The TSL’s Horror Grindhouse: Creature of Destruction (dir by Larry Buchanan)

Posted on October 11, 2022 by Lisa Marie Bowman

In this 1967 film from venerable B-movie director Larry Buchanan, a psychic con artist uses hypnosis to bring back into existence a prehistoric, humanoid amphibian.

Wait?

What?

Okay, so the story doesn’t make much sense. In fact, I would be lying if I said that I fully understood the film, despite the fact that I sat through all 88 minutes of it on Saturday night. Basically, Dr. Basso (Les Tremayne) is a hypnotist and an occult historian. He’s bitter about the fact that the world doesn’t appreciate him or take him seriously, despite the fact that he spends almost the entire film wearing a tuxedo and he has a head of silver hair that would have made even the great Criswell jealous. So, Basso decides that the best way to prove his powers would be start predicting when people are going to die. And the way he does that is by hypnotizing his assistant, Doreena (Pat Delaney).

Somehow, hypnotizing Doreena causes this prehistoric humanoid monster thing to rise out of the nearby lake so that it can kill whoever Dr. Basso wants dead. It’s interesting that Dr. Basso could figure out how to bring an extinct creature back to life but he could come up with a less destructive way to prove his powers. This is just my opinion but it seems like he could have just displayed the prehistoric monster and that would have proven his powers far more effectively than committing murders. Dr. Basso’s plan is needlessly complicated. Neither Dr. Basso nor the film ever seem to consider what would happen if he was asked to prove his powers while performing somewhere that wasn’t conveniently located near a lake. If Dr. Basso ever plays Vegas, he’s in trouble.

Anyway, it falls of Lt. Blake (Roger Ready) and Captain Dell (Aron Kincaid) to figure out how to stop Dr. Basso. Captain Dell is not just an expert on the occult but he’s also an Air Force psychiatrist, so he goes through the entire movie wearing his uniform. Dell being in the Air Force doesn’t really figure into the plot otherwise. He could just as easily be in private practice. One gets the feeling that he was made an Air Force captain just because someone had the uniform and it looked good on Aron Kincaid.

Creature of Destruction is a fairly confusing film. Unfortunately, it’s also a rather boring film. Larry Buchanan was a prolific director but he was never a particularly good one. Some directors knew how to take advantage of a low budget and less than compelling actors. Unfortunately, Buchanan really wasn’t one of them. Still, the lake scenery is nice and it’s kind of fun to watch the monster waddle across the screen. As well, there are two musical interludes that come out of nowhere but which are amusing in a late 60s beach movie sort of way. So, the film has that going for it. Otherwise, not even hypnosis will help you get through Creature of Destruction.

Retro Television Review: Fantasy Island 1.5 “Lady of the Evening/The Racer”

Posted on October 11, 2022 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 Tuesdays, I will be reviewing the original Fantasy Island, which ran on ABC from 1977 to 1996. The entire show is currently streaming on Tubi!

Smiles, everyone, smiles! It’s time for another trip to Fantasy Island, the most dramatic mystical island this side of Lost! This week, we have three fantasies and Tattoo tries to grow mustache.

Episode 1.5 “Lady of the Evening/The Racer”

(Directed by Don Weis, originally aired on February 25th, 1978)

This episode begins with the bell ringing and Tattoo yelling that the plane is arriving. Before Mr. Roarke and Tattoo drive off to greet the plane, Mr. Roarke tells Tattoo to wash his face because he has what appears to be a smudge on his upper lip. Tattoo explains that he’s growing a mustache because all of the world’s great lovers (including, Tattoo says, Burt Reynolds) have mustaches. Tattoo’s effort to grow a mustache is a running joke through this episode of Fantasy Island. Needless to say, it doesn’t go well for him. Eventually, he resorts to using shoe polish. By the end of the episode, Tattoo finally washes his face and presumably returns to doing whatever it is that he actually does on the island.

As for the fantasies….

