I love Jillian Bell. She elevates everything she is in, from Workaholics to 22 Jump Street. So I was excited to see her star in a film, despite it seeming like pure formula from its trailer. The good news is it that it’s anything but.
Paul Downs Colaizzo was born in Pittsburgh, but raised in Georgia and got his BFA at NYU. His plays Really Really and Pride in the Falls of Autrey Mill got his name out there, plus he sold a pilot called LFE to CBS and was part of their MacGyver reboot.
This movie is based on the real story of his roommate, Brittany O’Neill. You can check out her story in Runner’s World.
Brittany Forgler is 28, can’t keep a man, works a job that is at best dead-end and drinks, parties and abuses Adderall to get by. She can’t even afford a gym so that she can get healthy, like her doctor demands. So she just starts walking, which her influencer roommate Gretchen (YouTuber Alice J) thinks is all a joke.
Soon, she bonds with other runners like Seth and Catherine. And her dog sitting job introduces her to a man who is either going to be her enemy or lifemate, Jern (Utkarsh Ambudkar, who originated the Aaron Burr role in Hamilton in the script readings).
My favorite character in this is Lil Rel Howery as Demetrius, Brittany’s de facto father figure, as the rest of her family is such a mess.
This is a movie with no easy answers for its characters. They make mistakes. They say the wrong thing. They screw up on a scale that is monumental. But you still feel love in your heart for them. You want them to do better. In short, it feels real.
Jillian Bell lost 40 pounds during the filming of the movie, just like the character she is playing. As someone who has worked hard to lose 60 pounds this year, I celebrate not only the way the movie treats the pain of losing weight, but that sometimes, even when you lose the pounds, you still have mental work left to do.
Amazingly, this is the first non-documentary to ever be shot during the New York Marathon. Fellow runners and race watchers thought that Bell was really injured during the climax and cheered her on, not knowing that this was all a movie shoot.
Originally airing on CBS on October 16, 1982, this made-for-TV movie was directed by Jerry Jameson, who also was the in the director’s chair for movies like The Bat People, Airport ’77 and the Gunsmoke and Bonanza reunion movies.
Lynda Carter (TV’s Wonder Woman as well as Miss World USA 1972) plays Brianne O’Neill, an art student who is getting stalked by The Barber, a man who claims to be behind several killings in the paper.
Who is The Barber? Is it Justin Price (Granville Van Dusen, who was the voice of Race Bannon on The New Adventures of Jonny Quest)? Deranged killer Charlie Jackson (James Booth, Airport ’77)? Former actor Tom Hunter (Steve Forrest, Mommie Dearest), who has been in love with Brianne for a long time? Her boss Kyle Durham (Monte Markham, Jake Speed, We Are Still Here)? Or her co-worker Barnie (Frank Stallone!, Ground Rules)?
Look for Harry Waters, Jr. in this movie. He played Marvin Berry in Back to the Future, the guy that Marty McFly used to steal rock ‘n roll from black people.
There’s a death by harpoon gun, so this movie has that going for it. Consider it an early 80’s American low budget made for TV giallo and you’ll be fine.
Curtis Harrington knew all about the occult, thanks to his friendships with Marjorie Cameron and Kenneth Anger. This made-for-TV movie, which originally aired on CBS on October 31, 1978, is all about a suburban family who just wants to have a nice dog and ends up with a Satanic pooch.
Ah man, made-for-TV movies are where it’s at. Seriously, what a magical time to be alive, when these movies just blasted their way into your home via network TV.
As featured in our Ten Horror Movie Dogs article, this movie tells the story of the Barry family — Mike (Richard Crenna!), Betty (Yvette Mimieux, Jackson County Jail, The Black Hole) and their kids Bonnie and Charlie (played by aunt of Paris Hilton Kim Richards and Ike Eisenmann, who were in the Witch Mountain movies) — get a new German Shepherd from a fruit vendor after theirs dies in an accident.
Sired in a Satanic ceremony to make the world think that evil will triumph, this lil’ mutt is soon killing maids and making Mike try to stick his hand into a lawnmower, which seems like small potatoes for the hound of Hell. Somehow, the dog also makes a shrine to the First of the Fallen in the basement and shrugs off some gunshots.
Mike goes the whole way to Ecuador — as you do — where Victor Jory, the voice of Peter Pan records, teaches him how to imprison the canine’s soul for a thousand years.
