1979’s Tourist Trap opens in the same way that many slasher films have opened. A group of friends — young, attractive, and not particularly bright — are driving through a secluded, rural area when they have car trouble.
Now, I have to say that, if I was driving through a rural secluded area or even if I was just a passenger in the vehicle, I would totally freak out if the car broke down. I mean, seriously, you’re in the middle of nowhere. You have no idea who or what might be hiding behind those trees. Even if you don’t get attacked by a bunch of inbred hillbilly cousins, you might get eaten by a bear or, even worse, you might get mauled by a deer and end up with Lyme Disease. Or you might just end up with a bunch of flies buzzing around your face, which is really even worse than getting attacked by a wild animal.
(Pro-tip: One way to deal with flies is to combine the open flame of a lighter with a can of hairspray.)
I’ve seen enough slasher films to know that bad things happen when you get lost in the woods. However, up until everything started getting all self-referential in the 1990s, old school slasher films were infamous for featuring characters who had apparently never seen a slasher film or really any other type of movie before.
Your car broke down in the woods? One member of your party has already disappeared while looking for a gas station? You have no way of letting anyone know where you are? Sure, why not go skinny dipping? For that matter, why not check out Slausen’s Lost Oasis, a run-down shack that is the home of a lot of wax figures and which is owned by the shotgun-toting Mr. Slausen (Chuck Connors). Mr. Slausen is pretty bitter about the new freeway. It took away all of his business.
Of course, it turns out that there’s more to this tourist trap than meets the eyes. For one thing, the mannequins often seem to randomly come to life and murder anyone who spends too much time alone with them. Secondly, things in the tourist trap often move on their own, as if someone has psychic powers. And then there the enigmatic man who wears a wax mask and likes to take people hostage before transforming them into wax figures….
TouristTrap has a totally ludicrous plot but Slausen’s Oasis is such a creepy location and Chuck Connors plays his role with such unnerving intensity that it doesn’t matter that things don’t always make sense. At its best, Tourist Trap plays out like a filmed nightmare, one in which the rules of normal physics often don’t seem to apply. The victims are interchangeable (though I did like Tanya Roberts’s energetic performance as Becky) but the kills are imaginative and memorable gruesome. Researching the film, I was surprised to discover that Tourist Trap was given a PG-rating, despite the skinny dipping and the blood and all of the terrifying wax figures. Don’t let that rating fool you. This is genuinely scary slasher film and one that everyone should see before going on an impulsive road trip to the middle of nowhere.
Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Wednesdays, I will be reviewing the original Love Boat, which aired on ABC from 1977 to 1986! The series can be streamed on Paramount Plus!
This week, Julie wears a wig!
Episode 5.16 “Green, But Not Jolly/Past Perfect Love/Instant Family”
(Dir by Richard Kinon, originally aired on January 30th, 1982)
“Where’s Julie?” Captain Stubing demands and he’s got good reason. The Love Boat is only a few minutes away from setting sail. The passengers are checking in and being given directions to their cabins. And yet, Julie McCoy — the cruise director — is nowhere to be seen!
Fire him, Captain! Seriously, she’s been erratic this entire season and she seems to have a permanent cold so it’s time to get a new cruise director.
Julie shows up at the last minute. She reveals that she’s late because she went to see her hair dresser. And now, she’s a platinum blonde! She says that she’s proud of her new look. The rest of the crew pretends to like it. As for those of us watching, it’s hard not to notice that Julie is actually just wearing a very obvious wig.
Watching this episode, I couldn’t help but think about the fact that, according to a documentary about the show that I recently watched on Tubi, Lauren Tewes was dealing with a fairly serious cocaine problem during the fifth season. I don’t say that suggest anything bad about Lauren Tewes. From what I’ve read, cocaine was everywhere in the 80s and she’s hardly the only performer from the time to get into trouble with it. (Tewes, it should be noted, went to rehab and cleaned herself up.) Instead, I point that out because a lot of Julie’s actions during the fifth season seem as if they’re best explained by Julie being under the influence. The moodiness, the impulsivity, the fact that she suddenly doesn’t seem to be all that focused on her job, I think Julie had a problem! Her hair isn’t platinum blonde. It’s cocaine white!
