Halloween 2025: September 11th

 

Final Destination: Bloodlines (2025)
 

I don't know why the "Final Destination" movies took a fourteen year long break. As far as slasher flicks go, these are on the pricier side. The last two both had 40 million dollar price tags but still easily turned healthy profits. Maybe New Line Cinema was too busy prioritizing "The Conjuring" and "IT" series. The ghost movies and Stephen King adaptations are probably classier examples of churned-out horror I.P. product than the gore-fests... But I know which type I prefer. Shortly announced after "Final Destination 5" did well, the sequel would finally emerge from development hell in 2022. That's when Zach Lipovsky and Adam Stein won producers over with a pitch reel that ended with them "dying" in a freak accident, an extremely clever move. The duo had previously directed 2018's "Freaks," but I had only seen Lipovsky's solo attempt to reboot "Leprechaun." That sucked so I kept my expectations humble for the generically subtitled "Final Destination: Bloodlines." However, it turns out these two knew what they were doing. The latest taste of Death's design was a hit with fans and audiences this past summer. 

Every night, Stefani Reyes dreams about a blonde woman, visiting a fancy restaurant within a Space Needle-like observation deck with her boyfriend. The tower collapses and everyone dies a horrible death, the dreams traumatizing Stefani to the point that she's crashing out at college. The woman in her dreams is her grandmother Iris, which her absentee mother and friendly uncle are estranged from. Stef hunts down Grandma Iris at the fortified compound she lives in. Upon hearing about her dream, the old woman informs her granddaughter that it's a premonition she had in 1963. She saved hundreds of lives that night... But that wasn't Death's design. Over the years, everyone who was supposed to die in that building and all their offspring have perished in bizarre accidents, in the order they were originally meant to go. It's taken the Reaper sixty years to work his way down to Iris, who has learned to spot the signs that predict when Death will strike. She compiled a book of all her information and gives it to Stefani... Before being impaled by a falling weather vane. Stefani is soon convinced that Death is coming for her family, learning to see the omens that foretell each "accident." She embarks on a quest with her mom and cousins to find some way out of the fate's web before it strikes with especially vicious gusto. 

In the lead-up to "Bloodlines'" release, it was said that the new film would not follow the formula of the previous five entries. This is somewhat true. By having the plot-instigating disaster occur decades ago, with the proper protagonist experiencing the vision as a dream, it does change the general structure while still following the same old set-up we've seen before. The sequel notably does not explore any of the questions I've had about the premise, such as where the psychic visions come from. Nor does it address the various spiritual or philosophical implications of the abstract concept of Death itself operating like a lunatic serial killer. Nevertheless, "Bloodlines" does earn a lot of points for getting creative with the set-up. The implications of the idea that Death must obsessively, compulsively murder people in the order they were meant to die are explored, alongside the various ways to escape – or at least hold off – the inevitable. Some extra thought was definitely put into the rules these movies have always operated on.

I pointed out before that trying to defeat “Death's design” in the previous “Final Destination” movies renders a person a gibbering lunatic, looking for signs and symbols in every single thing that happens around them and paranoid at every point. “Bloodlines” comes to the same conclusion. Grandma Iris was so terrified that Death would come for her kids at any minute, that she left them thoroughly traumatized and resentful. Steffi's mother eventually realize that her own childhood left her incapable of being a decent mom to her kids. Now, carrying around a whole book full of crazy and sticking elaborate pin boards to the wall, Steff quickly becomes the spitting image of madness herself. Of course, in these movies, the “crazy” person is actually correct. Something is out to get them and the signs to avoid it are all over. It takes a bit of time but a surprising amount of “Bloodlines” revolves around the entire family coming together, believing these statements that sound crazy for the benefit of someone they care about. 

Is this some sort of metaphor for loving and supporting somebody through a mental illness, even if you don't entirely understand what they're going through? Possibly but, nevertheless, “Final Destination: Bloodlines” remains a surprisingly poignant reflection on the power of familial love throughout. Early on, Uncle Howard assures his kids and relatives that family is the most important thing in the world to him. The way his kids, nephews and nieces watch out for each other as death closes in on them proves that they believe this too. That “Bloodlines” juggles this commitment with the sometimes messy realities of being part of a family – present in Stefani's mother admitting her children are better off without her – proves that the screenwriters took this idea seriously too. That's not the only territory the movie is unusually sincere about. Tony Todd's small role was obviously recorded when the great genre icon was deep in treatment. Having someone so clearly near the end of their life look right into the camera and tell us to appreciate the time we have left makes the dialogue a lot more meaningful. 

I didn't expect the sixth entry in what is essentially a slasher franchise to make me a little misty-eyed. This is not to say that “Final Destination: Bloodlines” is an attempt to make the series all elevated. (Aside from the geographical position of the opening disaster.) “Bloodlines” might be the entry in the series most willing to walk the line between comedy and grisly mayhem. The gore is gnarlier than ever. A crushing in a trash compactor splits a head along an especially brutal line. A sequence involving an MRI machine surely ranks among the franchise's most painfully executed deaths. At the same time, these moments of sickening gore occur right alongside blatantly comedic beats. The driver of that trash truck is listening to an especially ironic musical choice. The execution immediately following that brutal magnetic scene plays exactly like the punchline to a cartoonish bit of physical comedy. It's honestly refreshing to see the filmmakers behind “Final Destination” admit that these are basically splat-stick movies at this point, even if it borders feeling a little too mean-spirited at times. 

Zach Lipovsky and Adam Stein's directorial approach is clearly on the more devious side. They employ Dutch angles a few times, often ironic soundtrack choices, and frenetic editing. Among the collection of gnarly stunts – including the record holder for oldest person set on-fire on film, it seems – is also a little too much CGI. Despite some minor reservations, “Bloodlines” is a good, gory time at the movies. The backyard-barbecue-gong-wrong set piece prepares every element of its fabulously bloody show like a neatly assembled domino game. Watching the pieces fall into place has never been more satisfying. A colorful and kind-hearted cast and a slightly more thoughtful script brings a little more emotional resonance to the material than was needed but was certainly appreciated. And God bless Tony Todd, an consummate professional right up tot he end. I fully expect this series to continue and for Death to stalk theater rows once more soon enough. It'll certainly be lacking something without that familiar voice delivering those ominous warnings though... [7/10]

 

 

Homicidal (1961)

One cannot overstate the effect “Psycho” had on macabre cinema. Laying the foundation for what would become the slasher movie, making the insane killer with a disturbed mind a regular part of the monster pantheon, essentially kicking off the modern age of the genre: Hitchcock's masterpiece can be said to have provided all of this. In the more immediate sense, the film spawned a slew of imitators. Hammer Studios made several moody, black-and-white thrillers with one-word names like “Paranoic,” “Nightmare,” “Maniac,” “Hysteria.” Suspiciously similar titles like “Dementia 13” or “Psyche '59” would come along shortly afterwards. Films exploring abnormal psychology like “Mirage,” “Repulsion,” “Aroused” probably owe Hitch more than a little credit too. None of these would-be “Psychos” were as blatant as “Homicidal.” William Castle – kind of the crass American Hitchcock, in his own way or at least in his own mind – and Columbia rushed the movie into theaters a year after Norman Bates' debut in hopes that the public's appetite for such grisly shenanigans were only beginning. 

