Late Night Retro Television Review: Freddy’s Nightmares 2.21 “Prisoner of Love”

Posted on July 31, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Late Night Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Fridays, I will be reviewing Freddy’s Nightmares, a horror anthology show which ran in syndication from 1988 to 1990. The entire series can be found on Tubi!

Let’s go to prison! Is Freddy coming?

Episode 2.21 “Prisoner of Love”

(Dir by Richard T. Schor, originally aired on March 4th, 1990)

A flakey Episcopalian named Father Jarvis (Vincent Baggetta) is appointed the new chaplain of Springwood Prison. Jarvis has just returned from Haiti and has a rather liberal outlook towards prison reform. When he falls in love with Death Row prisoner Violet (Maria Richwine), he gives her a Haitian drug that will make it appear as if she’s died. He promises her that he will dig her up from the prison graveyard before she suffocates. Unfortunately, Jarvis oversleeps and Violet suffocates in her coffin.

Still, another prisoner named Brenda (Tara Buckman) overheard Jarvis talking to Violet and she decides that she wants the same drug. Jarvis gives it to her but it turns out that Jarvis is also being haunted by the ghost of Violet. Violet says that she can’t move on until Brenda forgives her for killing Brenda’s boyfriend. Brenda finds herself being held captive by the crazed Father Jarvis.

This episode was the second-to-late for Freddy’s Nightmares and, unfortunately, it’s not very good. Between the histrionic acting and the predictable plot, this story really makes you wish that Freddy was doing something more than just introducing it. As it was, this episode really reminded me of how limiting the show’s format was. Whenever something scary happens, it’s always a given that it will turn out to be a dream. It’s predictable and a little bit dull, unless it’s one of the rare episodes in which Freddy actually played a role in the story.

Next week, we will finish up Freddy’s Nightmares!

Late Night Retro Television Review: Freddy’s Nightmares 2.20 “Dust to Dust”

Posted on July 24, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The cannibals are back!

Episode 2.20 “Dust to Dust”

(Dir by Bill Froehlich, originally aired on February 25th, 1990)

Tony Dow, Amy Lyndon, and Sandahl Bergman, the three cannibals from Prime Cut, are back! They are now all living together and are members of Cannibals Anonymous. For months, they have resisted the urge to taste human flesh. But, when an escaped prisoner breaks into their home, they give into temptation and have a good meal.

Uh-oh, it turns out that escaped prisoner was actually an astronaut who returned to Earth infected with a space virus that eventually reduces its victims to dust. And now, the cannibals all have the virus! The government abducts them and takes them to an underground lab where a group of scientists dispassionately watch as they become hypersexual before going insane and turning into dust. One scientist (Tim Russ) sympathizes with the cannibals and soon, the entire lab is infected.

This episode had potential but it ultimately failed because it couldn’t decide whether it wanted to be funny or scary. There’s a lot of terror to found in the idea of being held prisoner until your transformed into blue dust. At the same time, the symptoms of the space virus were so over-the-top and the actors went so overboard in performing those symptoms that it was hard to really care about any of it. Having the victims quote a movie before turning into dust probably seemed like a good idea but it doesn’t work in execution. The whole thing ultimately felt like a community theater production of The Andromeda Syndrome.

Not even Freddy appeared to be that interested in this episode.

Only two more episodes to go!

Late Night Retro Television Review: Freddy’s Nightmares 2.19 “A Family Affair”

Posted on July 10, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week’s episode is all about death, natural and otherwise.

Episode 2.19 “A Family Affair”

(Dir by Keith Samples, originally aired on February 19th, 1990)

Paul (Leonard O. Turner) is having an affair with Claire (Kim Morgan Greene). He doesn’t want his wife, Helen (Marlene Warfield), or his son, Jason (Morris Chestnut) to find out so when Claire becomes possessive and breaks into his house, he resorts to drastic measures and kills her. However, he and Jason then discover that Claire has already killed Helen. Months later, Paul and Jason are now estranged and Jason is doing drugs. When Paul has a heart attack, he is visited by Claire’s spirit. Claire is now the Angel of Death and has come to claim his soul. Paul begs Claire to give one more week of life so that he can settle his affairs. Claire agrees and then says that she still can’t return empty-handed. Guess who overdoses?

