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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.”

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.

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 six takes us deep into the world stage magic, with some actual demonic magic thrown in, for “The Great Montarro.”

Peek.

A magician, Fahteem, steps into a coffin, which is impaled with swords, only for him to walk out unscathed. What the audience doesn’t know is that there is an identical coffin backstage where a victim receives the injuries in Fahteem’s place. After the show, an unseen person murders Fahteem and takes both coffins. Micki, Ryan and Jack learn of the death, and read about the coffins in the store’s manifest.

Not quite Vegas.

Jack brings back his old magic act, the Great Mad Marshak, to enter a magicians’ competition in the city, where the coffins have been spotted. From there, the episode is a whodunit, with a cast of kooky magician characters among the suspects. After a few more grisly murders, the killer is revealed to be one magician’s daughter, also his assistant. She locks Micki in one coffin while the magician does his act. Jack and Ryan rescue Micki, the magician dies, and the assistant (presumably) is off to jail for killing him and the others.

Trapped.

When the show is smart: The stage magician theme means we can have murders committed by elaborate death traps, which means the show’s creators get to be more creative than just a killer with a machete.

When the show is cheesy: Being a whodunit, there are some subplots and red herrings that don’t quite make sense. Two of the deaths are only barely related to main story, and I wonder if they only happened because this is a horror show and they’ve got to keep the killings going so people don’t change the channel.

Suspicious.

Devilish dialogue: Micki: “How long did you say it takes for that rope to burn through?” Jack: “Oh, lots of time. Almost a minute.” Micki: “It took you 85 seconds.” Jack: “Well, it’s faster upside down.”

Trivia tidbits:

– The story takes place in and around the Magic Temple, obviously based on LA’s famous Magic Castle. The episode, though, like every episode, was filmed in Vancouver.

– This is one of several episodes featuring unusually large antiques, raising a question as to how they fit inside the vault beneath the antique store. This won’t be dealt with until season three.

The family that escapes straightjackets together, stays together.

Back in the vault: A stand-alone episode that almost all plot and little character. It’s entertaining enough for what it is, but it’s not the show at its best.

Next: Dear Boss…

****

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 five is the big Halloween episode, which is of course titled “Hellowe’en.”

Life of the party.

It’s Halloween night, and Micki and Ryan are throwing a party in the antiques store to show the neighbors that it’s under new management. While everyone is having a good time, two party dudes sneak into the basement and mess with a glowing crystal ball in the vault. The power goes out and the whole building starts to shake. The party guests flee, leaving Micki and Ryan alone to confronted by the ghost of their Uncle Lewis.

Lewis gives them a sob story about how he’s suffering in hell. He reveals a hidden room in the store, which was his wife’s bedroom. There, they find the preserved body of Lewis’ dead wife Grace. Lewis says he needs an antique from the vault, the Amulet of Zohar, to be reunited with his wife. Micki and Ryan actually believe him and give him the amulet. This gives him physical form and superhuman strength, allowing him to throw Ryan across the room. Lewis flees the store.

Uncle Lewis don’t need no hockey mask.

Outside the store, Jack encounters a bizarre trick-or-treater, who transforms from a child to a little person, and who uses magic to trap Jack behind some iron bars. Jack uses reverse psychology on some street thug passersby to free him.

The face of evil.

Micki and Ryan pursue Lewis to the nearest morgue. Despite having physical form, Lewis isn’t truly alive, and needs a new body to possess, to truly live again. The trick-or-treater is revealed to be a demon (!) named Greta. With the combined powers of telekinesis and mind control, Greta traps the cousins in coffins and puts them on a conveyor belt headed for the cremator. Jack rescues them just in time. Jack confronts Lewis, attempting a counter-spell to prevent Lewis from completing his possession before dawn (when Halloween ends, apparently). Micki and Ryan distract Greta, who knocks out the electricity before tripping and impaling herself on a scalpel (!). Lewis doesn’t know the clock has stopped, fails to complete his spell before sunrise, and vanishes.

