FROM THE ARCHIVE: Don't Be Afraid of the Dark (1973)

This Friday, writer and producer Guillermo Del Toro's horror remake Don't Be Afraid of the Dark hits theaters nationwide.  The new film stars Katie Holmes and Guy Pearce, and is based on a great TV-movie from the disco decade.

A perennial in syndication throughout the 1970s, Don't Be Afraid of the Dark - directed by the late, great John Newland (the talent who hosted and directed 96 episodes of the classic paranormal anthology, One Step Beyond) - first aired near Halloween in 1973.  I saw it for the first time sometime later, in 1977 or 1978, perhaps, and it absolutely terrorized my young psyche.

The made-for-tv film depicts the chilling tale of Sally Farnum (Kim Darby), a bored housewife. Along with her work-obsessed husband, Alex (Jim Hutton) -- who is devoted to becoming a partner in his law firm -- she moves into her grandmother's grand old country estate. There, she soon discovers an oddity in the basement study: the fireplace is sealed-up. Not just sealed-up, in fact, but barricaded. The bricks are reinforced with iron bars.

"Some things are better left as they are," warns Mr. Harris, the groundskeeper and repairman, "especially that fireplace..."

But Sally wants the fireplace operable, and so unbolts the ash-door on the side of the mantel. As she peers inside the hole with a flashlight, we can detect that the chimney shaft seems to stretch down and down, into blackest darkness. Perhaps all the way down to Hell itself...

Before long, a cadre of hairy, shriveled creatures, "ferocious little animals," as Sally describes them, escape from that abyss and are loosed upon the house. They thrive in darkness, and terrorize Sally. They knock an ashtray from her night stand in the middle of the night; they tug at her skirt and won't let go; they turn off the lights in the bathroom while she's showering.  They even go at her with a straight razor.

And then things really escalate: the monstrous gremloids murder the interior decorator, tripping him up on the house's ornate and grand staircase.

But nobody, especially not the work-consumed Alex, believes Sally's fantastic tale that there are tiny monsters inhabiting the house; and worse - that they want to steal "her spirit."

Then, one night, a skeptical Alex finally gets the full-story from old Mr. Harris. Turns out that Sally's grandfather opened up that fireplace once before -- for the first time since the house was constructed in the 1880s, in fact. And he paid the price for his curiosity. One night, his wife heard cries and screams from the downstairs study. And something horrible dragged her husband down into the fireplace shaft. He was never seen again.

"To this day, I think he's still down there..." warns Mr. Harris.

In the conclusion of Don't Be Afraid of the Dark - in a twisted, malevolent variation of imagery straight out of Gulliver's Travels - the gnomes lasso the sedated Sally, and drag her down the stairs, towards that fireplace from Hell, and the long, dark chasm within. She awakens in time to see the rope tying her ankles together, and she clutches the nearby furniture for dear life as her diminutive nemeses tug and tug. She grabs a flash camera and snaps their photograph, exposing them to the damaging light of the flash bulb for an instant...

Arising from the same period in horror film history that gave us the brilliant, and equally chilling Let's Scare Jessica to Death (1973), Don't Be Afraid of the Dark is essentially the tale of a woman trapped in an unhappy and lonely marriage...and slowly but surely losing her grasp on reality (see also: Something Evil).

Sally's husband is mostly absent, and treats her as though she's a slow-witted child. All Alex cares about is that she's the "perfect hostess" for a dinner party, and the film functions literally as a metaphor of an unhappy marital relationship. Little things - literally, little monsters - keep getting in the way of the relationship, driving a wedge between the couple.

The terrifying notion at the heart of Don't Be Afraid of the Dark is the opening of a Pandora's Box, the fear of breaking down a wall and releasing something that can't be put back in its place. Again, without putting too fine a point on it, there's a psychological equivalent to this Pandora's Box (the fireplace...) in the film too.

Specifically, Sally deals with her fears about being just an "adjunct" to the successful, career-obsessed Alex, but her friend, Joan (Barbara Anderson) warns her that she's building "emotional mountains out of imaginary mole hills." Quite the contrary, by probing and questioning the way things are in her marriage, Sally is chipping away at the brick and mortar foundation of unquestioned, traditional male/female roles in such relationships. Just as she takes a hammer and cracks open the bricks in that fireplace, releasing anarchy, chaos and terror, she won't take for granted the status quo in her personal life either. Not unexpectedly, Alex is incapable of doing the same; and in the end, he fails his wife miserably. He loses her to the "darkness."

For a made-for-TV production, Don't Be Afraid of the Dark boasts a fascinating retro film style, a form that enhances its unsettling content. Though the picture is replete with '70s era techniques such as the ubiquitous zoom (which corrupts the frame to a large extent...), director Newland also clearly understood the value of suspense and effective imagery.

On the former front, the creepy little trolls in the basement aren't revealed for the camera (and then only in half-light) until after the thirty minute point of a 74 minute production. On the latter front, I would point to a beautifully-composed shot of the depressed, terrified Sally sitting in a white-walled ante-room. She's bracketed by curtains, and outside them is pervasive darkness; the domain of the little devils. It's clear from this deliberate "bracketing" that Sally's space - even in a large house - is becoming increasingly constricted and small. Much how she feels about her own role in he marriage to Alex.

The gremlins themselves are played by little people (Felix Silla and Patty Maloney, among them.) acting on over-sized, Land of the Giant-sized mock-ups of the Farnum house. This technique actually works rather effectively: the gremlin shots and Sally shots match-up almost perfectly.

Another strength of this tele-film remains the creepy, subtly disturbing musical score composed and performed by Billy Goldenberg. The jolting, macabre music makes effective some scenes that, perhaps, would be staged differently in today's filmmaking milieu.