A strange blonde woman calling herself Miriam Webster checks into a hotel in Ventura, California. She immediately starts flirting with the bell boy and, after flashing two thousand dollars in cash at him, convinces the guy to marry her. That very night, the two head to the justice of the peace's house, paying extra to get married right away... At which point “Miriam” stabs the justice to death. Turns out her true identity is Emily. She is the live-in nurse of a disabled woman named Helga. She is the girlfriend of Warren, Helga's step-son who recently buried his misogynistic, abusive father. The real Miriam is Warren's sister. Miriam – befriending a local pharmacist and detective – soon learns that Emily is wanted in connection with a homicide. Emily's increasingly unstable behavior suggest she's capable of the killing too. More dark family secrets will be revealed as Miriam attempts to uncover Emily's secrets and protect her brother before it's too late. 

William Castle's movies will always be remembered for their outrageous gimmicks. “Homicidal” has one of his silliest ones: The Fright Break, an on-screen countdown to the film's supposedly scariest moment that would allow anyone too timid to continue a way out. At the same time, Castle's films were often better than these advertising stunts let on. “Homicidal” has some striking black-and-white cinematography from Burnett Guffrey. This is especially evident in the point-of-view shots during and directly following the Fright Break, leading up to a stylish unveiling of a grisly surprise. That's another thing “Homicidal” has going for it: It's gorier than “Psycho.” The stabbing of the justice of the peace is surprisingly drawn out and bloody. The discovery of the climatic murder, meanwhile, has the same level of campy glee to it that often characterized Castle's movies. It's a shocking, horrific surprise for the characters but more like a funny prank for the audience, not unlike a Tingler in the theater seats or an Emergo swinging out of the screen. 

These moments stand-out in the film probably because the rest of it is not all that memorable. “Homicidal” is fairly bare bones on a plotting level. The audience knows something is up with Emily from the first scene. Watching the characters come to that same conclusion is neither that suspenseful nor that compelling. Patricia Breslin is capable enough as Miriam but the rest of the film's heroic cast members – a series of bland white guys, one after the other – could not be more forgettable. The backstory of Warren and his sister are revealed entirely through dialogue, long conversations that are never as compelling as they need to be. All the talks of mysterious trips to Denmark or who will inherit Daddy's millions strictly cause the eyes to glaze over.

“Homicidal,” from the title on-down, is blatantly imitative of Hitchcock's film. Both start with a blonde woman arriving at a hotel with an awful lot of money. Both feature an immobile old woman in a chair – so there's some “Baby Jane” in here too – and set a key scene around a staircase. Most obviously, “Homicidal” features a gender-bending twist ending. Spoiler alert for a sixty-two year old movie: Warren and Emily are the same person. Warren and Miriam's dad was such a he-man woman hater that he couldn't stand the thought of having two daughters. Thus, the biological sex of his second child was withheld from him and the infant lived their life as a man. The doctor that explains all this doesn't take as long as Simon Oakland did in “Psycho,” nor is there as much focus on the psychology that led to this transition. While a fairly lazy reversal of “Psycho's” twist, there is an interesting layer here. That Warren was beaten and ostracized by a sexist father and made to walk a traditionally masculine path, before striking out in a feminine guise that rejects the role forced upon him. From a sideways view, it almost seems like the film is arguing against the role of gender at all. Not intentionally, as the film is still as cis-het centered as can be, but there is, perhaps, a subtext of queer vengeance on the repressive, straight society they are forced to live in.  

Not that the twist would be surprising to anyone paying attention. The much referenced but never fully explained trip to Denmark is clearly meant to imply some sex change shenanigans. Most obviously, Warren looks awfully feminine from the moment he walks on-screen. It's hard to miss that both Warren and Emily have Jean Arless' distinctive facial features, that a deeper masculine voice has clearly been dubbed in every time he moves his lips. “Homicidal” is definitely a movie where the parts do not add up to an especially strong whole. A head rolling down the stairs, a brutal stabbing, and the unintended LGBT+ rustlings are all much more interesting than the movie around them. Unsurprisingly, “homicidal” has largely been overshadowed by its own gimmick. The shame-inducing techniques Castle added to the Fright Break – highlighting the cowardice of anyone who ducked out or simply asked for a refund – are more amusing than anything in the film. Yellow foot steps in the theater, clucking chicken noises in the lobby, being forced to sign an official statement declaring yourself a scaredy-cat: All simply hilarious. Truly, when they say “You couldn't make that movie today,” they are talking about a film that publicly humiliated anyone who dared to walk out on it. [6/10]

 

Dead of Night: A Woman Sobbing

Last September, I watched the first episode of "Dead of Night," a ghost story anthology that aired on BBC2 for a single, six episode season in 1972. It remains one of the most eerie hours of television I've yet seen. "A Woman Sobbing" would be the last installment of the program to air and is now one of three episodes still known to survive. It concerns Jane, wife to Frank and mother to two sons. The family has recently moved to a house in the countryside. Every night, before bed, Jane hears a woman sobbing from the attic. The husband doesn't hear anything and is concerned his wife is having a mental breakdown. Jane investigates all possibilities. There is no gas leak, no sign that her husband is manipulating her. Taking medication, seeing a psychiatrist, and consulting a priest do not cause the strange noises to cease. Frank hires a live-in nanny, an attractive Dutch girl in her twenties, for fear that motherhood is exhausting Jane. This only exposes the sexual frustration between the couple. And still the spectral cries of an unseen woman continue, soon joined by the attic window opening on its own and vision of someone falling to their death. The wife soon takes matters into her own hands. 

Clearly, something in the British condition caused their TV writers to excel at stark, ambiguous, and unsettling ghost stories. "A Woman Sobbing" is, like "The Stepford Wives" and "Rosemary's Baby" before it, a horror story about the quiet desperation of a housewife. Jane's sons are rowdy and demanding. Her husband seems much more concerned with his advertising job, dismissive of her concerns. They discuss "Gaslight," the husband trying to convince his wife that it wasn't a play but a film. Their sex life is so regimented that Frank can recall the exact day and hour of the last time they made love. He doesn't stray but does look at his secretary's ass and listens with envy to a coworker describing a pretty young thing on the train. Inga the nanny is an unwanted intrusion for Jane, a visitor from a sexually liberated land that does nothing but make her feel inadequate. All the men Jane seeks solace from do nothing. The gas line worker tells an uncomfortable joke about his own sexual potency, the priest claims that exorcism simply aren't done anymore, and the shrink scribbles obvious observations in his notepad. 

