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It’s the Halloween season, so let’s watch season one of Friday the 13th: The Series.

“Lewis Vendredi made a deal with the devil to sell cursed antiques. But he broke the pact, and it cost him his soul. Now, his niece Micki, and her cousin Ryan have inherited the store… and with it, the curse. Now, they must get everything back, and the real terror begins.”

Seems like every ‘80s genre show eventually did a Chinatown episode, and episode sixteen, “Tattoo,” if F13’s turn.

Inktober.

The villain this week is Chen, an obsessive gambler with a box of cursed tattoo needles. He gives his victims a tattoo that comes to life and kills them, an in exchange he wins big at gambling. He says he’s doing all this to help his sister and his grandfather, but his grandfather doesn’t approve.

Micki, Ryan and Jack investigate, running afoul of both Chen and some local gangster suspicious of Chen’s winning ways. The gangsters rope Chen into a game of Russian roulette, so, in desperation, he tattoos a snake onto his sister. Jack saves the sister, and Chen loses it all (as in, his life.)

Generation gap.

When the show is smart: Upon this rewatch, I found myself invested in the grandfather/grandson old-world-versus-new-world conflict. Misguided Chen thinks he’s doing the right thing, and grandfather is frustrated when Chen won’t listen to reason.

When the show is cheesy: It’s Chinatown, so of course there are Chinese trappings all around, but one scene with fireworks going off to stop our heroes is really, really pushing it.

Gangsta.

Devilish dialogue: Grandfather: “I don’t want money that shames me. I want a grandson I can be proud of.” Chen: “This is America. Everybody wants money. People here don’t ask you where you got your money from. They just want to know that you’ve got it.”

Trivia tidbits:

– The grandfather is played by the great Keye Luke, who brought out the best in any line of dialogue he was ever given.

Long live the new flesh.

Back in the vault: Not the show at its best, but still an interesting one with some really good scenes.

Next: Where’s Horace Pinker when we need him?

****

Want more? Check out my book, CINE HIGH, now available for the Kindle and the free Kindle app.

It’s the Halloween season, so let’s watch season one of Friday the 13th: The Series.

“Lewis Vendredi made a deal with the devil to sell cursed antiques. But he broke the pact, and it cost him his soul. Now, his niece Micki, and her cousin Ryan have inherited the store… and with it, the curse. Now, they must get everything back, and the real terror begins.”

We’re going to back to high school in episode fifteen, “Vanity’s Mirror.”

Our villain (antihero?) is Helen, a mousy, awkward teen girl whose hot sister is super-popular with a handsome boyfriend. She gets ahold of a cursed compact mirror. When she reflects light into someone’s eyes, that someone falls madly in love with her. She does this to seduce the boys bullying her, and then she takes bloody revenge on them.

Gotcha!

While Micki and Ryan investigate, Helen seduces and kills her way through two more of her former bullies, including running one boy through a table saw in the school’s woodshop. Helen also almost kills Ryan, sending him falling over a railing when he confronts her. It all builds to the school prom (of course) where Helen finally puts the magic on her sister’s boyfriend.

Gore fest.

Micki and a newly-recovered Ryan confront Helen at the prom, telling her that the killings won’t end, even after she’s already gotten everything she wants. Helen and the boyfriend flee to the roof. With nowhere else to escape, she and the boyfriend jump to their deaths. It’s a crushing blow for our heroes — not only did they not save the day, but they don’t get the mirror back at the end. The episode ends with Micki worrying about how many more people it will kill, followed by a shot of an unknown person’s hand finding the mirror in some bushes outside the school.

Uh-oh.

When the show is smart: Helen readies herself for the prom without really knowing how to. The result is misapplied makeup, huge hair, and an out-of-fashion dress. This results in a fully-formed “slasher movie villain” look.

“I’m ready for my Prom Night sequel now.”

When the show is cheesy: Yes, a lot of this is ridiculous and could be nitpicked to death, but we’re in full-on ‘80s teen horror here, so the cheesy bits only add to the fun.

Devilish dialogue: Helen: “Do you love me… until the day you die?”