Renee Lansing (Carol Lynley) is a high-priced New York “call girl” who just wants to take a vacation some place where no one knows what she does for a living. At first, the fantasy seems to be going well. She even meets a nice guy named Bill (Paul Burke). But then, on the tennis court — OH MY GOD, IT’S ONE OF HER CUSTOMERS! Renee runs off to Mr. Roarke’s office and demands her money back. Mr. Roarke tells her that she’s not being honest with herself about what her fantasy actually is. At this point, I was really wondering what one goes through when one signs up to Fantasy Island. I assume some sort of agreement has to be signed. Does the agreement actually state that Mr. Roarke gets to decide what your fantasy actually is? Renee’s fantasy was to not be recognized. She’s been recognized. GIVE HER BACK HER MONEY, ROARKE!

Anyway, it all turns out for the best. Bill reveals that he also knows who Renee is (GIVE HER BACK HER MONEY!) but he doesn’t care because he’s secretly been in love with her for years and apparently, it was his fantasy to be reunited with her. Good for Bill but Renee still didn’t get her fantasy. Someone needs to introduce her to a good lawyer.

Meanwhile, Jack Kincaid (played by the master of overacting, Christopher George) is a race car driver who has never mentally recovered from a serious crash. His fantasy is to reexperience the crash so that he can get back his confidence. Mr. Roarke goes through a lot of trouble to build an exact replica of the race track on which Jack crashed. He even brings Jack’s mechanic, Corky (Alan Hale, Jr.), to the island. Fortunately, Jack’s wife (Carol Lawrence) convinces Jack that he has nothing to prove. So, Jack doesn’t get his fantasy but he does become a better person.

Did anyone get their fantasy this week!? Actually, Mr. Brennan (Jerry Van Dyke) did. Mr. Brennan shows up in one scene and tells Roarke that he loved his fantasy, which was apparently to play tennis without having to deal with his wife nagging him …. wait, what? That’s the fantasy that Roarke actually honors?

I’m starting to think Fantasy Island might be a scam! We’ll find out more next week, I guess.

International Horror Film: Robo Vampire 3: Counter Destroy (dir by Godfrey Ho)

Posted on October 11, 2022 by Lisa Marie Bowman

In 1989, Hong Kong director Godfrey Ho made what might be the most confusing film of all time. It has been released under many different name. The Vampire Is Still Alive was one. Another was Counter Destroy. And finally, there’s the title that I’m choosing to use for this review — Robo Vampire 3! This is indeed the third part of the Robo Vampire trilogy, though the guy in the robot suit doesn’t show up until the very end of the movie and even then, it’s never quite clear whether he’s really there or if he’s just a figment of someone’s imagination.

Robo Vampire 3 is actually two movies in one. Half of the film deals with a private detective named Jackie. Jackie has been hired by a movie mogul named Lawrence. Lawrence is producing a film about the last emperor of China but, apparently, there are several other film companies that want to make a movie about the same subject. (Uhmmm, guys …. Bernado Bertolucci beat all of you to it by about two years.) Lawrence is concerned that the other film companies and their gangster allies are going to try to disrupt his production so he hires Jackie to find out what their plans are. Jackie accepts the assignment and then go around killing all of the other studio heads and gang bosses. Jackie is presented as being one of the film’s heroes, even though she’s basically just tracking down middle-aged men and murdering them in cold blood. Now, in fairness to Godfrey Ho, the efforts of the Triads to control the Hong Kong film industry are fairly well-documented so, when seen in that context, Lawrence and Jackie’s action might make more sense. It’s still kind of jarring to watch Jackie assassinate a man, at close range, with a crossbow.

Meanwhile, Joyce has been assigned to write the script for Lawrence’s Last Emperor movie and she’s been given a week to do all the research and get the script done. Joyce and her assistant, Cindy, are working in a villa. However, after Joyce and Cindy have a conversation with a mysterious monk, a scarred guy who has a Freddy Krueger-style glove knife shows up at the villa and starts to haunt Joyce’s nightmares. Meanwhile, a bunch of hopping vampires (in Chinese folklore, vampires hop) are approaching the house. Who do they work for? Are they connected to all of the other productions of The Last Emperor? Are they college students who have been brainwashed by Bertolucci’s Marxist cinema? It’s never really made clear.

