The early 70s were a time when Satan seemed to reign. I first learned about Anton LaVey and the Church of Satan as a child by reading the TV Guide Book of Lists. They asked him what the most Satanic TV shows were, and he replied with a list that included so many of my favorite shows. It scared me as a twelve-year-old — could I be taken by devil worshippers and be made to celebrate the Black Mass? This cultural phenomenon of the 70s is a nostalgic left-hand trip for many of us.

Made-for-TV movies reflected the Satanic bent of the early 70s. This Aaron Spelling produced, David Lowell Rich (Eye of the Cat, Airport 79 – The Concorde) directed affair brings the devil to the boarding school, along with plenty of attractive girls ready to give their souls to the Son of the Morning Star.

Martha Sayers is running from a mysterious stranger who may or may not be related to Torgo from Manos: The Hands of Fate. She locks herself in her sister Elizabeth’s (Pamela Franklin, Necromancy, The Legend of Hell House, The Food of the Gods) house and hangs herself. Of course, the police just think it’s a suicide. But we know better — The Salem Academy for Women had to have something to do with it. Martha’s roommate warns Elizabeth to stay away, but she is determined to uncover the truth.

She takes the name of Elizabeth Morgan and enrolls at the school where she’s welcomed by Roberta (Kate Jackson!), Jody Keller (Cheryl Ladd!) and Debbie Jones (Jamie Smith-Jackson from Go Ask Alice, who is married to Michael Ontkean, Sheriff Harry S. Truman from Twin Peaks). The fact that Alice and two of Charlie’s Angels (Sabrina Duncan and Kris Munroe, I’ll have you know) playing devils in a movie thrills me to no end. And throw in Alice, and we have a movie!

Debbie keeps having outbursts in class, and another girl commits suicide, prompting Headmistress Williams to start worrying about the influence of the new girl. Then there’s that painting of Martha in a dungeon that Debbie painted but is now terrified of. Just imagine — Elizabeth snoops and finds that room on campus but is chased away by a man with a knife!

Roberta is now on Elizabeth’s side. After all, there are some crazy teachers, like the professor, who make them run a rat through a maze. And when Debbie tries to leave, her body shows up. Finally, Liz can’t take anymore and bursts into Professor Delacroix’s (Lloyd Bochner, who played Walter Thornton in The Lonely Lady) office. He screams that something is stalking him, so he jumps out a window, gun in hand. He runs through a swamp before being beaten to death with sticks by several students. The popular Dr. Joseph Clampett (Roy Thinnes, David Vincent from The Invaders, The Norliss Tapes) is the real killer. The plot takes unexpected turns, keeping the audience on the edge of their seats.

He’s leading a Satanic cult that believes that he’s the devil. Only Elizabeth and the headmistress survive as the rest of the girls sacrifice themselves to the flames. And Clampett? He survives the fire and then promptly walks outside and disappears.

Interesting Wiki story: In the film’s synopsis, whoever wrote it states, “the other girls stay behind to sacrifice themselves to their leader (But are saved by God and Jesus offscreen as they were forced).” How do they know? That certainly didn’t happen in the movie version I saw!

This was remade in 2000, with Kate Jackson playing the school’s dean and Shannen Doherty. That version is unreviewed. Why pick 2000 when you can choose 1973? If only all schools could be as ridiculous as the Salem Academy for Women! If only all rooms had shag carpeting, and there were constant wine mixers and murders and 70s garish fashions! My world is so dull by comparison!

When I was a kid, I remember asking my dad what movies he thought were scary. He answered Night of the Living Dead and Gargoyles, so I was always nervous to watch this movie. It just looked strange, and in the late 1970s, it wasn’t like I could find it on demand. But the unique storytelling of Gargoyles always intrigued me.

Originally airing on CBS on November 21st, 1972, it was directed by Bill L. Norton (Baby: Secret of the Lost Legend, More American Graffiti) and written by Steven and Elinor Karpf (Devil Dog: The Hound from Hell, The Jayne Mansfield Story), Gargoyles may be uneven, but has moments of pure joy.