Trivia tidbits:

– A line of dialogue states that Micki, Ryan and Jack have recovered 23 of the cursed antiques by this point, which is just short of 10 percent of the ones listed in Uncle Lewis’ manifest.

– One of the bullies who torments Helen is played by Zack Ward, a.k.a. Scott Farkus from A Christmas Story. He had yellow eyes. So help me God, yellow eyes!

Lovers’ leap.

Back in the vault: Not only does this feel like a classic slasher flick, but it has a great sympathetic villain, and an ending that completely subverts viewers’ expectations. It’s one of the show’s finest hours.

Next week: The real ink master.

****

Want more? Check out my book, CINE HIGH, now available for the Kindle and the free Kindle app.

It’s the Halloween season, so let’s watch season one of Friday the 13th: The Series.

“Lewis Vendredi made a deal with the devil to sell cursed antiques. But he broke the pact, and it cost him his soul. Now, his niece Micki, and her cousin Ryan have inherited the store… and with it, the curse. Now, they must get everything back, and the real terror begins.”

Episode fourteen, “Bedazzled,” is what TV folks call a bottle episode, taking place mostly on the regular sets. The creators still find room for lots of horror goodness, though.

Shine a light.

This week we’re dealing with a cursed lantern. Its light burns people to a crisp, and then it shows its owner, a fisherman named Jonah, where undersea treasure is buried. The episode begins where most end, in which Ryan and Jack get the lantern away from its owner in a life-or-death fight. Back at the store, Ryan and Jack leave for an astrologer’s conference (is that a thing?) and Micki is babysitting a friend’s kid, Richie, in the store. Jonah and an accomplice named Tom break into the store. They hold Micki and Richie hostage, demanding Micki return the lantern.

Proprietor.

While Micki tries to escape and then outwit her captors, a cop stops by the store, The cop shoots Tom and is killed by Jonah. Micki affixes a wire to the lamp, electrocuting Jonah. He’s not done yet, though. He turns the lamp on Micki, only for her to reflect its light back on him, burning him to death. When Ryan and Jack return the next day, only Micki and Richie have any knowledge of what happened that night in the store.

Matching wits.

When the show is smart: One thing that makes the show so entertaining is that it can be a different horror subgenre every week. This time it’s the home invasion/hostage drama thing. Confined to only three rooms, Micki and the villains play out a psychological cat-and-mouse game.

When the show is cheesy: I’m at a loss as to what the little kid, Richie, is even doing here. I guess it’s to add an extra element of danger — we know series regular Micki won’t die, but what about the kid? Still, this would pretty much be the exact same plot without him.

Railing kill.

Devilish dialogue: Jonah: “I want you tell us how to get into that vault.” Micki: “I don’t know how.” Jonah: “Maybe I’ll shed a little… light on the subject.”

Trivia tidbits:

– This episode was directed by TV veteran Alexander Singer. Although most well-known for his work on Star Trek: The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, and Voyager, his directing credits span the ‘60s through the ‘90s.

Burning up.

Back in the vault: I enjoy this show for its creativity, and how the writers kept trying new ideas, never wanting to repeat themselves. “Bedazzled” stands out, just because there’s not another episode like it.

Next week: High school is hell.

****

Want more? Check out my book, CINE HIGH, now available for the Kindle and the free Kindle app.

It’s the Halloween season, so let’s watch season one of Friday the 13th: The Series.

“Lewis Vendredi made a deal with the devil to sell cursed antiques. But he broke the pact, and it cost him his soul. Now, his niece Micki, and her cousin Ryan have inherited the store… and with it, the curse. Now, they must get everything back, and the real terror begins.”

Episode thirteen, “The Baron’s Bride,” isn’t just the vampire episode, it’s the vampire time travel episode.

Real es-stake sign.

Micki, Ryan and Jack are on the hunt for an antique cape that makes its wearer irresistible to the opposite sex. At the same time, a man named Frank is renting a room from a creepy woman and finds the cape in her house. The woman is a vampire, who bites him and automatically turns him into a vampire. Ryan kills the female vampire by staking her with a real estate sign. Frank fights Micki and Ryan, only to put Micki under his spell. Blood gets spilled on the cape, which somehow transports Micki, Ryan and Frank back in time to London, 1875 — depicted in shadowy black and white.

