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 works to save the lives of cats and dogs across America, giving pets second chances and providing them with happy homes.

Today’s theme: Witches or Warlocks

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Adam Hursey is a pharmacist specializing in health informatics by day, but his true passion is cinema. His current favorite films are Back to the Future, Stop Making Sense, and In the Mood for Love. He has written articles for Film East and The Physical Media Advocate, primarily examining older films through the lens of contemporary perspectives. He is usually found on Letterboxd, where he mainly writes about horror and exploitation films. You can follow him on Letterboxd or Instagram at ashursey.

For some reason, people keep talking to me lately about Little House on the Prairie. I’m not sure why exactly. I am familiar with the show. It was not must see TV for me growing up. Thanks to my mother, I was much more into prime time soap operas like Dallas and Dynasty. The trials and tribulations of the Ingalls family surely could not compare to comings and goings of the Ewings or the Carringtons. 

But I have watched more LHOTP in the last year or so. And boy howdy does that show get unhinged in those later years! Albert Ingalls gets addicted to morphine. He also starts a fire that results in the death of a baby. In the infamous Sylvia episode, a teenager gets raped by a guy in a clown mask. The citizens even blow up Walnut Grove rather than let the land fall into some venture capitalist’s hands. Whenever anyone talks about LHOTP and how “they don’t make shows like they used to”, I cannot disagree. But they are talking about wholesomeness, an aspect that did not exactly run through that show.

In contrast, I’ve never seen an episode of The Waltons. I would be willing to watch it though. It seems like maybe this show is the one people should reference when talking about a show you could watch with the entire family. I’ll have to check it out and report back.

Now if there was a competition between the two shows, perhaps it reached full throat in 1981 when the made for television movie Midnight Offerings debuted on ABC (neutral ground I guess). In this movie, we are treated to Melissa Sue Anderson (Mary Ingalls) versus Mary Beth McDonough (Erin Walton) in a supernatural battle over…the high school quarterback? This film is not going to pass the Bechdel test, that’s for sure.

Anderson plays Vivian Sotherland, the most popular girl in school. She also happens to be a witch (the old seventh daughter of a seventh daughter trope) who is not afraid to kill in order for those around her to succeed. Nobody knows her secret, although the aforementioned quarterback/boyfriend David (Patrick Cassidy) is beginning to have his suspicions. When new girl in town Robin Prentiss (McDonough) shows up, Vivian is ready to quickly dispose of her. But Robin is also the seventh daughter of a seventh daughter, and she has powers she could not explain. Can Mrs. Cunningham, I mean, Emily Moore (Marion Ross) help Robin harness the magic inside of her before Vivian reaches the height of her witchcraft?

There is definitely a lot to like about Midnight Offerings. Melissa Sue Anderson is having a ball playing against type. And I love a magic battle. This one has an unexpected ending that would make any Hammer film proud (if you know you know). Made for TV movies has been a bit of a running theme through my picks this year. I just cannot get enough. Talk about they don’t make things like they used to.

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 works to save the lives of cats and dogs across America, giving pets second chances and providing them with happy homes.

Today’s theme: Series episode!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Adam Hursey is a pharmacist specializing in health informatics by day, but his true passion is cinema. His current favorite films are Back to the Future, Stop Making Sense, and In the Mood for Love. He has written articles for Film East and The Physical Media Advocate, primarily examining older films through the lens of contemporary perspectives. He is usually found on Letterboxd, where he mainly writes about horror and exploitation films. You can follow him on Letterboxd or Instagram at ashursey.

Don’t you know you must never give a black magician bread or wine or salt in your own home?

Say what now? Is this common knowledge? I’ve never heard of such. Of course, I immediately went to Google for answers. Even their AI was no help in determining where this proclamation may have originated.

Perhaps it is just from the mind of David Fisher, a writer on Doctor Who (during the years of the Fourth Doctor Tom Baker), and our scribe here in this installment of Hammer House of Horror.

This anthology series was created by Roy Skeggs, a man who climbed the Hammer Films corporate ladder, eventually becoming chairman. Unfortunately, Hammer had hit upon hard times by the late 1970s, particularly after the departure of Tony Hinds in 1969. The company was unable to keep up with the gore and graphic violence displayed in many of the American films of the 70s, putting their hopes on an increase in sexual content to bring in audiences. As the films of the 70s tried to bring in modern sensibilities to their typical gothic tales, most viewers found the entire Hammer endeavor to border in self-parody rather than interesting storytelling.

When Skeggs took over, he shifted the focus of Hammer Films away from producing films using their stable of familiar monsters and characters, and toward television, creating the 13-episode series Hammer House of Horror. Each installment ran close to an hour in length, featuring different sorts of horror, and typically ending with a plot twist. 

Guardian of the Abyss follows the basic template. Laura (Barbara Ewing) is the winner of an auction for an interesting mirror. When a stranger seems very interested in purchasing the mirror from her, her friend Michael (Ray Lonnen) suggests that she have the mirror appraised to determine its true value. Unbeknownst to Michael and Laura, the mirror is a scrying glass that, if it falls into the wrong (or right) hands, could be used to summon the demon Choronzon. Michael crosses paths with a woman named Allison (Rosalyn Landor, most likely known from her role in Hammer’s The Devil Rides Out), who says she has escaped from a cult. But could she be the key to the entire mystery behind the mirror?

