Oh La La - Get Sexy!

Head on over to Horror Yearbookand check out my latest review for my Not So Basic Instincts column. This time I write about one of the more infamous erotic thrillers, Night Eyes. How I love Tanya (but not her acting).

Enjoy!

Small Screen Scream Queens of the 70s

I have a new TV Movie related article up at Small Screen Scream Queens of the 70s! I take a look at 30+ women who contributed something important to the genre along with their general wit, style and beauty, of course! This article took 3 years to write. Mostly because the more into TV Movies I got, the more I realized that so many women appeared in some great films that were worth mentioning.

I hope one day to expand it out to the 80s, but at this rate, don't expect anything until 2011!

Anyway, please stop by Pretty Scary and take a look at my article! I’m pleased as punch with the layout and so I’d like to send a big thank you to Heidi who has always been so supportive of my obsession with television movies! She’s a pip!

Enjoy!

Christopher George (1931-1983)

One of the great pleasures I get from this blog is being able to write about actors that I just adore. I think when you discover an actor as a child or a young adult, it sticks with you more. Especially when they are no longer with us.

Such is the case with Christopher George. An amazingly charismatic actor, George is probably best known for either his westerns or the slew of B grade horror movies he did before he died in 1983. What people might not realize is that he had a strong career in television that spanned from airy fare like The Love Boat to eerie cop thrillers like House on Greenapple Road (1970) (he was nominated for a Golden Globe for his work in Rat Patrol in 1967) . In fact, he moved easily between the small screen and the big one during the 70s.

I thought it might be fun to take a look back at his work on television:  

The Immortal (1969): A nice mix of sci-fi and thriller, The Immortal is about a race car driver whose immortality is of interest to some sinister types. Also starring Jessica Walter (Home for the Holidays). The Immortal became a short lived television series (1970 - 1971) also starring George. 

House on Greenapple Road (1970): An all star thriller involving a missing woman. The character George played, Dan August got his own show with Burt Reynolds, but the chill factor from this film remains. Click on title for full review.

Dan August is here to help us.. SWOON!

The Immortal (1970 - 1971): George reprises his role as Ben Richards in this short lived series based on the TV movie. The Immortal was in the same vein as The Fugitive (or maybe more apropos, Werewolf), and he's a man on the run!


Watch the opening of The Immortal:
   

Dead Men Tell No Tales (1971): George plays two characters in this tense potboiler about mistaken identity. 

Escape (1971): Christopher George plays the sexily named Cameron Steele (man of action, no doubt) an escape artist/private eye (!) out to stop a mad scientist turning people into zombies! Now this one just HAS to be good! It's directed by John Llewellyn Moxey (Home for the Holidays again!) and also stars William Windom and Avery Schreiber. 

The Heist (1972): Another awesome cast (Norman Fell, people!!!) appears in another George thriller, this time involving an armored car guard out to prove his innocence.

Man on a String (1972): George leads an incredible cast including Keith Carradine, Jack Warden and Joel Grey as an agent out to topple the mob! Directed by Joseph Sargent. 

Love American Style, episode titled Love and the Burglar Joke (1973): It's funny for me to think of Christopher George in a comedy, but there you go. Here he plays a practical joker out to pull a fast one on his sister's roommate, but then the real burglar shows up. And hijinks ensue! George also appeared in an earlier episode titled Love and Formula 26B in 1971. 

A Beautiful Killing (1974): I couldn’t find any info for this movie, except it aired as a Wide World of Mystery movie and co-starred George’s wife, Lynda Day.

 
Thriller: The Next Scream You Hear (1974): Thriller was an excellent series in England written by Brian Clemens (The Avengers). Every episode was a stand alone television movie of sorts, which is how it ran here in the states. Shot on video, using suspense over effects, the show was more hit than miss in its six wonderful seasons. In this particular episode, George is again a man accused of a crime he did not commit... the murder of his wife.


Get a little George in Escape:

The Last Survivors (1975): A remake of Seven Waves Away (1957), this version takes the horrible incident involving a luxury liner accident to the court room ala Caine Mutiny. This time, it's up to Martin Sheen to decide the fate of the survivors afloat on a lifeboat and running out of food and water. Harrowing film. 

