Kolchak, The Night Stalker Collectable Figures!

Those madmen at Wandering Planet are at it again with a new Kickstarter for a Kolchak action figure! It's 1/12 scale with 22 points of articulation and sports a variety of accessories. They are also doing a figure of the vampire Janos Skorzeny and a two-pack of them together! 

Check it out at this LINK.

 

FREDDY'S NIGHTMARES : A Nightmare on Elm Street: The Series

I’ve been given the opportunity to finally see some episodes of the late 80’s syndicated television offshoot Freddy’s Nightmares. I have heard for years about how bad it was with some dissenting opinions sometimes expressed in carefully couched terms. I can only imagine how it might have felt to catch this show on late cable channels and wonder what in the world was going on. It must have seemed incredibly transgressive at the time but time has certainly moved on. I’ve watched two episodes to get a taste and neither one was good at all. Even at roughly 45 minutes they both strained to fill time as if they might have been scripted for a shorter time slot.

 

The first was a restaging/retelling of the origin of Freddy Krueger, but showing us exactly how a child murderer was denied a conviction because of a paperwork mistake sounds more interesting than this show can manage. The biggest problem is the low budget the series seems to have had. Everything looks cheap. Everything! The sets, the lighting, the costumes, the effects and score all feel slapped together. I can only assume that there was less than a couple of days to get each episode shot as the only explanation for how uninteresting it is. The visual look is the same as a soap opera, all flat lighting, basic camera setups and sloppy editing. The visuals are so dull that it at times it feels like a parody or an SNL skit. I suspect that most of the meager money spent on this thing went to convince Robert Englund to reprise his signature role as Freddy. But I think they must have only had him for a few days at a time because there are a few scenes in the first episode where it is clear that the actor is not on set. One sequence has Freddy with his back to the camera while Englund seems to be performing his dialog in an ADR booth in another state or well after the fact. It is embarrassing! But the entire thing is embarrassing, truth be told. 

The second episode I watched was slightly better but still pretty dull. It’s a Halloween themed tale with Freddie as a boogeyman still lurking around trying to murder teenagers. It involves a scientist who can record dreams and an attempt to best ol’ Krueger but we know how that’s going to play out – dully! I might watch a few more of these to see if there are any gems among the dross but maybe not. I wonder if there are any fans out there who feel a sense of nostalgia for this show. Even the worst of the Elm Street sequel films is better than this, so far.

Video - The World Beyond (1978) - TV Series Pilot

I don't know how but I completely missed this when it aired on January 27, 1978. I would have been nine and fully into my obsession with Kolchak: The Night Stalker, so this would have attracted me like a fly to honey. I have no memory of it and, now that I've watched it, this terrifying tale certainly would have haunted my dreams for a long time! This is the second of two pilots made for a series that never got picked up. The first was called The World of Darkness and aired in 1977 but I can't find it on YouTube - yet! I would love to know why this excellent show didn't go to series for at least one season. I guess by the end of the 1970's there was less of an interest in supernatural/occult investigator TV shows. That's a shame because if they had been able to maintain this level of quality it would have been incredible. 

Check this out. It's a fantastic piece of hidden 70's TV history and a fine way to get some creepy thrills for fifty minutes. I wonder if we'll ever see a cleaned up, remastered version of this because it deserves to be seen by more people. 

The Bloody Pit #117 - GARGOYLES (1972)

American genre TV movies of the 1970’s hold a fascination for me. Growing up they were often the big event of the week and the major topic of discussion for kids at school for a long time after their premiere. In some cases, these movies have lived on in the larger public consciousness with reruns adding to their fanbase as it can take more than just excited playground conversations to grow their legends. In the past few years more and more of them have made the jump to Blu-Ray with lavish care taken to bring these sometimes difficult to find tales to a new audience. The biggest of the decade’s TV films are well represented, especially the fantastic and groundbreaking one-two punch of THE NIGHT STALKER (1972) and THE NIGHT STRANGLER (1973) or even the excellent failed pilot THE NORLISS TAPES (1973). But there is much more of interest to horror fans seeking obscure telefilms than just Dan Curtis productions and, in this episode, we dive into a discussion of the fun CBS creature feature GARGOYLES (1972). There is much to talk about!

John Hudson and I tackle the film from several angles starting with our own histories with it. John got to see it on it’s premiere and has some holdover nostalgia for the movie while I caught up to it much later. We both still love the monster design, the desert southwest setting and the fact that very little time is wasted getting into the meat of the story. John has some information gleaned from the DVD director’s commentary track that sheds some light on the production and answers a couple of minor questions. We lament the lack of a certain actor’s voice and find ourselves still impressed with the ambition of the film. I openly wonder about the dropped idea of the Satanic element of the backstory and do a little guesswork on some missed opportunities that the restrictions of television in the 70’s might have made impossible.

 

If you have any memories tied to this mad monster film tell us about it at thebloodypit@gmail.com or over on the show’s Facebook page. What was your favorite TV movie from your childhood? Thanks for listening! 

Apple Podcasts LINK 

Direct MP3 Download LINK 

Made For TV Horror - DARKROOM (1981)

Although the past decade has seen a resurgence of the anthology horror film there haven't been nearly as many new television series that follow the multiple stories per episode format. That is a shame as I think these kind of shows allow for a couple of fascinating programming possibilities. There is the ability to put together two or more different stories that share a theme or even a star. I could even envision a series that occasionally featured multiple stories by the same famous author as an event episode. Also, it would be possible to use a later story to soften the harshness of the preceding tale with a humorous final play to make the darker opening punch seem less rough. The options seem limitless especially with the more permissive standards of cable and streaming we have now.

 

But if you are interested in past attempts to bring this type of show to the masses I am happy to say that NBC has made the short-lived 1981 anthology horror series DARKROOM available to stream from their website. If you have a Roku TV or another streaming device you can watch episodes of this rare little gem on the NBC app and see what worked and didn't in this show. I can't claim every episode was great but when you see Robert Bloch and Brian Clemons' names attached you know the right people are in there pitching! I'm going to be rewatching episodes for the rest of October to discover if my positive memories are accurate or not. Fingers crossed! 

Darkroom on NBC