Category: Telenasties

Certainly good old Buck Rogers can be relied upon to deliver a nights entertainment to the kiddies without damaging their fragile minds. Sure the entire cast's skin tight spandex attire verges on the pornographic, but the violence is sure to be nothing more than a couple laser blasts, and there's always the lovable "ambuquad" Twiki to keep things light. On January 3rd 1980, in an episode entitled SPACE VAMPIRE, Buck and company may have slightly overestimated their audience's capacity for horror. Unprotected by the ability to seriously question the ridiculousness of what they were witnessing, many children went to bed if not scared, than certainly bewildered. While taking Twiki in for repairs, Buck (GIL GERARD) and Colonel Wilma Deering (ERIN GRAY) find themselves quarantined on a space station, and in the direct path of a "Vorvon", a vampire-inspired alien that sucks the life from its victims. This Vorvon, being that he has working eyeballs, immediately sets his glowing red sights on many an adolescent boy's wet dream Wilma. The creature's appearance, with it's cabbage head and unibrow, is unsettling enough, but the transformation of Col. Deering from intelligent heroine to whimpering victim to lascivious heathen is the stuff permanent psychological scars are made of. Of course our Buck does save the day by sending the neo nosfuratu hurdling into a star breaking his Svengali hold on our dear Deering, but the damage is done. Wilma is left verbalizing her shame like a slowly sobering crack whore and pre-adolescent boys are left contemplating the now horrifyingly thin line between abject terror and vague arousel.

INDELIBLE SCENE(S)

• E.T's mom's main squeeze CHRISTOPHER STONE's awesome ‘stache
• The Vorvon cruises the space station's disco singles bar and only Wilma can see him
• Vorvy appears as glowing red orb to enter Wilma's quarters and drains her with his long fingers
• ERIN GRAY goes totally nuts draining folks, coming on to Buck, talking like a tranny and planning world domination! "I like the taste of fear best of all!"

After landing a coveted job at Micro-Digitech, hotshot engineer Matt Winslow (ROBERT URICH) packs his wife (JOANNA CASSIDY) and kids (BARRET OLIVER & SOLEIL MOON FRYE) in a station wagon and relocates to them a Californian suburban outpost not unlike the neighborhood featured in POLTERGEIST. What differentiates this adobe-shingled enclave from other similarly set horror flicks is the inclusion of a very exclusive country club known as Steaming Springs. Matt's college pal and work colleague Tom Peterson (JOE REGALBUTO of TV's MURPHY BROWN fame) and his wife Mary (BAD SEED bad ass PATTY McCORMACK) are all up in the Winslow family grill about taking a membership at Steaming Springs. Problem is, Matt has his misgivings after meeting the club's creepy proprietress Jessica Jones (SUSAN LUCCI), and would rather perfect his thermal spacesuit than keep up with the Petersons. Behind his back, his wife and kids join the club and Matt begins to notice troubling changes in their behavior. Wife Pat becomes insatiable in the bedroom, and obsessed with lacquer-coated home furnishings; the kids grow distant and banish the family dog from the house. Matt finally realizes that his real family has fallen prey to the membership drive of Steaming Springs, and dons his thermal spacesuit to save them from the evil clutches of Jessica Jones. Directed by horror maestro WES CRAVEN, INVITATION TO HELL falls short, literally, in the casting choice of SUSAN LUCCI. While she might come across as larger than life as Erica Cane on the long-running soap ALL MY CHILDREN, LUCCI's diminutive stature, and even lesser acting abilities, are dwarfed by that of URICH and CASSIDY.