Don't Be Afraid of the Dark is a retro 1970s horror treat. Made in the epoch such made-for-TV classics as Gargoyles (1972), Duel (1971), Fear No Evil (1969) and yes, Satan's School for Girls (1972). All of these tele-films, including this John Newland entry, featured a cinematic flair and a deep, palpable sense of dread. Hard to believe they were made for TV, and played to mass audiences, including kids. Today, these productions seem more chilling (and filled with disturbing implications) than many theatrical horror flicks. Like I said, this one really terrorized me as a child.

Because, as you may have guessed, there are no happy endings in Don't Be Afraid of the Dark. And that's another reason the film is so chilling, so fear-provoking, to this day.  You leave it in abject terror, and you will, in fact, fear the darkness.

I wonder if the Del Toro/Troy Nixey picture will live up to the throat-tightening terror of this one.  We'll know more in a few days.  The previews certainly look encouraging.

CULT-TV MOVIE REVIEW: Special Bulletin (1983)

Many folks of my generation still vividly recall the first prime-time broadcast of the grim TV movie, The Day After (1983).  That landmark tele-film, directed by Nicholas Meyer, gazed at life in the American heartland immediately following a devastating nuclear exchange.

So powerful in imagery and so bleak in narrative, The Day After actually altered the course of real-life international politics.  After watching the TV-movie, President Reagan re-committed himself to peace with the Soviet Union, a strong shift away from the "we start bombing in five minutes"/"Evil Empire"-rhetoric of his young administration.

Although not as widely remembered as The Day After, another TV-movie of 1983 also dealt powerfully with the issue of nuclear annihilation.  On March 20, 1983, NBC aired a startling program from director Edward Zwick entitled Special Bulletin that -- despite a disclaimer -- presented itself as an authentic news broadcast.   In other words, Special Bulletin was the TV equivalent of Orson Welles' notorious 1938 War of the Worlds radio presentation.

Special Bulletin commences innocuously with an advertisement for the (fictional) RBS Network, replete with its catch-phrase, "we're moving up!"  In the middle of the advertisement for game shows and soap operas, the screen goes to static and the title "Special Bulletin" pops up.  Suddenly, we're in a bustling network news room following a breaking story in Charleston, South Carolina.

Specifically, a small tug boat has pulled into the Port of Charleston and is carrying aboard her a group of American terrorists.  After a shoot-out with dock security, a reporter and his cameraman are captured by the terrorists and taken hostages aboard the ship, the Liberty May.  The terrorists promptly request a direct feed to RBS, so they can make their demands known to the world at large.

After very little discussion, RBS agrees to the terrorists' terms. and soon the leader of the group, Bruce Limon (The Thing's David Clennon) speaks. 

According to his wishes, the U.S. will turn over 968 warhead detonators in its nuclear arsenal, or the terrorists will explode a home-made nuclear bomb in Charleston, effectively destroying the city and all of its people. 

Limon, we soon learn from the news reporters,  is a former Pentagon official who is upset at the hard-right shift in American policy to the belief that nuclear war is winnable.  Along with a brilliant physicist, Dr. McKeeson (David Rasche), Limon believes that nuclear blackmail is the only option left to save the planet from itself.  He plans to illustrate "what we all have to fear," should his attempt at unilateral disarmament be rejected.

Without even the smallest hint of fakery or artifice, Special Bulletin structures itself as a real news program of the epoch, right down to communication glitches, infrequent bursts of static, shaky-images and the occasional dopey remark from a reporter or anchor-person.   As RBS news anchors John Woodley (Ed Flanders) and Susan Miles (Kathryn Walker) monitor the crisis, as nuclear terrorism becomes"stark reality," we are asked to follow the story down blind alleys, countenance talking head blowhards, and detect truth in a multitude of conflicting images, all rendered on (appropriately) cheap-looking video.  The presentation of the story is truly pitch-perfect, in large part due to excellent supporting performances by the likes of Christopher Allport, Lane Smith and a very young Michael Madsen.  Nobody show-boats and no one has a really substantive role, either.  These are just "reporters on the street" and interviewees, reacting to events as they unfold.  A perfect ensemble piece.

Occasionally the news anchors in Special Bulletin cut back to the live feed to watch events spiral out of control aboard Limon's ship, but they also consult experts on nuclear technology, and check in with reporters at the F.B.I Headquarters, the Pentagon, and on Capitol Hill.  It's an effective, whip-smart presentation in a mock-documentary-style, and one that reportedly had quite a few Americans (especially in the South) wondering if the film could possibly be the real thing.   I remember that at school the day after Special Bulletin first aired, all of my friends were talking about it and also the film's absolutely take-no-prisoners approach to storytelling.

As Special Bulletin continues into the story's second day and it is confirmed that McKeeson and Limon indeed have an operational nuclear bomb, an evacuation of Charleston commences.  A countdown clock ticks down the minutes till 6:00 pm, the time when the terrorists have threatened to detonate their weapon.  Meanwhile, on Capitol Hill, politicians dither about "negotiating with terrorists" and argue about whether an accommodation can or should be reached.

The last fifteen minutes of the film involve a government ruse to appease the terrorists, and a bloody assault by U.S. soldiers on the Liberty May.  The terrorists are put down effectively, but the bomb still ticks down towards destruction.   Then, terror follows short-lived relief.  In the last few moments of the film, something truly unthinkable occurs, and in a weird, unsettling way, Limon's point about the hazards of nuclear weapons is made.  We see exactly what we have to fear in the event of a nuclear exchange.

Today, it's almost impossible to watch Special Bulletin without thinking of the harrowing events we've seen on the nightly news since 2001. 

For instance, the evacuation of Charleston goes poorly, and one local reporter goes into detail about how the city's plans were not detailed enough, and did not take into account traffic congestion and other problems.  This seems very much reminiscent of what our country witnessed during and after Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans.

But in general, what Special Bulletin gets so dead-on accurate is the horrifying sense of chaotic life spontaneously unfolding before our eyes, out-of-control, on the TV as our journalists and "experts" try to play catch-up in a game of TV ping-pong. 

