pool into a giant ice cream sundae but again, I guess that was kind of the appeal of the show.  It’s all weird and somehow, it works.

The boat, incidentally, looked really nice.  I’m going to take a cruise now.

What Did Not Work?

On the Love Boat, everything works!

“Oh my God!  Just like me!” Moments

I could relate to the model and before anyone rolls their eyes, allow me to explain.  When I was 19, I was in a pretty serious car accident.  The car that I was in flipped over and I basically ended up upside down in the driver’s seat, surrounded by broken glass.  Later, I was told that, when people saw the damage the car, they assumed that I had to have died.  Instead, I only got a few scrapes, bruises, and cuts.  I ended up with two permanent scars — a small one on my hand and then another one on the side of my neck.  And for years, I was so self-conscious of that scar on my neck, even though it faded quickly and I now realize it was barely noticeable.  I obsessed on it, though, both because I disliked having it and also because it reminded me of a traumatic event.  All the angst and worrying that I did about it seems kind of silly now.

Lessons Learned

Love won’t have to hurt anymore.  It’s an open smile on a friendly shore.

Horror Film Review: War of the Colossal Beast (dir by Bert I. Gordon)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Look who’s back! He’s big. He’s bald. He’s now missing a bit of his face and an eye. He doesn’t look too good but still…. it’s Glenn Manning!

When we last saw Lt. Col. Glenn Manning in 1957’s The Amazing Colossal Man, he had grown to become a giant as the result of getting caught up in a nuclear blast. He had also gone totally mad and, after attempting to destroy America’s greatest city (Las Vegas, if you had to ask), he promptly fell off the Boulder Dam. Everyone assumed he was dead.

They assumed wrong.

1958’s War of the Colossal Beast (which came out a year after The Amazing Colossal Man) opens with the discovery that Glenn is still alive and he’s still wandering around in the desert. Of course, as the title suggests, he’s no longer a man. Now, he’s a crazed beast! Not only is he missing an eye and several teeth but he can no longer speak in intelligible words. Whatever bit of mind he had left when he went over the side of Boulder Dam, he lost it all when he landed.

That’s not to say that the beast that was once Glenn doesn’t have memories. In fact, a good deal of this film’s 69 minute run time is made up of flashbacks to The Amazing Colossal Man. It’s just that Glenn can’t figure out what those flashbacks mean. Perhaps it’s because Glenn is now played by an actor named Dean Parkin while the flashbacks all feature a totally different actor in the role.

Anyway, Glenn is once again captured by the army and once again, he manages to escape. This time, Glenn leaves Vegas alone and instead attacks Los Angeles and Hollywood. Spare the film industry, Glenn! It’s up to the army and Glenn’s sister to once again try to convince Glenn to stop ripping the city apart. Of course, they could just try to convince him to fall off another dam….

Like the first film, War of the Colossal Beast was directed by Bert I. Gordon. War of the Colossal Beast isn’t as much fun of The Amazing Colossal Man, largely because Glenn can no longer speak so, other than in the flashbacks to the first film, we don’t get any tortured monologues about the unfairness of it all. That said, the Colossal Beast make-up is actually pretty effective and I’m sure many kids in the 50s had nightmares about having to escape from a one-eyed giant.

War of the Colossal Beast will be best appreciated by people who have seen the first film and who are looking for some sort of closure to Glenn’s tragic growth spurt. God knows that when I first watched The Amazing Colossal Man, I went outside after it was over and I shook my hands at the sky and I shouted, “DAMN YOU! I NEED MORE GLENN!” The main lesson of these films is that you should never try to rescue anyone in the desert. If Glenn hadn’t tried to save that pilot who crashed in the nuclear testing site, Vegas and Hollywood would never have been destroyed. It’s something to think about.

Horror Film Review: The Amazing Colossal Man (dir by Bert I. Gordon)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

First released in 1957 and beloved by B-movie lovers ever since, The Amazing Colossal Man tells the story of Lt Col. Glenn Manning (Glenn Langan). It also tells the story of a country where bigger is automatically considered to be better but what happens when bigger leads to insanity?

In Nevada to observe the testing of America’s first plutonium bomb, Glenn panics when he sees that a small commercial plane has crashed in the test area. Glenn runs out to rescue the pilot and, not surprisingly, he ends up getting caught up in the bomb’s nuclear blast. Though he survives the initial explosion, he’s suffered severe burns and he’s not expected to live.

However, survive he does! Glenn Manning may now be totally bald but he still recovers from the burns. The only problem is that Glenn is growing now. He keeps getting bigger and bigger until eventually …. he’s colossal!

Unfortunately, becoming a giant doesn’t do much for Glenn’s overall mood. The film is rather unclear on what Glenn was like before he got dosed with radiation but afterwards, he’s kind of a jerk. He’s bitter about being so big. He’s upset that he has to live in a tent out in the middle of the desert. He resents being told that everything’s going to be okay. Worst of all, he’s reduced to wearing a really giant diaper which …. well, I don’t even what to think about it!

Eventually, Glenn gets so annoyed that he goes on a rampage, heading for Las Vegas! Realizing that America’s greatest city is in danger of being destroyed and that all the work of Bugsy Siegel will be wasted unless something can be done to stop Glenn, the military goes into action. While Glenn’s former friends try to inject him with a giant hypodermic needle (and seriously, the scene where a group of them charge at him with the needle simply has to be seen to be believed), the military tries to destroy him. As for Glenn, he just wants to visit the Boulder Dam….