Guardian of the Abyss is the fourth segment I’ve watched so far in this series. They are all very enjoyable for what they are. Nothing terribly deep. Again, you typically get a twist ending that sticks the landing. A nice, quick watch for this time of year. I’m looking forward to watching the rest of these over time. I’m always happy to plug one in this slot every year during this challenge.

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 works to save the lives of cats and dogs across America, giving pets second chances and providing them with happy homes.

Today’s theme: 1960s!

Larry Buchanan was making low budget TV movies for American-International Pictures.

He called them with this idea:”We get this signal from outer space… What is it, Mr. Nicholson, what is it? And I said, Mars Needs Women! He said, ‘When can you start?”

As for Tommy Kirk, he had been a Disney kid and when he got the lead when John Ashley was busy, he wanted to make this his comeback. After all, he knew the role. He had already been a Martian seeking Earth women in AIP’s Pajama Party. Buchanan allowed Kirk to create his own soliloquy in the film, which is pretty great. However, Kirk looked back and said that this was “…undoubtedly one of the stupidest motion pictures ever made. How I got talked into it, I don’t know.”

“Mars … Needs … Women.” That’s the message from space and Mars can only make boy chidren, so five of their race, led by Dop (Kirk), come to Earth to steal our most perfect women. Mainly from Texas. Larry didn’t have much of a budget, after all.

The women are an artist (Pat Delaney). a housewife (Sherry Roberts), an air hostess (Donna Lindberg), a stripper (Bubbles Cash, the inspiration for the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders, who is also in Hot Thrills and Warm Chills and according to a fan, signed her aurograph like this: “the B in Bubbles was a pair of breasts with nipples. Her last name was a dollar sign.”) and scientist Dr. Marjorie Bolen (Yvonne Craig!), who Dop falls in love with and of course he does, it’s Yvonne Craig in 1968.

Shot in black and white on 16mm, blown up to 35mm and filled with stock footage, this was shot all over Dallas, which was playing Houston in the movie.

Someday sad, I will run out of Larry Buchanan movies. But that day is not today. Today is a good day.

You can watch this on YouTube.

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 works to save the lives of cats and dogs across America, giving pets second chances and providing them with happy homes.

Today’s theme: Hail Satan!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Adam Hursey is a pharmacist specializing in health informatics by day, but his true passion is cinema. His current favorite films are Back to the Future, Stop Making Sense, and In the Mood for Love. He has written articles for Film East and The Physical Media Advocate, primarily examining older films through the lens of contemporary perspectives. He is usually found on Letterboxd, where he mainly writes about horror and exploitation films. You can follow him on Letterboxd or Instagram at ashursey.

Before the internet, if you wanted your opinion on a matter to be known, you had limited options. You could write a letter to the editor of your local newspaper or periodical. You could go down to the town square, stand on a soap box, and annoy any and all passers by with your rant regarding the topic about which you were most passionate. Or you could book time on your local public access television station, free from the limitations and regulations of the Federal Communications Commission.

Probably my own previous experience with public television was the Wayne’s World sketch on Saturday Night Live. If my hometown had a public access station, I never knew about it when I was a kid. Eventually, I did discover one public access station in my hometown in Louisiana once I moved back from college. Every Friday night, this station would broadcast an auction of the most ridiculous items. Forget going out to the club or bar or whatever third space was around in the late 1990s. This show truly was must see TV. 

Apparently larger markets had stations devoted to public access. Thanks to AGFA, I recently discovered the show Decoupage!, a Los Angeles based program featuring the performance artist Craig Roose and his alter ego character Summer Caprice. A drag character, Summer Caprice would host a talk show where people as diverse as Susan Tyrell and Fred Willard would come through for unhinged interviews. And where else might you find Karen Black singing a cover of Nancy Sinatra’s Bang Bang with the band L7? Nowhere but public access television.

A more pertinent recent discovery is The Great Satan at Large, a program that aired a single time in Tucson, Arizona in 1991. In retrospect, perhaps the station airing it at 6 PM was not the best idea. Wanting to provide an alternative to the televangelism he saw on a lot of local stations, Lou Perfidio created a talk show where he portrayed Satan, complete with red suit, pitchfork, and devil horns, spewing the most profane statements imaginable while images of Hitler and swastikas were projected on a screen behind him. Like most talk shows, Satan had a panel of guests. God was there. And a perpetually masturbating court jester. There are special guests—a sadomasochistic couple who show up to perform some simulated sex acts. And here is where Perfidio landed in legal trouble with an obscenity charge as the female in the couple was only 17 years old (he later pled guilty to the delinquency of a minor). Meanwhile, it is also a call in show, and incels across Tucson dialed in, asking Satan to push the boundaries further and further.

The show is indeed pretty hellacious, and perhaps a better glimpse into Hell than even Ron Ormond and Estus W. Pirkle provided in their series of Christian exploitation films aimed at scaring viewers into accepting Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. After 45 minutes of The Great Satan at Large, I was on my knees asking for forgiveness. I kind of want to watch it again right now though. But that’s just the way sin is I guess.

Perfidio did appear on another program on the Access Tucson network entitled 666Israel, where a televangelist character and Satan have a…well…I’m not sure how to describe their interaction honestly. You just have to see it to believe it. And thanks to the wonders of the internet, you can. It’s right there at your fingertips, along with every other perversion you can imagine. Hail Satan indeed.