You will remember (all too much, I'm afraid...) this tense dynamic from that horrific Tuesday morning in September, 2001.  I suppose the feeling is roughly analogous to what seem people call the"fog of war:" False reports come to light, and even though we're watching events unfold live, we hesitate to believe our eyes that such a thing can happen here, in the United States.  I still remember listening to radio reports on 9/11 that the National Mall was on fire, and that Air Force One was imperiled.  Neither of those things were actually true, but in the heat of the moment, reporters (and listeners and viewers) believed the reports.  Fact only became plain much, much later (and is, in fact, still debated by many).

Thematically, Special Bulletin boasts two primary concerns.  The first involves the media itself.  How complicit is the media, the film asks, in creating and extending situations like the one depicted here?  In the film, RBS gives over a live feed to the terrorists, an act which gives their demands a national audience, and which spurs panic in the citizenry.  There's something to be said for that argument that had Limon and McKeeson not been given access to television, their plan would have failed rather dramatically.  Or at the very least, the situation would have developed far more slowly, and allowed for a more reasoned response by the government.  The movie explicitly raises a question about the role of the press: is it a witness to this story, or part of the story, or both?

More than that even, the film looks at the way TV networks package and "sell" crises for higher ratings.  Here, a colorful logo -- wrapped in stars and stripes -- pops up that reads "Flashpoint: America Under Siege." The logo even comes with its own dramatic theme song.  Although the news people are undeniably presented as heroic and straightforward in the film itself, there's also an undercurrent here; the uncomfortable feeling that RBS is riding this crisis all the way to the bank, with "exclusive" control of the live feed and a direct line to the action.  At one point, McKeeson points this out to John Woodley, asking why RBS hasn't shared the feed with the other networks.

The end of Special Bulletin delivers a one-two punch  that is hard to shake.  After the nuclear bomb detonates and Charleston is no more, there is a period of mourning -- 3 days to be exact -- on RBS before the media begins to seek news stories elsewhere.   This is, perhaps, the tele-film's sharpest and most incendiary insight.   There's always more grist needed for the mill, and that fact is even more true today, in the age of cable television and the 24-hour news cycle than it was in the 1980s.   We move willy-nilly from crisis to crisis, from Balloon Boy to Sideshow Donald, without taking a breath because we have to be worried about something -- anything -- all the time. 

Don't touch that dial!  America Under Siege, indeed.

The second thematic concern of Special Bulletin involves, pretty clearly, the colossal danger of nuclear weapons. 

The "terrorists" in the film are actually concerned citizens who nonetheless cross the line and can't see how they have let their ideology blind them.   They are hypocrites, threatening to destroy innocent people with nukes because the government can't see how dangerous nukes are to innocent people. 

Long story short, you can't preach peace by threatening force. 

And the government is culpable in all of this too.  Attempting to look strong and resolute, the President and his people first attempt to dismiss the terrorists as hoaxers, and then seeks to trick and manipulate them, finally overtaking them by force.  The government experts never acknowledge or seem to believe Dr. McKeeson's all-too-sincere testimony that he has protected the bomb with an "anti-tamper" device.  The government, essentially, plays a high-stakes game with the city of Charleston...and loses the gamble.

The message encoded in Special Bulletin is that nukes as deterrents or nukes as weapons are much too dangerous to trifle with, for ideologues in any party.  Why?   Purely and simply because the destruction caused by nuclear weapons is immense, beyond our worst imagining.  In Special Bulletin, Charleston is destroyed -- rendered a desert -- and a whole swath of South Carolina will remain uninhabitable for years to come following the detonation.  And that's just the result of one nuke.  Imagine America's arsenal of 968 warheads in action, and the kind of devastation it could render.  This is destruction on a Biblical scale, and we would be fools to forget that fact.  The final scenes of the film, set in a burning Charleston, with reports of "people burned beyond recognition" are the stuff or real nightmares.

One part a critique of the news business as show business, and one part a blunt-faced look at the terrifying power of nuclear weapons, Special Bulletin remains a blazing, unforgettable viewing experience.  As far as mock-documentary films go, it's deftly-presented, and will leave you pondering, among other things, our strange, self-destructive nature.   

Not only are we fully capable of destroying ourselves, it seems.  We actually want front row seats to the show.

CULT TV MOVIE REVIEW: Something Evil (1972)

It certainly seems to me that the magical alchemy of good made-for-tv horror movies involves one particular equation above all others: accomplishing a lot with very little. 

Exhibit A: the most memorable horror TV-movies of yesteryear, such as Duel (1971) Don't Be Afraid of the Dark (1973), Trilogy of Terror (1975), and Dark Night of the Scarecrow (1981) create moods of suffocating, overwhelming terror without necessarily showing viewers much by way of monsters, blood or other visual effects. 

Instead, in each of these productions the audience is strongly encouraged to identify with one "everyman" (or every-woman) character, and then watch as reality seems to slip further away from that protagonist and they descend into situations of the surreal or nightmarish. 

A salesman experiences supernatural road rage.  A woman battles a Zuni Fetish doll come inexplicably to life, and so forth. 

These stories are models of simplicity and efficiency, but each effort also boasts unexpected high impact due to brawny, virtuoso directorial flourishes.

Yet another TV-movie that epitomizes this brand of low-budget ingenuity and inventive spirit is 1972's Something Evil, directed by Steven Spielberg and written by Robert Clouse.  This tele-film was made during the rise of Exorcist fever in the United States -- after the book's release and before the premiere of the movie -- and the plot line indeed seems familiar to fans of the Friedkin venture. 

But the point here isn't necessarily the originality of any specific narrative details. Rather, the point is how ably Spielberg manipulates film grammar to forge an overarching atmosphere of free-floating, amorphous dread.  There is something at evil at work in the film all right, but at various times, one might suggest that the "something evil" of the title is madness, family dysfunction, or demonic possession.