It’s one of the first films Stan Winston (Terminator, Aliens) worked on, providing a variety of gargoyle makeup. The look of the creatures is not just terrific, it’s downright amazing, as they don’t all look the same. The leader (Bernie Casey (Felix Leiter in Never Say Never Again, UN Washington in Revenge of the Nerds) has a perfect look that balances a regal bearing with an otherworldly aura. You can see why this won an Emmy. It’s big budget-worthy work on a shoestring budget.

Speaking of budget, the film was shot with just one camera over 18 days, which chased away the original director. Temperatures at the Carlsbad, NM location, baked the cast and crew, reaching 100 degrees or more the entire shoot. So it’s incredible that what emerged is so interesting.

The opening dialogue informs us that Satan lost the war in Heaven, with his children being the gargoyles who rise against man every six hundred years (there’s even an image from Haxan to symbolize the devil). This dialogue is by Vic Perrin (Tharg from the “Mirror, Mirror” episode of Star Trek, and the voice of Metron and Nomad), who also provides the crazy VO for the head, Gargoyle.

We join Dr. Mercer Boley (Cornell Wilde, No Blade of Grass), author of the occult, and his daughter, Diana (Jennifer Salt of Sisters and Son of Sam TV movie Out of the Darkness) as they head off to the desert — and Uncle Willie’s Museum — where they find a skeleton of a creature that Willie (Woody Chambliss of Zero Hour! and The Devil’s Rain!) claims he saw in the hills. The doctor doesn’t believe a word, but his daughter listens to his tales, only to be cut off by the sound of wings and something trying to get into the museum. Whatever it is, it sets off a fire that kills Uncle Willie.

They head to a local motel run by Mrs. Parks (Grayson Hall, who played Dr. Julia Hoffman in Dark Shadows and Carlotta Drake in Night of Dark Shadows), who is never without a drink in her hand (an acting choice by Hall that we can endorse). Two of the gargoyles try to take back the skeleton they’ve rescued from the inferno, but one is hit by a truck. It seems like the doctor sees money in the bodies of these gargoyles, alerting the group’s leader to his plan. He kidnaps Diana, showing her the eggs his people care for and explaining that they just want to live in peace with humans.

Throw in a bunch of motorcycle riders (including Scott Glenn of The Right Stuff and Silence of the Lambs), cops who can’t understand what is going on, the finest hound dogs in the area, an all-out war between humans and Gargoyles with way too much talking and you have this movie. But I can’t dislike it — it’s filled with great moments like the leader making Diana read to him about the historical account of an incubus seducing a woman and the speech he gives to the humans at the end. The closing image of a Gargoyle flying away, clutching a wounded female of his species? Amazing.

It’s worth seeking out, if only to see how horror used to be all over 1970s TV. If you grew up in that era, you have less of a chance of dismissing this movie as dumb.

Dan Curtis and Richard Matheson pretty much ruled 1970s made for TV horror. But when you throw in Karen Black and a memorable miniature villain, you’re left with pure nightmare fuel for 70s kids. Sure, we can endure all sorts of gore and doom now, but on March 4, 1974, the ABC Movie of the Week was about to give you all sorts of bad dreams.

STORY 1: Julie

Chad (Robert Burton, then-husband of the delicious Ms. Black) has it bad for his English teacher, Julie Eldrich (hey, Karen Black is in this, did I mention that?). So much so that just the glimpse of her thigh can make him totally forget all about class and fill his mind with daydreams. His friends don’t get it — his buddy Eddie says she’s ugly. But that won’t stop Chad, who watches Julie undress through her window before he asks her out to the drive-in.

But Chad’s a creep. Instead of just being happy about getting her to go out with him, he roofies her at the drive-in (The Night Stalker is playing, as an easter egg for Dan Curtis fans), checks into a motel and takes all manner of sexually provocative photos of her. Yep. This is a TV movie playing during prime time — the 70s were fucking nuts.

Chad gets what he wants — a blackmailed Julie who will do whatever he wants. Until a few weeks later, she announces that the game is over. Julie’s been a power bottom all along, setting the whole thing up.  “Did you really think that dull, little mind of yours could possibly have conceived any of the rather dramatic experiences we’ve shared? Why do you think you suddenly had the overwhelming desire to see what I looked like under ‘all those clothes?’ Don’t feel bad… I always get bored after a while,” she says before poisoning him and setting his darkroom on fire. She adds his obituary to a scrapbook but there’s no time to rest. Another suitor has already shown up…

STORY 2: Millicent and Therese

Millicent is a brunette prude. Therese is a blonde minx. They’re sisters — both played by Karen Black — and it’ll take you all of ten minutes to figure out the truth. This is a common portmanteau trope, but be patient. This film is about to get awesome.

