Category Archives: Made for TV Movie

SLASHER MONTH: Puppet Master vs. Demonic Toys (2004)

Posted on by

Directed by Ted Nicolaou and written by C. Courtney Joyner, this made-for-TV movie comes after Dollman vs. Demonic Toys and Puppet Master: The Legacy.

Robert Toulon (Corey Feldman) is the great-grandnephew of André Toulon. He and his daughter Alexandra (Danielle Keaton) now have the puppets and bring them to life on Christmas Eve, which leads to Erica Sharpe (Vanessa Angel) unleashing the Demonic Toys, who have been going crazy in the hope of getting to kill someone. There’s also a demon called Bael because you know, why not?

This is pretty much the Puppet Master Holiday Special. Blade, Pinhead, Jester and Six Shooter going against Baby Oopsy Daisy, Jack Attack and Grizzly Teddy. I’ve read that it’s not an official film but it’s fun. Sure, it’s a throwaway, but I’m all for puppet on toy mayhem. This is supposed to take place before Puppet Master 2 which is why Tunneler and Leech Woman aren’t in it.

Erica Sharpe was going to be played by Traci Lords and Toulon by Fred Willard and let me tell you, I wish that’s the movie we got. The idea of these two franchises fighting is a great one, but as always, Full Moon didn’t have the money to make this as huge as it could have been.

Tales from the Darkside episode 18: If the Shoes Fit…

Posted on by

Armand Mastroianni directed The Clairvoyant, The Supernaturals and He Knows You’re Alone, so he has to have some understanding of horror. Sadly, this is another funny — so they say — episode. David Gerrold wrote plenty of TV — maybe we can’t blame Louis Haber, one of the credited writers, who didn’t — so one wonders why an episode where the entire plot is summed up as politicians are clowns ever made it to air.

Dick Shawn is Bo Gumbs, a politician drinks whiskey, dancing with a maid and talks about politics with the bellboy. Then, as he sends his clothes to the laundry, surprise, he ends up having clown shoes.

Remember when George Romero was once the guy who had nuanced commentary in his films and then suddenly his later movies felt like the most obvious messages ever? I worry that he was compromised by this show, which often takes the easiest way to 22 minutes of syndicated storytelling.

2022 Scarecrow Psychotronic Challenge Day 13: Revenge! (1972)

Posted on by

13. MAD(E) FOR TV: Any 70’s feature length that was made specifically for television.

Amanda Hilton (Shelley Winters) is lost. Her daughter committed suicide after an affair come wrong and the only happiness she can find lies in torturing Frank Klaner (Bradford Dillman), a man who she thinks is behind the death of her child, a man who she now has inside a cage in her basement.

Based on the novel There Was an Old Woman by Elizabeth Davis, this made for TV movie was directed by Jud Taylor and written by Joseph Stefano, who wrote the screenplay for Psycho. The same novel was made into Inn of the Frightened People, which has Joan Collins in it.

Frank’s wife Dianne (Carol Eve Rossen)has hired Mark Hembric (Stuart Whitman), who may be a psychic. He may not. Hey, Frank may be guilty of the crime, too. You know how the 70s work. Things are quite ambiguous. But guess what? Dianne really does have mental powers!

Look — the world needs more movies where Shelley Winters serves drug-filled peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and threatens businessmen with an axe while screaming at the highest of registers.

It’s 71 minutes long. It would have been three hours on the CBS Late Night Movie.

You can watch this on YouTube.

2022 Scarecrow Psychotronic Challenge Day 3: The House Next Door (2006)

Posted on by

DAY 3. DEAD IN THE SUBURBS: Neither is living in the ‘burbs.

Walker Kennedy — the kind of name someone has in a Lifetime movie or a country star, played by Colin Ferguson — and his wife Col — also a Lifetime name, but hey, Lara Flynn Boyle should be a giallo queen and I’ll take this — don’t want kids and are happy to just live in the suburbs. Well, they were.

That’s because their quiet home is soon in the shade of architect Kim’s (Mark-Paul Gosselaar) obsession, a house that seems like a cathedral to Col. Also, if you don’t think that Zack Morris isn’t going to put it to Donna Hayward, you must not watch many Lifetime movies.

Every couple that moves into that house goes absolutely insane and kill one another, which would seem to stop people from moving in but you know, as someone who bought a house next to a Native American ground and the last owner killed himself — at least not in the house as far as they told us — I know how hard it is to get a home.

Based on the book The House Next Door by Anne Rivers Siddons, this was directed by Jeff Woolnough, who also made Universal Soldier II: Brothers in Arms and Universal Soldier III: Unfinished Business. It was shot in Toronto, which makes a lot of sense when you watch it, because this neighborhood seems a bit too polite, even when the ladies are all discussing affairs. Man, this movie makes me glad I don’t talk to any of my neighbors other than the biker dude next door.