But where is Robo Vampire? As I said, he shows up eventually. Long after Joyce has been possessed by an evil spirit and it appears that the film set is going to be overrun by hopping vampires, the director of this film’s version of The Last Emperor suddenly spins around and is transformed into the cyborg Shadow Warrior dude from the previous two films. No one is particularly shocked when this happens.

As you may have guessed, Robo Vampire 3 is a bit of a disjointed film but it’s pretty much what we’ve come to expect from Godfrey Ho. One gets the feeling that Robo Vampire 3 was stitched together with stock footage and outtakes from several unrelated movies. It also wouldn’t surprise me to discover that there were several different versions of the film out there. The version I saw was badly dubbed so who knows what the film’s plot actually was. The whole thing has a “make it up as you go along” feel to it. With the previous Robo Vampire films, the shoddiness was kind of charming but Robo Vampire 3 takes forever to get going. It needed more hopping vampires.

As far as I know, this was the last Robo Vampire film. Hopefully, Robo Vampire’s version of The Last Emperor was a big enough success that he could retire from shadow warrioring and devote himself to cinema. Now, that’s a happy ending!

Horror Film Review: The Fog (dir by John Carpenter)

Posted on October 11, 2022 by Lisa Marie Bowman

“Time for one more story,” Mr. Machen (John Houseman) declares the beginning of John Carpenter’s 1980 horror film, The Fog.

Mr. Machen is a resident of Antonio Bay, California, a coastal town that was founded with the help of gold stolen from a ship that was owned by a wealthy man named Blake (Rob Bottin). Blake wanted to start a leper colony. Instead, he was betrayed by six sailors who sank Blake’s ship, stole the gold, and used it to start the town of Antonio Bay.

At 12 midnight, on the day that the town is to celebrate its 100 anniversary, strange things start to happen. Windows shatter. Masonry falls from walls. A thick fog rolls across the ocean and seems to move from house to house. Inside the fog are several angry spirits, led by Blake. They not only want their gold back but they also want to take six lives as a way of getting revenge on the six conspirators who stole their gold and sank their ship.

It all starts with knock at the door and, if you look out a window, maybe you’ll see a dark shadow standing in an all-enveloping fog. Answering the door is a mistake. At the same time, so is not answering the door. It’s not easy to escape the vengeful spirits in the fog.

The Fog (1980, dir by John Carpenter, DP: Dean Cudney)

The Fog plays out like a disaster film, albeit one with a supernatural twist. The film follows several characters who are trying to survive the night and the majority of them don’t even meet until the final half of the film. There’s a truck driver (Tom Atkins) and a hitchhiker (Jamie Lee Curtis). There’s the alcoholic priest (Hal Halbrook) and the chairwoman (Janet Leigh) of the anniversary committee. Nancy Loomis, who co-starred with Curtis in Carpenter’s Halloween, plays an administrative assistant while Carpenter’s wife, Adrienne Barbeau, plays the local radio DJ whose son is briefly targeted by the fog. There’s even a coroner named Dr. Phibes!

In fact, the whole film is full of references to other films. The Fog finds John Carpenter in a rather playful mood, with characters named after Carpenter associates like Dan O’Bannon, Tommy Wallace, and Nick Castle. There’s even a mention of Arkham, the fictional New England town that served as the setting for many of H.P. Lovecraft’s stories.

42 years after it was made, The Fog holds up as a very well-told ghost story. I mean, fog is just creepy in itself. Then you add in a bunch of silent shadows standing in the fog and it gets even scarier! For the most part, the actors all do a good job playing rather thinly-drawn characters. Tom Atkins is always fun to watch! The true stars of the film, of course, are the ghosts and they will definitely give you nightmares.

The Fog is a good film for Halloween viewing so watch it and don’t answer the door!

The Fog (1980, dir by John Carpenter, DP: Dean Cundey)

(Don’t just take my word for it! Be sure to read Leonard’s review of The Fog!)

Horror on the Lens: Bride of the Monster (dir by Edward D. Wood, Jr.)

Posted on October 11, 2022 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Bride of The Monster (1955, dir by Ed Wood)

Since yesterday was the great man’s birthday, it seems appropriate that today’s horror film on the lens is Edward D. Wood’s 1955 epic, Bride of the Monster.