S.W.A.T., several episodes (1975) – George played a character named Harry in four episodes of this awesome cop show. 

Christopher "Heartbreaker" George in Mayday at 40,000 Feet

 Mayday at 40,000 Feet (1976): In the heyday of the disaster movie, television films weren't far behind with smaller, but often entertaining, copies. This time George (along with his wife Lynda) are part of a large cast of 70s stars (including David Janssen) on board a plane desperate to safely reach the ground after a crazed gunman opens fire! 

Wonder Woman, Fausta The Nazi Wonder Woman (1976) – George’s wife, Lynda Day co-stars with her hubby in the second episode of WW, which features Day as Fausta the evil Nazi operative desperate to figure out WW’s secrets so she can help Hitler take over the world! Phew! Now that’s a lot to take in! 

Love Boat (Several Episodes 1978-1979): Another comedy! Why that Christopher, always surprising me! I have to admit, as big of a fan as I am of both George and the Love Boat, I don’t recall any episodes in particular, however I do remember: 

Fantasy Island, episode titled The Racer (1978): One of my biggest Amanda By Night fantasies was to see Christopher George and Paul Burke in a film together, because I thought they looked so much alike. How excited was I to see they were both featured in this episode of Fantasy Island?!? Only, they are in different stories and don’t share any screen time so I can do my side by side comparisons! I was robbed! George would star in several more episodes through 1982. 

Cruise into Terror (1978): So good. This would turn out to be George’s last made for television movie. Click on the title to read my review. 

Vegas, episode titled Serve, Volley and Kill (1978): aka the best title for an episode of any television series EVER! Seriously. This episode about a tennis match gone deadly features a swarthy George along with his wife, Red Buttons and Mamie Van Doren! Wow. So hot. And it was directed by the late Sutton Roley who also made the fiercely disturbed television movie Satan’s Triangle. Serve is particularly striking episode with fantastic cinematography and lots of awe-inspiring stunts. George is the bad guy and his wife is almost as evil.

Chris and his wife Lynda serve up chaos in Vega$

Charlie’s Angels, episode titled Angels on Skis (1978): The Angels once again find themselves embroiled in espionage as they hit the Vail slopes and protect a presidential aide! Not sure who George plays in this episode, but I smell FBI! 

The Misadventures of Sheriff Lobo, Pilot episode The Day the Shark ate Lobo (1979): George is a criminal pitted against Lobo his bad self, in the pilot of the criminally underrated comedy show. Sounds a bit like Killer Fish - criminals dump loot in river to be retrieved at a later date only to find some deadly fish have inhabited said area. Geez! Isn't that always the way!

OK, I just can't let this go, don't you think Paul Burke looks just like Christopher George:

The Haunted (1991)

Network: FOX
Original Air Date: May 6th, 1991

It’s rare that you see a modern film that takes place in the 70s that actually looks like it was made in the 70s. One of the only films that spring to mind is the criminally underrated Zodiac which came out last year (and is a must see!). The Haunted is another example. And not only does it aptly capture the fashion of the decade (without going over the top with it), but it damn well feels like a film made in the 70s. It's an awesomely creepy throwback to a time when television got it right.

The part of The Haunted that actually takes place during one of my favorite decades is at the beginning and is brief, maybe only 15 minutes or so, but it sets the stage for a movie that manages to encompass both the slow burn of the early made for television movies with brief glimpses of modern horror to take the film to depths of all things creepy.

The Smurl family is a typical Catholic family who move into a new house after they lost their original home in a hurricane. A fixer upper for sure, the family jumps into making it feel as much like a home as possible. The weirdness starts off subtly enough, with a few objects gone missing and some weird but not overly suspicious noises. As the family grows older and become an integral part of the neighborhood, Janet (Sally Kirkland) and her mother-in-law Mary (Louise Latham) start to notice odd happenings which eventually lead to an apparition. At first Janet’s blue collar husband Jack (Jeffrey DeMunn) thinks his wife is just stressed with all of her community commitments, but then one night a spirit appears and fondles Janet’s leg (think of a PG version of The Entity) and Jack witnesses it. Thoroughly concerned, the family seeks out help from the church only to be patronized and then turned away. That’s when the Warrens show up (Diane Baker and Stephen Markle). Janet invites these parapsychologists into their home. Although not before this shows up:














YIKES!

