Guilty Pleasure No. 42: Harper’s Island

Posted on October 8, 2019 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Oh my God, do you remember Harper’s Island!?

Way before The Walking Dead and American Horror Story made death and gore safe for mass consumption, Harper’s Island was the scariest show on television. I have to admit that, when I first heard about the show, I wasn’t expecting it to be. Way back in 2009, whenever the commercials for the show would air and that little girl would go, “One by one,” I would roll my eyes so hard that I once nearly gave myself a concussion.

“Really?” I would say, “A slasher television show where at least one person dies every week? And it’s going to be on network TV? There’s no way this is going to be bloody or scary enough to be worth watching.”

However, I did watch the first episode because I figured that I could at least be snarky about it on twitter. (I had joined just a few months before the show premiered. Harper’s Island was the first show that I ever live tweeted, even though I didn’t even know that there was such a thing as “live tweeting” way back then.) The episode opened with a man tied to the propeller of a boat, screaming as the engine started. The episode ended with Uncle Marty (played by special guest star Harry Hamlin) getting chopped in half by an unseen assailant.

“AGCK!” I said.

I was hooked from that episode on.

Believe it or not, Harper’s Island wasn’t just killings. It actually did tell a story, about a young woman named Abby (played by Elaine Cassidy) who returns to her childhood home, on Harper’s Island, for her best friend’s wedding. Many years ago, Abby’s mother was among those who was killed by a serial killer named John Wakefield. From the minute that Abby arrives, she feels that something bad is going to happen and it turns out that she’s right.

Of course, Abby’s not the only one on the island. There’s the other members of the wedding party. There’s the island’s inhabitants, the fishermen and the deputies and the cafe owner and the local reverend whose destined to lose his head in the woods. They’ve all got their quirks and subplots. Boisterous Malcolm (Chris Gauthier) is in desperate need of money. Local fisherman Jimmy (C.J. Thomason) is still in love with Abby. The groom, Henry (Christopher Gorham), has issues from his past that he needs to deal with. Some of them are likable. Some of them are annoying. Some of them, like spoiled Chloe (Cameron Richardson), are meant to be annoying but become likable as the series progresses.

And, in the end, none of their hopes and dreams really mattered because, by the end of the show, everyone was pretty much dead. The ads for Harper’s Island promised a bloodbath and that’s what the show delivered. It wasn’t just that at least one person died per week. It was also that they usually died in the most macabre and disturbing ways possible. This was the type of the show where the most likable groomsman ended up getting chopped into pieces and then tossed into an incinerator. Another wedding guest chose to drown herself rather than be attacked by the killer. Sometimes, the killers didn’t even have to be around for someone to get killed. Who can forget poor Booth (played by Sean Rogerson), accidentally shooting himself in the leg and bleeding out while America watched?

And yes, you did watch every week because you wanted to see who would be the next to die. (That’s where the guilty part of the pleasure comes in.) But you also watched because the show was produced and directed so well. The island was a wonderfully atmospheric location and the cast really committed themselves to bringing the show’s morbid reality to life. At the time, it was the darkest show on television and it could have been even darker because, originally, the plan was for the killer to get away with it. In the end, karma caught up with the killer but not before we were all traumatized upon discovering just who was responsible. Harper’s Island‘s mystery was as intriguing as its deaths were bloody.

Being ahead of its time, Harper’s Island struggled in the ratings and it was never a big hit with critics. But, with the help of Netflix and the the occasional marathon on SyFy, Harper’s Island‘s reputation has improved and grown over the years. Looking back, it’s easy to see that Harper’s Island was not only the forerunner to American Horror Story but it was also a far better series. American Horror Story tends to condescend to the horror, keeping the genre at arm’s length through misdirected pretension. It’s a show for people who think that they’re too good for horror. Harper’s Island, on the other hand, fully embraced both the horror and the melodrama and it did so without apology.

Seriously, what Halloween is complete without a trip to Harper’s Island?

Previous Guilty Pleasures

Horror on the Lens: Dementia 13 (dir by Francis Ford Coppola)

Posted on October 8, 2019 by Lisa Marie Bowman

(I originally shared this film back in 2011 — can you believe we’ve been doing this for that long? — but the YouTube vid was taken down. So, I’m resharing it today!)

