What I Thought It Was About: A madman rounds up humans to assemble the perfect wife or something. He only needs one body part left—let’s say the eyes—when he picks a donor who knows how to fight back.
What It Was Actually About: Beloved character actor M. Emmet Walsh is such a douche to his animal-loving wife that he taxidermies her pets. So she taxidermies him. The last shot of the show (before the Cryptkeeper says a bunch of stuffing puns) is his sewn up, bloated corpse. The end.
Adorable. He looks like a bumbling sheriff from a mid-60s Disney cartoon.
Was It Good? Well, it was a shocker. As far as nasty little two-person plays go, this one wasn’t too bad. I just wish both characters were slightly more likeable. I mean, they HAVE to be jackasses. The ending wouldn’t make sense if the husband and wife were better people. But the audience has to sit through a lot of sniping and complaining to get to the twist. I get the distinct impression that this kind of story works much better as a 6-page comic than a 22-minute TV episode. It’s less annoying that way.
Speaking of taxidermy, this story was directed by Mary Lambert of Pet Semetary.
What I Thought It Was About: The very special Valentine episode about a woman who suspects her husband is a serial killer, but then you find out that they’re BOTH serial killers or something. (See! I can totally write an episode!)
What It Was Actually About: A husband plans to murder his new wife (for money, of course). I’m going to go out on a limb and say that the tables will be turned and the wife will murder the husband. Especially because that wife is played by crazy actress extraordinaire Amanda Plummer.
Was It Good? Sure, as far as these things go. It’s basically a two-person play that slowly reveals more and more craziness about the wife. The acting is solid, and you can’t go wrong with Amanda Plummer wielding giant axes and whatnot.
What I Thought It Was About: A hipster who gains the power of invisibility and goes about spying on people, until he gets his just desserts.
What It Was Actually About: Joey Pants gets a cat gland that gives him nine lives. He uses it to make a bunch of money, working closely with that guy who played Arliss. Remember Arliss? That was a good show. Unfortunately, Joey Pants kills himself one too many times and dies for good. Wakka wakka.
Was It Good? As good as anything involving cat glands can be. The ending was nasty and fun, and I very much liked watching Joey Pants sweat things out. But yeah, Arliss was a good show.
Fun Fact: Howard Deutch, the episode director, is also known for directing Pretty in Pink and Some Kind of Wonderful. So… yeah…
What I Thought It Was About: An aging model uses a potion to regain her youthful face, but it turns her into a snake monster.
What It Was Actually About: Lea Thompson, a prostitute, sells her looks to some magic somebody so that she could use the money to catch a rich bachelor. I believe things backfire for her.
Was It Good? Yeah, it kind of was. Lea Thompson is always a likeable actress, even when she plays horrible characters. And this character is horrible. But she’s fun to watch. Sure, the twist can be seen from miles away, but oh well. (For future reference, when you find yourself in an episode of Tales from the Crypt, don’t make any deals with anybody. They will not turn out well.)
What It Was Actually About: I was right! A woman kills her husband and tries to ditch the body when she gets attacked by a killer Santa played by the Downs syndrome guy from LA Law.
Was It Good? Hell yes. This is the first episode ever filmed, and it was such a good way to start the show off right. It was scary and funny and holy crap Larry Drake is a good killer Santa.
What I Thought It Was About: A man gets cursed by a gypsy so that everyone he touches ends up dead. At first, he uses his powers to his advantage, but then things get out of hand.
What It Was Actually About: A prison executioner gets laid off because the death penalty is outlawed in his state. So he decides to execute a bunch of people on his own. He gets caught, and then the death penalty is put back in place and he’s electrocuted.
Was It Good? Yeah. It was good, not great. Bill Sadler played a better Death in Bill and Ted than he did in this episode, but he’s still a reliable character actor. A lot of his narration was a little unnecessary, though. And the ending felt really quick. But kudos to the writers of this show (Walter Hill and Robert Reneau) for sandwiching so many murders in a single episode.
THE BERMUDA DEPTHS is a late-70s TV movie directed by one of the Rankin-Bass stopmotion guys. It is a live action horror fantasy about a mystery woman who just walks out of the ocean and all the mystical hoo-hah that entails. I do not know why this film got under my skin the way it did. The tone is a little slow and off, and the music is weird in a way that only 70s soundtracks could be. It feels like the ultimate hang-out-on-the-beach movie, with a strangely violent climax. I would not call it a good movie, but it mystified me in a way that more legitimately good movies never could. I was able to watch it all on Youtube before it was unceremoniously removed due to stupid things like copyright law. If you ever get the opportunity, check it out and get lost in the strange rhythms of this singular film.
