The Night That Panicked America (1975)

Network: ABC
Original Air Date: October 31st, 1975

Picture it – Halloween, 1938. Aliens have descended upon America and one radio network is broadcasting the play by play. As the story unfolds, a panic sets about the listeners. Some head towards Grover’s Mill, New Jersey where the chaos started. Others decide to flee the area and literally head for the hills. The country is in utter terror, who knows how they will react.

And the whole thing was a hoax.

This, my friends, is how you make great radio
By now, the legends regarding Orson Well’s brilliant rendering of the War of the Worlds are infamous. From stories of people running through the streets to the guys who shot a water tower thinking it was a spaceship, this night has come to signify not only how wonderful this HG Wells’ adaptation was, but also how powerful the media can be. The Night that Panicked America is a recreation of that wicked night that left America reeling.

Night is separated into sections. The first deals with the actual broadcast and features a behind the scenes look at Welles (Paul Shenar) and his cohorts creating the most suspenseful night of radio. From this standpoint, things look fiendishly clever (like creating the sound of a spaceship door opening by using the reverberation of the unscrewing of a jar inside a toilet!) but completely mundane, as actors in a bare room read from a script. The second section of the film deals with various listeners who are swept away in the realistic broadcast. Each one is facing an everyday problem, like a marriage breaking up or a young man wanting to go to war to defend his country while his father attempts to talk him out of it. This is where the movie creates some intense suspense scenes. With everyone facing uncertain doom, it’s anyone’s guess as to how each will act in response to the situation.

Wow! They made Orson Wells hawt!
Night is rife with familiar television faces who all do a wonderful job. Tom Bosley is the befuddled producer who first catches wind of the ensuing chaos, John Ritter is the young man desperate to defend his country against Hitler, Paul Shenar is the great Orson Welles, the director with a thunderous voice and an ingenious way of crafting a story, Will Geer is the reverend faced with the idea that his god does not exist and Vic Morrow and Eileen Brennan are the couple who will do anything to keep their kids away from the Martians. And I do mean anything! And I haven’t even gotten to Meredith Baxter, Granville Van Dusen or Casey Kasem!

Nicholas Meyer, who would go on to direct Star Trek II and VI wrote this excellent script, capturing both the inside and outside of a momentous occasion in our history. Joseph Sargent, who is such a stalwart in the world of television movies (Longstreet, Hustling), puts together a taut, gripping tale that encases so many stories, and the duo bring each one to a satisfying conclusion. The standout story belongs to Morrow and Brennan. I was literally covering my eyes I was so scared! That’s good filmmaking! Fans of The Mist will also catch the tribute it made to Night.

Even rich people got scared! Whoa!
As I watch the movie now and as I’m sure it was intended when it was made in 1975, Night is more than a retelling of a wondrous night in pop culture history. The film is bookmarked with the echoing, fanatical voice of Hitler, reminding the viewer that 1938 wasn’t just the year radio proved it worth as a medium. It is also reiterates the fact that we were living in the looming fear of World War II. It is suggested by this bookmark that perhaps we reacted the way we did simply because we’d been living on the edge of uncertainty and we were worn thin. Night’s ability to craft such tension with the characters is just one reason to see it. It’s also a staunch reminder of our dark history with war and what it does the human psyche, even to those of us not fighting on the battlefield.

Read More about The Night that Panicked America here:

feuilleton (John Colthart's blog)

Inner Toob

War of the Worlds: Invasion - A Historical Perspective

Trackdown: Finding the Goodbar Killer (1983)

Network: CBS
Original Air Date: October 15th, 1983

Now I get it.

In the years that have passed since I acquired a copy of Trackdown, I found myself mysteriously drawn to the opening main title sequence, which I’ve seen several times. At first I thought it was the pure kitschiness of it all - listening to Laura Branigan’s Gloria while watching a sea of extras boogie on a glittering dance floor. Of all the made for television movies I’ve seen, Trackdown’s opening remains the single best title sequence I have ever seen. But once the film moved past the opening ten minutes and into the meat of the film, which is a simple police procedural, I always lost heart. Well, I finally gave it the old college try, watched, and rather enjoyed, the whole film.