STORY 3: Amelia

This is a tour de force for Black, who is all alone for the entire story, playing Amelia. Cursed with a mother who questions everything she does and hunted by a Zuni warrior trapped inside a doll, she owns the screen. You may question — well how scary is a little tribal warrior doll going to be? You’ve obviously never seen this. From stabbing Black in the ankles to surviving all manner of damage — even being burned alive in the oven — the Zuni doll is the image that dominates this film and is what most remember it for. The twist ending — back before the “what a twist!” M. Night Shyamalan-style ending got stale — is a great payoff.

Black added a lot of herself to the final story, rewriting much of her dialogue. Sadly, she ended up feeling Trilogy of Terror typecast her for the rest of her career. She never intended to be known as a horror actress. I guess that’s a shame, but she really excelled in every role in every fright fest she appeared in.

Curtis made a new Trilogy of Terror in 1996, even bringing back the Zuni doll. I’ve never seen it — something that I feel I should remedy soon. If you haven’t seen this yet, please stop reading B & S About Movies and come back once you’ve done your homework. Thank you!

UPDATE: You can get the Kino Lober blu ray of this at Diabolik DVD.

The beauty of made for TV movies is that they can be way, way weirder than anything you’ll ever see on the big screen. For a blast of pure insanity — as long as you can get your brain to agree with the major reality bending events you’ll witness — you can’t go wrong with spending a little over an hour with Bad Ronald.

Originally airing on October 24, 1974 on the ABC Network, this film tells the sad tale of Ronald Wilby (Scott Jacoby, The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane), a kid who is a great artist and lives in a fantasy world. So far, he’s me at 15, all socially awkward and afraid of girls. Where he is not like me is that his dad left town and never came back, leaving him with an insanely overprotective mother (Kim Hunter, Zira from Planet of the Apes) who has some mystery disease and wants Ronald to go to med school and heal her. That seems like a lot of pressure. Maybe so much pressure that after getting the Heisman and shut down by Laurie Matthews, the object of his affection, he ends up shoving Laurie’s younger sister Carol. The little girl just keeps verbally abusing Ronald — trust me, I’ve had things twelve-year-old girls say hurt me to this day and gotten over every punch to my face — until he shoves her again, so hard that her head bounces off a concrete block. Boom. She’s dead.

Yep. In the 70s — and perhaps nowhere moreso than a 70s made for TV movie — life is cheap.  So Ronald and his mom do what any normal person and normal mother would do — they bury the body, hide the evidence and even hide Ronald inside a concealed room. They hope everything will just blow over — even when the police come by with questions. Nosy neighbors be damned, her boy will be just fine, provided he stops drawing, does his studies, eats right and remembers his exercises.

It should work. Except she dies, leaving Ronald alone in the house with all his cans of food. Before you get to the next commercial, Ronald has totally escaped into a fantasy world of princes, princesses and demons. His house is sold to the Wood family — mom, dad (Dabney Coleman of Cloak and Dagger, 9 to 5, Tootsie and so much more) and three sisters — Babs, Althea and Ellen.

Ronald is running out of food and really needs human interaction. Babs becomes the princess of his dreams while her boyfriend, Duane Matthews, becomes his demon. Well, he’s already killed one of Duane’s sisters and now he’s descended so far into pure mania, who can say what will happen next!

From Ronald murdering the old lady who keeps peeking into the house to his peepholes all over the place, this is a really disturbing slice of TV cinema. There’s a truly great scare when the girls finally see an eyeball inside of those holes. And it’s a nail biter wondering if they can escape Ronald — who finally makes his play for his princess when the parents leave town.

Directed by Buzz Kulik, who also was in the chair for the incredibly famous Brian’s Song, this is quite the effective little chiller. It was remade in 1992 as Méchant Garçon, starring a young Catherine Hiegel. But man — we’re huge Scott Jacoby fans and will stick with the original!

BONUS: You can listen to the podcast we did on Bad Ronald!

Bonus drink!