First aired in prime time on CBS in 1972, Something Evil concerns the Worden family as it moves into an old, recently vacated farmhouse in Pennsylvania Dutch country.  The patriarch of the family, Paul (Darren McGavin) is a TV ad-man and producer, who is often away in New York City.  His wife, Margery (Dennis) is an artist who stays at home and cares for the family's two children, Stevie (Johnny Whitaker) and young Laurie (Debbie and Sandy Lampert).

After the Wordens purchase the country home -- which is suspiciously decorated with supernatural pentacles -- Sandy begins to experience regrets about their move.  For one thing, a surly neighbor, Gehrmann (Jeff Corey) keeps ritualistically killing chickens in plain view of her bedroom window.  For another, Sandy frequently awakens in the night to the terrible sounds of a child crying.   

Another local, Harry Lincoln (Ralph Bellamy) informs Sandy that pentacles represent a form of protection against devils and demons, and that he himself believes in such devils.  In fact, Lincoln has made a study of them his hobby.  With Paul away in the city for longer and longer intervals, Sandy grows increasingly paranoid about the house, especially when two of Paul's employees die in a car "accident" after filming a commercial on the premises. 

Convinced she is becoming spiritually possessed, Sandy locks herself off from her children, only to realize -- at long last -- that she is not the target of the Devil's attacks at all...

Again, the story in Something Evil is one we've all likely seen before. A lonely housewife believes in the supernatural and insists on the supernatural while her "rational" husband refuses to join in and share a meaningful dialogue about it.    He's just worried about money.  "If we sell this house now, I'd take a terrible loss," he states at one point.   On a (very) superficial level, the narrative is similar to Rosemary's Baby, for instance.

Then, of course, there are the young children imperiled by demonic possession, and  local experts warning of a house's dark history with the mystical and supernatural.  These plot details suggest The Exorcist, The Haunting and other horror tales we all know and love.

Yet Something Evil is perfectly titled. There is indeed "something evil" at work in this horror story, some amorphous aspect of the diabolical, and Spielberg carefully refrains from showing the Evil Thing's presence or even its shape on Earth throughout the film.  Rather, the director rigorously crafts unsettling, almost surreal set-pieces that effectively tap into our shared, subconscious language of nightmares. 

For instance, twice in the tele-film Sandy detects a strange noise in the thick of the night.  Both times, the noise sounds like a cat crying at first.  Then, as it continues more loudly, we can discern it is the voice of a terrified human child, crying and whimpering incessantly.  Sandy follows this unnerving voice down a dark staircase, out into the night, and into an outbuilding, a garden shed.  She can find no source for the cries, and returns to bed.

The second night that Marge hears the sound, something more terrifying occurs.  She follows it to the garden shed a second time, and this time the voice appears to be emanating from a mason's jar filled with a thick red, gelatinous substance. 

The substance moves in the jar as if it is alive, as if the child's essence or soul is trapped inside.  Now, pretty clearly, this doesn't make a lot of "awake" or conscious sense, but it makes perfect nightmare sense.  It's irrational and yet wholly terrifying.  Amazing what a little food coloring and a mason's jar can achieve when utilized thoughtfully, isn't it? The discovery of the mason jar is just so weird, incongruous and unsettling that you can't quite shake the imagery.

To augment the idea of the shed as a source of something unspeakably evil, Spielberg often films his exterior sequences from a vantage point inside the structure, looking out into the surrounding yard.  This perspective accomplishes two things of consequence.  First, it restricts the available space of the characters visible in the frame.  The children are seen playing in the yard, but they are bracketed -- trapped, essentially -- by the arch of the doorway. 

Secondly, and perhaps even more significantly, this perspective suggests the notion that something is alive in the shed, and gazing out from inside it.  This could be the point-of-view shot of a devil or demon. The demonic jar and its contents, perhaps?

Another, almost throwaway moment is nearly as unnerving as these canny visual perspectives.  Late in the film, Paul is at work in the city, reviewing the commercial footage he shot at his home.  A technician enters his office only to show him something weird that inexplicably appears on the film, even on the negative.  It's a set of red, glowing eyes...inside one window frame. 

Again, we're not seeing a CGI demon, or even a man in a costume.  We're just seeing a phtographic still of eyes where none should be, and the effect is pretty shocking.

Finally, during the climax of Something Evil, Margery must reclaim the soul of her son, Stevie, who has become possessed.  Again, Spielberg selects a simple but effective shot to convey the demon's sense of power.  He positions the child in the center of the room -- but higher than any child could possibly stand -- and lets all hell break loose around this stationary force, meaning demonic wind, doors swinging open, etc.  The child's back is to the camera, so we can't see his face; can;t see what he actually looks like as an instrument of the Devil. 

Again, when we think of demonic possession we remember the incredible visual effects of The Exorcist: twisted heads and pea soup, namely.  With little budget to speak of, Spielberg instead implies the demon's power by positioning him like a pillar -- unmoving --- in the center of the frame; letting others react to his powerful presence.  Low-budget filmmakers today really ought to study Spielberg's excellent staging.  It's a virtual master's thesis in attaining high impact sans major special effects.  Instead, every really chilling moment in Something Evil is achieved through applied film grammar; through positional intimation, to coin a phrase.

In narrative terms Something Evil might be  interpreted as a story in which a  family is torn apart by a sensitive mother's increasing sense of alienation and isolation.  Margery physically strikes Stevie at one point, and then delivers a heart-wrenching speech in which she says, essentially, that she is leaving the family (children included), because she no longer trusts herself.  She might as well be an alcoholic, given the particulars of her dialogue, and her actions. 