Gopher eventually works up the courage to tell her that her new hair color is not flattering. (And, to be honest, he’s right.) Gopher gives her some hair dye that he picked up — uh oh! — and Julie uses it — JULIE, WHAT ARE YOU DOING!? — and she wakes up the next morning with green hair. Julie spends the rest of the cruise in her cabin while the rest of the crew feels guilty. Even Vicki has a hard time talking to Julie with her green hair. Then the rest of the cruse decides to die their hair green in solidarity with Julie, just to discover hat Julie’s hair has gone back to its natural color….
Yeah, it’s silly but I kind of enjoyed the storyline. I like stories about the crew and the members of the cast had enough chemistry that they could even carry a story as silly as this one. They’re a fun group to watch.
As for the other two stories, Lynda Day George boards the ship with her hyperactive son (a young Corey Feldman). She meets a high school coach (John Philip Law) who is not scared by her son. This was a predictable story but I’m a horror fan and an Italian movie fan so seeing George, Feldman, and Law interacting made up for any narrative flaws.
The third story starred Bert Convy and Tanya Roberts and it was about reincarnation. I don’t believe reincarnation, mostly because people who claim to remember their past lives never remember anything boring. Instead, they always remember being members of French royalty or the mistress of a Spanish pirate. As for this story, Convy lies and tries to convince Roberts that they were lovers in a past life. But then he has black-and-white visions of a chandelier falling on Roberts. Maybe they were once lovers at another time! Honestly, who cares?
This was an above average cruise. I’m glad Julie finally took off that wig.
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 1984. Unfortunately, the show has been removed from most streaming sites. Fortunately, I’ve got nearly every episode on my DVR.
This week, season 5 comes to an end.
Episode 5.22 “The Ghost’s Story/The Spoilers”
(Dir by Don Chaffey, originally aired on May 8th, 1982)
The latest batch of guests are arriving and Julie is nowhere to be seen! Perhaps that’s because, as Mr. Roarke explains to Tattoo, Julie is helping out a guest who has an invisibility fantasy. Tattoo and Roarke watch as the guest walks by. His body may be invisible but his pants are not.
This is the final episode of the fifth season and it’s also the final episode in which Wendy Schaal will be credited as a part of the cast. I wasn’t a huge fan of the Julie character but it still seems like a bit of a shame that she didn’t get to do anything in the finale. Then again, this episode doesn’t really feel like a finale. I don’t know what was going on behind the scenes during the fifth season but it’s hard not to feel, with the way that Julie and Tattoo have randomly shown up in different stories, that the season’s episodes were not shown in the order in which they were filmed. Maybe all the Julie episodes were filmed at one time, while Herve Villechazie was off doing something else. Who knows? It’s just been a strange season.
That’s all wonderful and interesting, Lisa …. But what about this week’s fantasies!? you may be asking.
They both feel a bit familiar. That’s not always a bad thing, of course. Fantasy Island is a comfort show and a part of the comfort is knowing that things are always going to play out in a certain way. But, with this episode, both fantasies felt as if they had been done better in the past.
Harry (Bo Hopkins) is a bounty hunter who comes to the Island to track down fugitive Nick Tanner (Robert Fuller). Nick has been accused of robbing a bank and is hiding out on a nearby island. Harry goes to the island but he soon discovers that Nick is innocent and that the real bank robbers have also come to the island in search of Nick. Luckily, there’s a widow named Juliet (Jo Ann Pflug) who is also living on the island. Harry and Nick hide out at her place before they all team up to defeat the real bank robbers. Nick and Juliet fall in love and Mr. Roarke performs one of his trademark wedding ceremonies. Nick and Juliet then board the plane back to America and …. wait a minute, what about Harry? It was his fantasy! We don’t ever see Harry leave Fantasy Island. Maybe he’s still living there.
(Personally, I think he married Julie and that’s why she was no longer working there once season six began. I like that. Consider it to be canon.)