Ta-DAH!

Frank runs off into the night. Micki and Ryan befriend a couple of helpful strangers, Abraham and Caitlin, who give them a place to stay. Frank kills some folk out in the streets and ends up on the run from a torch-wielding mob. He hides out inside a warehouse. Micki is still under Frank’s spell and she and Frank are magically drawn to each other. Frank kills Caitlin and runs off with Micki. A heartbroken Abraham then kills Frank for revenge.

That ol’ London fog.

Micki and Ryan each place a drop of blood on the cape, which time-travels them back to the present. Jack deduces that Abraham is none other than writer Bram Stoker, who dedicated his novel Dracula to his dead love Caitlin.

When the show is smart: Most genre shows eventually do a black and white episode to mix things up. (My personal favorite is “Post-Modern Prometheus” from The X-Files.) With his mostly wordless performance, our vampire Frank is an amalgam of many classic Universal monsters, showing characteristics of Dracula, Frankenstein, and the Wolf Man in any given scene.

Mesmerized.

When the show is cheesy: The plot doesn’t hold up to much scrutiny. Is the cape somehow necessitated by vampirism, or is just coincidence that a vampire happens to own it? Also, the cape time-travels when you get blood on it, but how do our heroes know that getting blood on it a second time takes them back where they started? They’re lucky they didn’t end up in ancient Rome or some crap.

Devilish dialogue: Ryan: “You guys didn’t live together before you got married?” Abraham: “Heaven forbid! I never heard the likes of that.” Caitlin: “And do they do such things in America?” Ryan: “Well, sometimes couples live together before they get married. Sort of like a test.” Caitlin: “You do have some strange customs in America.”

Trivia tidbits:

– This episode was foreshadowed in the previous one, where Micki had a line of dialogue about investigating a mysterious cape.

– There are a lot of gaps in Bram Stoker’s real-life history, but I don’t see any indication he was once engaged to a human named Caitlin. At age 31, Stoker married Florence Balcombe, and they stayed married until his death. I don’t own a copy of the novel Dracula, but the internet informs me that the dedication is not to a Caitlin, but to “my dear friend Hommy-Beg” in reference to Stoker’s friend Hall Caine.

“No, I’m Milli Vanilli. Of course I’m Dracula!”

Back in the vault: It might have plot holes, but it’s still a fun episode, and a nice tribute/throwback to classic horror. By now, the main characters are seasoned monster fighters, so they can take things like vampires and time travel in stride, so I suppose the audience should as well.

Next: Somewhere… beyond the sea…

****

Want more? Check out my book, CINE HIGH, now available for the Kindle and the free Kindle app.

It’s the Halloween season, so let’s watch season one of Friday the 13th: The Series.

“Lewis Vendredi made a deal with the devil to sell cursed antiques. But he broke the pact, and it cost him his soul. Now, his niece Micki, and her cousin Ryan have inherited the store… and with it, the curse. Now, they must get everything back, and the real terror begins.”

Episode thirteen, “Faith Healer,” is… directed by David Cronenberg!

Just in case you don’t believe me.

This time, the evil antique is a white glove, used by a popular TV faith healer, Stewart Fischoff. When he miraculously cures someone, the ailment is transferred to him, which he then can transfer to one of his victims. Micki, Ryan and Jack see the glove on television and quickly put the pieces together. They recruit help, Jack’s old friend Jerry, who is a lifelong debunker of the paranormal and had spent years exposing Fishoff as a fraud.

Glove of non-love.

It turns out Jerry is not interested in helping. He’s come down with a fatal disease (causing black growths all over his skin) and he wants the glove’s healing powers for himself. Armed with a gun, Jerry threatens and eventually shoots his way to a confrontation with Fishoff. Fishoff heals himself of his gunshot wound, only or Jerry to get the glove and reverse-heal the wounds back into Fishoff (this is messed up). Jerry tries to give Jack his fatal disease, but in the final fight, Jack forces Jerry to touch his own face, causing Jerry to die.