Ken Kercheval — Cliff Barnes from Dallas — is in here, as are R. G. Armstrong (who was also menaced by the Devil in The Car, Race With the Devil and Evilspeak, which is some kind of record), Martine Beswick (who catfought with Racquel Welch in One Million Years B.C., played Bond girls in From Russia With Love and Thunderball, played Xaviera Hollander in The Happy Hooker Goes to Washington and was Sister Hyde in Dr. Jekyll and Sister Hyde) and Warren Munson, who played an admiral in Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattanand Uncle Bill in Ed and His Dead Mother.
Following the success of the film Demons and Demons 2, Reiteitalia would announce a series entitled Brivido a Series Giallo, which would be five made-for-TV movies by Lamberto Bava. Of the announced five, only The Ogre, Graveyard Disturbance, Until Death and Dinner With a Vampire were made.
The script, written by Dardano Sacchetti, is pretty much the original script for The House By the Cemetery before Lucio Fulci added to the tale. Seeing as how it was a TV movie, there was some self-censorship, as Bava said that were this a real movie, the ogre would have eaten children.
Cheryl (Virginia Bryant, Demons 2, The Barbarians) is a sexually confused American writer of horror novels who traves to Italy with her husband Tom (Paolo Malco, The New York Ripper, Thunder) and son Bobby — yep, little Bob, but not Giovanni Frezza — to work on her next book.
She begins to have nightmares of childhood memories of being stalked by an ogre and becomes convinced that the house has a curse on it that is bringing her past memories into our reality.
Alex Serra, who was the blind man from the original Demons, also shows up. Speaking of Demons, this movie was released outside of Italy as the third film in that series. As you’ll soon learn from the Demoni sequels, it has nothing to do with the first two films. Even more confusing, this was released on DVD in Germany as Ghosthouse II, the sequel to the Umberto Lenzi’s Ghosthouse/La Casa 3. That movie is confusing, too, as it’s the third movie in the La Casa series, which translates to house in Italian, but has nothing to do with the movie House. Instead, Evil Dead is known as La Casa in Italy.
I’ve learned one thing from this movie. If you want to kill an ogre, run it over numerous times with a truck. Then it will just disappear.
Originally airing on SyFy back when it was still Sci-Fi, way back on October 27, 2007, Headless Horseman is all about the famous Washington Irving story, which was true and was much less scary than what actually happened.
It’s directed by Anthony C. Ferrante, who would go on to create Sharknado.
On their way to a party, seven teens stumble upon the town of Wormwood Ridge, whose townsfolk are celebrating a ceremony honoring the Headless Horseman. Turns out that the town wants their skulls, to quote the Misfits.
Nearly everyone loses their head in this one, quite literally. You know, if I’ve learned anything, if you end up in a small town and it feels weird, just leave before you die.
So yeah. Don’t go in expecting Sleepy Hollow and just aim to have some fun and you’ll be just fine.
Mill Creek Entertainment’s Savage Nature set has this movie and three other films all about the evil side of Mother Nature. You also get a code for all four films on their MovieSPREE service. Want to see it for yourself? Then grab a copy right here.
Russell Bayne (Jeremy London, T.S. Quint from Mallrats), is bitten by a werewolf and finds himself in the middle of a supernatural war between vampires, werewolves and the human hunters who want to stop them. So, you know, Underworld. There are some magic amulets that are needed to stop a vampire named Lilith from rising to power and lots and lots of exposition.
Wolvesbayne premiered on October 18, 2009 as part of SyFy’s 31 Nights of Halloween.
This comes directly from ex-members of The Asylum under their new name Bullet Films. If you’ve seen an Asylum movie, you know exactly what to expect.
Christy Carlson Romano appears as Alex Layton. She was on Even Stevens and was the voice of Kim Possible. Mark Dacascos, the American Iron Chef chairman and one of the many reasons why Brotherhood of the Wolf is so good appears as Von Griem. Then there’s Yancy Butler, who was on the Witchblade TV series, who shows up as Lilith, plus scream queen Stephanie Honore (The Final Destination and the never released Spring Break ’83).
This is another film — the Savage Nature and Hosues of Hell Mill Creek sets are fill of them — involving Griff Furst and Leigh Scott. Good for them getting sold to SyFy and then keeping them relevant on digital platforms and re-released on DVD.
Mill Creek Entertainment’s Savage Nature set has this movie and three other films all about the evil side of Mother Nature. You also get a code for all four films on their MovieSPREE service. Want to see it for yourself? Then grab a copy right here.
