Blog


  • Halloween with the New Addams Family (1977)

    Why in the world would you watch Halloween with the New Addams Family (1977) when you have a perfectly good episode of the original series (Halloween with the Addams Family) that’s at least three times as good? A better question might be why in the world would you make Halloween with the New Addams Family?

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  • The Devil & Daniel Webster (1941)

    aka All That Money Can Buy The Devil & Daniel Webster (1941) evokes It’s a Wonderful Life (1946) for me. Both are about men who make unfortunate decisions but discover the error of their ways and are given an opportunity to return to their original lives. Also, both save the climactic resolutions for a few

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  • The Night They Took Miss Beautiful (1977)

    At first evoking such previous 1970s TV-movies such as The President’s Plane is Missing (1973,) The Disappearance of Flight 412 (1974,) and Mayday at 40,000 Feet (1976,) The Night They Took Miss Beautiful (1977) doesn’t seem to offer much in the way of originality. However, by adding a layer of satire about beauty pageants, it

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  • Curse of the Black Widow (1977)

    Another week, another… wait a minute… Curse of the Black Widow (1977) was not a failed television pilot. However, it was another 1970s TV movie about a skeptical character investigating the supernatural. Here, Mark Higbie (Anthony Franciosa) is not a reporter, an author, or a parapsychologist. He’s just a simple private investigator. He’s hired by

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  • The Woman in the Window (1944)

    Midway through his directing career, Fritz Lang is still going strong with The Woman in the Window (1944,) a nearly two-hour noir that speeds along as if it’s half the length. Not a horror film in any sense of the word, it nevertheless generates suspense that’s palpable. With Lang directing and Joan Bennett (Dark Shadows)

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  • Good Against Evil (1977)

    Good Against Evil (1977)

    Another week, another failed TV pilot, another plot about fighting supernatural forces. Good Against Evil (1977) has one thing original about it, though. With its open-ended conclusion, it seems this would have offered a continuing storyline instead of a generic monster of the week structure. This doesn’t make it any better than the others, though,

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  • The Chosen (1977) aka Holocaust 2000

    For years, I’ve vividly remembered a movie in which a car was driving down a lonely highway and the giant electrical towers along the road changed back and forth to and from demons. Maybe there was lightning when the demons were revealed, or maybe there were just flashes of light as they appeared and then

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  • Spectre (1977)

    Spectre (1977)

    Four days before Star Wars opened in theaters to eventually change the landscape of genre film and television forever, NBC broadcast Spectre (1977.) The timing is coincidental, yet appropriate, because, just as monsters and horror were about to move to the back seat and let spaceships and science-fiction drive, Spectre feels like the end of

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  • Red Alert (1977)

    Red Alert (1977)

    Movies take place in the land of make-believe. It’s not uncommon that we must suspend our disbelief so we can enjoy the experience. It may help that I don’t know how a nuclear power plant worked in the mid-1970s, or how advanced computers were at the time; but I thought Red Alert (1977) was surprisingly

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  • Phantasm II (1988)

    Phantasm II (1988)

    Warning! This review contains spoilers… When I think of big Hollywood studio sequels to innovative independent films, I think of Halloween II (1981.) Like it, Phantasm II (1988) delivers more of the same thing as its predecessor, just more polished and shinier. Both make valiant attempts to continue their stories, yet just miss on the

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