The other fantasy is a haunted house story. Amanda Parsons (Tanya Roberts) comes all the way from Baltimore to spend 24 hours in one of Fantasy Island’s many haunted houses. Two other paranormal investigators attempt to do it before Amanda but they end up fleeing after two minutes. I’m not sure why. The manor looks creepy but it turns out that the ghost is a rather wimpy and not at all frightening guy named Timothy Black (Dack Rambo). Cursed by his own father after Timothy refused to fight a duel with Captain Fitzhugh Ross (John McCook), Timothy has spent two hundred years haunting the old manor. Amanda takes sympathy on him. It turns out that Ross’s descendant is also on the Island. Timothy challenges him to a duel, causing the latest Ross to run in fear. Timothy and his ghost dad (John Myhers) realize it’s okay to be scared of getting shot. Ghost Dad asks Roarke to bring Timothy back to life so that he can pursue his romance with Amanda. Roarke does just that, despite the fact that, in many previous episodes, Roarke has specifically said that he cannot bring the dead back to life.
Usually, I enjoy Fantasy Island‘s haunted house fantasies but this one didn’t do much for me. I think it’s because the ghost was just too wimpy. There’s nothing more annoying than a whiny a dead guy,
And so ends this very odd season. Next week, we being season 6!
As some of our regular readers undoubtedly know, I am involved in a few weekly live tweets on twitter and I hope to continue to be until the site finally becomes unusable. (It’s going to happen eventually so enjoy it while you can!) I host #FridayNightFlix every Friday, I co-host #ScarySocial on Saturday, and I am one of the five hosts of #MondayActionMovie! Every week, we get together. We watch a movie. We tweet our way through it.
Tonight, at 10 pm et, #FridayNightFlix has got 1984’s Sheena, starring Tanya Roberts and Blossom’s dad!
If you want to join us this Friday, just hop onto twitter, start the movie at 10 pm et, and use the #FridayNightFlix hashtag! It’s a friendly group and welcoming of newcomers so don’t be shy.
Music promoter M. Harry Smilac (Dirk Benedict) used to be a big deal in Los Angeles but lately, his ability to create stars appears to have left him. He still has his Porsche and his car phone but he is also several thousand dollars in debt and he only has one client, a garage hair band called Kick. No one wants to book Kick because no one wants to work with a known screw-up like Harry.
Desperate for money, Harry agrees to serve as the entertainment chairman for a stuffy candidate for governor. It’s while looking for potential acts to headline a fundraiser that Harry meets Quick Rick Roberts (Roddy Piper). When Harry sees Rick getting ripped off by a promoter, Harry assumes that Rick is a musical act and quickly offers to be Rick’s agent. It’s only after Rick has agreed that Harry discovers that Rick doesn’t play an instrument and can’t sing a note. Instead, Rick is a professional wrestler and, by singing him, Harry has now made an enemy of Rick’s former manager, Captain Lou Munaro (played by, you guessed it, Captain Lou Albano).
Now, Harry has to find a way to pay his creditors, make stars out of both Kick and Rick, and win the hand of Candace VanVargen (Tanya Roberts), the daughter of a wealthy political benefactor. What if there was some way to combine rock and roll with wrestling?
Dirk Benedict, Tanya Roberts, Roddy Pipper, and Captain Lou Albana, all appearing in a movie directed by Hal Needham? Body Slam is one of the most 80s films ever made. It’s not really a bad film. In typical Needham fashion, it’s a loose mix of broad comedy and scenes designed to appeal to teenage boys and their fathers. There’s a lot wrestling. There’s a lot of spandex. The movie opens with Harry ogling a woman in a bikini. Body Slam knew who its audience would be. Dirk Benedict gives a surprisingly nimble comedic performance and even Tanya Roberts has some deliberately funny moments. Roddy Piper is likable as the steady and fair-minded Rick. There’s nothing subtle about Captain Lou Albano’s performance but what else would you expect from a man wearing that many rubber bands? As was typical of Needham’s films, some of the director’s friends show up in cameos. John Astin plays a car salesman. Charles Nelson Reilly plays a talk show host. Billy Barty gets into an argument with Captain Lou. Burt Reynolds is nowhere to be seen.
Unfortunately, not many people got to see Body Slam when it was originally released. Body Slam was going to be Hal Needham’s big comeback film after the disappointing Megaforce but the film’s producers didn’t care much for the changes that Needham made to their script and they sued to keep the film from being released. As a result, the film never got a theatrical release and it was instead sent straight to VHS, with very little fanfare. It has since developed a cult following amongst old school wrestling fans.