A while back, I discussed a Halloween episode of Chip and Dale: Rescue Rangers, that classic late-80s, early-90s staple of Disney Afternoon. Today I want to talk about its companion episode. And by companion, I mean it has absolutely nothing to do with the previous one, except a Halloween theme and a pair of crime-solving rodents. In this installment, Chip and Dale meet a ghost mouse and help him move on to the afterlife. It is a lot like an episode of Ghost Whisperer, except without Jennifer Love Hewitt, her boobs, or whispering.
Much of the run-time of this episode is spent with the main characters wandering around a big spooky castle while eyes in paintings look at them. Or look in totally different directions. Whichever.
Because this is an episode of Chip and Dale, everything can be blamed on Fat Cat, the resident baddy. (Everything except the mouse ghost and his mouse death, which has nothing to do with him.) Fat Cat is after some random treasure, by the way. He does that a lot.
The only thrills and chills of the episode come courtesy of the red-eyed cat monster that wanders the castle grounds. Note the zipper lines. Also note the button, unless he has some kind of ghost cat skin cancer.
I would definitely recommend this episode as an example of what Chip and Dale has to offer: a simple, child friendly mystery interspersed with action, one-lines, and pratfalls. The mouse guillotine is just a bonus.
Tonight is the season premiere of the American version of Being Human, the Syfy channel show that offers the steadiest stream of supernatural beefcake. (Sorry, Warehouse 13.) From the previews, it looks like the werewolf and the vampire get to do a lot of angsty craziness as usual, whereas the ghost is still mopey.
I am particularly excited to see the return of Sam Huntington as Josh, our resident werewolf-slash-puppy-dog. I mean, look at those eyes:
I have been a fan of this guy since his role as Mimi-siku in the Tim Allen-vehicle Jungle 2 Jungle. (The 90s was a simpler time.) And while I have since grown out of my love for that movie, the same cannot be said for Sam, who has been a great screen presence in movies like Not Another Teen Movie, Superman Returns, and the woefully underappreciated Dylan Dog: Dead of Night.
So show your appreciation and check out the premiere of Being Human. At the very least, you will get some TV-friendly werewolf violence.
Seriously. Can we just Photoshop that ghost out of there...
The previous Doctor comes back for a quick, nearly wordless cameo before he gets gunned down and replaced by this guy...
...who is fancy and British in all sorts of ways. He has to battle his arch nemesis The Master, played by Eric Roberts in a role that basically spells out why he isn't as famous as his sister. There's also some romantic tension going on, which is a new thing for the Doctor, though it isn't taken to the same degree as in later seasons.
ISN’T THAT SPECIAL?
Well, 'tis the holiday season, so what better time to pay tribute to a show that consistently busts out sappy Christmas specials every year. It must be a British thing. This episode in particular has nothing to do with the holidays aside from a little fireworks show at the end, but it does seem properly wintery throughout.
On a side note, I have become a recent fan of Doctor Who, particularly the latest incarnation, Matt Smith. I've seen a little bit from each of the Doctors, even the awful ones...
...but I never got the chance to check out this lone entry from the Eighth Doctor. It's sort of remembered as a footnote in the Whoniverse. Not late-80s-awful, but also not quite modern enough to relaunch the franchise for the nineties. I was genuinely curious about this one.
RANDOM THOUGHTS:
While having some major flaws in tone and melodrama ("WHO. AM. I?!"), it does seem to pave the way toward the later series. It definitely has some of the campy appeal of the earlier, kid-oriented seasons, particularly when the Master is on screen dressed like Ming the Merciless.
But it does feel darker in a way that the other serials never did. (Except for that time the Sixth Doctor tried to strangle his companion for no reason. But let's ignore that.) The stakes seem genuine, even if the time-heavy climax made no sense to me.And like I noted before, the added romance was a nice touch, and an inevitable change for modern audiences.
I also liked the redesigned TARDIS, which is similar to the later seasons, but slightly cheesier. I assume it looked more realistic before they started filming, and then Eric Roberts got too close and brushed up against it.