Tales from the Darkside episode 17: Madness Room

Posted on by

Directed by John Hayes (the director of Dream No Evil, Grave of the Vampire and Jailbait Babysitter!) and written by Thomas Epperson, this episode of Tales from the Darkside has Edward Osborne (Stuart Whitman!) and his much younger wife Cathy (Therese Pare, who was the lead in Hayes’ previously mentioned Jailbait Babysitter) — along with employee and his wife’s secret lover Michael Fox (Nick Benedict) — discovering that there is a secret room within home thanks to the use of a spirit board.

They begin speaking to Ben, the last owner of the house and now a ghost, who relates that the Madness Room hidden inside the house, but with a name like that and also the fact that it’s a room filled with hanging dolls that looks straight out of a giallo, nothing good can come of this. Sure, it’s a scheme by the two secret adulterers to give the weak-hearted Edward a cardiac overload, but when this has one more than one twist in its short running time.

After a few weeks of unfunny and not frightening episodes, the simple Ouija and haunted house elements in this, handled by a more than competent director, show just how good this show can be.

Want more Ouija info? Here’s an entire article on spirit boards in movies.

Tales from the Darkside episode 16: The Tear Collector

Posted on by

Directed and co-written by John Drimmer, who wrote it with Geoffrey Loftus from a story by Donald Olson, this stars Jessica Harper — who must wonder why she keeps being in cult shows that only I care about. I mean, yes, everyone loves Suspiria, but also Phantom of the Paradise, Shock Treatment and Pennies from Heaven? — as Prudence, a depressed woman who can’t stop crying and her relationship with Ambrose Cavender (Victor Garber, one of those actors who is just about everything and you can never place them), a man who collects her tears.

So many of the reviews online hate this episode because it’s not really horror. That’s why I liked it, as beyond being well-filmed, it’s also a meditation on the true darkest side of life, being all about depression and loneliness.

Plus — Eric Bogosian as an angry junkie!

Tales from the Darkside episode 15: “Answer Me”

Posted on by

Directed by Richard Friedman (Scared Stiff, Doom Asylum, Phantom of the Mall) and written by Michael McDowell (Beetlejuice) and Dennis Schuetz, “Answer Me” is nearly a one room, one person episode, as Joan Matlin (Jean Marsh, Return to Oz, Willow) is an actress who is jet lagged by a London to New York City flight and trying to get sleep before an audition the next day. The phone never stops ringing in another apartment and she slowly goes insane from all of the noise.

Yet when she looks inside, no one is there. That’s pretty much the whole episode until the conclusion, which is how most episodes of this show work out, right? That said, this one has decent acting and when you only have a bit more than twenty minutes, it doesn’t wear out its welcome. I often wonder why so many of these episodes have unlikeable protagonists. I guess in the 80s, no one was all that likeable.

CANNON MONTH 2: Silent Victim (1995)

Posted on by

Directed by Menahem Golan and written by Nelly Adnil and Jonathan Platnick from a story by Bob Spitz, Silent Victim is a made-for-TV movie that tackles a subject that is still relevant: the right for a woman to choose.

Golan told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution — thanks to Hill Place for posting the quote —  “I’m not doing this for the sake of politics. The main thrust of the story is when it happens, everybody comes to take advantage of the situation.  I’m walking a razor’s edge.  I hope the movie will be good enough that people will learn something and enjoy it.”

Bonnie Jackson (Michele Greene, L.A. Law) is trapped in an abusive marriage with her husband Jed (Kyle Secor). All that he wants is to have a child, so he’s obsessed with making her take her medications and follow several rules toward having that baby. After a really bad fight, he beats her into oblivion, so she tries to commit suicide by taking pills. He takes her to the hospital but soon learns that she was pregnant and has lost the child from the overdose.

Jed brings her to court and charges her with a criminal attempt to commit suicide, failure to obtain a spousal notification, interference with her husband’s property rights and unlicensed practice of medicine. He brings on District Attorney Carter Evans (Alex Hyde-White, one of the last contract players in Hollywood, working for Universal with fellow contracted actors Lindsay Wagner, Andrew Stevens, Gretchen Corbett and Sharon Gless; he was also Mr. Fantastic in the Roger Corman-produced Fantastic Four) to make sure he wins.

Bonnie has help of her own, as her college best friend Lauren McKinley (Ely Pouget, The Rift, Lawnmower Man 2: Beyond Cyberspace) is now a major lawyer in Manhattan. There’s a problem, of course, as this case happens in the south and the real father isn’t Jed but instead, it’s her friend, black pharmacist C. Ray Thompson (Ralph Wilcox).