A creature of ancient legend manifests, bound to protect the ecological balance of the land as well as kill anyone that threatens it. This elusive guardian is both feared and celebrated by the locals. However, a deadly curse soon impacts them all, uniting them with the goal of recapturing the monster wolf’s spirit or facing their ultimate doom.
The film was part of Syfy’s 31 Days of Halloween 2010 and premiered on Syfy October 9, 2010.
Yeah, you know how it is for oil workers. You try to find a new place to drill, set off an explosion and unleash a wolf-like creature that kills all of your co-workers. Time to fill out an incident report!
Director Todor Chapkanov has worked second unit on big films like The Hitman’s Bodyguard and London Has Fallen. This was written by Charles Bolon, who was also behind Swamp Shark.
Robert Picardo, who played Eddie Quist in The Howling, is now ironically facing off with a werewolf in this one. This movie is in no way as good as that film, but I’m sure you already guessed that.
Mill Creek Entertainment’s Savage Nature set has this movie and three other films all about the evil side of Mother Nature. You also get a code for all four films on their MovieSPREE service. Want to see it for yourself? Then grab a copy right here.
An adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft’s The Dunwich Horror, this movie is all about Wilbur Whateley (Jeffery Combs, Re-Animator, The Frighteners) as he tries to find the Necronomicon, an ancient, diabolical manuscript that will help him open a doorway to a dimension inhabited by unspeakable creatures known as the Old Ones.
Otherwise known as The Darkest Evil and Witches, this first played on the SyFy Channel on December 13, 2009.
In Louisiana, a single mother delivers a baby boy — and a monster — in the cursed Whateley House. Ten years later, Dr. Henry Armitage (Sean Stockwell!) and his assistant, Professor Fay Morgan (Sarah Lieving, who shows up in plenty of this director’s films) discover that every single copy of the Necronomicon is missing page 751.
Oh yeah — the Black Brotherhood has also summoned the gatekeeper of the ancient ones, Yog-Sothoth, to open the portal to the walls beyond sleep. Meanwhile, Professor Walter Rice (Griff Furst, who was in the remake of The Magnificent Seven) tries to translate the book. And oh yeah — Lavina’s son, Wilbur Whateley(Combs), is aging quickly and needs the missing page to save himself.
Written and directed by Leigh Scott, who created The Baron Trump Adventures and wrote several movies based on The Wizard of Oz, this film has a pretty great cast and moves quickly enough.
Nearly all of the various symbols and diagrams shown in this film come from the “Simon” version of the Necronomicon. Although Lovecraft insisted that the book was pure invention — it came to him in a dream and he allowed other authors to refer to it and use it in their stories — it’s not a real book.
That hasn’t stopped many from claiming that it was, with Lovecraft himself sometimes getting letters from fans asking about it. Several of them pranked large university libraries by adding it to card catalogs and even requesting it from large libraries like the Vatican.
The Simon book actually has little to no connection to Lovecraft. After a limited edition hardback printing, the paperback version of this book has never gone out of print, selling more than 800,000 copies. I mean, I have one. It’s right next to The Satanic Bible and Hollywood Babylon on my shelf of mystic related works. The tagline for this book states that it could be “potentially, the most dangerous Black Book known to the Western World.”
The book deviates from Lovecraft’s intent to have the Ancient Ones be forces beyond good and evil. The idea that mankind is locked in a war between opposing forces comes from the Judeo-Christian beliefs inserted into the Cthulu mythos by author August Derleth.
There’s also a section of the intro given over to Richard Grant’s theory, as espoused in his book The Magical Revival, that there was an unconscious union between Aleister Crowley and Lovecraft. In short, they drew on the same occult forces from different paths: Crowley through actual rites, Lovecraft through the dreams that inspired his stories. Grant goes on to claim that the Necronomicon exists as an astral book as part of the Akashic records and can be accessed through both ritual magic or in dreams.
There’s also a 1978 Necronomicon, edited by George Hay with an introduction by Colin Wilson, that was supposedly created from a computer analysis of a discovered “cipher text” by Dr. John Dee, the man who coined the term British Empire. He was an intensely religious Christian that studied sorcery, astrology and Hermetic philosophy, all with the goal of communicating with Enochian angels, so that he could learn the universal language of creation and achieve what he referred to as the pre-apocalyptic unity of mankind.