For today’s excursion into the world of public domain horror, I offer up the film debut of Francis Ford Coppola. Before Coppola directed the Godfathers and Apocalypse Now, he directed a low-budget, black-and-white thriller that was called Dementia 13. (Though, in a sign of things to come, producer Roger Corman and Coppola ended up disagreeing on the film’s final cut and Corman reportedly brought in director Jack Hill to film and, in some cases, re-film additional scenes.)

Regardless of whether the credit should go to Coppola, Corman, or Hill, Dementia 13 is a brutally effective little film that is full of moody photography and which clearly served as an influence on the slasher films that would follow it in the future. Speaking of influence,Dementia 13 itself is obviously influenced by the Italian giallo films that, in 1963, were just now starting to make their way into the drive-ins and grindhouses of America.

In the cast, keep an eye out for Patrick Magee, who later appeared as Mr. Alexander in A Clockwork Orange as well as giving a memorable performance in Lucio Fulci’s The Black Cat. Luana Anders, who plays the duplicitous wife in this film, showed up in just about every other exploitation film made in the 60s and yes, the scene where she’s swimming freaks me out to no end.

(One final note: I just love the title Dementia 13. Seriously, is that a great one or what?)

Music Video of the Day: Burn by Mushroomhead (2006, dir by ????)

Posted on October 8, 2019 by Lisa Marie Bowman

So, this really isn’t my type of music but it does seem appropriate for the Halloween season.

Anyone who comes by the house looking like this on Halloween will probably get all the candy that we have to give out. That’ll be followed by me saying, “We’ve given you all the candy, please leave.”

Enjoy!

Horror on TV: The Veil 1.2 “Girl on the Road” (dir by George Waggner)

Posted on October 7, 2019 by Lisa Marie Bowman

From 1958, it’s The Veil!

The Veil was a horror anthology series that, because of financial difficulties at Hal Roach Studios, were never actually aired on television. 10 episodes were filmed before production was abruptly canceled. Each episode was hosted by (and often starred) Boris Karloff. Karloff later stated that he was never actually paid for his work on the show but his work as the host did eventually lead to him being hired to host Thriller, a horror anthology series that eventually did air.

As for The Veil, the ten episodes that were produced were never actually sold to a network but, in the 60s, several episodes were edited together to create films that aired on late night television. It wasn’t until the 90s that the episodes were actually released on video. For that, we largely have Something Weird Video to thank.

Each episode of The Veil opened with Karloff promising the lift the veil on a strange, perhaps supernatural, event. (Most of the stories were supposedly based on true stories.) Karloff would also play a role in each episode. For instance, in tonight’s episode, he plays Morgan Debs.

Tonight’s episode is called Girl on the Road. It’s a nicely atmospheric tale about a man (Tod Andrews) who picks up a mysterious woman (Eve Brent) who is stranded on the side of the road. What is the woman’s secret and why is she terrified of Morgan Debs? Why does everyone in the town refuse to talk about her? Watch to find out!

This episode was directed by George Waggner, who is perhaps best known for directing the original Wolf Man.

Enjoy!

The TSL’s Horror Grindhouse: The Yesterday Machine (dir by Russ Marker)

Posted on October 7, 2019 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The 1965 film The Yesterday Machine opens with dancing!

Well, okay, actually, it opens with two college students out in the middle of nowhere, listening to an old radio. Howie Ellison (Jay Ramsey) is working on his car, trying to get the engine to work again. Margie de Mar (Linda Jenkins) is working on her baton twirling, as one tends to due when stuck out in the middle of nowhere.

As soon as the film started and I got one look at the barren landscape, I knew that it had to have been filmed in my part of the world. The whole thing just screamed Texas/Oklahoma border. Then I saw Margie’s boots and then I heard Howie and Margie’s accents and I yelled, “OH MY GOD, THEY FILMED THIS IN TEXAS!”

And, indeed, they did. The Yesterday Machine is a regional production, through and through. Nearly everyone in the film has a strong accent and the North Texas landscape is notably flat. (The film’s harsh black-and-white cinematography actually gives it something of a apocalyptic feel.) After I watched this film, I did some research and I discovered that this film was shot in Dallas. Director Russ Marker was a Texas filmmaker and actor. He apparently directed two films over the course of his short career, this and The Demon From Devil’s Lake. He also had an uncredited role as a bank guard in Bonnie and Clyde.

(There were actually quite a few low-budget filmmakers working in Texas in the 60s. The best-known, of course, would probably be Larry Buchanan. But, at the same time that Russ Marker was shooting this film, Hal Warren was filming Manos: The Hands of Fear.)