“Drugs,” Freddy Krueger says, “Now there’s a real nightmare!”

Did you hear that kids? The horribly scarred. undead serial killer who is the host of this show says that you better not do drugs. Freddy — or I should say, Robert Englund — delivers the line in a very solemn tone. Freddy’s Nightmares is trying to be socially responsible.

Oh, what to say about this episode? Kim Morgan Greene was enjoyably snarky while playing the Angel of Death. Otherwise, this was a pretty boring episode. Paul’s a jerk and, as a result, he loses everyone that he cares about. If Paul was in any way sympathetic, that would be sad. As it is, it’s hard to care.

Only three episodes left!

Late Night Retro Television Review: Freddy’s Nightmares 2.18 “Funhouse”

Posted on June 26, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, a mansion is full of …. well, one surprise.

Episode 2.18 “Funhouse”

(Dir by Gilbert Adler, originally aired on February 11th, 1990)

Turk (Todd Allen), the moving man, is busy this week.

In our first story, Turk helps a young married couple, Emma (Robin Greer) and Robert Palmer (Clayton Landey), move into an old mansion. Turk talks about how the previous owners came to a bad end. Emma finds herself having dreams in which both Turk and her former lover, Colin (Joseph Brutsman), come aftter her. She comes to realize that the house is not haunted by a ghost but instead by a man looking for revenge. As is often the case with these type of stories, it all ends with a booby trap involving a bed of nails. Yikes!

In our second story, Turk helps another couple move into the house, Evelyn (Valerie Wildman) and her much older husband, Victor Hall (Robert Dowdell). This time, it’s Turk who ends up getting seduced by both Evelyn and the maid, Jillian (Laura Austin). However, it all turns out to be an elaborate game tht Evelyn, Victor, and Jillian enjoy playing. The bed of spikes booby trap makes yet another appearance and it’s so cool that it doesn’t even matter that Freddy’s Nightmares basically just repeated the twist from the first story in the second story.

This episode was fun. There really wasn’t anything supernatural going on but the cast of both stories seemed to enjoy playing up the noirsh aspects of their characters and Todd Allen was amusing as the cocky but stupid Turk. The bed of nails was an enjoyable macabre little twist.

Even at its best, Freddy’s Nightmares tended to be incredibly uneven but this was actually an enjoyable little episode.

Late Night Retro Television Review: Freddy’s Nightmares 2.17 “Interior Loft Later”

Posted on June 19, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, a loft sees a lot of action!

Episode 2.17 “Interior Loft Later”

(Dir by Ken Wiederhorn, originally aired on February 4th, 1990)

The loft from last week’s episode returns!

The loft is now home to sculptor Alex McFain (Robert F. Lyons). Alex spends most of his time sitting and sleeping in a bath tub and complaining about the fact that his work doesn’t make him much money. When his wife, Fabina (Fabiana Udenio) accidentally kills one of Alex’s models, Alex comes up with a brilliant plan. He’ll fake his own death so his work will become valuable!

At first, the plan works. The only problem is that Alex can no longer leave the loft. With Fabina constantly going outside to sell his work, Alex starts to worry that she’s having an affair with another man. It tuns out that he’s half-right. Fabina is having an affair but it’s with another woman. Alex is shocked but he’s then killed by decorative sword that falls off of the ceiling. Now, his work will be really valuable!

Months later, Fabina’s former boy toy, Art (Dean Fortunato), shows up at the apartment and discovers that it is now occupied by Stacy (Leslie Bega) and Gina (Tory Polone). Art moves in with them and proceeds to seduce both of them. He tells one that he’s an environmental activist being pursued by a cartel of fishermen. He tells the other that he’s being chased by the mob. When Stacy and Gina compare notes, it’s bad news for both Art.