Body Slam is a typically amiable Hal Needham film. It’s nothing special but it’s enjoyable if you’re in the mood for it.
The 1978 film, Fingers, tell the story of Jimmy “Fingers” Angelilli (Harvey Keitel). Jimmy is a creep who works as a debt collector for his father, a small-time loan shark named Ben (Michael V. Gazzo). Jimmy is violent and brutal and often wanders around with a disturbingly blank-look on his face but we’re supposed to like him because he’s a talented pianist and he’s got a recital interview coming up at Carnegie Hall. Jimmy carries a radio with him wherever he goes and he’s obsessed with the song Summertime. He’s the type who will sit in a crowded restaurant and play the song and then get upset when someone tells him to turn off his radio. By the end of the movie, I was really hoping that someone would take Jimmy’s radio and smash into a hundred pieces.
Jimmy is in love with Carol (Tisa Farrow, who was a far better actress than her sister Mia and who would later appear in Lucio Fulci’s classic, Zombi 2), who doesn’t really seem to all that into him. Despite being in love with Carol, Jimmy still hits on every woman that he meets and, because this is a 70s films, he’s constantly getting laid despite being kind of a charmless putz.
Jimmy meets a former boxer named Dreems (Jim Brown). Carol is apparently one of Dreems’s mistresses. Jimmy silently watched while Dreems knocks two women’s heads together. Jimmy stands there with his little radio and a blank expression on his face. Is anything going on inside of Jimmy’s head? It’s hard to say.
Eventually, Jimmy finds out that a gangster (Tony Sirico) owes his father money but is refusing to pay. It all leads to violence.
As a film, Fingers is pretty much full of shit but that shouldn’t come as a surprise because it was the directorial debut of James Toback and there’s no American filmmaker who has been as consistently full of shit as James Toback. Fingers has all of Toback’s trademarks — gambling, crime, guilt, classical music, and a juvenile view of sexuality that suggests that James Toback’s personal development came to a halt when he was 16 years old. It’s a pretentious film that really doesn’t add up too much. Again, you know what you’re getting into when James Toback directs a film. Don’t forget, this is the same director who made a documentary where he was apparently shocked to discover that no one wanted to finance a politically-charged remake of Last Tango in Paris starring Alec Baldwin and Neve Campbell.
Fingers is a bit of an annoying film and yet it’s not a total loss. For one thing, if you’re a history nerd like I am, there’s no way that you can’t appreciate the fact that the film was shot on location in some of New York’s grimiest neighborhoods in the 70s. While I imagine it was more of a happy accident than anything intentional on Toback’s part (because, trust me, I’ve seen Harvard Man), Fingers does do a good job of creating an off-center, dream-like atmosphere where the world constantly seems to be closing in on its lead character. Jimmy is trying to balance his life as violent mobster with being a sensitive artist and the world around him is saying, “No, don’t count on it, you schmuck.”
As well, Harvey Keitel gives a …. well, I don’t know if I would necessarily say that it’s a good performance. In fact, it’s a fairly annoying performance and that’s a problem when a film is trying to make you feel sympathy for a character who is pretty unsympathetic. That said, there’s never a moment in the film where Keitel is boring. In Fingers, Keitel takes the method to its logical end point and, as a result, you actually get anxious just watching him simply look out of a window or sit in a corner. Even though Jimmy eyes rarely shows a hint of emotion, his fingers are always moving and, just watching the way that he’s constantly twitching and fidgeting, you get the feeling that Jimmy’s always on the verge of giving out a howl of pain and fury. It doesn’t really make Jimmy someone who you would want to hang out with. In fact, I spent the entire movie hoping someone would just totally kick his ass and put him in the hospital for a few weeks. But it’s still a performance that you simply cannot look away from. Watching Keitel’s performance, you come to realize that Fingers is essentially a personal invitation to visit a Hell that is exclusively populated by method actors who have gone too far.
Anyway, my feelings about Fingers were mixed. Can you tell? It’s an interesting movie. I’ll probably never watch it again.