Anyway, Howie and Margie are supposed to be heading to a college football game but it turns out that Howie is totally useless when it comes to fixing cars. So, instead, they leave the car and go looking for help. After wandering around for a bit, they run into some soldiers who are dressed in Confederate army uniforms.

“Those are some crazy threads, Dad!” Howie says.

Having no respect for Howie’s beatnik ways, the soldiers shoot him and then kidnap Margie.

What’s going on, you may ask. Well, fear not! Lt. Partane (Tim Holt) is on the case! And yes, classic film fans, you read that actor’s name correctly. Tim Holt, star of both The Magnificent Ambersons and Treasure of the Sierra Madre, lends his gravitas to The Yesterday Machine! According to the imdb, Holt grew disillusioned with Hollywood in the 50s and gave up the movies, retiring to his ranch in Oklahoma. He only came out of retirement to play Lt. Partane in this film and Agent Clark in Herschell Gordon Lewis’s moonshiner epic, This Stuff’ll Kill You. According to imdb, Holt only came out of retirement as a “favor for his friends.” So, in other words, Tim Holt probably did this movie to be nice.

Helping out Lt. Partane is a reporter named Jim Crandall (James Britton) and Margie’s sister, a singer named Sandy (Ann Pelligrino). Working together, they investigate why Confederate soldiers are wandering around North Texas and what they discover is that it’s because a fugitive Nazi scientist, Dr. Blake (Charles Young), has built a time machine! He’s planning on using it to go to the past and help Hitler win World War II!

However, before he does that, he wants to make sure that everyone knows how time travel works. This leads to a — I kid you not, dear readers — TEN MINUTE LECTURE IN FRONT OF A BLACKBOARD, during which Dr. Blake goes into meticulous detail about how he can travel in time! It’s interesting because you can tell that the filmmakers actually did go to the trouble of researching all of the theories about how time works and how man might be able to travel into the past and it’s also obvious that they really wanted to show off what they had learned.

But, here’s the thing. It’s totally unnecessary. We’ve already seen the Confederate soldiers. If we’re still watching the film by the time that Dr. Blake shows up then it’s safe to assume that we’ve suspended our disbelief enough to accept that time travel is possible. There’s no need to convince us. And, since Young wasn’t exactly the best actor in Texas, having him spend ten minutes madly lecturing the audience wasn’t exactly going to convince anyone that time travel was a plausible reality. Instead, it just brings the entire film to a halt and kills the small amount of narrative momentum that it had going for it.

Anyway, once Dr. Blake finally shuts up, it’s time to stop his nefarious plans and hopefully make the world safe for college football games.

The Yesterday Machine is a really bad movie but I have to admit that I always kind of enjoy watching these regional oddities. There’s something touching about everyone’s attempt to turn The Yesterday Machine into a “real” movie and, at its best, the film features the type of enthusiasm that you can only get from a low-budget amateur production. If nothing else, this movie about time travel is a real time capsule. Movies like this are about as close to real time machine as we’ll ever get.

Book Review: Haunted Heartland by Beth Scott and Michael Norman

Posted on October 7, 2019 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Today’s review comes straight from my Aunt Kate’s paperback book collection. It’s Haunted Heartland by Beth Scott and Michael Norman!

First published in 1985, Haunted Heartland is a collection of supposedly true stories about ghosts and other supernatural things. The catch is that all of the stories take place in “American’s heartland.”

Where is the heartland? Well, according to this book, the heartland is made up of Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, Ohio, and Wisconsin. So, sorry, Arkansas! Too bad, Oklahoma! Your ghosts do not qualify for inclusion in this book that’s a shame because both Arkansas and Oklahoma are home to some pretty interesting ghosts. That said, the ten states that are profiled in Haunted Heartland are apparently home to some fascinating stories of their own.

For instance, did you know that Egypt, Illinois is nearly as haunted as Chicago? Of course, I guess when you’re the home state of Al Capone and the Chicago Outfit, you’ll end up collecting a number of restless spirits. Since President Lincoln was from Illinois, the authors also take the time to recount Lincoln’s numerous supernatural encounters. The ghosts and the dream weavers loved Abe Lincoln.

Did you know that La Llorona has actually been spotted in Gary, Indiana?

Did you know about the poltergeist of Gutenberg, Iowa?

Or how about the mad woman of Topeka, Kansas?

Did you know that Michigan is haunted by phantom ships?