Conjuring an evil force as the motivation for Mommy's bad behavior seems a perfect metaphor for childhood logic.  Mommy isn't herself.  There's "something evil" at work inside her.  Similarly, Stevie becomes "possessed" by something evil when Mother's love is no longer available.  Something else...something of a more sinister shade, steps in to fill that void.  Finally, Mom is told that "love is a powerful force" and re-asserts her role in the family.  But in some ways, the damage is already done.

Though in horror terms, Something Evil offers a pretty hoary, familiar storyline, it succeeds mainly because of Spielberg's staging.  By the time audiences get to Marge's second nocturnal visit to the garden shed -- and the sight of that oozing red gelatin in the mason jar -- Spielberg has us by the throat.  Then, the TV movie reaches a fever pitch of terror before ending on another unsettling visual:  The family car pulls away from the house of evil, but Stevie -- now free again -- sits backwards in the car, peering towards the camera (and the house), out the back window. 

If not demonic, Stevie's eyes certainly appear traumatized.  His positioning  (backwards, essentially, intimating the opposite of order) denies the film a clean restoration of  balance and of the natural world, and suggests that Stevie's family problems may just be beginning.  In other words, what's encoded here  under the supernatural veneer of Something Evil is the idea of how a family's dysfunction damages and destroys children.   Something evil happens to the Wordens.   Is it demons, or the specter of looming divorce?

I often wonder what networks executives were thinking about, green lighting such terrifying tv-movies for family audiences in the 1970s.  And then I realize that on paper, Something Evil probably didn't appear too traumatic.  Just another, run-of-the-mill demon possession story.  But when Steven Spielberg entered the picture, the director lifted the material.  He took Something Evil from the realm of the routine and the familiar to the plateau of authentic...well...kinder trauma.

And we should really thank him for a job extraordinarily well done.

CULT TV-MOVIE REVIEW: Shadow on the Land (1968)

"These are the symbols of democracy.  A democracy we take as for granted as the water we drink.  But democracy is a living thing; its skeleton an ideal; its bloodstream dissent; its tissue comprised of all the people who inhabit it.  All the people.

But what happens if the life of democracy is paralyzed by fear, or greed, or simple laziness, and the country is yielded up, or co-erced, or persuaded into accepting a dictatorship, a leader whose word alone is all of law? 

The skeleton of democracy is destroyed, its bloodstream, dissent, is bound in the barbed wire of concentration camps.  And the leader's special police...terrorize the bulk of the people into acceptance.  And the flag of the Internal Security Forces -- the symbol of fear and darkness -- will fly over our land."

- A Voice of "God" narration, from the opening of the TV-movie, Shadow on the Land (1968).

The stirring words printed above are accompanied on screen in Shadow on the Land by impressive views of national landmarks that we Americans hold dear: the Lincoln Memorial, the Capitol Building and the Washington Monument. 

Yet these words are also accompanied by images that terrify every American citizen, regardless of political stripe or political party:  a giant  black "X" marked through our country's Constitution; red arm-bands decorating the uniforms of  a gestapo-like police force.

This TV-movie created by Sidney Sheldon and written by Nedrick Young contemplates something that we all fervently hope is absolutely impossible: the rise of a fascist, totalitarian dystopia in America.  It's a 1960s TV variation on Sinclair Lewis's classic 1935 literary work, It Can't Happen Here.

In Shadow on the Land, The United States has been a dictatorship for some forty years, ever since the country's Leader exploited a national emergency ("riots in the ghetto" according to the screenplay) to seize total control of the nation and declare martial law.  The people, in essence, gave the Leader "a blank check."

Over the years since the takeover, "discipline" has replaced "freedom" in America as an ideal.  Dissenters -- part of an organized resistance group called "Society of Man" -- are sent to detention camps where they are they are beaten and tortured.  The police force, the ISF, is ubiquitous and well-armed.

As the drama commences, an ISF officer, Colonel Andrew Davis (Jackie Cooper) is arrested by authorities for stealing documents pertaining to the Leader's new top-secret initiative, "Operation Hammer."  

Davis is hauled off to Detention Camp 12, and tortured for information.  The resistance movement attacks the camp and rescues Davis in an extremely violent sequence with overturned cars, soldiers electrocuted on fences and bullet-ridden corpses.  This night-time action scene is impressive as such on its own, but there's one important moment of undeniable real power here as well.

In particular, two nameless Society of Man fighters attempt to bring down the ISF flag and fly our Stars and Stripes instead.  The first man is gunned down viciously (on-screen). 

Without thought, a second man jumps into the breach and raises the flag...and is also gunned down with extreme-prejudice, right before our eyes.  But the flag goes up; Old Glory reigns. 

This moment goes by quickly, and without comment, but it certainly makes a powerful statement.  These two men died to make a symbolic gesture that few people would ever see (in this context).  They didn't die freeing other men, or retreat to fight the good fight another day.  No, they gave up their very lives in service of a representation of liberty. 

As I was sitting on my comfortable sofa watching this scene -- my beautiful wife on one side of me, and my 91 year-old uncle on the other side of me -- I tried to imagine myself in those men's shoes.  Giving up my life -- everything I hold dear -- for the simple but powerful and universal idea of freedom.  We've seen people doing this very thing, or something quite like it, in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya. Fighting to the death for the cause of freedom.  But as Americans, we really haven't had to do that.  We're fighting two wars, but we haven't had to give up our sons or daughters to wage them.  We haven't even had to endure tax hikes, or conserve oil.

How many Americans of today, I wonder, would sacrifice their personal futures just to see the U.S. flag raised?  I'm no better or more noble than anyone else.  And when I realized that, while watching this old TV movie, I was a little shaken.  What would you and I do if you lived in the America portrayed in Shadow on the Land?

Shadow on the Land delvers further into this courageous concept.  A high-ranking Colonel in the ISF, Shep McCloud (Marc Stanger) is actually working for the Resistance, and he delivers a wounded Davis to Davis' brother, a priest at the local Midnight Mission, played by Gene Hackman. 