When two employees of an all-female courier service are murdered, Private Investigator Mike Hammer (Stacy Keach) is on the case. The service was owned by his ex-girlfriend, Chris (Michelle Phillips), and she wants him to protect her while she testifies in front of a grand jury. It turns out that her courier service has gotten involved in some shady business, transporting deliveries between a helicopter company and a South American dictator. Chris fears that she’ll be murdered to keep her from testifying. Hammer agrees to protect her and she tells him that he has a 19 year-old daughter who he’s never met.
While Chris is testifying, she suddenly dies on the stand. The doctors say that it was a heart attack but Hammer knows that it was murder. Hammer sets out to not only get revenge for Chris but also to find his daughter, who has disappeared into the world of underground pornography. It’s all connected though, as is traditional with Mike Hammer, it can sometimes be difficult to keep up with how.
Murder Me, Murder You was a pilot film for a brief-lived but fondly-remembered Mike Hammer TV series that aired in the 80s. Murder Me, Murder You takes Mickey Spillane’s famous detective into what was then the modern age but it allows him to remain a man of the hard-boiled noir era. Hammer’s narration is tougher than leather, he’s more interested in listening to swing music than new wave, and he still dresses like an old-fashioned private eye, complete with a fedora on his head. As played by Stacy Keach, he’s also just as dangerous and quick to kill as Hammer was in Spillane’s original novels. In the novels, Hammer was an unapologetic brute who often bragged about how much he enjoyed killing criminals and communist spies and whose closest associate was his gun, which he nicknamed Betsy. When Spillane’s novels were filmed, the violence of Hammer’s character was often downplayed. (A notable exception was Robert Aldrich’s Kiss Me Deadly, which suggested that Hammer was such a fascist that he would eventually be responsible for the end of the world. The Mike Hammer of Spillane’s novels would probably dismiss Kiss Me Deadly as being red propaganda and set out to deliver American justice to the Hollywood communists who wrote it.) In Murder Me, Murder You, Mike Hammer is just as brutal an avenger as Spillane originally imagined him to be. With his hulking frame, grim eyes, and his surly manner, Stacy Keach is the perfect Mike Hammer.
Murder Me, Murder You is a convoluted and often difficult-to-follow murder mystery but with Keach’s bravura lead performance, a strong supporting cast (including notable tough guys Tom Atkins and Jonathan Banks) and good direction from TV movie vet Gary Nelson, this movie comes about as close as any to capturing the feel of Mickey Spillane’s original novels. Murder Me, Murder You was released on DVD fourteen years ago. Though it is now out-of-print, copies are still available on Amazon.
In the days leading up to the American premiere of Skyfall, the Shattered Lens has been revisiting the previous films in the James Bond franchise. Today we take a look at 1985’s A View To A Kill.
Along with bring the 14th “official” Bond film, it was also the last to star Roger Moore in the role of 007. On a personal note, it was also released the same year that I was born. I have to say that I hope I’ve aged better than this film has.
Much like The Spy Who Loved Me, A View To A Kill opens with a ski chase between Bond and a bunch of Russians. And while the chase itself isn’t all that exciting, it does lead to one of the better opening credits sequences of the Bond franchise.
Say what you will about A View To A Kill, it features the perfect theme song. I first heard Duran Duran’s title song long before I saw the actual film. After I graduated high school, I spent the summer in Italy and I can still remember hearing this song blaring from a loud speaker in Venice. With it combination of exuberant music and incoherent lyrics, the song is the perfect soundtrack for both an American girl abroad and a mid-80s spy flick.
A View To A Kill finds James Bond investigating the mysterious industrialist Max Zorin (Christopher Walken). Though Zorin is one of the world’s richest men, MI6 is suspicious of him. Microchips manufactured by Zorin Industries are turning up in Russian submarines. Perhaps even worse, it’s become apparent that, much like Auric Goldfinger, Zorin is a cheater. He owns a champion racehorse but it’s rumored that the horse is somehow being given steroids. MI6 sends Bond and racehorse trainer Sir Godfrey Tibbets (played, quite wonderfully, by Patrick Macnee) to investigate.