OK. IS IT GAY?
Not really. Campy, sure. But not enough to push it over the edge into a definite recommend. Now that I've seen it, I understand why it's a footnote. I also understand why it's not exactly reviled by Who fans. Check it out if you're interested in the character. It's a TV movie through and through.
I am a huge fan of Disney Afternoon. This childrens programming block from the early 90s churned out some of the best television animation of the era. Ducktales. Darkwing Duck. Bonkers. Goof Troop. TaleSpin. Gummi Bears. And of course Chip N Dale: Rescue Rangers.
Chip N Dale was an adventure series that reimagined the titular rodents as members of an elite animal team that fought for justice rather than those awful creatures that tormented Donald Duck every Christmas season. The stories were simple, but they always moved at a fast clip and used a heavy dose of family-friendly humor. There is also a certain kick that comes from watching little creatures use everyday objects in clever new ways. Call it the Honey-I-Shrunk-the-Kids syndrome.
Today, we are talking about Pound of the Baskervilles, a Halloween episode that takes the basic idea of the Sherlock Holmes story and adds talking mice. (Yeah, yeah. I know Chip and Dale are chipmunks. I was talking about Gadget and Monterey Jack.)
This episode meant a lot to me growing up, because it was terrifying. And by terrifying, I mean there was a red-eyed ghost dog craving human flesh.
...And I was officially the worlds biggest coward. Rewatching this now, I finally realize that the real threat was not an imaginary ghost dog, but a conniving uncle out for his inheritance or something. It was this guy:
Remember that face. About half the
human extras in this film look exactly like him.
Looking back on it, the main mystery is extremely easy to solve. Much like your typical Scooby Doo episode, there is exactly one suspect and one red herring. In this case, the guy who did it was... THE SUSPECT! Oh my god!
Like all episodes of this show, justice wins and we end on a laugh.
But rewatching this so many years later is a lot of fun. Seeing what we thought was scary in a totally new light makes us realize how simple life was back that, and how even the most insurmountable problems are probably easier than we think. It is total comfort food, and even though I was certainly not scared, I am glad I sat through it.
GHOST TOWN
2009
Directed by Todor Chapkanov
Written by Andy Briggs
Starring Billy Drago!
Eek.
WHA’ HAPPENED?
A group of idiots are stranded in a magical Old West that is haunted by cowboy spirits. Everyone splits up, because they’ve never seen Scooby Doo. They get killed a lot, because DUH, and then the survivors have to figure out how to stop the town’s curse so they can leave.
ISN’T THAT SPECIAL?
This movie was on Syfy Channel during Halloween weekend. I was visiting my parents at the time, and this was a film that my dad and I enjoyed together. We had a great time MST3King the entire thing, especially the obligatory barn sex death scene. It was a total bonding moment. And that is why horror movies are single-handedly bringing families back together.
SHIRTS AND SKINS:
Is there nudity? Yes, male and female, but it was edited for television, so none of it was awkward for my father and me to watch.
BLOOD AND GUTS:
Unlike the T and A quota, this film’s gore factor is particularly high. A lot of the blood spatter is CG, and the zombie faces are never as terrifying as Billy Drago’s actual face, but a few of the beheadings were effective. In particular, there was a scene ripping off The Hitcher that I quite enjoyed.
FINAL THOUGHTS:
This article might be rose-tinted because of the fond memories I have watching it with my father, but I think my experience with this film is indicative of the unique awesomeness of these kinds of movies. People from any walk of life—gay or straight, old or young—can catch movies like this on television during a lazy Sunday afternoon and have a freaking great time. This movie isn’t good—at all—but it is a great unifier. Someone should start broadcasting this wonderful garbage in the Gaza Strip.
GOBLIN
2010
Directed by Jeffery Scott Lando
Written by Raul Inglis
Starring Gil Bellows (the brain tumor guy from Ally McBeal)
Goblin is a Syfy Channel movie, meaning it is chock-a-block full of slumming actors, simple plots, and bad CGI-effects. However, the CGI is never obtrusive and distracting—as it often is in movies like Sharktopus—because the titular monster is usually just a creepy figure in a cloak.
Close, but think smaller and cheaper.
Personally, I find this much more effective than seeing the goblin in the flesh, which you do during the film’s truncated climax. Call this the Poltergeist II trap. The entire movie uses a fairly effective villain for most of its run-time, but then turns him into a mass of computer-generated garbage for the last few minutes. It’s disappointing and ill-advised.