INDELIBLE SCENE(S):

• The opening sequence involving the hit-and-run of Jessica Jones
• Pat becomes a super freak and scratches the insignia of Steaming Springs into Matt's shoulder
• Matt is attacked by his children's evil doppelgangers, and SOLEIL MOON FRYE channels the voice of MERCEDES McCAMBRIDGE's DEMON

Harried homemaker Carol Turner (VALERIE HARPER) has much on her plate, her family is in the middle of a move and she just can't seem to get it together. Forgetful and frazzled, she relies on her husband's near constant guidance. Due to uncontrollable events Carol is about to get a crash course in self preservation. Learning her youngest child has fallen ill, she set's off on an impromptu road trip to Phoenix. This is a ballsy move for old Sal, who was previously peevish about driving on the interstate. Her initial experiences while driving on her own two feet are uniformly dismal. Young hippy haired kids mock her and fellow female drivers disown her. When she finds she's run out of gas her instinct to ask for help from others gets her into deep shit, as she witnesses the murder of a cop and is tagged by his executioner as a target that must be snuffed. A car chase follows that can easily be read as the female version of STEVEN SPIELBERG'S DUEL. What's different here is the depiction of the threatening driver RICHARD ROMANUS, whose scarred neck and dog tags imply a war vet. This guy is actually scary and it's not because he speaks through one of those robot electro-larynx doohickies. It's because when the soap dispenser fails in a public restroom, he rips it off the wall, plus he's also mean to waitresses. The two-steps forward one-step back pacing is either suspenseful or frustrating depending on your tastes. The dated ending which has her unaware husband making light of Sal's usual helplessness is hysterical. She stops just short of winking at the audience.

INDELIBLE SCENE(S)

• Quinn Cummings alert!
• Val's "second honeymoon" attire
• Scary bad guy's rabbit howls
• The Hamptons boozer that Val inadvertently kills
• Privileged Val thinks she can buy anyone with a twenty

Special thanks to Richard at Doomed Moviethon!

 

On November 1st, 1963, long before Chucky picked up his first blade, a little black and white doll sent shivers down spines across the nation. Her name was Talking Tina and modern killer dolls owe a debt to this trail blazer. She was loosely based on the then popular CHATTY CATHY doll, in fact, her voice was done by the same vocal talent, the legendary JUNE FORAY (Nagaina!). Deceptively pristine Tina comes to live in the home of little Christie Streator, but finds some of the occupants there less than savory. TELLY SAVALAS is Christie's stepfather and he is an ogre-like tyrant with more issues than FANGORIA. The paranoid pop views the doll's presence in his home as a passive aggressive knife twist reminder from his wife concerning his sterility. Tina has little patience for Telly's psychological problems and volleys each aggressive move he makes toward her back two-fold. In a voice only he can hear, Tina reports her disdain like a diabolical mood ring with curls. Feelings escalate and "I don't think I like you," becomes "I'm going to kill you." Telly tries in vain to destroy the toy terror, but all attempts only produce giggling and further threats. Who's the victor in this battle for supreme control over the household? Let's just say it's Tina who has the last word. 

INDELIBLE SCENE(S)

• Tina winks at the dinner table
• Tina is an early player in the "phone threat" school of stalking
• Telly beats SAW to the "torture porn" arena, turning the family garage into a HOSTEL-like S&M chamber
• Tina's final advice to mom at the foot of the stairs

Thin skinned, quivering watercolor enthusiast Marjorie Worden (marble-mouthed SANDY DENNIS) and her work-obsessed, ad executive hubby Paul (KOLCHAK's DARREN McGAVIN, who not only exudes Captain Carl level machismo, but is also notably one of the few people who can truly pull off wearing a hat) trade city rats for country rats when they move into a rural Pennsylvania farm house. Along with their two children, a tow-headed Carol Ann Freeling prototype and seventies ginger staple/sea monster advocate JOHNNY WHITAKER, they discover that the devil is not only in the details, but is also residing in the barn. Marjorie is the first to suspect something hoofed is afoot when she wakes to the sounds of a baby crying and discovers an apparently long expired jar of glowing red jelly is the source. The jar proves to be as difficult to shake as one of Paul's commercial jingles as it reappears in various parts of the house causing Marge a great deal of anguish. Oldster Harry (ROSEMARY'S BABY alum RALPH BELLAMY) the lone person not chalking Marge's erratic behavior up to hysteria, is quickly dispatched via a swooping demon P.O.V. shot. What may have been a standard seventies occult pastiche is elevated to classic status by the talents of a still-hungry, young STEPHEN SPIELBERG, fresh off the crashing success of DUEL. Incorporating inventive camera moves and creeped-out sound effects, whilst always taking full advantage of the charismatic cast, this made-for-T.V. movie rises far above the chaff and delivers an eleventh hour switcharoo truly worthy of preservation.