This, my friend is approximately 45 minutes into the movie and it lets the viewer know that whatever slow burn of a film you were watching is now ready to take no prisoners. Albeit, this is by far the scariest scene in the movie – even eliciting an OMG Moment from me! It’s one of the creepiest-out-of-nowhere things I've witnessed in a horror movie. The rest of The Haunted surrounds the Smurl family’s several failed attempts to rid themselves of the evil spirits, which even follows them on a camping trip!

Based on allegedly true events, The Haunted is an exceptional thriller masked as a not-so-exceptional thriller. The odd pacing, basic cinematography and lack of soundtrack through most of the movie, along with its overt religious undercurrents may seem distasteful to some, but don’t be fooled - all of the weird beats work in this film’s favor. It’s a plain tele-film that uses traditional and simple effects to pull the viewer inside the horrible world of the Smurl family. Sally Kirkland is exceptional, and the person I least expected to pull off the sympathetic holy roller routine, but she’s really strong and comes across as a loving mother with a lot of faith in her religion. In fact, although it’s blatantly obvious that this family is ultra-religious and the church and its traditions play a large part in the film, I never felt like I was being beat over the head with it. I think The Haunted definitely conveys the message that the people who go to church aren’t the enemy, it’s the bureaucracy of organized religion and the feeble attempts to maintain its ‘image’ that is the real problem.

Who knew you’d get so much out of a film that features demon rape?


The real Smurl family

Read more about the Smurl Family here:

The Smurl Haunting Wikipedia Page

The Warren’s website page on the Smurl haunting

Another article on the Smurl haunting

Kindertrauma Review

Column-licious

So, I've got two reviews for my two columns today.

First you can go to Horror Yearbook and read about the classic 1982 thriller The Seduction (you can also read it about it on Anchorwoman in Peril).


And I have a review of Hushfor my Lifetime Kills column at Pretty Scary.

I’m not sure what the life of writing looks like for me right now because tis the season… to work more overtime. It gets required of me around this time of year and you know, we all need a little dough, so I couldn’t turn it down. It’s frustrating because I feel I was finally getting on a roll, but it’s not like the internet is going anywhere.

Also, I found a list of potential ideas for articles/essays/reviews that I’ll be trying to (slowly) work on during the holidays.

Thanks everyone for stopping by and enjoy the new reviews!

TV Movies Rule

And now I have the proof!

I came across this list of Scariest Cinematic Masked Killers via IMDb’s Hit List and thought it was pretty dang accurate. What does it have to do with TV Movies, you ask? Well, look at #1 (or just check out the above photo)! I have to agree!

What a great Halloween treat!

This House Possessed (1981) & More!

Like you would need more than just This House Possessed!

My friend Paula Haifley asked me to contribute an article to a site she writes for called CC2K (aka cincity2000) for their Fright Week. Well, being all about TV Movies and stuff, I gave them a review of the best TV Movie ever, This House Possessed. The layout is fantastic, so I’d like to send a big thank you to CC2K for doing such a great job and to Paula for thinking of me.

You can read my review HERE.

I hope to be giving some more love to This House Possessed in the future. I just adore that movie!

I also have a new post up at Retro Slashers called Ten Things the New My Bloody Valentine Needs to Not Suck. And I have a new review at Horror Yearbook for my Not so Basic Instincts column. This time I take a look at The Banker.

If everything goes as planned, I'm going to have another article about TV Movies on another site coming up. I’m finishing it now - Like, as we speak! The article has been THREE YEARS in the making, so I hope you all enjoy. I’ll post a link when all is said and done.

For now… Enjoy!