This priest believes that all of life is a trial, one leading to death, and doesn't want to help his own biological brother.  He says that he "renders unto Caesar that which is Caesar's" and that "God" should decide.   But Shep insists...and he's a tough man to refuse.

In fact, Shep needs a lot of help, from both the priest and from a lovely ISF psychologist, because Operation Hammer could mean an end to the Society of Man.  On this very night -- Christmas Eve -- the Leader plans to stage a "false flag" operation, one equated to the the Reichstag fire in the teleplay. 

Specifically, ISF soldiers will dress as resistance fighters and attack a power plant control room in California, plunging the state into darkness and cold.  This terrorist act, the Leader believes, will finally turn the nation against the Society, and pave the way for the enforcement of "new restrictions" and the doubling of the ISF force size.

Most of this 1968 TV movie involves McCloud's attempts to prevent Operation Hammer from succeeding, and finding unexpected allies along the way.  Even the hesitant priest comes to McCloud's aid, after Colonel Davis's death by torture.  The movie ends at the dawn of Christmas, with the reminder that "there's always another battle to fight."

One of the most interesting facets of Shadow on the Land is its alternate reality viewpoint.  It is still the year 1968, but fascism has reigned in America for forty years, since 1928 ostensibly.  Still, America in 1968 looks almost the same as we would remember it.  There are freeways, Christmas decorations, office meetings, restaurants, etc.  The only difference is that no one is free.  That concentration camps dot the landscape, and every park, every avenue, every building is is monitored by the ever-present ISF soldiers.

Perhaps the tele-movie's second most powerful moment occurs when Davis attempts to find sanctuary following an ISF raid on the mission.  He begs people for help in the park, in the streets, even in a diner.  He tells them he's an army officer. He's bleeding, and desperate.

And no one lefts a finger. 

No one even makes eye contact with him.  The point transmitted by this scene is plain and clear: a fascist state depends on two things: a militia to bully people, and an apathetic, uninvolved populace.    Again, this got me thinking. Who would I rather be?  The guy who dies raising the flag?  Or the guy staring down at his lunch plate as a free man is captured and tortured?

Shadow on the Land was apparently a backdoor pilot for a TV series.  The concept was never picked up for broadcast, but I was struck how timely it seems today.  For instance, the opening narration discusses America losing democracy in three ways. 

First by fear, and certainly, this country knew crippling fear after September 11, 2001, in the age of color-coded terror alerts and warnings about powerful politicians of "mushroom clouds over" American cities. 

The second way is by greed, and indeed we saw Wall Street's sickening greed bring this great country to her knees in the Economic Meltdown of 2008.  We bailed Wall Street out and now look where we are.  They've got bonuses, and there's no money left for our schools, our workers, or, apparently, a middle class.

And third, finally, by laziness.   Let's hope against hope that we don't see this shoe drop. Certainly both the passion in the Tea Party in the election of 2010 and the passion now raging against Governor Scott Walker in Wisconsin speak powerfully against the possibility of such mass laziness.  These are both wonderful American examples of dissent, or what Shadow on the Land terms "the life blood" of democracy. 

I'm particularly glad Shadow on the Land pointed out the importance of dissent in a democracy such as ours.  I remember last decade, not too long ago when people spoke out of conscience about their objection to the War in Iraq that they were labeled un-American or treasonous for not going along.  On the contrary, it was the most American and patriotic thing people could do then (and do now): question authority. 

Ask why.

In terms of action, Shadow on the Land is pretty-fast paced and brutal.  And John Forsythe gives a nice, icy performance as high-ranking ISF officer, General Bruce.  But again, I just kept thinking that something like this TV-movie could be done very effectively today, when we've moved into a more technological age, when both political parties have apparently accepted surveillance of U.S. citizens without oversight and the right of American interests to torture. 

A new weekly series on this subject -- America under totalitarian rule -- would be a perfect Zeitgeist program at this juncture, and I would nominate Chris Carter to create, produce and write it.  He's an artist who has obsessed over these very ideas for twenty years, and, more than anyone else, I think, could write movingly about the human decisions, bravery and capitulations inherent in a scenario like Shadow on the Land's.

If this concept had gone to weekly series in 1968 (when the optimistic Star Trek was still on the air), I wonder how it would have been welcomed. 

CULT TV-MOVIE REVIEW: Trilogy of Terror (1975)

Perhaps the most famous TV-movie ever made, Dan Curtis's Trilogy of Terror (1975) boasts an impeccable pedigree.  The anthology, which aired on March 4, 1975 as ABC's "movie of the week," consists of three Richard Matheson stories, two teleplays by William Nolan, four memorable performances by Karen Black, and sterling direction from Dan Curtis, the man behind Dark Shadows and the TV adaptation of The Night Stalker. 

If you're a fan of the genre on television, it really doesn't get much better than this...

Julie

The first Matheson story in this TV anthology is called "Julie," with a teleplay by Nolan. 

Here, a callow university student named Chad (Robert Butler) eyes the apparently prim-and-proper English Lit. teacher, Ms. Eldrich (Karen Black).  He fantasizes about her without her clothes on and then sets about making his fantasy real.  

Chad works up the courage to ask Julie Eldrich out on a date -- to go see a drive-in movie.  She accepts, and they watch The Night Stalker (!) on the big screen together.

At the movies, however, Chad drugs Julie's soda pop and takes her back to a seedy motel, where he snaps incriminating photographs of the teacher.  He then uses these photographs as a form of sexual blackmail, and makes poor Ms. Eldridge, essentially, his sex slave.

There's only problem.  Chad has assumed from the very beginning that he is in control of the situation; that Ms. Eldrich is exactly who and what she appears to be, a repressed, librarian-esque school marm.  Turns out that was an incorrect assumption, and Ms. Eldrich teaches an important life lesson to the "singularly unimaginative" Chad.

