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Thriller – The Cheaters (12/27/60)

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tcheaters01I always considered Robert Bloch’s screenplay to Psycho to be about as perfect as you can get — well-paced, quotable, manipulative, funny, scary.  I guess it should be no surprise that 3 of these first 5 episodes of Thriller — Fan Favorites — have been written by him or adapted from his work.  I would like to read more of his work, but sorry Amazon, I’m not shelling out $18 for a paperback of his best.

A not particularly useful prologue (hey, who wrote this rubbish!)[1] shows us a very crabby Dr. Van Prinn inventing a new type of spectacles.  When he tries them on, he looks in a mirror and screams in horror much as I do at Eye-Glass World.  They’re just glasses — they aren’t going to make me look like George Clooney.

Van Prinn is so distraught at what he sees (but we do not) that he screams in horror. Host Boris Karloff informs us that he hanged himself before dawn.  Rather than destroy the damnable specs so no one else suffers his fate — won’t someone please think of the children! — he apparently tucks them away in a desk drawer where they remain for 200 years.

Act II

tcheaters02Maggie and Joe live in a modest home (better than the Kramdens’ apartment, maybe more like Norton’s — which always sounded a little nicer, but I’m not sure was ever seen).  Maggie is just the kind of nagging shrew that we usually get from Alfred Hitchcock.  She is berating poor junkman Joe about bidding $100 on a blind lot from an abandoned building.  She is really a harridan, continuing to insult him as his young, single, handsome, athletic employee Harry enters the apartment.

They find nothing but disintegrating books, a lot of cobwebs, and broken furniture. Charlie mocks Joe just as his wife did and leaves thinking they have been had; but Joe finds the glasses which have been hidden away for 200 years.  He has been having trouble seeing, so these are the titular “cheaters” in the optical sense of the word.

When Joe gets home, Maggie is as dolled up as she can get.  She apologizes for being so rotten and selfish that morning.  When he puts on the titular cheaters, though, he can hear the truth from Maggie and see her “true” face — she plans to kill him. Charlie comes over to the house and Joe, through the specs, can see their unexpressed thoughts.  A gas company wants to buy their property for big bucks (because where better to drill than in a residential neighborhood (well (no pun intended), this was in the days before the EPA was created by Richard Nixon (that’s right, Richard freakin’ Nixon!)).  Not only that, Charlie and Maggie are planning to kill him — which explains Charlie’s interest in this 20-year older . . . I’m running out of synonyms that don’t stat with C.[2]

Joe brutally takes a tire iron to Maggie and Charlie.  A policemen overhears the disturbance and runs into the house.  Joe looks at the glasses and yells, “the cheaters, the cheaters!” adding a nice double-meaning to the title.  He raises the tire iron to pulverize the spectacles, but is gunned down like Michael Brown — except he was going for the glasses and not for the cop’s gun; or to attack him physically; or to rob a convenience store; or to assault a clerk.  Otherwise, pretty similar.

Act III

tcheaters03The story cleverly maintains continuity by having the glasses show up in an estate sale to get rid of the contents of Maggie and Joe’s home.  They are purchased by an old woman who can see that her children are planning to murder her.  She sees through the specs that the trustee of her husband’s estate is in on the murder plot so she jams a gigantic hatpin into his heart.  That hat must have been the size of Turd Ferguson’s.

Act IV

tcheaters04A year later, at a costume party, her son is mocked for lacking spectacles to complete his Ben Franklin get-up. Once his wife provides the specs, he finds he can hear his guests’ thoughts about the cards they are holding.  When he accuses another player of cheating, it gets turned around so he appears to be guilty. There is a fight and Thomas Jefferson clubs him in the head, accidentally killing him.  Cleverly, another twist on the word “cheater.”

Act V

tcheaters05Sebastian Grimm, one of the players at the game, takes the specs, suspecting that they have some special property.  He is writing a book about the glasses and goes to the old Van Prinn place, abandoned for decades.  He wants to know why Van Prinn hanged himself.  His wife begs him to not go upstairs, to go home with her.

He goes up, puts on the cheaters and looks in the mirror just like Van Prinn.  Grimm sees a hideous reflection, for reasons I am not clear on.  Did he do something that I missed?  Was it the hubris to think he could look within his own soul?  Was he seeing the evil that is in all humans?.  He screams in horror and claws at his face until it is bloody.

On the plus side, he does stomp on the glasses and put and end to their trail of carnage.  So there should be some redemption for that.

Great episode.