INDELIBLE SCENE(S):

• Sandy's Pennsylvania Dutch pentacle necklaces
• The never explained jar of red goo
• Car crash initiated by red orb and shattered glass
• The glowing yellow eyes caught on the commercial
• Whitaker's windy arbor beat-down
• Devil frog!
• "Apples are chocolate brown, mmmmmm…wonderful!"

The miniseries IT hits some pretty astounding highs and some equally astounding lows but, sown throughout is a performance that is destined for infamy. TIM CURRY's Pennywise the clown is nothing short of one of the most terrifying figures in horror. Like oh so many of the films that are mentioned on these pages, IT's origins began in the mind of STEPHEN KING. Director TOMMY LEE WALLACE (HALLOWEEN 3, FRIGHT NIGHT 2) certainly had a gargantuan task on his hands. Many of the Lovecraft-ian multidimensional ideas of the 1,000 plus page epic novel were simply unfilmable, and attempts to scale them down are understandably less than successful. This is why the well earned climax usually leaves the viewer a bit undernourished and dissatisfied. Rather than watch our seven heroes, the STAND BY ME-ish "losers" battle the nemesis we've grown to fear and love, they share fisticuffs with a spider-like reject from CLASH OF THE TITANS. What they are seeing in fact, is the being in the closest form that their collective minds are capable of producing. (A kid who does see IT's true form is instantly turned into a white haired JIM JARMUSCH clone). Unfortunately for the viewer it's not a fraction as frightening as the mocking, child-killing monster that skipped around the rest of the movie with an arsenal of blood filled balloons, stale jokes and an elaborate display of phantasmagorical fortune cookies. That said, audiences mostly share the same selective memory as the inhabitants of King's fictional town of Derry. Few can recall the giant spider, they're still quivering over the clown.

INDELIBLE SCENE(S):

Any scene with Pennywise is scary take your pick:

• In the sewer
• In the clotheslines
• In the shower
• In the sink
• In the road
• In the library
• In the moon? Yes, he even shows up in the moon. What is up with this guy?

 

 This 1975 CHUCK JONES animated telling of RUDYARD KIPLING's short story from THE JUNGLE BOOK features two villains capable of sending any child into retreat. The husband and wife tag-team terror strikers were named Nag and Nagaina and they were scary as hell cobras. With piercing eyes and hissing voices, they planned a heinous home invasion that, if successful, would leave a family of three dead. Of course all such plans are laid to waste as each of them are disposed of by the adorable and heroic mongoose named Rikki-Tikki-Tavi.INDELIBLE SCENE(S):

• Rikki stomps sand snake Karait
• Nag's late night siege of the bathroom
• Terror in the gazebo
• The Rickster uses Nagaina's egg as bait

 

 Anyone who wants to hear about the first two stories in this trilogy raise your hand…anybody?…nobody? But they really showcase the talent of KAREN BLACK! No? Alright, I'll make it quick. In the first one she plays a dowdy spinster who's really a man-eater type hussy and in the second one she plays a dowdy spinster who's ALSO a man-eater type hussy. (It's like trying to watch MARY REILLY and PRETTY WOMAN at the same time with your eyes crossed). Now on to the yummy gravy. In the third installment she is cast (against type) as a relatively normal human. She's not a hussy, though her mom thinks she is and she's not a spinster because her hair is not in a bun and she doesn't wear glasses. She's also branching out with a new love interest, an anthropologist who she purchased a lovely Zuni fetish doll for. Most of this information is told to us via a phone conversation with her unseen ma who seems to keep her offspring on a pretty tight umbilical cord. After conveying to her mother that she's an adult and capable of handing herself "Amelia" prepares a bath, but not before she knocks the little gold necklace off the doll. Thing is, the doll came with a note that explained the jewelry was keeping the tchotchke from coming to life. What follows is a whirlwind of gnashing teeth, swinging blades and wince inspiring screeches and gnarls as Zuni seems determined to illustrate mom's point of view that Amelia should have never left the nest. It doesn't matter how old you are, or how may times you've seen this RICHARD MATHESON penned tellevision movie, when this knee-high Tasmanian devil hits full tilt boogie mode you'll either be on the edge of your seat or lifting your feet away from the bottom of the couch.