And to think 1980s parents’ groups had problems with this stuff.

Back at the store, Jack says that Grace’s body isn’t really in the hidden room, and that it was all a trick by Lewis. He then reveals that he loved Grace as well, but couldn’t be with her because she married Lewis. Jack finally states that Halloween may be over, but in two weeks it’ll be… Friday the 13th.

When the show is smart: When we last saw Uncle Lewis, he’d had a change of heart and wanted to be good again, only to be sucked into Hell. In this episode he’s pure evil. I suppose we could argue that his experience in Hell has left him with a “whatever it takes” motivation to become human again, even if he does seem to enjoy his own villainy. On the other hand, the inconsistencies don’t matter, because Lewis is an effective baddie because he’s so mysterious.

When the show is cheesy: I’m not clear on how the two party dudes find their way into the vault, which has been shown to be opened by a hidden brick on the wall. Also, there’s no explanation of the weird crystal ball that sets all this in motion, other than some mumbo jumbo about how spirits roam more freely on Halloween night.

Devilish dialogue: Jack insults the street thugs: “I’ve seen your type before. You’re peasants, aren’t you? All mouth and no action, because you’re too small where it counts.”

That hair, though.

Trivia tidbits:

– For costumes, Jack is Merlin and Ryan is a Robin Hood type. Micki is either a witch or a rock star. Or maybe a G.L.O.W. wrestler.

– The hidden bedroom on the store’s first floor is never seen or referenced again. Perhaps the entire room was part of Lewis’ illusion?

– This is the only time in the show’s history that the date “Friday the 13th” is spoken out loud, or even referenced for that matter.

Back in the vault: This episode packs a lot into its hour runtime, with a lot of over-the-top B-horror/monster movie action. Also, the series didn’t do “mythology” episodes often, normally content to stick to killer-of-the-week shows. Establishing Lewis as F13’s baddest bad guy and filling in gaps in our character’s histories just adds to the fun.

Next: Not quite The Prestige.

****

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.”

The face of love.

Episode three, “Cupid’s Quiver,” finds Micki, Ryan, and their friend Jack running around a college campus where love — via problematic mind control — is in the air.

Unwanted advances.

The evil antique of the week (heh) is a small statue of cupid, which can make anyone fall in love with its owner. Because nothing on this show is that simple, death and murder keep happening in the statue’s wake. The statue is owned by a shy, awkward college student, who is using it to land hot babes. After a few failed attempts to get the statue back, Jack plays bartender at a frat party spiking the punch with truth serum (!) to help find it.

An occultist and two antique store owners walk into a bar…

During the final confrontation, the killer uses the statue to mind-control Micki, putting her between him and Ryan. He is his own undoing, though, dying after he hits his head. This breaks the spell on Micki, and our heroes get the statue back.

When the show is smart: This episode has a subplot of Micki and Ryan running afoul of a cop who is investigating the murders. This (perhaps unintentionally) addresses why Micki and Ryan don’t just go to the cops for help with their cursed antiques.

When the show is cheesy: One big set piece in this episode has the villain killing someone by trapping her in a car filled with bees. You’d think this would be an overly convoluted way to kill someone, but this series does the murder-by-bees thing more than once.

Ready, shoot, aim.

Devilish dialogue: Micki: “I can’t believe anybody lives like this.” Ryan: “Dracula lives like this.” Micki: “I meant someone real.” Ryan: “Are you suggesting Dracula isn’t real?”

Trivia tidbits:

– This episode is the first to show that Micki and Ryan are actually living at the antique store, where the upper floor has bedrooms and at least one bathroom.

– Add bartending and truth serum concocting to Jack’s list of skills.

– Although the third one aired, this was the first episode to be filmed. Alyse Wax’s excellent Curious Goods book reveals that the actors started filming before signing their contracts, and were almost fired for this. Fortunately, they signed during their lunch break and all was well.

– This episode was directed by Atom Egoyan, just before he became an indie film darling with features like The Sweet Hereafter and Exotica.

