On the TV-movie side of the 1970s disaster film craze came this one about a runaway train, appropriately titled, Runaway! (1973.) The title comes with the exclamation point; I didn’t add it. It’s typical in every way, although its obligatory character drama is a little lighter than usual, focusing on fewer characters. Somehow, though, it…

She Cried Murder (1973) has a simple plot, but its surprises all happen up front, leaving nothing for the rest of the film except an extended game of cat and mouse. This gives the illusion that it’s either action-packed or suspenseful, but it’s neither. It is fast-moving, though, which means it isn’t boring. Depending on…

Satan’s School for Girls (1973) is probably a 1970s TV movie that people remember fondly. However, I’m willing to bet that a modern-day viewing will leave you at least a little disappointed. It’s such a product of its time and, while it does have some spooky moments, it doesn’t hold up very well overall. The…

Warning! This review contains spoilers! If not for its disappointing letdown of an ending, Dying Room Only (1973) would undoubtedly be one of the best 1970s TV movies I’ve watched during the series so far. It’s The Twilight Zone feel for 99% of the running time is not surprising considered it was written by Richard…

With Terror on the Beach (1973), we’ve arrived at a point where one of these 1970s TV movies feels like a compilation of several others. I’d call it a sort of “greatest hits,” but that’s the wrong term for this particular movie, which isn’t really very good. With both its cast and storylines, it borrows…

As a special treat this week, I present another excerpt from a feature I wrote for the upcoming We Belong Dead publication, Masters of Terror. In it, I discuss the influence of gothic literature on Dan Curtis and how it was reflected in a number of 1970s TV horror films that he produced, as well…

Director Jeannot Szwarc has a style that always seems “slow” to me. For example, among their other flaws, his big-screen efforts like Jaws 2 (1978) and Supergirl (1984) are just a little too long and sluggish for me. I love Somewhere in Time (1980), but nobody is going to call it a fast-moving film. One…

Astronaut Neil Stryker (Glenn Corbett) awakens in a hospital bed following a tumble through space when a failure in his ship’s “transponder” prevents him and his two crew members from identifying their trajectory. He learns he’s been isolated there for two weeks and that his companions died during the accident. With a title like, The…

Dan Curtis has always used and re-used plot elements and stories among his various productions; however, few have been as evident as those recycled in The Norliss Tapes, which aired on NBC just over a month after The Night Strangler aired on ABC. David Norliss (Roy Thinnes) is a copy of Carl Kolchak (Darren McGavin)…

Sometimes the more outlandish the concept, the more entertaining a movie can be. It’s The Exorcist (nearly a year before it was released) meets Airport (three years after it was released) in a TV movie directed by the man who would later make The Concorde: Airport ’79, David Lowell Rich. Some may find that it…