These scenes, in which an undercover Bond sneaks around Zorin’s estate in France, are my favorites of the film. Moore and Macnee make for a likable team and it’s fun to watch the two veteran actors play off each other. As well, since these scenes are more about detection than action, it’s easier to ignore the fact that Moore was 58 years old when he made A View To A Kill.
Unfortunately, the rest of the film doesn’t work as well and that’s unfortunate because A View To A Kill starts to get seriously weird as things progress. It turns out that Zorin isn’t just a shady businessman. No, he’s actually the product of Nazi genetic experimentation and, as a result, he’s both a genius and a complete sociopath. What this means is that, opposed to previous Bond antagonists, Zorin spends a lot more time giggling and smiling as if even he can’t believe how evil he is.
Bond ends up following Zorin and his aide, May Day (Grace Jones), to San Francisco. It’s there that Bond discovers that Zorin is planning on setting off a massive underground explosion, in hopes of causing an Earthquake that will totally destroy California. This will allow Zorin to corner the world microchip market and make a lot of money but, for the most part, Zorin just seems to want to do it so that he’ll have something to talk about the next time he gets together with his fellow megalomaniacs.
Once everyone arrives in San Francisco, James Bond ends up teaming up with geologist Stacy Sutton (played by Tanya Roberts, better known as Donna’s mother on That 70s Show). As for Zorin, he divides his time between holding business meetings on his blimp and laughing like a maniac while gunning down random people.
Seriously, it’s an odd film.
Whenever film critics are looking over the Bond films, A View to A Kill seems to be the Bond film that’s destined to get the least amount of respect and admittedly, this is an uneven entry in the Bond franchise. In Sinclair McKay’s excellent look at the oo7 films, The Man With The Golden Touch, Roger Moore is quoted as having been uncomfortable with just how violent A View To A Kill eventually turned out to be and, watching the film, he definitely had a point. It’s odd to see Moore’s light-hearted approach coupled with scenes in which Zorin gleefully kills a thousand people in a thousand seconds. It also didn’t help that, in this film, Roger Moore looked every bit of his 58 years. Never have I been as aware of stuntmen then when I watched A View To A Kill. Finally, Moore and Tanya Roberts have next to no chemistry together.
With all that in mind, A View To A Kill is something of a guilty pleasure and that’s largely because of the bad guys.
If anyone was born to play a Bond villain, it’s Christopher Walken and Max Zorin is an enjoyably over-the-top villain. Whereas previous Bond villains were motivated primarily by greed, Zorin is the first Bond sociopath and Walken seems to be having a blast playing bad. As opposed to the grim bad guys of the past, Zorin laughs and grins through the whole movie and Walken is a lot of fun to watch. Regardless of whatever other flaws that the film may have, Max Zorin is rightly regarded as one of the best of the cinematic Bond villains.
As played by Grace Jones, May Day is one of the franchise’s most memorable and flamboyant villainous lackeys. Much like Richard Kiel in The Spy Who Loved Me, Jones is such a physical presence that she dominates every scene that she’s in. In their scenes together, Walken and Jones have the type of chemistry that’s so noticeably lacking between Moore and Roberts.
As I previously stated, A View To A Kill was Roger Moore’s final appearance as James Bond. Before we started our look at the Bond films, I spent some time researching the history of both the franchise and the men who have played 007. One thing that quickly became apparent was that nearly everyone agreed that Roger Moore is a nice, likable guy but that he didn’t bring much more than likability to the role of James Bond. Having now rewatched the Bond films, I can say that Roger Moore’s performance as James Bond was and is seriously underrated. Yes, Moore may have brought a light touch to the role but his interpretation of Bond was perfect for the films that he was starring in. Much as it’s difficult to imagine Roger Moore in From Russia With Love, it’s just as difficult to visualize Sean Connery in The Spy Who Loved Me. Moore’s greatest talent may have been likability but that likability kept the Bond franchise alive and Moore’s interpretation of the role deserves better than to be continually dismissed.
With Roger Moore leaving the franchise, the role of James Bond would next be played by an actor named Timothy Dalton. If Moore was the likable, fun Bond, Dalton was, in many ways, the complete opposite. We’ll be taking a look at The Living Daylights tomorrow.
Through the Shattered Lens 