As you can imagine, the case brings in protestors for both sides and Newnan, Georgia becomes a battleground. Meanwhile, Jed is in a hotel sweating, screaming and getting drunk while watching the warden sapphically take a prisoner in Caged Fury. What a strange thing to throw in a movie, Menahem, and that’s why we love you! There’s also a Punch and Judy show so that the kids can understand the trial and they all cheer when puppet Jed beats puppet Bonnie to death. This is topped by a moment when Bonnie finally reconnects with both C. Ray and Jed while two actual clowns stand and awkwardly watch. Yes, not clownish people. Actual clowns.

By the end, Bonnie may or may not get back with Jed. She has broken with her lawyer, who she feels exploited her. And she has to pay $1,000 back to the state and Jed whips up his checkbook, which seems to be a strange thing to take to court. Oh man — I almost forgot — Evans and McKinley, the two attornies on this case, used to date!

There’s also a graphic miscarriage scene that shows instead of tells in the most bloody and graphic way possible.

Travis Vogt on Letterboxd had the best quote for this — and I wish I wrote it — and I have to share this with you: “It’s like Death Wish 3 but for abortion.”

Seriously, of all directors, Menahem is the very last person I would choose to direct a sensitive take on the abortion debate.

But the most entertaining one? He knows how to do that.

You can watch this on Tubi.

CANNON MONTH 2: Three Days To A Kill (1992)

Posted on by

This movie stars so many people that I love no matter what they do.

When Ambassador Barnes (Karol Brown, whose only other acting role was as a pregnant woman in Killer Sex Queens from Cyberspace, which is an adult film and has Jerry Springer and Larry Flynt in it) is taken by Columbia crime lord Perez (Henry Silva!) and his henchman Pepe (Sonny Landham, who started his career in adult), the top brass in the form of Captain Wright (Chuck Connors!) calls in the best: Calvin Sims (Fred Williamson!) and his explosives expert buddy Rick Masters (Bo Svenson!). First, Cal has to get Rick out of jail. Then, they’re joined by an undercover soldier pretending to be a dancer named Yolanda (Kim Dakour), then they get started getting some payback.

Made for HBO by Williamson, but this wasn’t the only film he directed. His first was all the way back in 1975 and Mean Johnny Barrows and some standout entries include Vegas Vampires, Mr. Mean and Original Gangstas, which found Williamson helping out Larry Cohen. If you love 70s black action movies, that’s one you definitely need to seek out because it stars Williamson, Jim Brown, Pam Grier, Paul Winfield, Richard Roundtree, Ron O’Neal, Robert Forster, Charles Napier and Wings Hauser.

This was written by Charles Johnson, who also wrote Hammer, Mean Mother, Beyond Atlantis and Slaughter’s Big Rip-Off, and Steven Iyama, who wrote Last Call and Deadly Past.

This movie has a great tagline: “He’s dangerous, he’s destructive and he’s dead serious.” It was also the final film for both Connors and Van Johnson.

CANNON MONTH 2: A Case of Deadly Force (1986)

Posted on by

EDITOR’S NOTE: A short break from the 21st Century Films with this non-Cannon-produced TV movie that was released by them in the UK on the Cannon Screen Entertainment Limited video label.

Adapted from the book Deadly Force by Lawrence O’Donnell — who now hosts The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell on MSNBC — this made-for-TV movie was released on video by Cannon yet is at odds with so many of the subjects presents by the action-heavy studio.

In a Cannon film, the near-vigilante tactics of the Boston Tactical Unit would be celebrated. Here, this fact-based tale of the 1975 cover-up of an unjustified shooting of a black man by two white members of this police group presents the police as overactive and brutal.

Despite claims of self-defense, the dead man’s widow Pat Bowden (Lorraine Toussaint) claims that her husband would not be carrying a weapon. She hires former cop and current lawyer Lawrence O’Donnell Sr. (Richard Crenna) to clear her husband’s name.

At one point, Lawrence reveals to his legal team — made up of sons Michael, Lawrence Jr., Billy and Kevin (John Shea, Tate Donovan, Tom Isbell, and Dylan Baker) that his father’s death was listed as a suicide and how that impacted the way that the world saw the man that he loved forever after. The case, for him, has become personal, clearing Bowden’s name being seen as him atoning for the way he saw his father.

Director Michael Miller made several films that I dug, like Silent Rage, Jackson County Jail and Class Reunion. He turned those movies into a run of TV movies. Writer Dennis Nemec also was a TV movie veteran and they combined to make a pretty solid film here.