(Much like Plan 9 From Outer Space, around here, it is a tradition to watch Bride of the Monster in October.)

The film itself doesn’t feature a bride but it does feature a monster, a giant octopus who guards the mansion of the mysterious Dr. Vornoff (Bela Lugosi). Vornoff and his hulking henchman Lobo (Tor Johnson) have been kidnapping men and using nuclear power to try to create a race of super soldiers. Or something like that. The plot has a make-it-up-as-you-go-along feel to it. That’s actually a huge part of the film’s appeal.

Bride of the Monster is regularly described as being one of the worst films ever made but I think that’s rather unfair. Appearing in his last speaking role, Lugosi actually gives a pretty good performance, bringing a wounded dignity to the role of Vornoff. If judged solely against other movies directed by Ed Wood, this is actually one of the best films ever made.

(For a longer review, click here!)

October Positivity: Late One Night (dir by Dave Christiano)

Posted on October 10, 2022 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The 2001 film, Late One Night, takes place in a diner. As you can probably guess from the title, it also takes place late one night. It’s so late that there are only five people in the diner. There’s a cook. There’s three men who work at a local factory, the main one of which is named Larry (Brad Heller). And then, there’s a quiet guy (John Gaffga) sitting at the counter. Though the guy never introduces himself, Larry decides to call him Jesus.

To say that Larry is a bit of an obnoxious character really doesn’t do justice to just how grating a human being Larry is. At work, Larry sexually harasses the only woman working at the factory. In the diner, he sexually harasses a waitress as her shift ends. When he sees the quiet man sitting at the counter, Larry starts to harass him. Larry is angry. Larry, as we learn, was abandoned by his father, raised by an unstable mother, and he spent several years in jail before ending up at a go-nowhere job at a bottling factory. Larry has his reasons but that doesn’t make him any more likable.

In fact, Larry is such a jerk that you kind of wonder why the cook even allows him to hang out in the diner. From the dialogue, it becomes clear that Larry has a long history of harassing people. At one point, Larry does point out that he spends a lot of money at the diner but you have to consider how many people probably avoid the place whenever they see Larry and his co-workers sitting in their booth. No matter how much money Larry spends, it seems likely that he keeps even more money out. Really, the cook should call the cops whenever he sees Larry and maybe slap with him a trespassing charge. I imagine Larry probably isn’t even a good tipper.

Anyway, on this night, Larry is obsessed with the quiet stranger. When the stranger briefly goes into the restroom, Larry searches the stranger’s jacket and finds a pamphlet about Christianity. When the stranger returns, he’s been given the nickname “Jesus” and he now has to deal with Larry mocking him by asking, “Am I going to Hell when I die?” “Jesus” controls his temper, no matter how much he is taunted.

If you’ve seen any other films from director Dave Christiano, you might be excused for expecting “Jesus” to reveal himself to actually be Jesus. In this case, though, I think he’s simply meant to be a believer who simply wants to eat in peace. For that matter, you might also expect the film to end with Larry converting but instead, he’s as confused and angry at the end of this short film as he was at the beginning. Particularly when compared to the films that he was making in the 80s and the 90s, Late One Night shows a certain dramatic restraint on the part of Christiano. The main theme, of course, still seems to be that non-believers are going to suffer forever but, for once, Christiano doesn’t seem to be asking the viewer to take any pleasure out of that.

That said, I do have to say that, in college, I spent a lot of time in a lot of late night diners and I never once saw anyone get into the type of random verbal altercation that Larry gets into in this film. I kind of suspect that might not happen in the real world as often as it happens in the movies.

Horror On TV: Ghost Story 1.10 “Elegy For A Vampire” (dir by Don McDougall)

Posted on October 10, 2022 by Lisa Marie Bowman

On tonight’s episode of Ghost Story, college co-eds are being drained of their blood! Who could the culprit be? Oddly, some say that they saw a recently deceased college professor near the scene of the crime. What was that professor studying when he died? Vampirism!

This one is kind of silly but I always enjoy a vampire story. This episode aired on December 1st, 1972.