INDELIBLE SCENE(S):
• Blade under bathroom door
• He can work doorknobs!
• Lil' Zuni doll cutting through suitcase
• BLACK squatting on the floor pounding her blade in anticipation of mom's arrival
• BLACK's new dental work

 

On the surface, Sally Farnham (KIM DARBY) seems to have it all. Married to the overly ambitious Alex, a lawyer desperately trying to make partner at his firm, Sally has the free time to redecorate the ginormous estate she just inherited from her late grandmother. She even has the economic clout to keep a maid, a handyman, and the highly coveted interior designer Francisco Perez, an expert in navy, browns, and candles on retainer. The one thing missing from her seemingly perfect life is a study, a place with enough room for a desk, some filing cabinets, and a fireplace. Judging from the exterior shots, it seems as though Sally could have her pick of over 300 different rooms that could readily satisfy her need for a home office. What Sally wants, Sally gets, and she is hell-bent on quenching her fireplace fixation by redecorating the downstairs study, long abandoned by her late grandfather. Despite repeated warnings from the handyman that, "Some things are better left as they are," stubborn Sally opens the side panel on the bricked-up (with steel reinforcement no less) hearth. As a result of her one-woman renovation, Sally sends a generation of TV movie watchers scurrying for the light switch when she unleashes three of the creepiest lil' photophobic demons that look like the California Raisins crossed with Boy George in Taboo make-up. 

INDELIBLE SCENE(S):

• The disembodied voices intoning, "Sally… Sally…Sally, we're waiting for you"
• Sally's tug-of-war at the top stairs with the demons after her decorator takes a tumble
• Sally's futile attempt at fending off the demons with an Instamatic as they drag her towards the fireplace

Aside from cranking out some of the finest prime-time soap operas to ever grace the small screen, uber producer Aaron Spelling also had a hand in executive producing some of the more memorable supernatural movies-of-the-week in the ‘70s. CROWHAVEN FARM stars HOPE LANGE and PAUL BURKE, as Maggie, a legal secretary prone to bouts of puritanical déjà vu, and Ben Porter, her annoyingly insecure, stay-at-home artist husband. Maggie inherits the titular country estate from some dead relative after the original inheritor dies in an automotive explosion. Upon arriving at the farm, Maggie is overcome by an eerie sense of familiarity and the desire to hightail it out of there. Useless husband Ben decides that the barn would be the perfect place to set up a studio and a gallery for his uninspired abstract creations. Somewhat bored, and somewhat spooked by the onslaught of premonitions featuring angry pilgrims, Maggie goes back to work since Ben can't seem to earn a living. Unannounced, a pack of swingers swing by Crowhaven Farm who announce themselves as being The Weekenders. Maggie learns from them that a pack of 15th century puritans were slaughtered there because of a turncoat, ala the Salem Witch Trails (in a much less publicized fashion). Shortly thereafter, the long-barren Porters end up caring for a dead-eyed, blonde girl named Jennifer. Maggie finally gets pregnant, and creepy lil' Jennifer does her best to stir the turd, and make Ben think that his wife got knocked up by one of the aforementioned Weekenders. After Maggie gives birth, she ends up being confronted by a posse of perturbed pilgrims, the same ones from her sundry premonitions. They try to crush her beneath a door laden with bricks, as payback for her selling them down the river in a previous life. Wisely, as the weight of the stones weighs upon her, Maggie offers up her dumb husband Ben as trade for her and her baby's safe release. Maggie does escape but, in an obvious back lot made to look like Central Park, she encounters a cop who can tie a bow just like her late husband. Apparently, the circle of déjà vu can not be broken.INDELIBLE SCENE(S):

• Jennifer teasing Maggie with Ben's ring
• Angry pilgrim mob scene
• Maggie goes under the door
• The bite marks on Ben's back