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…

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,…

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…

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…

If all the failed supernatural television pilots had instead received a green light, the 1970s would have been a remarkable era for the genre. As it is, it’s remarkable for the number of supernatural TV “movies.” Here, we have another, The Possessed (1977), about an ex-minister charged by God him/herself to seek out evil and…

Because Paramount+ slapped a new logo on a new thumbnail image for Snowbeast (1977), I thought the streaming service might be offering a nice, crisp transfer of the film. I was surprised and disappointed that, when I watched it, the quality wasn’t any better than many of the other 1970s TV movies that I’ve found…

McCloud Meets Dracula (1977) is technically the final episode of the television series, McCloud, which originally aired on NBC for seven years beginning with its pilot, Portrait of a Dead Girl, on February 17, 1970. However, since all but the first six episodes ranged from 90-minutess to two-hours on rotation with McMillan & Wife and…

Airing almost exactly two years after Trilogy of Terror, Dan Curtis and Richard Matheson reunited for another anthology, Dead of Night (1977.) Nothing matches the former’s third story, Amelia, but the latter’s third story, Bobby, might come close. It’s the other two stories of Dead of Night that I like a little bit better than…

Man, oh, man, I wanted to like this movie! The Strange Possession of Mrs. Oliver (1977) stars Karen Black. It was written by Richard Matheson. It was directed by Gordon Hessler. (If you’re unfamiliar with any one of those names, just peruse any number of previous reviews on this website.) Despite its credentials, it commits…

We’ve seen a lot of all-star casts in these 70s TV movies (as well as the big screen disaster films of the 70s.) Truly, I think SST: Death Flight (1977) has the most all-star cast of all of them. The difference is, though, that many of the familiar actors have bit parts. They don’t each…