In other words, the supernatural terror at the heart of "A Woman Sobbing" is clearly a subtextual manifestation of the unhappiness Jane feels, born of the circumstances of a world that dismisses or disposes of women. All throughout the hour, the threat of being shipped off to a mental hospital hangs over Jane's head. Nobody once considers that what she is hearing might be real. Not even Inga, the only other woman in the household. So maybe Jane is crazy. Maybe the voice beckoning to her is the call of the void, the sickness in her own mind taunting her into embracing non-existence. The final scene, however, is a brief epilogue that suggests she is the victim of a curse. That a malevolent force targets the mothers of the house. "A Woman Sobbing" keeps the details about its haunting vague. We never learn the history of the house. A rope or cord Jane finds in the walls of the attic is the only clue uncovered about what could've birthed this supernatural presence. That all we know about this ghostly force is that it's a woman, it's crying, and wants to trap Jane in its cycle of madness and death is more than enough to make it a frightening manifestation of the loneliness, isolation, and frustration the protagonist feels. This means that the social concerns “A Woman Sobbing” handles are baked into a traditional horror story, about how evil sometimes randomly targets people.

In this regard, “Dead of Night” is chillingly effective. There is something about the way British genre television of this era was shot and edited that is especially suitable for horror. There's little music here, which means you really hear the ghostly sounds when they arise. The camera angles favor close-ups on the actors within smaller sets, furthering a sense of claustrophobia. The acting has a pointed, ice cold quality that makes every line hit noticeably hard. Anna Massey gives a fine performance as Jane, a desperate woman at the end of her rope. It all builds to a bluntly chilling climax, these moments of horror being presented with an almost documentary-like matter-of-factness. “A Woman Sobbing” is not quite as unsettling as “The Exorcism.” Its characters are thornier, its pace slower, and its social commentary not as razor sharp. However, it still left me with the same chilled, disquieted feeling as that episode. In other words, I need those remaining four episodes to resurface in some form. I need all of this shit that I can get. [8/10]

The Addams Family: Gomez the Reluctant Lover

“The Addams Family” very rarely centered episodes around Pugsley and “Gomez the Reluctant Lover” isn't about him either. He is, however, the impetus for the plot at least. Gomez and Morticia's eldest child has a case of the melancholies because he's developed a crush on his French teacher, Miss Dunbar. Her son's love-sickness concerns Morticia and she decides to re-read the love letters Gomez wrote to her way back when. She quickly decides these are inappropriate for her young son to send to a teacher but Pugsley gives one to Miss Dunbar anyway. The principal is concerned by a child writing such passionate words to a teacher and suggests Dunbar have a talk with Pugsley's parents. She visits the Addams' home and, when Gomez admits he wrote those words, Dunbar admits she was moved by his words, the first time any man has said something like that to her. Upon telling his wife of the situation, Morticia decides it would be cruel to simply tell the teacher no and instructs her husband to play along with a bit. There's a little misunderstanding and Morticia soon becomes concerned that Gomez is genuinely leaving her for Pugsley's teacher.

Disguised under the pretense of the Addams simply being eccentric, this show continued to sneak kinky and alternative lifestyles into sixties family's living rooms. “Gomez the Reluctant Lover” starts with husband and wife enacting some dentist themed role play, Gomez enjoying getting his teeth drilled. Later, Morticia walks in on another woman throwing herself at Gomez. She does not seemed distressed by this and, instead, suggest he humor the other woman... As long as Gomez stops as soon as Morticia says so. See, I knew these two were swingers! Things only start to go wrong because Morticia gives Fester the duty of transporting the safe word to Gomez' ears. This results in a very funny last third, devoted to one of my favorite comedic tropes: The conversation with two meanings. Morticia is genuinely upset, Gomez thinks she's just acting and assumes her cries of distress are cues to take it further. Of course, it all goes off the rails the minute his beloved wife speaks some French, Gomez literally pulled towards her. Unlike the last two episodes, this plays off the couple's established dynamic in a way that's funny but doesn't betray the trust they share.

Atop that amusing set-up, “Gomez the Reluctant Lover” has some strong physical gags in it. When Fester spies Gomez and Miss Dunbar getting close, he immediately slides back up the fire pole. See, that's the kind of stupid cartoon logic that makes me chuckle. The same is true of the moment when Morticia fishes out one of Gomez' old love letters and the contents are so hot that the parchment is in ashes. The reaction on Carolyn Jones'  face when attempting to read one of Gomez' old love letters to her son is priceless. There's also an extremely silly gag about what the painting she is working on is. It probably says a lot about my taste in women that I also found Jones, when throwing things and being upset near the end, to be even more attractive than usual. On that note, I don't think Jill Andre as Miss Dunbar is hideous by any means. The episode ends on the note that, the minute her glasses off, a man is able to find her attractive. As a guy who grew up with a crush on Lisa Loeb, I consider that venomous anti-girls-in-glasses propaganda. Anyway, this is probably one of the funnier season two “Addams Family” episodes I've seen so far. [710]

Halloween 2025: September 10th

Final Destination 5 (2011)

By committing themselves to such a strict routine, the producers of the "Final Destination" series probably limited their options for a long-running franchise. By which I mean there are only so many mass transportation disasters that can occur before it starts to get a little unlikely. Auto accidents happen every day. Plane crashes are a common anxiety. Roller coasters operate on seeming out of control, though they rarely are, and train derailments happen from time to time. A stadium collapse following a massive auto racing wreck in the fourth movie was already starting to push things. Despite that, the 3D gimmick in "The Final Destination" goosed the box office enough to make a fifth entry profitable. Filming on the water is notoriously difficult, elevators aren't very cinematic, and I don't think there's ever been any mass fatalities involving a people mover. Thus, "Final Destination 5" decided on a bridge collapse instead. The sequel was nearly hassled with the far more embarrassing disaster of having a silly title, as this one was briefly called "5nal Destination" during production. To think some marketing exec denied smarmy teenagers everywhere a chance to ask for a ticket to see "Five-anal Destination." 

The unlucky Cassandra randomly cursed with the power of foresight this time is Sam, an office peon in the corporate branch of some sort of manufacturing company. Everyone is being sorted onto a bus that day for a team-building exercise. That includes Sam's coworker Peter, Peter's girlfriend Candice, their boss Dennis, Sam's ex Molly, and a few other people. While crossing a busy bridge, high winds cause a catastrophic collapse and result in the brutal deaths of everyone present... Or so Sam sees in a psychic warning. He gets his friends and coworkers off the bridge in time. Unfortunately, their nightmare is only beginning. Once again, as the looming presence of oddly knowledgeable coroner William Bludworth informs them, Death has been cheated. Now, the reaper is out for suitably ironic, unnecessarily elaborate revenge. This time a new way to disrupt the pattern of deaths is presented: Murdering someone before Death gets to you, forcing them into your place. 

