Each October, the Unsung Horrors podcast does a month of themed movies. This year they will once again be setting up a fundraiser to benefit Best Friends, which is working to save the lives of cats and dogs all across America, giving pets second chances and happy homes.

Today’s theme: Series episode

“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, or the real terror begins.”

Friday the 13th: The Series was created by Frank Mancuso Jr. and Larry B. Williams and was going to be called The 13th Hour. Mancuso Jr. never intended for there to be an outright link to the Friday the 13th film series, but instead referenced “the idea of Friday the 13th, which is that it symbolizes bad luck and curses”.

That said, the creators did try to tie-in Jason Vorhees’s hockey mask but the idea was discarded so that the show could exist on its own. Mancuso Jr. was afraid that mentioning any events from the films would take the audience away from “the new world that we were trying to create.”

That said, the title was what was needed to sell the show. It did so well in late nights that some stations moved it to prime time. In all, it lasted 72 episodes over 3 seasons.

An antique dealer named Lewis Vendredi (R.G. Armstrong) got wealth and power from Satan for selling his soul, along with being the conduit for people to purchase cursed objects from his store Vendredi’s Antiques. When he tries to get out of the deal, the devil has him killed and gets his soul anyway.

The store is inherited by his niece Micki Foster (Robey!) and her cousin Ryan Dallion (John D. LeMay). They sell off many of the cursed antiques before being stopped by Jack Marshak (Chris Wiggins), who once collected antiques for Lewis before learning that he was evil.

Airing on October 26, 1987, “Hallowe’en” was directed by Timothy Bond (The Lost World, Return to the Lost World) and written by Bill Taub. The cursed object in this episode is the Amulet of Zohar and it can transfer a spirit into a deceased body.

Jack thinks that Micki and Ryan should have a Halloween party at the antique shop to try and fit into the neighborhood. The basement — where all the evil things exist — is off limits, but you know that they’ll soon be used and for the first time in the series, Uncle Lewis will appear. Well, the ghost of Uncle Lewis, who tries to come off as a hero and say that just wants to save the soul of his wife Grace, whose corpse is in a secret room in the store that they have never been to.

Now that he has the Amulet, Lewis has three hours to find a new body and escape back into the real world. He leaves behind Greta (Victoria Deslaurier), a demon who will do anything he asks, to battle Micky, Ryan and Jack.