The TSL’s Horror Grindhouse: Studio 666 (dir by B.J. McDonnell)

Posted on October 10, 2022 by Lisa Marie Bowman

In Studio 666, the members of Foo Fighters play themselves. Struggling with writer’s block and hoping to remain musically relevant in a world where the culture belongs to the young, the band heads to an Encino mansion so that they can work on their latest album. The mansion is infamous because years ago, another band was murdered while attempting to record there. (Oddly enough, Jenna Ortega plays the drummer of the murdered band. Ortega had quite a year as far as the horror genre is concerned.)

The band arrives at the mansion and things quickly go downhill. The band isn’t getting along. Lead singer Dave Grohl is revealed to be a bit of megalomaniac. One of the band’s electricians is killed in what appears to be a freak accident. Most people would move out of a house after someone dies under mysterious circumstances but not this band! Instead, the band decides to dedicate the album to the memory of the dead guy.

Soon, however, there are a lot more dead people at the mansion. Why are there so many dead people there? This is going to sound like a spoiler but it’s not….

DAVE GROHL IS KILLING THEM!

Yes, Dave Grohl has been possessed by the evil spirit of mansion. On the one hand, it’s given him the inspiration necessary to get over his writer’s block. On the other hand, it also leads to him killing the other members of the band in various grotesque ways. Studio 666 is a horror comedy that doesn’t shy away from the gore. If you’ve ever wanted to see a member of Foo Fighters get cut in half with a chainsaw while having sex with Whitney Cummings, I guess this is the film to track down. (Cummings, I should note, does not play herself. This film stars the band as themselves but it’s also filled with recognizable actors who are not playing themselves.)

Studio 666 is a bit of a lark, a horror film starring a band that most people don’t really associate with the horror genre. Indeed, a good deal of the film’s humor comes from the fact that it’s Dave Grohl doing all of the killing. In real life, a good deal of Dave Grohl’s appeal is that he comes across as being as close to a regular guy as a rock star can be. He’s one those famous guys who most people could imagine having a beer with. Studio 666 gets a lot of mileage out of presenting Dave Grohl as being a pretentious taskmaster who would happily sell his soul for the chance to have a successful solo career. It helps that Dave Grohl seems to be having a blast playing such an exaggerated version of himself. It’s hard not to be happy for him because he really does appear to having the time of his life.

That said, once Grohl is revealed to be the killer (and that happens very early in the film so, again, this is not a spoiler), the film really has nowhere else to go. The whole thing simply becomes Grohl tracking down various members of the band and killing them in grotesque ways and it gets to be a little boring. There’s little suspense and, since the Foo Fighters are playing themselves, there really aren’t any stakes because we know the band wasn’t actually murdered while recording a new album. With a 106-minute running time, Studio 666 really grinds its one joke into the ground.

I will say that longtime fans of Foo Fighters will probably enjoy the film, if just because there’s several jokes and comments that are obviously meant to be inside jokes that only a select few will get. Personally, I think it’s nice that the band did something for the fans, even if the movie itself doesn’t really work.

Retro Television Reviews: Hang Time 1.11 “The Bachelor Pad” and 1.12 “Poetic Justice”

Posted on October 10, 2022 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 Mondays, I will be reviewing Hang Time, which ran on NBC from 1995 to 2000. The entire show is currently streaming on YouTube!

We are reaching the conclusion of the first season of Hang Time and it’s time for us to ask where we’re all going with this show. What will be the ultimate conclusion of Deering’s season? Let’s get in the mood to find out with the Hang Time theme song!

Get out on that court and put it in the basket!

Episode 1.11 “The Bachelor Pad”

(Directed by Howard Murray, originally aired on November 18th, 1995)

“Great game, everyone!” Coach Fuller announces at the start of this episode, letting us know that Deering is finally having a good season. I wonder if they’ll make it to the state championship? (Of course, they will! A show would never be made about a merely adequate team. That seems a bit unfair, though. Most high school teams are merely adequate and surely, they deserve some representation as well!)

There’s trouble in paradise! Danny’s parents are out of town and, for some reason, this leads to Danny staying at Coach Fuller’s penthouse for three days. A student staying with his teacher and coach for the weekend? I remember when this happened on Degrassi. The end result was the coach getting fired and the student being traumatized for life. Seriously, Danny staying with Fuller seems massively inappropriate but I guess the 90s were a different time. Meanwhile, Sam is worried that no one takes her seriously because she’s just the equipment manager.