Freddy doesn’t do anything in either one of these stories, other than introduce them. Both stories follow the familiar pattern where anything overly dramatic that happens is ultimately revealed to be a dream. Neither story is all that interesting but Robert F. Lyons does his best to bring some life to his role of the sculptor pretending to be dead. As has so often been the case with the second season, this episode isn’t great or even memorable but it’s still a hundred times better than the majority of the first season.

Late Night Retro Television Review: Freddy’s Nightmares 2.16 “Interior Loft”

Posted on June 12, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, a husband and a wife live in a loft and obsess on sex and death.

Episode 2.16 “Interior Loft”

(Dir by Ken Wiederhorn, originally aired on January 28th, 1990)

Kim Lewis (Elizabeth Keifer) has quit her job so that she can work on her novel. Her husband, David (Kip Gilman), is a lazy grad student who doesn’t bring in much money to the household. David suggests that Kim could record a message for a sex line. Kim agrees but, when a serial killer becomes obsessed with the message, she finds herself being stalked. Fortunately, the killer dies before he can harm Kim. But Kim is so traumatized and mentally shaken by her stalker’s bloody death that David comes to worry that she might be plotting to become a killer herself. And, of course, she is.

There was nothing supernatural about this episode, other than Freddy popping up for the host segments. Apparently, even in his Hellish afterlife, Freddy tries to keep up with all the latest novels. This episode was instead an attempt at neo-noir and director Ken Weiderhorn manages to create an appropriately ominous atmosphere. Elizabeth Keifer gives a strong performance as Kim so it’s unfortunate that the rest of the cast isn’t as memorable. This was not a bad episode but it was hard not to feel that it could have been even better.

In the end, I appreciated the fact that this episode actually did have something on its mind. David fears that Kim is a potential killer because of the book that she writes. That’s something to which any creative person in the horror field can relate. Audiences often seem to assume that a morbid imagination is linked to a morbid personality whereas the opposite is often the case. I’ve been lucky enough to meet a few horror people. They’re nice!

Late Night Retro Television Review: Freddy’s Nightmares 2.15 “Prime Cut”

Posted on May 29, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, it’s flesh-eating time!

Episode 2.15 “Prime Cut”

(Dir by David Calloway, originally aired on January 21st, 1990)

Tony Dow plays a hiker who worries that his guide (Sandal Bergman) might actually be a vampire. Every few minutes, Dow either spots Bergman drinking blood or preparing to drink blood but then, just as suddenly, he wakes up. Finally, he wakes up one final time and discovers that he’s actually been having feverish visions because he was in a plane crash and is now stranded in the wilderness. He and Bergman are the only survivors of the crash and they’ve resorted to eating bodies of the other passengers. Dow’s wife (Amy Lyndon) eventually stumbles on the two during her own abortive attempt to provide a rescue. Uh-oh, will she now have to eat human flesh as well?

Ugh, this episode. Both storylines had potential but they really didn’t go anywhere. This was one of those episodes where, every few minutes, something weird would happen and then we would immediately cut to someone waking up. While I understand that the dreams were a part of the show’s trademark, the episode still overused them. It was far more dull than any show featuring Tony Down and Sandahl Bergman as cannibals had any right to be.

Late Night Retro Television Review: Freddy’s Nightmares 2.14 “Easy Come, Easy Go”

Posted on May 22, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, Mary Crosby returns. And hey — is that Wings Hauser!?

Episode 2.14 “Easy Come, Easy Go”

(Dir by William Malone, originally aired on January 14th, 1990)

In this sequel to Lucky Stiff, Greta (Mary Crosby) is still living in her mansion with her new husband, Eugene (Tracey Walter). She’s married to Eugene so that Eugene won’t turn her in for having killed her previous husband. Eugene says that he’ll leave the mansion as soon as they consummate the marriage. Greta, however, has standards. As a result, Eugene lives in the basement.

When her former brother-in-law, Wes Roscoe (Richard Eden), shows up, it doesn’t take long for a lingerie-clad Greta to seduce him. It soon becomes apparent that Wes wants her money and vengeance for the death of his brother. She makes plans to poison him but, when Wes attacks her, her life is saved by Eugene. Greta realizes that she loves Eugene. She sleeps with him. Immediately afterwards, Eugene accidentally drinks the poison and dies. Sorry, Eugene!