Gross.

Back at the store, Jack loses his cool, overwhelmed by his friend’s death and by all the other death and horror he’s seen. He and Micki fight about it, until Ryan reminds them that they’re not alone, they have each other.

When the show is smart: This was Cronenberg’s follow-up to The Fly, which had just debuted at number one at the box office. He’s in classic Cronenbergian body horror mode, all about disease eating people away from the inside, and how desperate and unhinged it makes them.

When the show is cheesy: The episode’s powerful, dramatic ending is undercut with a hokey gag about Ryan having a cold. Yes, it sticks to the episode’s theme, but it’s nonetheless the customary-joke-to-end-the-episode trope that was part of genre TV for far too long.

I love that the store has a wall of creepy masks.

Devilish dialogue: Jack: “I’ve known Jerry all my life. He’s my friend. He just tried to kill me. Wonderful, isn’t it? Wonderful all the things my friends have done for me. There’s Jerry, who tries to get me infected with that damn disease. And then good old Lewis. He takes all the wonderful things that I brought him here and he lets them be cursed by the devil so I have to run around for the rest of my life trying to get them back?”

Trivia tidbits:

– We learn Jack is a former merchant marine, where he collected magic artifacts while traveling the globe. Later episodes will establish that he served during World War II.

– How’d they get Cronenberg? According to Alyse Wax’s excellent book Curious Goods: Behind the Scenes of Friday the 13th: The Series, Cronenberg and executive producer Frank Mancuso were good friends, so it was a no-brainer.

Gross, part 2.

Back in the vault: It’s to no one’s surprise that Cronenberg offers one of the show’s gooiest, slimiest episodes, but he also teases out some great performances, with the regular cast feeling like a real family suffering genuine heartache, and the villains being truly vile.

Next: Monocrhome or go home.

****

Want more? Check out my book, CINE HIGH, now available for the Kindle and the free Kindle app.

It’s the Halloween season, so let’s watch season one of Friday the 13th: The Series.

“Lewis Vendredi made a deal with the devil to sell cursed antiques. But he broke the pact, and it cost him his soul. Now, his niece Micki, and her cousin Ryan have inherited the store… and with it, the curse. Now, they must get everything back, and the real terror begins.”

Things are going to get bloody in episode twelve, “Scarecrow.”

Micki and Ryan road-trip out to farm country in search of an antique scarecrow. They befriend a local innkeeper, Marge, while discovering that this town has a history of rival families, dying crops, and violent incidents. Ryan also pals around with a local kid, and we learn Ryan’s brother died when they were both children.

Knock, knock.

The scarecrow is of course coming to life and beheading folks, as revenge/sacrifice in exchange for one farm’s crops growing better than others. The scarecrow’s owner is Marge, who shows she doesn’t need a killer scarecrow by revealing herself to be a bona fide knife-wielding maniac. Micki, Ryan, and the little kid almost die in the final confrontation, until the scarecrow turns on its owner, killing Marge.

Scarecrow killah.

When the show is smart: The actual scarecrow is a wonderfully ghoulish creation, perhaps an attempt to draw in the Jason Voorhees fans, but still distinct enough to have a look and even a personality of its own. Also, this episode is a big example of the “too-gory-for-TV” controversy, with bloody severed heads shown on screen.

Crow T. Robot.

When the show is cheesy: For a “scarecrow comes to life and kills you” premise, the plot gets needlessly complicated, with feuding families, troubled kids, and a townwide conspiracy that may or may not involve the local cops. It all starts to get in the way of the killer scarecrow action.

Devilish dialogue: The episode ends on an ominous note, when Micki asks, “You know, there’s one thing still nagging at me. That scarecrow. After it killed all those people, what did it do with the heads?” (The question goes unanswered.)

“I’ll never go hungry again.”

Trivia tidbits:

– Jack is again absent this week. We’re told he’s traveling while in search of the Icarus Feather, another of the series’ untold tales.