Anyways, back to the Simon version. Two members of the Magickal Childe scene — a New York City book store that was the major focal point for American magic/magick from the 70’s until the 90’s — Khem Caigan (the Necronomicon‘s illustrator) and Alan Cabal claimed that the book is a known hoax. My theory has always been that Peter Levenda, an occult author who wrote the book Unholy Alliance, is Simon, as the copyright notice for this book is in his name. Ironically, the name of Levenda’s latest book? Dunwich.
This is one of four movies on Mill Creek Entertainment’s Houses of Hell set. It’s an affordable way to get some scares that you may not have seen otherwise. Plus, you get a free code to save these movies digitally on Mill Creek’s MovieSPREE! site. For more information, check out their site.
Three students strive to be initiated into a sorority on Halloween night. However, they soon realize that they must fight for their lives from ghosts that have invaded and the housemother that has embarked upon a killing spree.
Oh man — with a synopsis like that, is it any wonder that I picked this movie to watch first on the new Mill Creek Entertainment box set Houses of Hell?
Also known as Paranormal Iniiation, this movie originally played on the Syfy channel October 13, 2012. Morgan Fairchild stars as Miss Margot, the housemother who has decided to kill all of the sorority sisters to create her own ghostly family.
Director Darin Scott also was behind Tales from the Hood 2 and the amazingly titled Megachurch Murder. It was written by Anthony C. Ferrante, who would go on to direct all of the Sharknado movies.
While this never gets to the levels of slasher or paranormal mayhem that you want, you have to realize that it’s a made for cable 2000’s horror movie. Temper your expectations, shut your brain off and have some fun.
This is one of four movies on Mill Creek Entertainment’s Houses of Hell set. It’s an affordable way to get some scares that you may not have seen otherwise. Plus, you get a free code to save these movies digitally on Mill Creek’s MovieSPREE! site. For more information, check out their site.
B&S Movies’ readers are already up to speed on everything ape, with the franchise’s production minutiae readily available—if you want it.
But here are the basics that led to the post-Star Wars POTA movies: As result of the first four films’ box office returns—it was the Star Wars of its day—Arthur P. Jacobs, the producer of the films through his APJAC Productions for distributor 20th Century Fox, decided to capitalize on the theatrical success with an hour-long live action series. It was to start (and take place after the events in) after Conquest, which was believed to be the fourth and final film. Then Fox decided that, instead of a series, they wanted another movie, which became 1973’s Battle.
Sadly, Jacobs died in June 1973 before his vision of the TV series could be realized. CBS-TV then purchased the broadcast rights to the first three films: each ran as a “Movie of the Week” during the month of September 1973 to, not surprising, high ratings. And result of Jacobs’s death, Fox was in full control of the decisions regarding the franchise.
So while the ape movies were breaking TV ratings records, Gene Roddenberry developed his Star Trek follow-up, Genesis II (1973), through Warner Bros. for CBS-TV—and the movie-series pilot garnered high ratings. Plans were made to go to series, with Roddenberry scripting a 20-episode season arc.
But the ratings for the Apes reruns rivaled Genesis II, which resulted in CBS turning their focus away from other contenders (what those series were, is unknown) for a new weekly science-fiction series—including Roddenberry’s. And with that, the network ran with Apes TV series idea and added it to the schedule for their 1974 autumn programming. Fox ordered 14 episodes.
The series started from scratch, with actors Ron Harper and James Naughton as Alan Virdon and Peter Burke, two astronauts who pass through a time warp while approaching Alpha Centauri on August 19, 1980, which results in a crash on June 14, 3085. They’re rescued by a human (for the sake of adding “drama” to the series, unlike the films, the humans can speak) who takes them to a bomb shelter and opens a book containing historical text and pictures of Earth circa 2500; the space explorers are convinced they are on a future Earth. A later check of their ship’s chronometer confirms their fears: they’re on Earth 1000 years in the future.
They’re soon befriended by a friendly chimpanzee, Galen, portrayed by Roddy McDowall—the only actor to return to the franchise. Booth Coleman (the 1956 post-apoc flick World Without End; pick a ‘60s or ‘70s TV series) took over the role of the orangutan Zaius from his friend, and former Dr. Zaius, Maurice Evans. In another Star Trek connection: Mark Lenard (Spock’s father Sarek in Star Trek: TOS, TAS, TNG) starred as gorilla General Urko.