In the eleven years since the first "Final Destination," mainstream horror movies had arguably gotten more sadistic. By 2011, audiences had already endured seven "Saws," after all. Fearful of losing the arm's race of increasingly nastier horror franchises, New Line Cinema stepped up the mayhem in "Final Destination 5." The death sequences in this installment are, for lack of a better term, meatier. A gymnastic mishap results in twisted limbs and protruding bones. A squished head throws an awful lot of brain matter around. The opening bridge collapse finds a number of novel ways to impale, crush, batter, and dismember the human body. Moreover, the long build-up of minor mishaps that lead to these violent ends feels more teasingly mean-spirited towards the participants. An always-horny office creepoid is subjected to numerous humiliations at a massage spa before his final fate. The boss is a boorish lout and another victim is an argumentative factory worker. The most painful death is saved for Olivia, an apparent groupie prone to vanity and casual nudity. Her LASIK surgery goes horribly wrong, in maybe the most cringe-inducing sequence in the entire franchise. 

If taken too seriously, such a parade of horrible deaths and drawn-out build-ups would become too punishing to be much fun. Luckily, "Final Destination 5" keeps its tongue thoroughly in cheek. Perhaps well aware that the 3-D effects last time were subpar, New Line recruited Steve Quale to direct this installment. Quale was James Cameron's second unit guy on "Avatar," presumably making him something of an expert in 3-D filmmaking. The result is a follow-up that utilizes the depth of field much more effectively. The gymnast scene, for one example, cleverly puts the balance bars and pummel horse in the foreground and adds depth to the unfolding Rube Goldberg machine of mayhem behind them. Mostly, Quale and his team delight is thrusting shit right at the viewer. Rebar, sheet metal, a ship mast, meat skewers, an industrial hook, an acupuncture needle, and a friggin' laser beam all come flying right at us. It all gives the impression of being an especially gory theme park attraction, a thrill ride that happy to simulate danger without making us feel too personally attacked. 

That deft hand is also present in the way each chaotic end is playfully teased. The gymnast sequence sets up the fall brilliantly and patiently, with a loose screw rolling perfectly into place and a bowl of talcum powder being precariously perched before a fan. The sense the film is carefully taking its time also allows "Final Destination 5" to pull off several clever misdirects. The massage parlor scene introduces a number of potential objects to cause death before utilizing an unexpected one. A clever shot has a body falling into frame before the reveal that the guy's head has been impaled on a massive hook. The best misdirect of all is saved for the final minutes of the film, which brings the "Final Destination" series full circle in a clever way. It's the kind of twist ending that rewards the viewer too, carefully foreshadowed in such a way that is obvious upon a re-watch but easily missed the first time through. 

After the second "Final Destination" made its roster of meat-bags into human beings you could actually care about, the third and fourth installments increasingly didn't give a shit about the innocent victims caught up in Death's design. Part five works a little harder in that regard. David Koechner plays the kind of amusingly vacant dumb-ass you hire David Koechner to play. P.J. Byrne is on a similar level as the dorky, high libidoed Isaac. I'm not sure I was necessarily captivated by Nicholas D'Agosto as Sam, nor his subplot with his girlfriend, but at least he's given the hobby of being a French chief. Miles Fisher – who looks enough like D'Agosto that I thought they were playing brothers – as Peter does get the juiciest character arc, the character driven to the edge of madness by the grief of seeing his girlfriend go splat. The plot point that committing a murder might spare you from death's wrath provides a different angle to what we expect from the last act of these movies. I wouldn't go so far as to say this shift represents any sort of lore, as Death's pattern ultimately remains inescapable and random. It certainly isn't handled with any depth or insight, as Fisher just gets silly as he goes crazier. At least it shakes stuff up a little bit. 

"Final Destination 5" did well at the box office, ending up as the second highest grossing entry in the series with a worldwide total of 157 million. You'd think that means we would have gotten way more sequels since then. Screenwriter Eric Heisserer – who eventually got an Oscar nomination for "Arrival" – notably said that it was getting harder to cook up new deaths for the series though, which might explain the hiatus that followed. Stuck as the final "Final Destination" for many years, the fifth installment stands as another highlight of the grisly and flippant franchise. It managed to deliver fans of these films exactly what they want, while managing to find some new ways to keep the increasingly wrung-out formula fresh. I don't know if it did for suspension bridges what "Final Destination 2" did for trucks carrying logs but it did add an extra intrusive thought any time I had to drive across a bridge. And isn't that what we watch cinema for, to make us more paranoid and uncomfortable in our daily lives? [7/10]

 

Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger (1977)
 

The always enchanting stop-motion creature effects of Ray Harryhausen made “The 7th Voyage of Sinbad” into a minor classic of the fantasy genre. It took him a decade and a half to get another film based on this highly franchisable mythological hero made. After “The Golden Voyage of Sinbad” became a box office success in 1973, Columbia decided not to waste any time on getting a follow-up into production. Sam Wanamaker, better known as a Shakespearean actor who had dabbled in directing up to that point, would lead the production. Since “Golden Voyage” wasn't truly a sequel to “7th Voyage,” there was no expectation to link the 1973 film to this newer installment. Patrick Wayne, son of John, would inherit the role of Sinbad the Sailor from John Phillip Law and Kerwin Matthews. No supporting characters, love interests, or cast members would return for “Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger.” The film had the misfortune of hitting theaters the same summer as “Star Wars,” being easily overshadowed by the pop culture phenomenon. It's still regarded as the weakest of the three “Sinbad” movies Harryhausen worked on but it does have some of his trademark monsters in it, barely justifying me including it in a horror marathon. 

Having forgotten the princess he was previously engaged to, Sinbad the Sailor arrives in the city of Charak to seek the hand of Princess Farah in marriage. Instead, he discovers that Prince Kassim, on the night he was to be crowned king, was turned into a baboon by Zenobia, the prince's evil stepmother and a powerful sorceress. Zenobia's plan is to keep Kassim an ape so that her son, Rafi, can inherit the throne. Farah encourages Sinbad and his crew to journey to the island of Casgar, where the great alchemist Malanthius lives. He points them in the direction of Hyperborea, a mythical land located far beyond the frozen north and full of fantastical technology. Malanthius and Dione, his beautiful daughter, join Sinbad on this journey. Zenobia and Rafi, their boat propelled by a eight foot tall golden robot minotaur, are in hot pursuit. Sinbad  and his friends will encounter many strange beasts and challenges on this quest. 