Look at this guy. Does he need computer effects?
That said, this film is a pretty effective tale of a small town ravaged by a baby-crazy fairy tale monster. Most of the townspeople act like Pumpkinhead-II-level idiots, but they get the job done. And they get killed a lot, so there’s always that.
so I decided to use the greatest poster ever made.
Werewolves: The Dark Survivors is the weirdly racist account of all the African American contestants on the CBS reality show Survivor. Actually, it is the equally ill-advised two-hour special on Animal Planet about the true story of werewolves. It’s a mockumentary, or at least it tries to be.
Basically, the special is a combination of fake interviews and werewolf reenactments from the channel’s stable of reenactment actors. Unfortunately, the kind of actors that are believable in five-minute intervals as snake victims and crocodile wrestlers don’t exactly emote well in two-hour stories about blood curses and family rivalries.
But the biggest problem with Werewolves, its fatal flaw, is that it doesn’t fully commit to the mockumentary format. The entire thing is narrated by one of the main characters, a werewolf who ends up dead by the end of the film. He’s meant to guide us through the angsty world of werewolf drama, but it’s not emotionally engaging enough to accomplish anything. This doesn’t work as a fake documentary, or a real fictional narrative. It’s meant to be able werewolves, but its format is closer to the miss-matched hide of a second-rate Frankenstein knock-off.
Werewolves: The Dark Survivors has turned into a sort of perennial Halloween time-filler on the channel, but it mercifully hasn’t spawned a series of narrative features for Animal Channel. Check it out if you’re a car-crash-rubber-necker. Otherwise, avoid it like a curse.
This spin-off to the much-beloved Fraggle Rock is a half-hour series; each episode is split into -minute stories (much like the oft-repeated Nicktoons model).
Plagiarists
All of the same characters are back, along with some new background characters…
Um. What ARE these?
Unfortunately, the songs are mostly gone, as is the famous Muppet spirit. In its place, we have animation like this…
“Look, Ma. I caught a Fwaggle.”
Sure, this looks like the Junior Gorg that we know and love, but there’s just something… wrong with him. I can’t place my finger on it, and I wouldn’t want to because it looks diseased.
WHAT YOU SAY?
“We’re going to the Gorg’s garden to fetch a radish.”
ISN’T THAT SPECIAL?
The original Fraggle Rock is beloved the world over. It was filled with great songs, impressive puppetry, and pure, good-natured fun. It had a message of inclusion and acceptance that seemed much less rote than other children’s entertainment.
Yeah, we’re all equal… blah blah… race… blah
That was the original. This is the short-lived animated spin-off, which had all the same ingredients, but just didn’t work. It has now been swallowed up by Muppet Babies and forgotten by time and space.
Suck it, Moki. We have a cult following.
Also, I’m doing a retrospective on the whole series for our sister-blog horribleTV, which kind of tells you my general attitude toward this program.
BLOOD AND GUTS:
While the original series put its characters in serious peril and moral dilemmas, this one replaces the danger and high stakes with boring chase scenes and subpar animation.
I mean, seriously, what ARE these?
RANDOM THOUGHTS:
Why does every Fraggle look so surprised all the time?
What? Another rock?
OK. IS IT GAY?
Actually, yeah. Before I starting writing this post, I figured that I would totally tear into this show because it’s so inferior to the original. And it is. But it retains a lot of the original’s inclusiveness and sense of equality among all the characters.
Let’s take a look at the gender dynamics of this show. Rather than being submissive love interests and helpless damsels, the girl Fraggles (particularly Red) are usually the strongest and bravest of the bunch. In the first episode alone, it’s the she-Fraggles who plan expeditions into the Gorg garden, rescue their friends, and lead the group discussions when everyone starts panicking.
And the male characters are similarly unaware of the Saturday morning clichés. Take Boober, for example. He’s timid and shy (and hard-working and loyal), and he doesn’t fit into the archetype of the male adventurer. Here he is doing all the other characters’ laundry:
It seems like the world of the Fraggles is completely unaware of our society’s gender norms. And that is a very gay-friendly place to be. Even though this isn't nearly as good as the Muppet-tastic original, it still has some positive messages for the kids. To pay tribute to our fellow fabricated Americans, I give this show two Bert and Ernies.