Jack’s cool research desk is in the middle of the store, where people are presumably shopping. Who designed this place?

Back in the vault: Most episodes of Friday the 13th: The Series are morality plays, and this is the first of those. The villain kills someone, and gets his wish granted. But, in order to keep his wish going, he has to keep killing. Later episodes will showcase some more sympathetic villains, but this one does a good job of setting the tone for things to come.

Next: Tea, earl grey, hot.

****

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.”

I saw The Omen too.

In the second episode, “The Poison Pen,” we’re diving deep into “religious horror” territory, I guess to further give this series its own identity outside of its slasher movie namesake. At an all-male religious sect (the script never uses the words “monastery” or “monks”) a man is using a cursed antique pen to predict/cause deaths in the future. To get the pen back, Ryan and Micki go undercover, with Micki unconvincingly disguised as a man.

Believable disguises, like Clark Kent’s glasses.

After a lot of sneaking around at night and a few more murders, it’s revealed that two of the not-monks are secretly escaped convicts, using the pen to kill off the sect’s leaders so they can sell their land to a greedy developer. Micki and Ryan get the pen back after the convicts are taken out by a guillotine (!), which the pen of course predicted.

Conspirator.

When the show is smart: We can laugh all we want about how Ryan and especially Micki fail to pass themselves off as members of the sect, but the show cops to this, with the villains not believing them from the start, suspecting them to be cops or investigative journalists.

When the show is cheesy: Did they explain why this religious sect owns a guillotine and I missed it? Also, a guillotine by itself just isn’t spooky enough, so the blade has to come to life and fly around the room during the finale.

This flying guillotine needs no master.

Devilish dialogue: Jack: “I thought you were meditating.” Villain: “I was pre-meditating.”

Trivia tidbits:

– Micki is played by Louise Robey, credited as just “Robey” in an attempt to create a new Madonna/Cher type. These days she just goes ahead and uses her full name.

– The villain is played by actor Colin Fox, who would later appear in two more episodes, each time as a different villain.

The cursed pen also gives its owner calligraphy powers.

Back in the vault: An odd choice for the second episode. Someone who hadn’t seen the premiere would probably have no idea what this new show is about. There are a few spooky scenes, such as Micki attacked by a huge spider, but that’s about it.

Next: Not-so-okay Cupid.

****

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.

You might recall that the show had nothing to do with Jason Voorhees and everything to do with an evil antique store. The series ran from 1987 to 1990 in syndication, and is perhaps most famous for being at the forefront of the big “too much violence on television” controversy of the late ‘80s. Most important, I love the show dearly, so let’s watch it.

Before going further, I have to give a shout-out to the book Curious Goods: Behind the Scenes of Friday the 13th: The Series by Alyse Wax, which is easily the definitive resource for fans of the show, overflowing with interviews and behind-the-scenes history. If only every making-of book was this exhaustive.

Although the first epiosde, “The Inheritance,” doesn’t include the show’s opening narration, it’s worth repeating as we go into this rewatch: “Lewis Vendredi made a deal with the devil, to sell cursed antiques. But he broke the pact, and it cost him his soul.” The first scene in the first episode is our introduction to Uncle Lewis, the number one villain of the series. A family enters the antique store and wants to buy a doll for their young daughter. Lewis has had enough, and ushers them out of the store, saying the doll isn’t for sale. Lewis is then chased through the store by explosions of fire and ghostly spirits, eventually falling down an elevator pit (This two-story building somehow has a freight elevator) and into a pit leading to (I’m assuming) Hell.

Move over, Jason. Here’s Uncle Lewis.

This is a major point in the show’s mythology, and it happens so fast. Who is Lewis? Why was this incident his breaking point? We don’t know. Perhaps leaving the store to Micki and Ryan was also him leaning toward the good. When Lewis later returns, he’ll be pure evil (or will he?) so this short glimpse of such a major character leaves us with a lot of questions.

Boogens.