Harryhausen's previous “Sinbad” films had highly episodic plots, built around the simple premise of a hero journeying from one location to another. There were lots of stops along the way to encounter strange creatures and magical perils that could then be brought to life with Dynamation. Somehow, “Eye of the Tiger” manages to feel more like a series of set pieces than either of the earlier adventures. The plot truly is no more complicated than “we have to head to this location, to un-monkey the prince,” with the bad guys slightly following behind and trying to stop them. Malanthius and his daughter are easily recruited to Sinbad's cause, being convinced to help out largely because the sailor showed up. Much talk is made of the difficulties of navigating the arctic ice on the way to Hyperborea but no one seems to struggle with it that much. The threat of the prince's mind slowly being consumed by baboon instincts, his humanity being lost forever, is the only element truly adding any tension to the story. 

This is by design, naturally, in order to highlight Harryhausen's stop motion creations as the real stars of the show. Early in production, the decision was made that this Sinbad adventure would feature fewer fantastical creatures and more prehistorical critters. This, combined with what Ray himself would call a rushed production schedule, results in “Eye of the Tiger” not featuring the effects master's best work. That's not to say that there isn't some extremely impressive, eye-catching special effects here. The dinopithecus-like baboon is highly expressive, showing life-like movements and expressing a lot of emotion in its eyes. The oversized walrus is similarly impressive in how it moves. A hawk-sized wasp is probably the scariest threat in the film, an insect right out of a nightmare. However, the fact of the matter is that bigger versions of regular animals aren't as cool as the mythic beasties of the previous films. 

The Minoton is probably the most memorable creation in the film, the golden calf robot looking awfully cool. It also contributes little to the story, not doing much besides standing around and looking intimidating, disgracefully exiting the film before the climax. I like the horned troglodyte the crew befriends but it does look and feel a lot like a lesser descendant of the cyclops Harryhausen previously animated. The ghouls that are summoned up are clearly inspired by the skeletons and Selenites of Harryhausen's past hits. The saber-toothed tiger that appears at the end, and presumably provide the title, is a bit too fluffy and stiff to blow the viewer away. Disappointingly, these creations are paired with some deeply underwhelming photographic effects. The scene where the sorceress turns into a seagull features some truly crappy color distortion, while several moments inexplicably spotlight shitty rear projection work. 

Another factor holding “Eye of the Tiger” back is its leading man. This film was released the same summer as “The People That Time Forgot,” the two movies representing the brief period when Hollywood was trying to turn Patrick Wayne into a star. It's easy to see why the career of the Duke's second son never truly took of. He is utterly devoid of charisma, blankly delivering all of his dialogue and never having a single spark of chemistry with any of his co-stars. That is notably a problem, as the love story between Sinbad and Jane Seymour's Princess Farah already bordered on the non-existent. Taryn Power, also the child of Old Hollywood royalty, is lovely but only has a molecule more screen presence than her co-star. The fact that both actresses have a very brief nude scene in a G-rated kids' movie proves more notable than their acting. At least Margaret Whiting is a decent villainess and Patrick Troughton hams it up a little as the eccentric old Melanthius. 

Ray Harryhausen's stop motion marvels were utter works of art in their own way, few talents matching him in terms of imbuing little puppets with so much life and energy. It was also a style of visual effects inevitably linked to the past. “Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger” shares a cast member with “Star Wars.” Peter Mayhew, the very tall guy who filed Chewbacca's fur suit, also plays the Minoton any time it's not a stop-motion model. “Star Wars” would, of course, point towards the future of what could be achieved on-screen. Compared to that, “Eye of the Tiger” must have seemed antiquated. The other effects work in the film certainly did the comparison no favors. Hampered by a lumpy script and a blank leading man, this is easily the weakest of the “Sinbad” trilogy and probably the lamest movie Harryhausen was ever involved with. (I'll get back to you on that after I finally watch “The 3 Worlds of Gulliver.”) There's still some of that ol' Dynamotion magic in this one, as held back by other factors as it might be. [6/10]

Night Gallery: Green Fingers

Playing the Bride of Frankenstein turned Elsa Lanchester into an iconic image of horror but it didn't make her the female Boris Karloff. Later in her career, however, she got a few more spooky roles. Such as “Green Fingers,” a season two highlight of “Night Gallery.” Industrialist Michael Saunders has bought a massive plot of land for his next factory. The only hold-out, right in the middle, is little old lady Lydia Bowen. She refuses to part with her simple country cottage, no matter how high the asking price soars. Lydia is too invested in the garden she's planted, claiming she has “green fingers” and can make anything grow. When Saunders himself can't convince her, he hires a tough guy to threaten the woman into moving. The hit man breaks in and chops off her fingers, threatening to return and remove more each time. Lydia is rushed to the hospital and dies of shock shortly afterwards. Saunders is satisfied that the land is his now... But he didn't anticipate how literal Lydia was being when she said she could make anything buried in the soil grow. 

For this one, Rod Serling adapted an ironic, twisted little story by R.C. Cook into something more akin to an E.C. Comics horror story. This is a classical morality tale: Mr. Saunders only has eyes on expanding his empire, thinking money is the only thing that talks and everything else is the bullshit that walks. Lydia believes in something more than the dollar, frustrating and baffling the businessman to the point that he pays to have her wiped out. There's an ecological layer too. Saunders notes that his latest factory will feature multiple smoke stacks, presumably pumping polluting smug into the sky. Lydia notes that the construction team has already flattened a hill in the distance. She has an appreciation for the simple things, for the flowers and vegetables that grow out of the ground. The world of industry, concerned only with profit and indifferent to ruining the natural world, is brought low by those same simple green things in the soil. If only it worked that way more often in our world.

It's a nice story, though a fairly simple one. The idea of the hit man chopping off a little bit of the old lady, saying he'll come back for more, is a nice gruesome detail that could've been expanded on. However, “Green Fingers” is preoccupied with moving towards its fantastical climax. Saunders is merely driven mad by what he sees, not ending up in the ground himself, which separates this from the E.C. template, I guess. Such a direct story did need two strong performances to prop it up. Lanchester has a whimsical gleam in her eye as Ms. Bowen. Moreover, she delivers her lines about what she believes in with the proper amount of authority, like an especially stern but sweet grandmother. Cameron Mitchell adopts a fairly silly Southern accent as Saunders. I do like that the businessman gets a little more depth than necessary, clarifying that he had humble roots and got where he is by never taking no for an answer. Mitchell delivers the final line of the segment directly to the camera, which is a darkly funny and odd note to end on. [6/10]

 

 

The Addams Family: Morticia the Sculptress

After giving writing a try in the previous episode, Morticia is still feeling unfulfilled in her life as a mother and wife. She decides to pursue another creative endeavor: Picking up the hammer and chisel and carving rocks into sculptures. As you might expect, her art works are of an unusual nature. She starts to fill the Addams' home with big rocks in weird shapes, claiming each one represents an abstract concept. The critics are aghast but Gomez pays Sam Picasso – Grandmama's painting tutor from “Art and the Addams Family" – to buy the stones. As it did in the previous episode, Morticia's new hobby takes over her life, leaving her husband alone and increasingly frustrated. 