Closet Case

• 1 oz. amaretto
• 1 oz. Jägermeister

1. Pour together into a shot glass.
2. Get inside your walls and get very wasted.

At one point, network TV was the only home entertainment option. And for so many genre fans, they were rewarded with some truly amazing offerings. Sure, there are plenty of fangless horror telepics, but there are also so many more incredibly frightening and well made ones, too. We say all the time — they don’t make them like this any more — well, this is one time where that’s completely and utterly true.

Originally airing on the ABC Network on January 11, 1972, The Night Stalker was based on an unpublished Jeff Rice novel, adapted by Richard Matheson (I Am Legend, The Incredible Shrinking Man, Corman’s The Pit and the Pendulum, The Devil Rides Out, even Jaws 3-D) and produced by Dan Curtis (Dark Shadows, Burnt Offerings, Trilogy of Terror), The Night Stalker remained one of the highest rated TV movies for nearly a decade.

Directed by John Llewellyn Moxey (Home for the Holidays, Genesis II, No Place to Hide, The City of the Dead/Horror Hotel), this is 75 minutes of concentrated horror all with a main character that would directly connect to the fears and worries of the 70s. As part of the heroic press, a muckraker who won’t take no for an answer and who is willing to push and push and push to the point that his happiness and life are in constant danger, Carl Kolchak has been kicked out of nearly every major newspaper in every major city — more than once. He’s now a reporter in the gleaming neon world of 70s Vegas, working for  (more like driving crazy) editor Tony Vincenzo.

The film opens with Kolchak listening to his own dictation of his last major story. Seems like a vampire — or something a lot like one — has been attacking women and draining them from their blood. Thanks to Kolchak’s fact checking and nose for clues, the police, sheriff’s department and DEA land on a suspect – Janos Skorzeny (Barry Atwater, who also hosted the Horro-Ritual that played before Dracula A.D. 1972), who is way older than his physical appearance suggests. Murder and chaos have followed Janos around the world, which the Vegas cops get to see for themselves when he’s shot nearly thirty times at point blank range before killing four cops and putting one in the hospital. Even though he accomplishes all of that — and outruns a police motorcycle — the forces of order refute Kolchak’s claims that they’re facing a vampire (thanks to the urging of his dancer girlfriend, Gail Foster).

Finally, the police realized that they have to listen to Carl, setting up a deal: if he’s wrong, he’ll leave Vegas forever. But if he’s right, he gets to publish his story. The pursuit of the vampire ends with Carl staking the creature while an FBI agent — finally, a credible witness — watches.

The real reason why I love The Night Stalker comes after all of this action. Kolchak is overjoyed — he finally has the story that will bring back to New York City. He proposes to his girlfriend, finally gets praise for being a great reporter from his editor and goes to see the mayor, ready to tell him to eat crow. But you can see it in Darren McGavin’s nuanced performance that the moment that Vincenzo tells him that he’s a great reporter that he knows that everything is about to unravel. This is a hard man, a man who has tumbled from the heights so many times that he is used to the fall.

Turns out the powers that be don’t want the story to get out there. They publish a false story written by Karl and charge him with the murder of Skorzeny — unless he leaves town. He tries to call Gail, but she’s been forced to leave the city for “unsavory activities.” His bags are already packed. And that’s that — we return to that empty hotel room, Kolchak explains that he spent his life savings trying to find Gail again by placing personal ads all over the country. He can’t prove his story — and everyone else involved has disappeared or is dead. Even the vampire and all of his victims have been cremated.

The success of The Night Stalker led to another movie, The Night Strangler, and a series (while it only lasted a season, it still plays on ME-TV 40 years later and four of the episodes were edited into movies for the rest of the world). Plus, this show is the spiritual father to The X-Files, a fact acknowledged when McGavin played the father of the X-Files, Arthur Dales (creator Chris Carter wanted him to play Kolchak, but he refused). Well, spiritual father to the show in the way that almost every episode of The Night Stalker was referenced by Carter’s show — but we do imitation here, don’t we?

There was a great double disk of the first two Kolchak movies that’s out of print now. But it’s worth seeking out. You’ll be impressed by how much story, character and mood can be jammed into 75 minutes.

UPDATE: You can get the Kino Lober blu ray of this at Diabolik DVD.