– What did happen to the heads? According to Alyse Wax’s excellent book Curious Goods: Behind the Scenes of Friday the 13th: The Series, different folks working on the episode had different ideas as to what happened to the heads, each more disturbing than the next. It appears that none were filmed, though.

Vacation wear.

Back in the vault: An incredibly fun episode, with a memorable monster and some genuine thrills. The script has some clunkier parts to it, but the good far outweighs the bad.

Next: Not quite Brundlefly.

****

Want more? Check out my book, CINE HIGH, now available for the Kindle and the free Kindle app.

It’s the Halloween season, so let’s watch season one of Friday the 13th: The Series.

“Lewis Vendredi made a deal with the devil to sell cursed antiques. But he broke the pact, and it cost him his soul. Now, his niece Micki, and her cousin Ryan have inherited the store… and with it, the curse. Now, they must get everything back, and the real terror begins.”

We’re watching Friday the 13th… on Friday the 13th! And episode ten is the comic book episode, “Tales of the Undead,” so the show’s talking my language.

Not bagged and boarded? Shame.

On Ryan’s weekly visit to the comic book store, the local comic book guy (pre-dating the one from The Simpsons by several years) shows off a rare, valuable comic on display, Tales of the Undead #1, the first appearance of Ryan’s favorite superhero Ferrus the Invincible. Some creepy thug then steals the comic, which brings Ferrus to life. Ferrus (an Iron Man type) trashes the store and kills the comic book guy.

Just go ahead and make all your own Simpsons Comic Book Guy quotes without me.

Ryan tracks the comic back to its former owner, Jay Star, the artist who created Ferrus back in the 1940s. He says others took his creation and made millions from it, leaving him with nothing. We then follow Star as he tracks down the thug and tries to take back the comic. The thug transforms into Ferrus, but Star kills Ferrus with a lightbolt-shaped award he owns. Star then proceeds to use Ferrus and take revenge on the rich publishers who screwed him over back in the day.

It’s alive!

Ryan and Micki eventually deduce that Star is Ferrus, finding an unpublished “Death of Ferrus” comic along the way. This informs them that the lightning award is the only thing that can kill Ferrus. Ryan does just that, stabbing Ferrus with the award during the final fight at Star’s home. As Star dies, he asks Ryan, “How does it feel to be the hero?”

When the show is smart: Star’s real name is Jacob Starinksi, a reference to comic book artist Jack Kirby, who was born Jacob Kurtzberg. The episode references all the old-school comic creators whose work was taken from them by publishers.

When the show is cheesy: The gimmick is that transformation scenes are depicted via a series of comic book panels on screen. One could argue that the artwork isn’t the best.  Similarly, I go back and forth on whether the Ferrus robot costume is cool or goofy.

Graphic novel.

Devilish dialogue: Ryan: “When you’re a kid, the whole world doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. I mean, you’re either too little or too young. You’re not treated as a human. Everybody can kick you around any way they want to. But then you pick up a comic book, and they got these heroes in there that nobody can kick around. They can just do anything, you know? So you buy a comic, you read it, and you’re the hero.”

Trivia tidbits:

– Jack doesn’t appear in this episode. We’re told he’s in Singapore, but we’re not told why. Was he in search of yet another antique from the store?

Ferrus the not-so-invincible.

Back in the vault: A fun episode, more an old-timey monster movie than it is a slasher. All the comic book takes for some great novelty as well. Remember that in 1987, it was extremely rare to have superheroes/comics on screen, so we had to take what we got.

Next: If I only had a brain.

****

Want more? Check out my book, CINE HIGH, now available for the Kindle and the free Kindle app.

It’s the Halloween season, so let’s watch season one of Friday the 13th: The Series.

“Lewis Vendredi made a deal with the devil to sell cursed antiques. But he broke the pact, and it cost him his soul. Now, his niece Micki, and her cousin Ryan have inherited the store… and with it, the curse. Now, they must get everything back, and the real terror begins.”

In episode nine, “The Root of All Evil,” our heroes face not just a killer, but a personal crisis as well.