Ever heard of the phantom miner of Minnesota?

Did you know that Missouri’s own Mark Twain was psychic?

Have you ever been curious about the grinning skeletons of Nebraska?

Have you ever searched for the headless biker of Ohio?

Could you survive meeting the wandering dead of Wisconsin?

All these stories and more are detailed in Haunted Heartland! It’s a pretty enjoyable book. Norman and Scott narrate their tales of the paranormal in a breezy and fun manner, with the stated goal being more to entertain as opposed to terrify. Even with that in mind, though, Haunted Heartland is a treasure trove from aspiring horror writers searching for inspiration.

Horror Film Review: The Prodigy (dir by Nicholas McCarthy)

Posted on October 7, 2019 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The Prodigy, which was released way back in February, is yet another creepy kid movie.

You know how these movies go. There’s always some child who seems like a perfect little angel but is actually either psychotic or demon-possessed or maybe an alien. Whatever it is, the important thing is that the child can get away with killing people because no one thinks that an eight year-old would do that something like that. Inevitably, it’s the child’s mother who figure out what’s going on and it’s always up to her to try to stop her child’s reign of terror. Sometimes, the mother is successful. More often, she’s not and the movie ends with the little brat smiling at the camera or something. Seriously, you know how it goes!

Because there’s been so many of them, it’s usually easy to predict what’s going to happen in these creepy kid movies. At the same time, they’re effective because … well, let’s just be honest here. Kids are creepy. Even the ones that aren’t evil know that they can get away with stuff that no adult would be allowed to do. Add to that, they’ve got those high-pitched voices that can give you a migraine if you get stuck on airplane anywhere near one of them. Beyond that, these films also touch on every parent’s worst fear. What if your child does grow up to be evil? What if you mess up while you’re raising them and, as a result, other people suffer? What if your child grows up to have bad hygiene or an obnoxious attitude? I mean, I don’t have any children yet but these are the things that I imagine keep most parents up at night.

Anyway, in The Prodigy, the creepy kid is named Miles (Jackson Robert Scott). Miles is super smart. He started talking when he was just a toddler. However, after Mile turns 8, he starts to behave strangely. He pulls mean pranks on the babysitter. He attacks other children. He starts speaking Hungarian in his sleep and saying stuff like, “I’ll cut your eyes out and watch you die, whore.” After Miles does something bad, he always claims that he has no memory of what he did. Whenever Bad Miles takes control, Good Miles just seems to black out. Needless to say, his parents — Sarah (Taylor Schilling) and John (Peter Mooney) — are concerned about what’s happening with their son.

Could it have something to do with the fact that, at the same time that Miles was being born, a Hungarian serial killer named Edward Scarka was getting gunned down by the cops? Is it possible that Edward’s evil spirit is now inside of Miles and is trying to take control of him? Sarah certainly comes to think so! As for John — well, who cares? John is mostly just there to get upset and pout.

The Prodigy does have some scary moments. Director Nicholas McCarthy establishes an ominous atmosphere early on and the film remains remarkably bleak for the majority of its running time. I mean, there are some really dark moments in The Prodigy. But, at the same time, the whole crazy child plot is a bit too predictable and the film doesn’t really bring anything new to the terror tyke genre. Add to that, this is yet another film in which a family pet is gruesomely murdered for no particular reason. I guess we’re supposed to be shocked and say, “OH MY GOD, IF THEY’LL KILL THAT ADORABLE DOG, THEY’LL KILL ANYONE!” but the dog is so obviously doomed from the first moment that it appears that it just feels like lazy storytelling.

Outside of a few isolated moments, The Prodigy doesn’t really make much of an impression. It’s an efficient horror film that’s never really memorable.

Horror On The Lens: The Haunting of Helen Walker (dir by Tom McLoughlin)

Posted on October 7, 2019 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Stop me if this sounds familiar.

In Victorian-era England, a somewhat neurotic young woman is hired to serve as the governess for two children who live in a foreboding estate. Once the governess arrives, she discovers that the children — especially little Miles — can be a handful. She also discovers that there was a governess hired before her, a governess who died under mysterious circumstances. At night, the new governess hears strange noises and soon, she becomes convinced that she’s seen the ghosts of both her predecessor and the old governess’s lover, Peter Quint. Everyone else may think that the new governess has allowed the isolation of the estate to get to her but she’s convinced that the ghosts have possessed the children! She becomes determined to save the children, even at the risk of their own lives….