Yes, “Morticia the Sculptress” has almost the exact same structure as “Morticia the Writer.” Thankfully, this one doesn't have Gomez outright sabotaging his wife's new career. Instead, he simply begs her to give up something she enjoys and is passionate about so they can have more sex. He doesn't frame it that way exactly, though references to Morticia being “a lover” as her most important role and a husband being left “uncuddled” were probably still kind of spicy for 1965. Eventually, Morticia is dissuaded from being a full-time sculptress when her children make themselves chocolate fudge for a meal. I guess, as much as the Addams rejected the societal norms of the times, this was still a sixties sitcom. A woman staying out of the kitchen or the bedroom was still a cause for crisis. Her efforts to define herself by any other role were destined to be mocked. Don't worry, Morticia, second-wave feminism was right around the corner. 

All of that aside, this is still an amusing episode with less of a weird rhythm than “Morticia the Writer.” The gags are strong. The doorknob reacting in odd ways to new visitors is not among my favorite “Addams Family” running jokes but it pays off nicely here. Ted Cassidy gets some good moments, when Lurch is called upon to model for Morticia or work at a spinning stone. Gomez is so troubled throughout this episode that he doesn't immediately react to his wife calling him “bubbela,” which she points out. Glad to see the show was willing to play around with its own rules by this point. I don't know what the modern art scene looked like in 1965 but I can't imagine that the sculptures Morticia carves here – a smooth stone she calls “World War II,” a rocky formation that she names “Motherhood” – would be seen as especially bizarre or unorthodox at the time. She looks awfully cute in her little smock and askew beret though. I can't imagine her devoted husband being upset about that. [6/10]

Halloween 2025: September 9th

The Final Destination (2009)

At the end of the 2000s, technology had advanced to the point that Hollywood became convinced to give 3-D another shot. They try this about every thirty years but the gimmick had slowly been gaining traction throughout the decade, mostly through animated movies and specialty documentaries utilizing the format. The impending release of James Cameron's “Avatar” – which would, indeed, prove the viability of 3-D, at least for a while – promised to revolutionize the tech. The horror genre, always eager to exploit a fad, jumped on the trend first. A 3-D remake of “My Bloody Valentine” hit theaters that February. In August, a fourth “Final Destination” movie would also utilize the third dimension. The third installment had been conceived in 3-D before the idea was abandoned, meaning Death hurling objects directly at audiences had been on somebody's mind for a while. Confusingly entitled “The Final Destination,” David R. Ellis was invited back to make the sequel after James Wong got busy with “Dragonball: Evolution.” While the fourth “Destination” is generally considered a franchise low, I bet Wong still wishes he had stuck with this one instead.

“The Final Destination” commits to the Mad Libs-like narrative formula for the series. Nick O'Bannon slots into the protagonist role, as the person who gets a vision of a massive calamari that claims the life of him and his friends. This time, it's wreck debris from a NASCAR race flying into the stands and causing the raceway stadium to collapse. As before, he gets a select group – including his girlfriend Lori, her BFF Janet, and some other bozos – out right before disaster strikes. As always, soon the survivors begin to perish in hideously gory “freak accidents.” Death has been cheated and now is out for revenge but you know that already. Once more, our hero and his friends attempt to figure out the pattern to Death's design and see if it can be escaped before anymore of them die. Rinse and repeat. 

It's easy to imagine why a producer would look at the “Final Destination” movies up to this point and assume 3-D would be a good choice for the series. Part two's bouncing log, speeding out-of-control truck or falling plate of glass would have extended off the screen nicely, ya know? It's a sound idea but “The Final Destination” makes an unfortunate miscalculation. More often than not, the sequel uses some truly mediocre digital effects to complete the illusion. A guy falling backwards onto a protruding piece of wood or getting segmented when launched through a chain-link fence are clever ideas for gory executions. They are ruined by exceedingly awkward special effects that render the ideas unimpressive CGI glopola. In fact, the entire stadium collapse sequence is hampered by some deeply mediocre effects. The sequel ends in an orgy of computer generated explosions, further underwhelming the viewer. As you'd expect with a 3-D sequel, there's a lot of tedious eye-gouging as well. When paired with the subpar effects, it drains a lot of fun from the film.

As I said, “The Final Destination” is committed to the series' formulaic approach. What made “Final Destination 2” such a blast was how it subverted and misdirected what the audience expected. By part four though, however, we've figured this shit out. When a mother of two boys goes into a salon, the puddle on the floor, the swiveling chair, and the rickety ceiling fan above are obviously fake-outs for the real method of doom. Disappointingly, this is the only trick the sequel has. A busy garage presents lots of chances for Death to strike, most of which obviously won't be used. A random speeding bus is taken directly from the first movie, the series having begun to repeat itself. “The Final Destination” is lacking in the cleverness necessary to make these gore shows any fun. At one point, the sequel can't be bothered to try and catch us off-guard. Once a faulty pool pump is introduced, we know the jock-o meathead is getting sucked into it. 

Ellis' “Final Destination 2” rose above the pack thanks to the sneaky ways it made the characters more memorable than those in the original. The third film leaned on lazy cliches instead and suffered because of it. “The Final Destination” can't be bothered to go that far. The meat bags this time around are about as indistinct as they come. There's a virulent racist, unpleasant enough that you want to see him die. There's a girl-chasing bro with frosted tips, who is only slightly less annoying. Our hero and his girlfriend, played by equally blank Bobby Campo and Shantel VanSanten, have absolutely nothing to offer us. About the only character with any substance is an older black man who contemplates suicide as a way to escape the vindictive reaper. It doesn't work. Which the man would already know if he had watched “Final Destination 2!” 

The general feeling floating around “The Final Destination” is a lack of new ideas. Only four movies in and it feels like the series has wrung itself dry, having become too dependent on its own routine. This is truly annoying because the repetitive nature of this franchise actually does imply something more interesting: Where do the psychic premonitions that kick off these movies come from? Why are certain people chosen to have these visions, only to fall victim to horrifying incidents afterwards? To me, the conclusion is obvious. If we can assume “Death” is a magical entity able to feel cheated and engineer elaborate malfunctions, is it too far of a leap to guess that he puts these visions into people's heads too? The Grim Reaper of the “Final Destination” universe is obviously a sadistic son-of-a-bitch who enjoys fucking with people. An exploration of the exact nature of the series' villain is the kind of thing the fourth entry in a series should've gotten around to. But that would've been too interesting for “The Final Destination.”