Where she starts
Where she ends up
However, it took a little background research to make me truly appreciate it. Trackdown asks not to be associated with the 70s shocker Looking for Mr. Goodbar, although it’s almost impossible not to connect these films. Both are about a school teacher leading a double life, and essentially Trackdown is the follow-up to the tragic ending of Looking. George Segal is Detective John Grafton – you know the drill, he’s that hard-boiled but likable guy who’s married to his job, much to the disappointment of his soon-to-be-ex-wife and daughter (Tracy Pollan in a good part). The film mostly follows Grafton as he works the ins and outs of a seemingly unsolvable crime. Along the way he meets the victim’s co-worker Logan Gay (Shelly Hack) and the two begin a casual relationship (slightly mirroring in a G-rated fashion the victim's free love lifestyle but with morals thrown at us). At one point they hit the club circuit in search of the killer. Aside from the opening sequence, this is the second best scene in Trackdown. In fact, it's not that gripping of a film, but because director Bill Persky captures something so vibrantly dream like in those club scenes and because it follows the true crime story of the capture of the killer with some accuracy (and respect) that Trackdown becomes better than it really should have been.

Don't pull no punches, K?
I have seen Looking for Mr. Goodbar once. It was a completely harrowing experience. I have never read the book, nor did I even know it was based on a real life murder. The victim was named Roseann Quinn and at the time, her life and death encompassed all that was spinning out of control in the early 70s. I think because Quinn’s murder occurred right at the beginning of the “free love” decade, people were not prepared for what her death symbolized. And to this day, Quinn continues to fascinate, which is why I’m pleased this movie kept to the facts without proselytizing.

And now I understand why that opening sequence has haunted me all these years. This scene manages to give the audience just enough insight into who the victim was. As the dance floor lights up, your eyes are drawn to one beautiful girl-next-door type who turns out to simply be at the wrong place at the wrong time. Throughout the film Grafton continues to remind us that she was like any girl anywhere. Dark secrets aside, she was just someone who picked the wrong guy and paid for it in the worst way possible. This is why Roseann Quinn's story continues to captivate. Who knew you could get all that from a guy throwing glitter?

The Darkness and the Light

OK, let's start with the dark first, shall we?

You can pop on over to Pretty Scary to read my review of a movie called Drifter: Henry Lee Lucas, which features Antonio Sabato Jr. (Melrose Place, General Hospital) as one of the most menacing killers in the history of true crime. OK, so Antonio is not a bad actor. In fact, he is downright fun, but such an odd choice to play one of the most revolting killers of our time. However, I thought I might take this time to make note of how Henry has gotten hotter as time progresses:

The Real Henry... not so hawt:



The late Robert A. Burns as a version of Henryin the underrated Confessions of a Serial Killer, also not hawt:



Michael Rooker in the ultimate portrayal in Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer.OK, he's pretty hawt:



Antonio Sabato, Jr. as seen in Drifter is way too hawt:



I find it interesting (and slightly sad) how film seems to be leaning more towards an attractive face rather than someone who is right for the part. I mean, I like Antonio a lot, but what a miscast...

Now that I'm done with my little dissertation on beauty and serial killers, let's get on with it!

The Streaming TV Movie of the Week


Policewoman Centerfold is a tame, but totally engaging film that aired on NBC on October 17th, 1983. Based on a true story, Melody Anderson is uber-hawt Jennifer Oaks, a girl who sends her pictures to a Playboy-esque magazine as a joke. Well, the laughs on her folks, because they love her and invite her to California for a pretty sexy and racy photo shoot (the end result looking surprisingly authentic). The magazine people tell her that she'll gain confidence, but they forget to mention that she's also invited a lot of heartache from her co-workers at the police force. Also, her cop partner/boyfriend Nick Velano (Ed Marinaro, talk about hawt!) ain't too thrilled by it either. So there goes Jennifer taking on the man! Btw, Donna Pescow plays her BFF, the woman who totally encourages Jennifer to do the shoot and then chastises her for doing it. Wow, what a tangled web we weave Donna! The cast is great, especially Melody who is strikingly beautiful but not so much that you're distracted by it. She does blue collar OK and makes the character sympathetic and likable.

It's streaming on Netflix as we speak, so please stop by and give it a watch.

And one final note, Amanda By Night is now a college girl. My classes started yesterday and all I can say is YIKES! So, I will do my best to post when I can, but I have no set schedule as of now. And yet I have so much up my sleeve, but my time management skills suck. But please keep looking into the ether for updates, reviews, whatnot.

OK, as you were.

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