Although not the most-remembered segment of this horror anthology, "Julie" is pretty intense, especially because of the story's kinkier aspects: a student-teacher sexual relationship, and an early appearance on television of date-rape (replete with rape drug). The lurid segment's final revelation, that Julie is a veritable man-eater who maintains a scrapbook of her sexual conquests and murder victims, is also scarily effective.  Although it becomes clear that Julie is actually a wolf in sheep's clothing, the story nonetheless works as a "cosmic scales of justice righted" tale.

Chad certainly had it coming, given his misdeeds...

Prime among the Trilogy of Terror stories, "Julie" makes fine use of Karen Black's talents, understanding the raw, unusual allure of this distinctive performer.  Sometimes Black can look absolutely gorgeous, but she can also be made-up to appear somewhat homely.  In other words, Black is a performer with layers, and all those layers are put to tricky and clever use in the TV-movie's first story.  In "Julie," Black exudes coiled-up, repressed sexuality even in the most innocuous school room scenes.  Even "hidden" under ugly glasses and dressed in unflattering clothes, Black manages to project this electric sense of the dangerous, of the erotic.  And that's what this story is all about.

In Trilogy of Terror's second story, titled "Millicent and Therese" another apparently prim-and-proper woman, a spinster named Millicent (Black) plans to destroy her younger sister, the sexually-promiscuous and possibly Satanic, Therese (also Black).  Millicent communicates with a psychologist  (George Gaynes) about Thesese, and then plans to use her sister's own fondness for voodoo against her.

Of the triumvirate, "Millicent and Therese" proves the weakest story in short order.  It's pretty obvious from the get-go where the story is headed, and what relationship these "sisters" actually share.  There's much talk of sex in "Millicent and Therese," but in many ways, this story feels like a retread of "Julie" in that Black again plays both reserved and overtly sexy.  Despite the familiarity of the material and obviousness of the story's final "twist," Dan Curtis does an effective job of directing the tale.

Millicent and Therese

For example, most of the story occurs inside one room, inside a library in Millicent and Therese's mansion.  Curtis films several scenes in this locale from a low-angle that accentuates the architecture and decorations of the old world library. 

The idea being, I suppose, that those things which ail Millicent and Therese emerge from this particular milieu.  From this house; from this room. Even from the books on the shelf.

For instance, Therese may have killed her own mother as a child.  And she also seduced her own father when she was sixteen. The books in the library -- all about the supernatural and paranormal -- reflect those "evils" after a fashion.  These volumes also prove the gateway to the destruction of both sisters. 

It may not sound like much, but the nice staging of these sequences in the library somehow suggests a place of evil looming in the sisters' twisted history together.  And given what we come to know about them, it makes perfect sense.

In the third, final and most memorable of the tales in Trilogy of Terror, titled "Amelia," the audience is introduced to a weak-willed, mild-mannered woman, Amelia (once more, Karen Black). Amelia is constantly being bullied by her (off-screen) mother.  In particular, Amelia's mother does not like that her daughter has moved out of the house (to a spacious apartment sub-let) and that she is dating an anthropology professor.

On one Friday night, Amelia decides not to visit her mother and instead spend the evening with her boyfriend, since it is his birthday.  As a gift, she has purchased the anthropologist an authentic "Zuni Fetish Doll," a miniature monstrosity with sharp teeth and armed with a spear.  According to legend, the Fetish Doll houses the spirit of a great hunter, but the murderous soul is trapped inside the doll so long as he wears a golden necklace around his neck.

In short order, the necklace is removed (it falls off, actually...) and Amelia is forced to wage war in the apartment against a violent, miniature predator.

Amelia

Based on Matheson's short story, "Prey," "Amelia" is pretty clearly the go-for-broke segment of Trilogy of Terror.  After the relative restraint of the first two tales, this one truly goes all-out to get the blood pumping. 

Curtis and director of photography Paul Lohmann, untether themselves from they expectations they have knowingly fostered in the first two tales (of a relatively staid presentation) and with tremendous gonzo indulge in expressive, action-packed film making. 

Accordingly, this story features rocketing cameras bearing down on the imperiled Amelia, and other dramatic tracking shots, all lensed from the killer Fetish Doll's unique perspective.

Curtis achieves something else here as well, and it bears mention.  In particular, he stages many deep-focus long shots of the apartment, with Amelia framed in the background -- surrounded by door-frames on some occasions -- and only emptiness in the foreground.  The result is that we're actually looking furtively under coffee tables and chair legs for any sign of the murderous Zuni Fetish Doll. 

In many such cases, the doll is not present in frame at all...but we know he's nearby, and the deep-focus, long shots expertly set up the terrain of the battle and more than that, a sense of expectation.  These moments of silence and emptiness linger, and increase and enhance the mood of suspense. 

We wonder where the bloody monster is hiding this time...

As the battle grows more violent and intense, and Amelia grows more and more imperiled, Curtis makes these deep focus long shots turn cockeyed, which admittedly sounds cliched (like something out of Batman), but instead proves an effective tool in fostering real terror.  As the balance of power shifts towards the supernatural threat, it's only right that the "real" world's sense of order begins to literally and metaphorically tip over.  This technique of off-kilter shots successfully transmits the full-breadth of the monster's threat to Amelia.

Trilogy of Terror's Zuni Fetish Doll lives even today as one of the most potent 1970s "kinder traumas," responsible for God-knows-how-many youthful nightmares.   The creature has lost none of his macabre effectiveness some thirty-years later.  The Zuni Fetish monster boasts the sharpest teeth you've ever seen, has a big grinning mouth, and utters terrible, strange yells at it repeatedly attacks the imperiled Amelia.  You'll never forget what this creature is like in action; and you'll never forget the sound of his "voice," either.