If that sounds familiar, then you’ve either read Henry James’ Turn of the Screw or you’ve seen one of the several movies that were based on his novella. The Haunting of Helen Walker, which was made-for-television and initially broadcast in 1995, reimagines James’s unnamed governess as Helen Walker, an American woman played by Valerie Bertinelli.

Now, The Haunting of Helen Walker does take some liberties with Henry James’s source material. The novella was a masterpiece of ambiguity. The Haunting of Helen Walker is …. less so. Let’s just say this version doesn’t leave much doubt as to whether or not there’s actually ghosts in the mansion. That said, it’s still an entertaining made-for-TV movie.

Check out my full review here and watch the film below.

Enjoy!

Cleaning Out The DVR: Let Us Live! (dir by John Brahm)

Posted on October 7, 2019 by Lisa Marie Bowman

In the 1939 film, Let Us Live!, Henry Fonda plays Brick Tennant. Brick is a poor but honest taxi driver who has always lived a law-abiding life and who is looking forward to marrying waitress named Mary Roberts (Maureen O’Sullivan). However, when a taxi is used as a getaway car in a violent robbery that leaves a policeman dead, Brick finds that he’s a suspect.

At first, Brick isn’t too worried. It turns out that every taxi driver in Boston is apparently being considered a suspect. Brick is just 1 out of 120. However, when the police bring Brick in to take part in a lineup, one of the witnesses insists that Brick and his friend, Joe Linden (Alan Baxter), were involved in the robbery. Despite the fact that Brick and Mary were at a church, planning their wedding, during the robbery, Brick and Joe are arrested and put on trial for murder. Despite Brick’s initial faith in the system, he and Joe are convicted and sentenced to die.

On death row, Brick faces the inhumane reality of American justice. He watches as other prisoners slowly lose their mind as a result of neglect and abuse. He watches as another prisoner drops dead in front of him, to the indifference of the guards. Even when Mary tells him that she’s still looking for evidence that will exonerate him, Brick says that he no longer cares. The state of Massachusetts is determined to kill him and he doesn’t believe that there’s any way stop them. As Mary puts it, Brick is now dead inside.

Still, Mary continued to investigate. Helping her is a police detective named Everett (Ralph Bellamy). Everett comes to realize that two innocent men are sitting on Death Row but will he and Mary be able to find the real culprits before the state executes Brick and Joe?

While watching Let Us Live, I found it impossible not to compare the film to The Wrong Man, another film in which Henry Fonda played an innocent man being railroaded by the system. Both The Wrong Man and Let Us Live were based on a true stories, though Let Us Live takes considerably more liberty with its source material than The Wong Man does. Whereas The Wrong Man is a docudrama that’s full of moody atmosphere courtesy of director Alfred Hitchcock, Let Us Live is much more of a fast-paced, melodramatic B-move.

That said, Let Us Live! is still a definitely effective look at how an innocent man can be railroaded by a system that’s often more concerned with getting a quick conviction than actually searching for the truth. Sadly, the issues that Let Us Live deals with are just as relevant today as they were in 1939. The film’s power comes from Henry Fonda’s performance as Brick. It’s truly heart-breaking to watch Brick go from being a cheerful optimist to a man who has been so broken down by American justice that he can’t even bring himself to celebrate the news that he might be released. The film ends on a grim note, a reminder that some damage cannot be undone.

Let Us Live! is another good but obscure film that I discovered through TCM. Keep an eye out for it!

Music Video of the Day: The Beautiful People by Marilyn Manson (1996, dir by Fiona Sigismondi)

Posted on October 7, 2019 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Hey, remember when Marilyn Manson was considered to be like really shocking and dangerous?

No?

Well, that’s understandable. Marilyn’s been around for a while and he’s been so imitated that I think it’s kind of easy to forget just how much people freaked the fuck out about Marilyn Manson’s music and videos in the late 90s. They even attempted to blame him for Columbine. (Marilyn Manson also said one of the few wise things about that shooting. When asked what he would have said to the shooters, he replied that he wouldn’t have said anything but he would have listened to what they were saying because apparently, nobody bothered to do that before the shooting.) Now, of course, we just tend to think of Marilyn Manson as being a kind of dorky guy who is into horror movies, which is a pretty good description of the majority of film twitter.

Anyway, The Beautiful People features Marilyn on stilts, which apparently scared people to death back in the day.

Enjoy!