Shortly afterwards, Greta’s sister, Peggy (Jill Jacobson), shows up with her husband, eyepatch-wearing Sonny (Wings Hauser). Sonny is Greta’s ex. In fact, he blames her for the loss of his eye. (They got into an argument in a car and a slap from Greta sent Sonny plunging eye-first into the gear shift.) Greta seduces and then kills Sonny, just as she’s done with every man who has tried to take her money. But then Peggy turns out to be a sociopath herself (“I killed mom and dad.”) and proceeds to shoot Greta.

“Easy come, easy go,” Greta gasps.

This episode was so over-the-top and cheerfully sordid that it was impossible not to enjoy it. Mary Crosby threw herself into the femme fatale role. Wings Hauser, as always, was amusingly disturbed as the bad guy. Both stories were wonderfully sordid. Even without any supernatural elements, this was a truly fun episode.

Late Night Retro Television Reviews: Freddy’s Nightmares 2.13 “What You Don’t Know Can Kill You”

Posted on May 15, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, Freddy is just as confused as the rest of us.

Episode 2.13 “What You Don’t Know Can Kill You”

(Dir by Ken Wiederhorn, originally aired on January 7th, 1990)

Psychiatrist Dr. Rothman (David Hern) has been hypnotizing his female patients and then molesting them. (This was something that apparently used to happen quite often with Victorian-era hypnotists.) When a colleague (Phil Proctor) discovers what Rothman is doing, Rothman hypnotizes and programs one of his patients, Derby Brown (Fran Montano), to become an assassin. However, Rothman screws up the programming and ends up getting shot by a hypnotized Derby. Derby’s girlfriend suggests that Derby should have plastic surgery to disguise his appearance. They see a handsome man’s photograph in a newspaper and they decide that’s the face they want. As a result of the surgery, Derby now looks exactly like Vinnie (Paul Regina, playing both roles). Unfortunately, Vinnie is a mob informant and there’s a hitman after him.

Got all that?

This episode was pretty dumb. Paul Regina did a good job as Vinnie and his new doppelganger but, for the most part, I’m not really sure why this was even an episode of Freddy’s Nightmares. There was nothing supernatural about either story and neither story was particularly scary. Freddy only appeared in his host segments and he seemed to be fairly bored with the whole thing.

Usually, I love it when a show embraces the melodrama but this episode wasn’t subversive enough to work as a satire. Despite the over the top plot, it still felt oddly generic.

Late Night Retro Television Review: Freddy’s Nightmares 2.12 “It’s My Party And You’ll Die If I Want You To”

Posted on May 8, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Guess who is making trouble …. again.

Episode 2.12 “It’s My Party And You’ll Die If I Want You To”

(Dir by Tom DeSimone, originally aired on December 24th, 1989)

This aired when?

Wow! Happy Christmas Eve!

Freddy takes center stage in this week’s episode. First, he possesses a phony psychic (Gwen Banta) and uses her to kill a bunch of people because …. well, why not? He’s Freddy. It’s kind of what he does. The second story features Freddy seeking revenge on the woman who stood him up for prom and it features an occasionally clever subplot about a man attempting to write a film about Freddy’s life. Freddy complains that the script doesn’t have a heart. That’s because Freddy ripped it out of the screenwriter.

This was not a bad episode. Director Tom DeSimone does a good job of keeping the action moving and he allows Freddy to be genuinely menacing. This entire season has pretty much been a reminder of the fact that Freddy isn’t just an undead spirit who makes joke He’s also very scary. If the first season treated Freddy like a quip machine, the second season has gone out of its way to show that Freddy is pure evil and you’re better off not being in his presence.

This week’s stories were tied together by the presence of Oliver Michaels (Richard Speight), a spacey young man who previously appeared in Photo Finish. Oliver does his best to warn people in this episode but no one’s willing to listen until it’s too late.

That’s life in Springwood.