Micki, Ryan, and Jack are in search of a 50-year-old garden mulcher which a lowly gardener is using to kill the rich folk he works for. The mulcher turns people into money — the more you’re worth, the more $100 bills the mulcher produces as it chews you up. That’s not the only crisis happening, though. Micki’s fiancée Lloyd is coming for a visit, concerned about what she’s up to and the real reason she’s postponed their wedding.

Happy to see you.

While our heroes investigate, the gardener keeps killing his way up the social ladder, “making” more and more money. (Heh, “making” money.) Micki takes Lloyd down the vault and tells him everything — Uncle Lewis, the cursed antiques, the Devil, all of it. He doesn’t believe her at first, but eventually comes around. Micki decides to leave the store and go back home with Lloyd.

Engaged to be engaged.

While searching for the mulcher, Ryan is knocked out and the evil gardener abducts him. When Micki shows up to say one last goodbye, she learns Ryan is in danger and helps Jack search for him, much to Lloyd’s frustration. During the final confrontation, the gardener is the one who ends up in the mulcher. Instead of money, all the mulcher produces is good old-fashioned blood. “I guess he wasn’t even worth a dollar,” Jack says. Micki and Lloyd decide to call it quits, and Ryan hangs a “Welcome Home Micki” banner inside to cheer her up.

When the show is smart: The murders are simple but effectively creepy. We see bodies slowly slide into the mulcher, with the actual human-mulching left to the imagination.

Get mulched.

When the show is cheesy: When we’re reintroduced to Lloyd, he’s sneaking through Micki’s bedroom window at night. Later, he’s found hiding under a counter in the store. He never came back, but if he had, would it have been as an evil stalker type?

Devilish Dialogue: Ryan: “I’m starting to feel like Ryan the Lion, P.I.”

Never show your vault to your boyfriend.

Trivia tidbits:

– When Micki shows Lloyd the vault, she points out cursed antiques whose stories the audience doesn’t get, including a statue that turns people blind and a lamp that burns down houses. The killer doll from the first episode is down there, too, and at one point it spring to life and looks at Micki.

– The evil gardener is played by Enrico Colatoni, a TV veteran best known for playing the dad on Veronica Mars.

Veronica Mars never had to fight demonic antiques. (That I know of.)

Back in the vault: It’s not often the show gives us a look at the characters’ lives outside of the store, so all this character development for Micki is great, showing us just how far she’s come in just a few episodes. The “evil gardener” business is just gravy. Bloody, bloody gravy.

Next: No groaning in my store.

****

Want more? Check out my book, CINE HIGH, now available for the Kindle and the free Kindle app.

It’s the Halloween season, so let’s watch season one of Friday the 13th: The Series.

“Lewis Vendredi made a deal with the devil to sell cursed antiques. But he broke the pact, and it cost him his soul. Now, his niece Micki, and her cousin Ryan have inherited the store… and with it, the curse. Now, they must get everything back, and the real terror begins.”

In episode eight, “Shadow Boxer,” one of our heroes goes to dark extremes to save the day.

Put up your shadow dukes.

A wannabe boxer gets a hold of cursed antique boxing gloves, which give him superhuman strength and speed in the boxing ring. In exchange, a shadowy figure — yes, a literal “shadow boxer” — appears elsewhere in the city and beats a random person to death. Micki, Ryan, and Jack investigate, easily deducing that Dunn, this disgruntled jerk boxer, is the culprit. The shadow attacks Micki while Dunn stops Ryan and Jack from stealing the gloves. Micki discovers her camera’s flash can hurt the shadow, so our heroes use a floodlight and car headlights to fade the shadow out of existence, allowing them to steal the gloves.

Shine a light.

Most episode of this show would end at this point, but not this one. Dunn shows up that night at the antique store, holding Micki at knifepoint, demanding the gloves back. Ryan does this unthinkable and actually puts on the gloves himself. He immediately becomes EVIL RYAN, beating the crap out of Jack while the shadow beats up Dunn. Micki calms him down and takes off the gloves. The closing scene has Dunn’s death ruled an accident, and a bruised and beaten Jack forgiving Ryan.