Post-Post:

  • [1]In retrospect, the prologue was an integral part of the story.  But am I going to start rewriting at 1 am?  Well, for that matter, is there any evidence that I ever do?
  • [2] Ya kinda need to know the yacht is name The Seaward.  Thanks for mangling one of the best jokes of the series.  And screwing up the aspect ratio.
  • Etymology Corner:  I’ve been using “for that matter” a lot lately — kind of a weird phrase.  I recently bookmarked an article on “believe you me” that I will actually read some day.
  • For all my praise of Robert Bloch, he did write 3 of my least favorite episodes of Star Trek.  On the other hand, dude wrote 3 MFing episodes of Star Trek!
  • Title Analysis:  Finally, I can give an A.  The multiple meanings and continuity were beautiful.

The Ouija Experiment (2011)

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Image 002Brandon and Shay are in the car going to Dallas.  They are excitedly going to Michael’s place for some awesome unannounced event; that’s Michael who is the friend of Shay’s “hot boyfriend Calvin.”

The confusion starts from the first second.  Why are Shay and Brandon traveling together when she is Calvin’s girlfriend?

Michael is not happy having a camera in his face in his home, so the the screen goes black.  In this case, once you go black, you do go back as Michael has the camera back in his face 2 seconds later.  He reveals that the big event for the night is playing with a Ouija Board, having lost some of the pieces to Chutes & Ladders..

This gets both Michael and Brandon giddy as 12 year old girls.  Michael wants the camera off because “ghosts never come out when there are cameras”.  That must be why Ghost Image 005Hunters has lasted 9 seasons without one solid piece of evidence.  I wish I had some good news for the producers of Finding Bigfoot; after 5 years they haven’t figured out that sasquatches are similarly camera-shy.

They gather around the table, but nothing seems to be happening.  Then the pointer[1] starts moving in response to their questions.  A great stylistic opportunity was missed in showing the letters exposed by the pointer.  It is hard to follow, and makes a grating wood-on-wood sound as it moves.  Combine this with a not-particularly likable bunch of immature adults, and this is not an auspicious beginning.

Just when the movie does something right, it blows it.  Shay is filming for no particular reason — it seems she and Calvin’s sister live together (no, I don’t think they do, but that is more confusion), but they’re together at bedtime some reason other than what you might hope. There are actually a couple of good scares as the camera pans across items that definitely shouldn’t be there.  The third one is Lynette wearing some facial cream — a pretty good gag.  She doesn’t believe Shay saw anything supernatural.  WELL, THERE IS A CAMERA STILL IN HER HAND!  TAKE A LOOK!  But no, they just go to bed.  Or maybe Shay goes home — who the hell knows.

Lynette has a good scene with the camera at her house.  Calvin, who I think is supposed to be the comic relief, has his own experience which does not turn out well for him.  Then Michael has his own experience.  Finally, he shows his tape to the others.  All of the weird stuff is gone.

Image 010Strangely for a first-person hand-held movie, there is a flashback.  We learn the backstory — I can’t call it a twist — and it is underwhelming.  The concept could have worked, but the film is just so tedious by this point, and the flashback filmed in such desaturated color, and the performances so off that it is impossible to care.

There is more confusion about birth-dates that seems to lead to nothing.  And who kept that scrapbook?  Everyone was dead.

The film ends back in hand-held mode with a potentially clever twist that is not quite pulled off.  In part, I blame myself for never being able to tell Brandon and Michael apart.  The cast was very diverse, but I must say, with those 2 white guys, I was lost.  Maybe because you only ever saw one at a time as the other was handling the camera.  And where did all those f***ing cameras come from?  Suddenly everyone had one.

Image 001I’m willing to say I might have missed something that explains the above problems.  After all, it is based on true events.  But the fact that the film didn’t hold my attention strongly enough to see the answers reveals a bigger problem.  O possibly, it was just the porn playing in the picture -in-picture.

Post-Post:

  • [1]What they call a pointer is actually called a planchette by the Ouija Industrial Complex.
  • The movie is called The Ouija Experiment, they call the board a Ouija Board, but the board onscreen is not an official trademarked Ouija Board.
  • Supposedly filmed on a $1,200 budget.
  • Inexplicably there is a sequel in the works.

Ray Bradbury Theater – The Anthem Sprinters (08/21/92)

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Image 001This one is 3rd from the bottom on the always-suspect IMDb ratings. Tyrannosaurus Rex had its moments (grading on the RBT scale, of course), and Exorcism was almost, but not completely, without merit. This episode though . . .

Several previous episodes have been curiosities because they were made by directors with no other credits. This episode is unique in that the director does not even have this credit to his name.  No director is credited, not even Alan Smithee.

American writer Douglas (no first name, just like the director) is browsing through an Irish used bookstore.  “Douglas is the name and writer I am,” he says to himself. Sounds kind of Yoda-like — maybe George Lucas directed it.  Naw, shame never caused him to remove his name from the credits.