Ultimately, the sequel has two things going for it. The last sequence in the mall features an especially nasty death, when someone is feed into an escalator. That's the kind of common anxiety horror movies like this are made to play off on. The sick humor that powered “Final Destination 2” is largely absent here. However, a sequence involving an overflowing therapy pool – which otherwise features the same crappy effects as the rest of the movie – ends with a shot that made me chuckle. Otherwise, the lack of creativity apparent in “The Final Destination's” title also shines through the entire production. Underwhelming CGI and a lame script too satisfied to repeat what came before results in the weakest entry in the series. A 3-D “Final Destination” movie was a good idea on paper but, when paired with a total lack of new ideas, it does nothing to elevate the sequel. Ya know what might've improved things, if just a little? Tony Todd growling some bullshit about Death's design. You can easily tell which entries in this series are the bad ones by the amount of screen time the distinguished thespian has. [4/10]

Hunchback of the Morgue (1972)
El jorobado de la morgue

Among the classic Monster Mash line-up, the hunchback is the archetype that puts in the fewest appearances in the modern day. It's easy to guess why. Referring to someone with, as Wikipedia puts it, “an abnormally excessive convex curvature of the spine in the thoracic and sacral regions” as a “monster” is, at best, very rude and, at worst, totally dehumanizing. On another level, a dude with a fucked-up back isn't an especially impressive “monster” anyway. A condition that can be improved with a brace or posture exercises isn't exactly akin to being a zombie or vampire. Such sensitivities had clearly not reached Spain circa 1972. That is when Paul Naschy, the country's home-grown horror icon, starred in “Hunchback of the Morgue.” The especially lurid U.S. poster carried the tagline “Beware The Hunchback! A freak of nature whose crimes go beyond your wildest terrors!” I don't see that one getting past civil liberty organizations these days. All of that aside, among devotees of Naschy, this one is usually considered one of his best films.

In a small Spanish village lives Wolfgang Gotho, a deformed and simple man who works in the morgue of the local hospital. Gotho is bullied and belittled by everyone in town. The only person who treats him with any kindness is Ilse, a sickly childhood friend in hospice care. He brings her flowers every day but, when she dies, Gotho's already limited grip on reality totally slips. He steals her body from the morgue, murders the two doctors in attendance, and hides the corpse in an underground torture chamber once used by the Inquisition. On the run from authorities, Gotho ends up in the employ of Dr. Orla, a biologist obsessed with creating life. After promising to bring Ilse back from the dead, Gotho becomes the doctor's faithful servant. He manipulates the increasingly murderous hunchback into providing him with fresh bodies to feed to the weird monster he's growing. When Orla starts commanding Gotho to kidnap girls from the local reformatory, his colleagues – including Elke, who sees Gotho's sensitive side – take notice and try to stop these mad experiments. 

As much as they were blatant exploitation flicks, Paul Naschy's monster movies have a direct line to the Universal classics because he always made sure his beasties had a sad, sympathetic side. This is perhaps most true of The Hunchback of the Morgue. Gotho seems reasonably intelligent in some scenes but, at other times, is unable to understand the concept of death. It is not his fault that his understanding of right and wrong is skewed. Aside from his hump, he doesn't look especially deformed. However, he is still relentlessly mocked and abused by everyone around him. (People call him a monkey a lot and I do not know why.) Naschy's sad, soulful eyes truly get a workout in this one. There are several moments when Gotho looks up at someone with a tear rolling down his cheek and they genuinely tugged at my heart strings. He's so misunderstood, you guys. I mean, he brings a sick girl flowers every day! He worships her, despite considering himself unworthy of her love. Any time a woman is kind to him, his default reaction is to kneel at their feet and kiss their toes. And in a sweet way, not a Tarantino way. 

Yes, Gotho the hunchback is a precious smol bean of a horror villain... Ya know, except for all the people he kills. The very first action the character takes is murdering Ilse's unfaithful boyfriend, dragging the drunk guy into the morgue, slashing his throat and dismembering him. This is not the only time the character has a violent outburst before his sweetheart dies. Often, “Hunchback of the Morgue” will stop everything else it's doing and devote a long scene to Naschy gorily killing people. There's decapitation, disemboweling, an iron maiden being used for its intended purpose, a smothering via a bouquet of flowers, and multiple bodies being dunked into a pool of acid. This is an European exploitation flick from the seventies, so “Hunchback of the Morgue” tempers its gore with women disrobing, taking showers, and being whipped. There's an up-skirt scene of a corpse, which is probably the tackiest moment in a fairly tacky motion picture. Because Naschy usually wrote his own films and clearly used them as vehicles for his own fantasies, the miserable wretch Gotho still ends up getting a love scene with one of these beautiful ladies. The inconsistencies in the treatment of the character, sympathetic and misunderstood one minute, utterly murderous the next, mostly play as camp. Save for the moment where Gotho gets pelted with some very real rats that are then set ablaze with some very real fire. I didn't like that.

The mixture of classic horror tropes and bloody, sleazy action causes “Hunchback of the Morgue” to play like a low budget emulation of the later, grislier Hammer movies. The locations certainly contribute to this feeling. Naschy waddles around several genuine crumbling old buildings and churches. The underground chamber features a rack, old timey torches, and a robed skeleton, looking like an Aurora Monster Scenes model kit blown up to actual size. As the film goes on, it reveals itself as essentially a “Frankenstein” variant where Igor is the main character. Except weirder than that, as Dr. Orla isn't merely stitching dead body parts together. No, he's growing an artificial life form in a vat, which takes the form of squirming organs in a glass bucket. In its latter half, the film falls into a repetitive structure of Gotho retrieving bodies to feed to this ravenous beast, the already loose plot starting to truly go into circles. At least it comes back together for a properly ludicrous finale, wherein the oddball monster slithers on-screen.