When the show is smart: The idea here is that to show if our heroes ever use the cursed antiques themselves, they’ll become just as murderous as the villains. You could argue that they go overboard by having Ryan go super-evil the second he wears the gloves, but the point is made nonetheless.

When good guys go bad.

When the show is cheesy: I get that the prop department wants to make the antiques look creepy, but putting the words “killer” on the gloves might be a bit much.

Devilish dialogue: Jack: What she’s talking about is justice, and what you’re talking about is law. The second-oldest problem, Ryan. When your ideals outstrip your realities.” Ryan: “What’s the oldest?”

Trivia tidbits:

– Add lockpicking to Jack’s skills in this episode. He says he learned lockpicking from an old friend who is now in prison.

– Ryan says he traded his copy of Green Lantern #3 at the photo place in exchange for the photo guy developing Micki’s pics of the shadow boxer overnight. Green Lantern #3 (first volume) was published in 1942, and had the Alan Scott Green Lantern fighting Nazis, and meeting both Adolph Hitler and Winston Churchill.

Back in the vault: I’d always thought of this one as inconsequential, but I really enjoyed it upon this rewatch. The fight with the shadow boxer is fun monster movie stuff, and it’s impressive how dark the show is willing to go during the finale. Great stuff.

Next: Ever seen Fargo?

****

Want more? Check out my book, CINE HIGH, now available for the Kindle and the free Kindle app.

It’s the Halloween season, so let’s watch season one of Friday the 13th: The Series.

“Lewis Vendredi made a deal with the devil to sell cursed antiques. But he broke the pact, and it cost him his soul. Now, his niece Micki, and her cousin Ryan have inherited the store… and with it, the curse. Now, they must get everything back, and the real terror begins.”

In episode seven, we’re going back to the franchise’s slasher movie roots, with “Doctor Jack.”

Someone is killing people in the city streets with a scalpel that can cut through brick and steel as well as it slices people. Micki, Ryan and Jack track the scalpel to Dr. Howlett, a renowned surgeon, who can miraculously save lives on the operating table. The more people he kills in back alleys, the more skilled he becomes as a surgeon. Also, the scalpel is rumored to have once been owned by Jack the Ripper, so there’s that.

The doctor will see you now.

Micki, Ryan and Jack not-very-convincingly pose as hospital staff in an attempt to snatch the scalpel back. After chasing Howlett through the tunnels beneath the hospital (hospitals in movies and TV always have these spooky tunnels), Jack ends up seriously injured, and only Howlett’s skill can save him. Howlett saves Jack to make himself look good, promising to “take care of” Jack later. It ends with another mad chase through those tunnels, with Howlett cutting through doors to get at Micki and Ryan. Micki flat-out kills Howlett by electrocuting him, forcing him to fall on his own scalpel.

I’m hugely distracted, trying to figure out what that graffiti in the background is saying.

When the show is smart: For those of you who miss Jason Voorhees, this episode is all slasher movie goodness. The scalpel being able to cut through anything makes for a fun complication, as the show comes up with creative ways for the killer to use the environment against his victims.

Just like Qui-Gon Jinn.

When the show is cheesy: A subplot has to do with Howlett’s surgery prowess getting good press for the hospital, leading to a bunch of reporters observing the surgery in progress. Not only do a doubt a hospital would do this, but the reporters don’t have cameras or notebooks, they’re just sitting there watching.

Operating theater.

Devilish dialogue: Ryan: “Me and my folks, we never got along. They always treated me like I had a screw loose. They never let me do anything important. Jack, he was the first one to act like I had something on the ball.”

Trivia tidbits:

– Did the real Jack the Ripper use a scalpel? As with any JTR question, the answer is “maybe.” Most sources, though, stick with the belief that the Ripper’s murder weapon was likely a knife with a six-to-eight-inch blade.

Not quite Whitechapel.

Back in the vault: A really fun episode, combining a memorable villain, a moral dilemma for our heroes, and some over-the-top B-horror cheese.

Next: Stop hitting yourself! Stop hitting yourself!

****

Want more? Check out my book, CINE HIGH, now available for the Kindle and the free Kindle app.