Tonight’s televised horror is another episode from the 2002 revival of The Twilight Zone!
In Night Route, Ione Skye nearly gets hit by a car and, afterward, finds herself haunted by visions of a mysterious bus. Featuring atmospheric direction from Jean de Segonzac and a good performance from Ione Skye, this episode of the Twilight Zone makes a nice companion piece to tomorrow’s horror on the lens!
Enjoy!
For today’s excursion into the world of televised horror, we have another adaptation of a Stephen King short story.
In The Revelations of Becka Paulson, Becka Paulson (Catherine O’Hara) accidentally shoots herself in the head and subsequently finds herself being spoken to by a photograph of a tuxedo-wearing man (Steven Weber). The photo has some suggestions as to how Becka can get out of her stifling marriage.
(In the original Stephen King short story — which he later adapted into a chapter of his novel The Tommyknockers — the talking photograph was a picture of Jesus.)
The Revelations of Becka Paulson originally aired on June 6th, 1997, as a part of Showtime’s The Outer Limits series. Steven Weber not only played the man in the tuxedo. He also directed this episode as well.
(The episode itself runs for 44 minutes. The video below has some extra stuff, including alternate takes and a scene that was cut out of the original broadcast, tacked onto the end.)
Enjoy!
Does anyone remember Freakylinks?
Don’t feel bad if you don’t. To be honest, I had totally forgotten about it until, two years ago, my friend Janeen mentioned it to me. (And to be honest, I’m not sure if I ever knew about it before then. Memories can inconsistent, especially when it comes to obscure TV shows that didn’t last for very long.) Freakylinks is a show that aired on Fox back in 2000. It only lasted one season and it was about this guy (played by Ethan Embry) who ran a website called freakylinks.com. To me, that sounds like a porn site but apparently, it was actually a site dedicated to investigating the paranormal.
Freakylinks was produced by the same company that produced The Blair Witch Project. A few months before the show premiered, in order to try to create some Blair Witch-style buzz for the production, the production company set up a website called Freakylinks.com and designed it to look like it was just some ghost hunter’s Geocities-style blog. While the web site got some publicity, it didn’t translate into ratings and Freakylinks was canceled. The freakylinks.com domain is currently for sale if anyone wants to buy it and turn it into a paranormal porn site. (Who says the two have to be separate?)
The entire series has been uploaded to YouTube and below you’ll find a pilot!
Prepare to take a trip into the past, to a time when the internet was still a mysterious and powerful thing and people apparently didn’t realize that anyone with time to kill could make a web site.
And, by all means, enjoy!
Did you know that there used to be a TV show called She-Wolf of London?
Apparently, there was. I came across it on YouTube while I was looking for old episodes of The Twilight Zone. She-Wolf of London was a TV show about an American grad student named Randi (Kate Hodge) who comes to the UK, investigates the supernatural with Dr. Ian Matheson (Neil Dickson), and who turn into a wolf whenever the moon is full! This British show ran from 1990 to 1991.
Interested in seeing the first episode, which acts largely as an origin story? Check it out below!
For tonight’s televised horror, we have the tenth episode of Night Visions!
Night Visions was an anthology show that aired in 2001. Each episode featured two different stories and was hosted by Henry Rollins.
Our first story was directed by Thomas J. Wright and is called Hate Puppet. It’s about a man who can’t figure out why everyone hates him. In some ways, this story almost seems prophetic. In 2001, I imagine it was shocking to think of someone suddenly being hated by complete strangers. Today, we just look at that type of behavior and say, “Well, that’s 2017 for you…”
Our second story, Darkness, was directed by Ian Toynton and tells the story of a man who inherits a house but soon learns that maybe it would have been better if he hadn’t.
Like many anthology series, Night Visions was always an uneven show but I think these episode are always fun to watch in October.
Enjoy!
For tonight’s example of televised horror, we have another episode of Baywatch Nights!
In this episode, which originally aired on October 20th, David Hasselhoff rescues a young man from drowning and, before you can say X-Files, founds out that the man is connected to …. ROSWELL! That’s right, it’s UFO time!
As with all episodes of Baywatch Nights, The Strike is silly and … well, actually, silly is the best way to describe it. But it’s just so silly that it’s undeniably fun as well.
Plus, it’s take place on the beach! Y’all like the beach, don’t you?
Enjoy!
For tonight’s horror on the lens, how about a chance to watch David Hasselhoff and Angie Harmon battle the forces of dark magic?
That’s right, it’s an episode of Baywatch Nights! This episode shows what happens when Angie and David investigate the burned book that they found at the scene of an occult gathering. It’s all a little bit silly but then again, that’s the charm of the show!
Enjoy!
The Twilight Zone wasn’t the only televised horror anthology show to air in the late 50s and early 60s! There was also a show called One Step Beyond, which ran for three seasons. It was hosted by a man named John Newland and each episode was supposedly based on an event that may have actually occurred … an event that defied rational explanation!
The episode features one of the icons of horror cinema, the one and only Christopher Lee! Lee plays a German soldier who, during World War I, enlists a local psychic to discover whether or not his lover is being faithful to him. When he discovers that she isn’t, he uses the psychic’s powers to get revenge. Afterward, when he wants to confess to his crime, he runs into a problem. No one believes him because he was over 800 miles away when the crime occurred.
To be honest, the main reason to watch this episode is to see Christopher Lee but isn’t that reason enough? Lee was one of the great gentlemen of horror and his performance in this episode helps to show why.
This episode originally aired on May 31st, 1961.
Enjoy!
For tonight’s trip into the world of televised horror, we have an episode from a 1986 attempt to revive The Twilight Zone.
This episode is a remake of one of my favorite episodes of the original series, Shadow Play. That’s the one where the guy is on death row but he says he’s not worried about being executed because he knows he’s just having a reoccuring nightmare. Of course, this kind of freaks out some of the people around him because, if he’s just having a dream, what happens to them when the dream ends?
While the remake is nowhere near as good as the original, it’s still fairly well done. Plus, it’s on YouTube and the original isn’t.
This episode was directed by Paul Lynch, the Canadian director who also directed the original Prom Night.
Enjoy!
For tonight’s excursion into the world of televised horror, we have the 2nd ever episode of the HBO anthology series, Tales From The Crypt!
In this one, a woman (Mary Ellen Trainor) kills her husband on Christmas Eve, just to discover that she can’t properly dispose of the body because a psychotic escaped mental patient (Larry Drake), who just happens to be disguised as Santa Claus, is hanging around outside of her house. It’s a bit of a mess, especially since the woman’s daughter is eagerly awaiting the arrival of Santa herself.
This originally aired on June 10th, 1989 and it’s an enjoyably insane package of holiday cheer and menace. And, of course, it was directed by none other than Robert Zemeckis!
Enjoy!
Through the Shattered Lens 