Like nearly all of Naschy's films, there is an undeniable sloppy quality to “Hunchback of the Morgue.” (If admittedly less mixed up than “Count Dracula's Great Love,” the next film Naschy would make with director Javier Aguirre.) The story feels a bit jumbled up. The characters do not always act with much rhyme or reason. Especially Dr. Orla, who goes from reasonable enough authority figure to mad scientist in the blink of an eye. The movie is also a bit slow at times, as its plot wanders around in search of an ending. However, it is all worth it for those scenes of Naschy gazing at the camera, conveying so much pain and loneliness with only his eyes and face. I enjoyed the cheesy but grimy gore effects too. This would certainly be a better movie with a larger budget, a less slapdash script, and the freedom to not conform to exploitation movie expectations. At the same time, there's a charm to the seams showing. As a fellow monster kid, I can do nothing but salute Naschy's goofy vision. [7/10]

Out of the Unknown: Tunnel Under the World

The history of British genre television is a rabbit hole onto itself. Here, let me show you: In 1956, ITV started airing “Armchair Theatre,” a program that showcased a different dramatic “television play” every week. The idea proved popular enough to spawn spin-offs, such as “Armchair Mystery Theatre” and science fiction centric “Out of This World.” The show-runner for the latter program would soon begin developing a similar series for the BBC, which became “Out of the Unknown.” Bringing this all up is almost a moot point. Owing to the British television practice of recording over old video tapes, most of these shows are lost forever. Only one episode of the Boris Karloff-hosted “Out of This World” is extant. Of the Donald Pleasence hosted “Armchair Mystery Threatre,” ten episodes survive as 16mm recordings but good luck finding any of them. The hostless “Out of the Unknown” is the most complete, with twenty and a half installments commercially available at the moment. Of these, season two episode “Tunnel Under the World” seems to be the most highly regarded. 

Office worker Guy Birkett is having reoccurring dreams about being caught in a factory explosions. His wife, Mary, is having the same dream too, the couple waking up unsettled every day. By the way, every day is April 15th, according to the newspaper and the radio broadcast Guy receives every morning. The days are otherwise different, with the couple being inundated with a barrage of different advertisements every morning. In the mail, from the radio, from people walking around, and from car-mounted speakers. Obnoxious commercials for inane products like soda pop, candy bars, and fancy freezers assail them all the time. Upon arriving at work, a nervous man named Swanson requests a meeting with Guy. He claims that he can explain the unnerving feeling Guy feels every day. Guy dismisses him as a nut. As he gets ready for bed one night, Guy discovers a metal flooring underneath the rug of his flat. He passes out in the closest and maintains his memories of the previous day, while his wife does not and the rest of the world seems to reset. Teaming up with Swanson, Guy attempts to get to the bottom of this apparent conspiracy... But he's not prepared for the bizarre answers he discovers. 

“Tunnel Under the World” is one of those narratives that play off common paranoid fantasies, except the characters here are totally justified in their beliefs. We, the viewer, see small cameras emerging from the walls of Guy's apartment, watching him. At night, strange men emerge from the floor and perform bizarre experiments on the sleeping populace. It's a potent nightmare, the idea that easily dismissed schizophrenic concerns are actually true. That “Tunnel Under the World” takes the form of a mystery, where the protagonist is slowly discovering the scope of this conspiracy, makes the idea more powerful. Maybe it's only me but I feel imagining your entire life has been an engineered lie, and stumbling upon evidence for this revelation, is a common intrusive thought. It's “The Truman Show” psychosis and “Tunnel Under the World” was exploiting the idea three full decades before “The Truman Show” came out.

Like “The Truman Show,” what makes this scenario far more insidious is that it's not the result of some grand, God-like entity playing with its creation. No, the evil force behind this betrayal of the basic rules of reality, of the privacy we all take for granted, is something much more down to Earth: Capitalism. From the opening minute, Guy is bombarded with extremely obnoxious commercial jingles. The hard-sell advertisements only get more intrusive as the hour goes on, until the command to buy, buy, buy is literally screamed at him from a loud speaker. In our modern world, we are similarly assaulted at all hours by the siren call of commercialism. Every video we watch, every screen we look at, every place we visit is covered with advertisements for products. It's gotten to the point where it's impossible to tell if we are watching a sincere expression of a thought or feeling or an ad. “Tunnel Under the World” was quite ahead of its time in exploring this fear, the idea that every facet of our lives is being directed and controlled by a pressure to buy, consume, spend and nothing else. 

Like all British science fiction shows from this era, “Out of the Unknown” has extremely modest production values. There's very little music and the story mostly takes place on a series of mundane sets. Ronald Hines' acting goes a bit over-the-top, as he plays out the role of a stuffy British man “what's-all-this-then”-ing at a series of increasingly improbable circumstances. In its last act, “Tunnel Under the World” throws in a number of sudden plot swerves that get more and more outlandish. Was it some kind of law that the BBC couldn't produce a show like this without including an extremely goofy looking little robot? The final reveal is the campiest one of them all. However, that doesn't stop the script from exploring some very potent and fascinating ideas. The final image is rather unsettling, reinforcing the idea that all of us are at the whims of forces outside our control. Good stuff, if you can handle the early “Dr. Who”-ness of it all. [7/10]

 

The Addams Family: Morticia, the Writer

Once again, Wednesday and Pugsley are used as catalyst for a plot that otherwise doesn't involve them much. The two kids come home with the books their school has provided them with, ordinary fairy tales that demonize giants and goblins. Outraged by the content, Morticia sets out to write her own children's literature. She is soon absorbed in her new hobby, spending days at a time cranking out Addams-ified takes on classic kids tales. Gomez grows despondent without his wife and sets out to sabotage her burgeoning career, by rewriting the books before sending them off to the publisher. Said publisher turns out to be a con artist, asking outrageous prices from gullible would-be authors to publish their manuscripts before running off with the cash. Which only complicates matters more. 

“Morticia, the Writer” is kind of a weird episode. First off, it is over-reliant on the established running gags of these series. Right from the get-go, the inciting incident recalls how the very first episode of the series kicks off. This is the second episode since the new season started to reference the adjustable echo effect in the cave and Cousin Cackle. Both the fire pole, Gomez' passion igniting when his wife speaks French, his Zen Yogi habit, and Uncle Fester threatening to shoot someone in the back with his blunderbuss all reappear here as well. The episode also gets a minor detail of the established genealogy wrong too. Gomez refers to Fester as an “in-law,” despite the “Morticia's Romance” two-parter recently establishing Fester as Gomez' uncle. Weirder yet, this episode was written by Hannibal Coons and Harry Winkler, the same team that wrote “Morticia's Romance!”

I can only conclude that the duo were having an off-day when they composed this one. When the characters aren't re-enacting bits from previous episodes, they are acting a bit out of character. The premise of Gomez being separated from Morticia for a while, and getting so horny for his wife, that he's pushed to desperate measure is funny. However, I can't see the guy betraying her trust by re-writing her work behind her back like this. That the episode allows him to get away with this without facing any consequences, never truly considering Morticia's feelings about this scheme at all, rubs me the wrong way. There's also two extremely odd jokes early on, where Morticia refers to herself as an “Indian giver” and Gomez has an unexpected reaction to considering telling his children about the “birds and the bees.” Not really sure how to interpret those two and I'd rather not consider the connotations. I did like the pun about Morticia seeking out “D. Press” to publish her book and Lurch tucking Gomez into bed after he falls asleep in a random spot. [5/10]