The Failing of Raymond (1971)

Network: ABC
Original Air Date: November 27th, 1971

Jane Wyman made her small screen movie debut in The Failing of Raymond, a movie that will come across as a fantasy for those who felt the school system let them down. I’d ask you to raise your hand but there’s just way too many of you – and that’s too school-like anyway. Raymond (Dean Stockwell in a brilliant performance) is an outsider whose fate was set the day he failed a test in high school. What followed over the next ten years was a life of misery and more disappointments, landing him in a mental institution. When he figures out that the teacher who done him wrong, Ms. Bloomquist (Jane Wyman) is retiring, he escapes the institute and terrorizes her.

Creepy dream sequence

The Failing of Raymond is an interesting comment on the education structure and places the blame of Raymond's horrible life on both his and his ex-teacher’s shoulders. Raymond definitely had issues, he suffers from paranoia and can be a little slow on the uptake, but Ms. Bloomquist also put her married lover (Dana Andrews with a really bad tan and dye job) over her students. I won't say she's a bitch, but she certainly does come off as self-centered and partially unable to communicate with her kids. How ten years have changed both she and Raymond, only her life seemed to get better, or at least more centered. Raymond spent his days in ridicule and abuse. It's a compelling take on the trigger effect concept. The fact that one test in high school can map out the rest of your days makes for a disturbing premise, and the ideas are handled with a lot of thought here.

A very young Katey Sagal and a middle aged Murray Hamilton

I like that Raymond isn't portrayed as pure evil. He's really a very sad character who just wants to prove that he could have passed the dang test if only Ms. Bloomquist had attended to him properly. He even has a girlfriend at the institution who is this lost, wide-eyed creature (a very young and pretty Katey Sagal in her first role! Her father Boris was the director). It's obvious Raymond would never hurt her, and you can tell by the gentleness of their situation that he really doesn't want to hurt Ms. Bloomquist either, he just needs to prove his case.

The cast is amazing and besides Stockwell and Wyman you’ll also see the late great Murray Hamilton and Tim O’Connor. Boris Sagal was quite the television film and mini-series director before his untimely death in 1981. Besides fathering the lovely Katey Sagal, he was also the dad of Jean and Liz Sagal from Double Trouble. I.E. The best show that ever aired in the history of the world and even the whole universe. Really.


One colored Dana Andrews. Why Dana - Why?!?
Like my last post on the ultra rare Seven in Darkness, The Failing of Raymond kind of symbolizes the problem with being nostalgically inclined. Here is an ultra-rare TV movie that I have spent years searching for, based solely on the enticing premise. The upshot of being so inclined to love and seek out these films is that I’m seldom disappointed. I guess that’s why you won’t find too much in the way of negative reviews here. But as I’ve said before, I’m not here for that. But I’d like to think I watch these movies with more than just a pair of rose colored glasses. The Failing of Raymond is a well thought out thriller that will please any fans of the sub-genre. It’s not so hard to find now that the internet exists – and frankly, the internet and my iPod about the only two things I think I’d have trouble giving up if I got a chance to go back in time. Oh yeah and my friends and family too, I guess.

Seven in Darkness: The Golden Chalice

Seven in Darkness seems to be the one TV movie that no one has been able to locate. It originally aired in 1969 and is actually the first original film in the ABC Movie of the Week releases.

I have probably seen this movie half a dozen times, and all before I turned 7 years old. I don’t remember much about it except that it stars Milton Berle and it’s about a plane crash in the forest where the only survivors are blind.

That’s right. I did not stutter. Milton. Berle.

The premise is top notch and I remember being so enraptured by it.

I did a random Google search and found very little about Seven in Darkness and the IMDb message board is basically just a bunch of lost souls like myself searching for this movie. I couldn’t even find any pictures of it to feature here. Hence the cartoon Chalice. I'm so clever...

Still, I thought it was a film worth mentioning because I’d love to know if anyone else out there remembers it and I would also like to know if anyone knows were I can find it.

Help!

Mr. Roarke Said There'd Be Days Like This...

As the world slips back into Monday, I am reminded of one of my favorite episodes of Fantasy Island, titled Reunion (OAD April 29th, 1978):

Like any good Friday, the blonde starts here:



Gets to here somewhere in the middle:



And ends up here:



Do your best not to end up like her! And have a great Monday!!!