As I watched the film, I couldn’t help but compare The Amazing Colossal Man to The Incredible Shrinking Man. One featured a man who became so big that he couldn’t be ignored. He got so big that he almost had no choice but to destroy everything smaller than him. Meanwhile, society had to conspire to keep him out of sight and to eventually destroy him before the rest of the world realized how small they were in comparison. Meanwhile, in The Incredible Shrinking Man, a man becomes so small that he’s forgotten and eventually, he vanishes from our world but, at the same time, he discovers a new existence and a new state of enlightenment? Is it perhaps better to be forgotten and unseen than to be known? Glenn Manning would probably think so.

Setting aside the quest for deeper meaning, The Amazing Colossal Man is pretty silly but it’s also undeniably enjoyable. It was directed by Bert I. Gordon (who was nicknamed Mr. Big because of the number of films that he made about giants) and there’s something undeniably charming about the sight of the giant Glenn towering over Vegas. Admittedly, if you’re looking for a film that realistically and sensitively explores what it would be like to be a mad giant, this isn’t the film for you. However, if you’re just looking for a short and silly movie with a giant bald man ripping up downtown Las Vegas, The Amazing Colossal Man is just what you need!

A Blast From The Past: Swing You Sinners (dir by Dave Fleischer)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

The much-missed Gary Loggins loved Halloween and he loved the old, frequently cartoons from the 1930s.  He was a particular fan of the Fleischer Brothers so it only seems right that today, on Halloween, we should share one of those cartoons.  Here is 1930’s Swing You Sinners.

In this bizarre cartoon, a dog named Bimbo attempts to steal a chicken.  After the police chase him into a cemetery, Bimbo is confronted by ghosts, demons, and apparently death.  Shockingly, there is no escape offered in this film.  Abandon all hope!

I guess chicken theft was a really huge problem in 1930.

Get In The Mood for Halloween with James Mason Reading The Tell-Tale Heart

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

I just came across this earlier this morning.  This short, animated film is from 1953 and it features James Mason reading a story from America’s first master of suspense, Edgar Allan Poe!

Here, for your listening and visual enjoyment, is The Tell Tale Heart!  Along with featuring the voice of James Mason, the film was directed by Ted Parmlee.  It was the first animated film to ever be given an X rating by the British Film Board of Censors.

Horror Film Review: Ten Minutes to Midnight (dir by Erik Bloomquist)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Ten to midnight.  That’s when Amy Marlowe (Caroline Williams) starts her late night radio talk show.  Most hosts like to start at the top of the hour but Amy wants the extra ten minutes so that she can experience one day changing to the next while on the air.  That was the way that she explained it years ago when Bob (William Youmans) first hired her.

Now, 30 years later, Amy is about to have the worst night of her life.  When she arrives at the station, Bob asks to see her.  He introduces her to Sienna (Nicole Kang), who is just out of  college and who has basically been hired to replace Amy.  Bob expects Amy to train her.

If that wasn’t bad enough, Amy was also bitten by a vampire bat while on her way to the station.  She slapped a bandage over the bite and she headed to her job like a true professional.  But now, she’s seeing things.  She’s not sure what’s real and what isn’t.  When she catches her usually supportive producer, Aaron (Adam Weppler), giving Seinna a pep talk, Amy isn’t sure if she’s really hearing his words or if she’s just imagining them.  When she attacks and bites Seinna in the studio, is she really doing it or is it all in her mind?  The night deskman (Nicholas Tucci) tells her that she might have rabies but that he also can’t allow her to leave the station to see a doctor because a storm is approaching and he has to keep her safe.  Soon, Amy is on the floor of the bathroom, sucking blood off a used tampon. (Ewwwwww!)   When Amy starts to kill people, is she really killing them or is she just imagining it?  If she really is killing them, why do they keep showing up and acting as if nothing strange has happened.  Soon, Amy is skipping back and forth in time.  Sometimes, the people at the station seem to worship her.  Other times, they all seem to hate her.  But regardless of how they feel, there’s no way they’re going to let Amy leave without throwing her a retirement party….

“What the Hell is going on!?” seemed to be the general response of many of the people at last night’s Scary Social watch party as Ten Minutes to Midnight came to a close and, indeed, it’s not always an easy film to follow.  At things progress, it becomes increasingly difficult to keep track of who is dead and who is still alive.  Is Amy in the present or the past?  Is Amy in the real world or is she trapped in her mind?  Was she even bitten by a bat in the first place or is it that just another part of her delusion?  It’s hard to say but then again, I think it can be argued that it doesn’t really matter.  The plot is deliberately confusing, just as reality often tends to be.  After 30 years, Amy is being pushed out because she’s over 50 and she won’t sleep with the boss.  She is someone who loves to witness the changing of the day and now, she’s changing into being forgotten, overlooked, and abandoned by everyone she works with and eventually by everyone whoever called her show for advice.  If she seems to be struggling with her perception of reality, that’s perhaps because reality doesn’t seem to be worth all of the outrage, heartache, and trouble.  It plays out like a particularly dark episode of The Twilight Zone or Night Gallery.  Was any of the effort worth it? the film seems to ask as Amy prepares to be forgotten by a world that is always relentless in its demands for something new.

It’s a good film, one that will challenge the audience perhaps more than they’re used to being challenged.  Ten Minutes to Midnight often threatens to get lost in its own narrative complexity but Caroline Williams gives a strong performance that manages to keep the movie from sinking.  The film’s currently available on Prime.  It’s intriguingly weird.

Horror on the Lens: Night of the Living Dead (dir by George Romero)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Happy Halloween everyone!

Well, as another horrorthon draws to a close, it’s time for another Shattered Lens tradition!  Every Halloween, we share one of the greatest and most iconic horror films ever made.  For your Halloween enjoyment, here is George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead!

(Be sure to read Arleigh’s equally famous review!)