Anyway, you can guess what happens, can’t you? Coach Fuller goes out for the evening. Danny does the Risky Business dance in Fuller’s penthouse and then everyone from school shows up. The wild party leads to Fuller’s $3,000 chair getting damaged. The next day, during the game, Fuller learns about the party and the damage to his chair and he chases Danny out onto the court. Fuller is kicked out of the game and Sam has to take over. Sam coaches the team to victory and the team apologizes to the coach. Yay!

Oh — and due to winning that game, the team is going to the league championship! Take that, merely adequate teams!

As for the episode itself, this is another one of those episodes that drives me crazy because every problem that the characters run into is due to their own stupidity. Still, it was nice that Hillary Tuck finally got a chance to shine. The team owes their victory to a redhead. Yay, Sam!

Episode 1.12 “Poetic Justice”

(Directed by Howard Murray, originally aired on November 25th, 1995)

“Chris and I are a couple!” Julie announces at the end of this episode.

“A couple of what?” Mary Beth responds and I’ll admit right now that I laughed. Megan Parlen’s delivery was perfect on that line.

Mary Beth has reason to be upset because, just before Julie made her announcement, she was telling Chris that she wanted to get back together with him. Mary Beth may have thought that she was over Chris but Earl encouraged her to write a poem about her feelings and that led to Mary Beth realizing that she was still in love with her ex.

Earl’s a poet now? Yep.

Julie is finally ready to public with her relationship with Chris? Yep.

The championship is coming up with all of this drama going on? Yep.

Yes, it’s all kind of silly but it was worth it for that one line. “A couple of what?” It made me laugh and that really is kind of the point of the show.

Next week, it’s championship time!

Novel Review: One Evil Summer by R.L. Stine

Posted on October 10, 2022 by Lisa Marie Bowman

It’s summer! That means that it’s time for the Conklin Family to take a vacation to the lovely resort town of Seahvaen. Unfortunately, Mr. Conklin and Mrs. Conklin are both bringing their work with them and oldest daughter Amanda is having to take summer school classes because she failed Algebra. (How do you go on a vacation and so summer school at the same time?) Despite the fact that I never had to do a day of summer school, I could still relate to Amanda because Algebra was always my worse subject. Fortunately, my sister kept all of her tests from the previous year so I was able to cheat my way to a passing grade. I still suck at Algebra and, as Case can tell you, I still throw a fit whenever I have to discuss anything that has to do with math but the important thing is that my summers were mine.

(To be honest, I probably could have done just fine if not for the “show your work” requirement, which always struck me as being fairly nonsensical. If I got the right answer, why did it matter how I got it? Usually, I do most of my work in my head and the notes that I jot down are usually written in such a way that only I can understand what they actually mean. That works just fine for me.)

Anyway, someone has to look after the youngest two Conklin kids during the day so Mrs. Conklin hires Chrissy, despite the fact that Chrissy has absolutely no references and is obviously batshit insane. Amanda keeps trying to get her parents to understand that Chrissy is crazy and planning on killing everyone but her parents are just like, “That’s what you get for failing Algebra.” Bleh!

The book has an intriguing premise and the first few chapters were so silly that I thought I was going to really enjoy One Evil Summer. But then all three of the Conklin family pets died, including a cat named Mr. Jinx and two parakeets that got their throats slit and ended up bleeding all over the place. That pretty much turned me off of the book, as it all just felt gratuitous and cheap. I pretty much lost all interest in the story when Mr. Jinx died and the death of the two parakeets pretty much guaranteed that I wouldn’t get that interest back any time soon. I did skim the rest of the book, just so I could be honest when I wrote this review. Chrissy turns out to be a witch with a secret! I figured out the secret pretty quickly.

To be honest, things get pretty silly towards the end of the book. It would actually have been enjoyably over-the-top if not for all the dead animals. But the death of Jinx and the birds just kind of made the rest of the book too depressing to really enjoy. To Stine’s credit, Amanda to get a new kitten and the kitten got a bit of revenge for its predecessor but still, the whole book just left a sour aftertaste.