Image 002He stumbles across a 1916 first edition of Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce.  He is pretty careless with the book considering it goes for about £20,000 these days.  He is reading it as he leaves the store, running into a local drunk (just an assumption on my part).

The drunk — Doone — drags Douglas to a pub which he describes as a theater.  It also happens to be across the street from a real theater — a real old theater as it is showing a Deanna Durbin joint.

Douglas says that he has noticed in theaters that the movie is always followed by a playing of the Irish National Anthem.  He also noticed that it is a race to get out of the theater between the end of the film and the beginning of the anthem by certain goofballs known as Anthem Sprinters.

Image 008A race is set up with some pretty steep stakes — the James Joyce 1st edition vs a Program signed by Sean O’Casey.  Douglas foolishly bets on the dark horse, who does not emerge from the theater.  They find him still in his seat with a tear in his eye for the songs in the movie.

The race is restaged, but this time none of the old drunks move as they are in tears at the anthem.

I don’t get it at all.  Is it some sort of commentary on English / Irish relations?

Post-Post:

  • Doone was memorable playing a monk on an episode of The Odd Couple 21 years earlier.  However, I’ll forget this role before dinner.

I Am Omega (2007)

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iamomega0020 Horror Movies for $7.50 — Part V.

I read in several places that this film was the cream of the Asylum crop.  I assume that referred to the “mockbuster” titles.  I actually liked the Two-Headed Shark Attack and the Sharknado movies.

I haven’t haven’t the pleasure of seeing the er . . . homages such as The Terminators, The Day the Earth Stopped, or Transmorphers.  What’s strange is that this is considered a rip-off of I am Legend but bears little resemblance to that movie or any other movie made from that btheook.  Richard Matheson is even credited on IMDb (although not in the movie).

It gets off to a start that seems clear, but actually becomes more confusing as the movie progresses.  A young woman is frantically gathering a few key possessions and hustling her son into a pickup.  Sadly, one of the key possessions was not the keys, so she must go back into the house.  A zombie bashes her head into the windshield and her son is grabbed by a pair of hands under the truck.  Renchard (Mark Dacascos) sits bolt upright in bed with his gun drawn.

Cinematically, this tells us that the boy escaped and grew up to be Renchard.  He just awoke from a recurring nightmare about being unable to save his mother.  Or does it?  A few minutes later, he looks at a picture of the woman and boy — so possibly they were his wife and son, but that was a strange POV for a nightmare if he was not present?

The next half hour is literally a waste of 1s and 0s.  He imagines a radio is playing, he gets an incoming message on his laptop which he doesn’t answer, he shaves, brushes his teeth.  We do at least get a flashback that indicates they were his wife and son.

He literally punches a time clock and goes out in his ratty car do do his day job.  He is driving around placing explosive charges near gas lines, set to blow in 24 hours.  To what end?  This zombie infestation does not seem to be a local problem — what good is blowing up the city going to do?  And I suspect it is Los Angeles — he would need an H-Bomb to make a dent in that 500 square miles.  He does not appear to be a psychotic arsonist like Trashcan Man, so what is the point?

Vasquez Rocks

His robustly still-functional computer alerts him that he has another incoming message, but he again ignores it.  More confusion — is he just a nihilist, suicidal at this point and doesn’t want to meet other survivors?  It doesn’t seem so given his grooming and attire. Then why leave the messaging program open, and ignore it?

38 minutes in, he gets a visit from a couple of yahoos in a van.  One of them repeatedly calls him compadre which is an interesting character tic for about 3 times, but then just turns into an annoying drinking game as he uses it over and over and over.  They want Renchard to join them to go get the girl who was been texting him, but he isn’t interested.  It does get his attention when one of them asks when the charges are scheduled to blow.  Since they all seem to have LED readouts, that’s a pretty dumb question.

They get to the girl via sewers which apparently have the structure and reliability of Sunnydale.  And she really looks exactly like his mother.  This guy might have issues, but they’re about to get resolved.

At an hour and 6 minutes in, we finally get something interest, and an actual laugh.  I’ve already wasted too many words on this film, but it is the set piece that starts with the convertible in the parking garage.  It isn’t all that well staged, but it has some fun and some ideas — elements sorely lacking up to this point.

Sadly, things continue with a thoroughly unnecessary twist from a thoroughly unlikable character.  On the plus side, he can’t be blamed for ruining the movie.  Renchard comes through, though, in an unlikely final showdown.