We finally meet cousins Micki (Robey, a.k.a. Louise Robey) and Ryan (John D. LeMay)  as they meet at the antique store. They’ve never met (Ryan thought his long-lost cousin was a guy named Michael). After discovering more antiques in an underground vault, the cousins temporarily reopen the store to sell the last of the antiques. The family from the opening scene comes back, and buys the creepy doll for the little girl.

The antiques business is hard work.

That night, Jack Marshak shows up, saying he supplies Lewis with some of the rarer antiques an that Lewis often forgets to pay him. Upon learning Lewis is dead and Micki and Ryan are his family, Jack offers more backstory, saying he and Lewis were childhood friends, and Jack was the one who first taught Lewis the ways of magic and the dark arts. When Lewis started getting deeper into stuff like devil worship, their friendship became strained. The cousins find Lewis’ manifest — a huge book containing records of everything he sold — and Jack deduces that Lewis sold his soul to the devil, receiving wealth and immortality in exchange for selling the antiques, which are infused the devil’s evil doings.

Meeting of the minds.

Feeling remorse over having sold off the evil doll, Micki and Ryan go looking for it. The doll has been busy, being a loyal (and talking!) plaything for the little girl, and using telekinesis powers to kill anyone who tries to separate them, including the girl’s nanny and stepmother. Micki and Ryan show up, and there’s a spooky battle in a backyard playground, with the doll darkening the sun and summoning a storm to fight back. Micki wrests the doll away from the girl, and it’s over.

No one ever suspects the doll.

Back at the store, Jack explains that the cursed antiques cannot be destroyed, but they can be kept safe by locking them in the hidden vault under the store. Micki calls her fiancé to tell him the wedding is postponed until she gets things sorted out at the store. We get the show’s mission statement when it’s said that the three of them must get back all the antiques. Running the store and selling regular, non-evil antiques will be their cover. (I guess calling the cops is not an option?) It’s also during this scene that Jack gives the store its new name: Curious Goods.

Peek.

When the show is smart: A line of dialogue states that the little girl has “lost two moms now” revealing that this domineering woman the “evil stepmother” trope. This means the spooky doll isn’t just a spooky doll, but representative of the girl’s biological mother. Best of all, the writers let this psychological stuff simmer in the background rather than hit us over the head with it.

When the show is cheesy: This first batch of episodes had a running gag with Ryan saying flirtatious pickup lines towards Micki. I’d like to give the show the benefit of the doubt and say Ryan is just joking, but it’s still weird. There remains, however, a lot of Ryan/Micki “shippers” among the show’s fandom. The person who edited the show’s Wikipedia entry appears to be one, insisting multiple times that the two are “cousins through marriage.”

Devilish dialogue: Micki: “What’s going to happen to Mary?” Ryan: “Oh, a good shrink ought to be able to fix her up in about 20 years.”

Trivia tidbits:

– The little girl is played by Sarah Polley, who went on to have a successful Hollywood career.

– Although written to be the first episode, this was filmed after several others, to give the cast and crew time to gel.

– This episode received the first of the show’s two Emmy nominations, for Outstanding Achievement in Graphic Design and Title Sequence. It lost to the PBS series Mystery.

– Why’s it called Friday the 13th? Paramount had a hit going with Star Trek: The Next Generation, which succeeded with the Star Trek name, but all-new characters in place of Shatner and co. So Paramount gave producer Frank Mancuso Jr. freedom to do whatever he wanted, as long as it was called Friday the 13. The antique store setup was an attempt to give the show a Twilight Zone anthology feel.

Back in the vault: The episode packs a ton of information in its one hour, both introducing us to all the characters and the haunted store, while also doing a full-on killer doll movie alongside it. I enjoy the episode, but there’s so much cheesiness in it that I don’t know if this one alone can justify my love of the show. Things will get more interesting — and a lot crazier — as the show progresses. (I promise the rest of these blog entries won’t be as long as this first one.)

Next: This is the worst crazy sect I’ve ever been in.

****

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