The series, which ran during the highly-coveted ratings sweet spot from 8 to 9 p.m on Fridays in September 1974, was a ratings disaster. The failure was attributed to the high production costs against the low ratings, ratings that resulted from repetitive stories (boring stories) that relied too much on human philosophical dilemmas and not enough ape action—which is what everyone came for in the first place: the apes. After 14 episodes, which ran from September 13, 1974 to December 20, 1974, the series was cancelled. (Sounds like Battlestar Galactica‘s dilemma to catch some “Star Wars” success.)
In 1981, in the wake of the Star Wars-inspired sci-fi boom on theatre screens and television (check out B&S Movies’ “Ten Star Wars Rip Offs” and “Attack of the Clones” tribute weeks as proof), Fox reedited ten of the fourteen episodes—two episodes stitched together—into five international TV movies (that also played as theatrical features in some overseas markets). To achieve continuity and flow, new prologue and epilog segments were filmed starring McDowall as an aged Galen telling the “past” tale of the Earth astronauts. Those five films were:
Back to the Planet of the Apes
Forgotten City of the Planet of the Apes
Treachery and Greed on the Planet of the Apes
Life, Liberty and Pursuit on the Planet of the Apes
Farewell to the Planet of the Apes
(In addition to the Planet of the Apes series, CBS-TV also recut episodes of The Amazing Spider-Man (Spider-Man Strikes Back and The Dragon’s Challenge) and their two ‘70s pilots for Captain America (Captain America and Death Too Soon) into overseas theatrical features (which became box-office hits) and telefilms. Other TV series recut into theatrical/telefilms in the wake of Star Wars’ success included Sylvia and Gerry Anderson’s syndicated UFO and Space: 1999, the 1973 Keir Dullea Canadian series The Starlost, and Universal’s Buck Rogers in the 25th Century for NBC-TV and Battlestar Galactica for ABC-TV (BSG’s “Commander Cain” story-arc was cut into a successful foreign theatrical: Mission Galactica: The Cylon Attack; trailer); even story-arcs of The Six Million Dollar Man (The Secret of Bigfoot) received theatrical cuts. Even the early ‘70s pilot-movies for Earth II, The Questor Tapes, and Genesis II found new life via new edits and new titles. You can learn more about those telefilms with the Medium article, “In Space No One Can Hear the Pasta Over-Boiling: The ’80s Italian Spacesploitation Invasion.”)
However, before Fox edited those ape movies, the studio teamed with NBC-TV and created Return to the Planet of the Apes, a 1975 Saturday morning animated series (as was Star Trek) produced by the team behind the popular Jonny Quest. The series went back to the beginning, once again, as three American astronauts—including Jeff Allen (voiced by Austin Stoker, who played MacDonald in Battle; John Carpenter’s Assault on Precinct 13)—time jump into Earth’s future. The storylines closely mirrored Pierre Boulle’s Monkey Planet source novel and the Vietnam War and Cold War themes of first two ape movies. In addition, the series featured characters that originated in both of the Fox films and the CBS live action series. NBC broadcast 13 episodes between September 6 and November 29, 1975. As with the live action CBS-TV series, the kids stayed away in droves, as the show’s message was too complex and heavy-handed for children. NBC cancelled the series.
In addition to Marvel Comics’ longer-running Adventures of the Planet of the Apes series published from August 1974 to February 1977, Power Records issued a 1974 comic book-audio series, Planet of the Apes (which can be enjoyed on You Tube).
And that was the end of the Apes franchise—until Tim Burton’s 2001 reboot.
Numerous episodes of CBS’s live action and NBC’s animated series are uploaded on You Tube. You can sample the first episode of the hour-long live action series (Part 1 and Part 2) and the half hour animated series. The fan-made clip, seen above, is based on deleted, lost footage shot for the opening of the third Apes theatrical film, Escape. Based on the original shooting script, the segment featured the apenauts inside the space ship, seeing the Earth destroyed, and encountering the time continuum. The scene was ultimately scrapped and the film began with the ship already crash landed on Earth.
Wanna play?
As part of our May 2023 tribute to Roger Avery and Quentin Tarantino’s weekly podcast tribute to their days at Manhattan Beach’s Video Archives, here’s the link to their take on the home video version of The Apes TV series.
The two, above paperbacks are adapted from the series episodes that comprise the third Apes telefilm — learn more with our individual review of Quentin’s favorite of the series, Treachery and Greed on the Planet of the Apes.
About the Author: You can read the music and film reviews of R.D Francis on Medium and learn more about his work on Facebook. He also writes for B&S Movies.
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