There was a good movie to be had here and it had nothing to do with I Am Legend.  I just didn’t care for Renchard as the lead.  The bad guys were unlikable, but not in the good way.  And sadly, the girl was just a poor actress.  Combine that with some mediocre zombie make-up and direction, and you got yourself a major squandered opportunity.

iamomega05Post-Post:

  • Visually, the film was mostly a dud.  Really nothing made me want to do a screencap except the Vasquez Rocks.
  • Title Analysis:  Not to be pedantic, but he is not Omega (the last).  Ω is the 24 letter of the Greek alphabet —  maybe there are 24 survivors.  Or maybe no one gave a shit.

Alfred Hitchcock Presents – Guest for Breakfast (02/23/58)

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ahpguestfor011950s housewife Eve is preparing a breakfast that looks like the buffet at the Hilton — actual brewed coffee, toast, eggs, fresh-squeezed orange juice.  All this is very strange in that Eve and husband Jordan are constantly but eruditely sniping at each other and are on the verge of a divorce.  Why would she go to such trouble for him if the last ingredient wasn’t rat poison?

I must say though, the bickering is pretty entertaining, and well-played in that non-plussed British style where each insult is met calmly with an equally pointed retort. Asses will have no caps busted up them in this fine home.

It is strange, though not problematic, that the style changes dramatically at this point. The first scene is played strictly for deadpan laughs.  Once the intruder arrives, it becomes a farce without the laughs — yet remains comical throughout.  Whether it is a failure or brilliant balancing of styles, you can only answer for yourself (hint: brilliant).

They are interrupted by the doorbell.  A man in a rumpled suit immediately elbows his way inside and pulls out a pistol.  When Jordan comes out of the kitchen and sees his wife with a disheveled stranger, his calm response is, “Well now, this is a highly interesting development.”  He assumes Eve is having an affair, but even when he sees the gun, he very calm.

Chester the intruder demands something to eat.  He says, “The cops are after me.  I killed two people yesterday.  Only the first one counts.  You can figure that one out, can’t ya?”

ahpguestfor02Jordan says, “Yes, I think I grasp the general meaning.”  Well he’s one up on me.  What could that mean?  That it only takes one to make a man a murderer? That the second was a cop in pursuit?

Chester plans to take the car, and Jordan says that is fine as he takes the train to work and dismissively says he really must be going before he is missed at an important meeting.  His refusal to buy into this lethal situation really is a unique take.  When he describes how someone at the office will come looking for him, Chester agrees to let him go and keep Eve as a hostage — which is OK by Jordan.

Eve protests to poor Chester — yeah, I’m starting to feel sorry for him — that Jordan won’t come back, or that he will call the police just so Eve will be killed.  “He’s been trying to get rid of me for a year.  Ask him about Sylvia Lester.”

“Who’s that?” asks Chester.

Jordan says Eve is crazy, Sylvia is just an author he works with.  Eve and Jordan start bickering about divorce as if Chester isn’t even there.  Chester gets fed up and tells Jordan to just call in sick.

After Jordan hangs up, Chester admits that the two people he killed were his wife and the guy she was fooling around with.  So I guess he killed the guy second and he was the one who “didn’t count.”

ahpguestfor03Chester thinks maybe having someone in the car would get him through the roadblocks.  Eve says since Jordan was so anxious to leave, to take him.

Chester says he could do that but would have to shoot Eve to keep her from calling the cops.

So then Eve offers to go with him, surely a couple would not be stopped at a roadblock. Jordan points out that the exhausted Chester will need help driving and Eve doesn’t have a license.  Eve assures him that they would never shoot at a woman. Jordan assures him that he will take turns on the driving.  Both of them are playing to Chester and repeatedly throwing the other under the bus.

Finally, Chester decides to take Eve.  As he is leaving with Eve and preparing to shoot her husband, Jordan reminds Chester that he will need money.  Jordan can get the money for him at the bank — and it’s not a joint account.  He offers to write a check for $500, but only at the bank.

ahpguestfor04Eve rats him out that he keeps that much in a box in the bedroom upstairs.  As they go up the stairs, Jordan tricks Chester into chasing Eve downstairs as he locks himself in the bedroom.  There are more twists and turns as Eve and Jordan continually try to get the other killed.

The ending is sweet even if the last line is cringe-worthy.  This really was a great episode in both premise and performance.

Post-Post:

  • AHP Deathwatch:  Two outta three ain’t bad; unfortunately all three are dead.
  • Note all the 1950’s tropes — dutiful wife still cooks a full breakfast for a man she hates, she has no job, she has no license, she is not on the checking account. Maybe Hillary was right, this was slavery.
  • Jordan often looks very much like Phil Hartman.
  • The comical screenplay is by Robert C. Dennis who wrote for such other laugh-riots as Dragnet and Perry Mason.  He also wrote four episodes of Batman, oddly all of them featured King Tut as the villain. Maybe he was working pro-buo…..I can’t even write it.
  • For a more thorough review and background on the players and production, head over to bare-bones ezine.