Thematically, the Zuni Doll is surely an avatar representing Amelia's personal dilemma: the fact that in her personal life she constantly and continuously surrenders to others; to her Mother and also to her boyfriend.  The Zuni Doll makes Amelia -- for once -- fight back.  It's too little too late, perhaps, and Amelia makes the ultimate surrender to the Zuni Doll in the film's final, chill-inducing close-up.  But she puts up a hell of a fight before then, using everything from suitcases to the bathtub to the oven to battle the monster lurking in her apartment.

Another reason "Amelia" works so well is that it lunges directly into the horror territory that the other stories studiously skirted.  We don't know exactly what Julie's power is in "Julie," and in "Millicent and Therese" the voodoo doll is almost an afterthought in a psychological tale about multiple personalities. 

But here, the audience finally sees a supernatural monster in action; one with snapping, hungry jaws, and inhuman powers.  Crimson blood flows pretty freely in this segment too -- a surprise for 1975 television production -- and so again, the effect of the story is amplified.  The first time you see Trilogy of Terror, you aren't really prepared for the third story to descend into bloody murder and wildly expressive camera-work, and so "Amelia" becomes all the more powerful and stunning. 

The thrill of Trilogy of Terror after all these years is two-fold.  On one hand, it's terrific to see Karen Black's versatility used to such dramatic and purposeful effect.  She is a gifted, idiosyncratic performer who isn't afraid to express seamy, powerful and unattractive emotions.  And secondly, the Zuni Fetish Doll is the high octane fuel of a million (or more) bad dreams, and can still provoke throat-tightening terror in audiences. 

For these reasons, Trilogy of Terror doesn't play like a funny old artifact from the disco decade, but as a damn fine horror movie.   The spirit of the film -- like the spirit of the malevolent Zuni Fetish Doll -- endures.  The film's final shot -- a zoom to close-up of Amelia in her new state as a "hunter" --  is not something you can easily forget or put down.

So make sure you check for Zuni Fetish Dolls under your bed before you go to sleep tonight...

CULT TV-MOVIE REVIEW: Dark Night of the Scarecrow (1981)

When I reviewed Satan's School for Girls (1973) earlier in the week, I opined that the 1970s likely represented the greatest decade for made-for-tv horror movies.  I still assert that's a fair statement, but it's only right to note that the 1980s produced quite a few genre high-points as well. 

Exhibit A may well be Joe Wizan and Frank De Felitta's exemplary Dark Night of the Scarecrow, a horror gem which originally aired on October 24, 1981 (just in time for Halloween...), on the CBS Saturday Night Movies. 

This TV-movie is not only cleverly-written and emotionally affecting, but visually accomplished as well, a legitimately cinematic trick-or-treat effort that would play well even on the big screen.

In short, Dark Night of the Scarecrow is a good, old-fashion comeuppance, or "revenge from beyond the grave" story; the very kind that longtime reader of EC Comics will recognize, enjoy and cherish. 

In this case, the milieu in which the cosmic scales of justice are righted is the American South, specifically "Bogan County," Texas.

As Dark Night of the Scarecrow's narrative begins, a surly, unpleasant post office letter carrier, Otis Hazelrigg (Charles Durning) complains to some of his redneck buddies about Bubba Ritter (Larry Drake), a mentally-challenged local boy who has been seen playing with a pre-adolescent girl, Marylee (Tonya Crowe), his best friend. 

Otis is certain -- absolutely certain -- that harmless Bubba is going to hurt, rape or kill the child.  Obsessed with Bubba, Otis mulls over doing something "permanent" to stop him.

When Marylee is injured by a fierce guard dog in a neighbor's yard, Bubba carries the bloodied girl home to her worried parents, crying that "Bubba didn't do it."   Despite his innocence, word quickly gets out that Bubba is responsible for Marylee's injuries, so Otis and three of buddies grab their rifles, hunting dogs, and a pick-up truck...and track the boy down like an animal. 

They eventually find the frightened Bubba, playing the "hiding game" in a local field; dressed as a scarecrow.   Otis and the others murder him, shooting Bubba at point-blank range twenty-one times.

Adding insult to injury, the judge in Bogan County -- part of the Good Old Boy network -- lets Otis and his buddies off scot free after Otis commits perjury under oath and claims that the murder was actually self-defense; that the handicapped Bubba was actually brandishing a weapon; a pitchfork that Otis himself planted on the corpse. 

Broken up and angry about the death of her son and this miscarriage of justice, Bubba's elderly mother warns Otis and his goons -- all so-called "men of the community" -- that "there's other justice in this world...beside the law."

The final stretch of Dark Night of the Scarecrow involves this "what you sow so shall you reap" dynamic. 

The scarecrow soon re-appears (in creepy, extreme long-shots) on the property of the murderers, an unmoving, lifeless symbol of a crime unpunished. 

Then, before long, each guilty man dies in what the legal authorities ultimately deem an "accident."  Harless Hocker (Lane Smith) ends up pulped in his wood chipper and Philby (Claude Earl Jones) is buried alive at the bottom of his grain solo.

Finally, Otis himself comes face-to-face with the scarecrow by darkest night in a lonely pumpkin patch...

What remains most remarkable and even poetic about Dark Night of the Scarecrow is the way in which director, Frank De Felitta, maintains the mystery and terror of the scarecrow/supernatural avenger. 

In each murder set-piece, for instance, the Scarecrow is never seen.  We only hear footsteps on the soundtrack, or get a brief P.O.V. stalk-shot.   

In one terrifying instance, we even see a hulking shadow inside Philby's house...just as the lights go off.  But otherwise, we never actually see the Scarecrow committing his just and bloody revenge against these redneck vigilantes.  Instead, we're left to wonder -- along with the intended victims -- if something supernatural is going on, and what it could possibly be.  Has Bubba returned from the dead?

Such questions are answered beautifully in the film's final two minutes, and specifically in a closing freeze frame that is both sad and as I wrote above, even poetic.  By this point in the drama, the menacing vigilantes are dead, and perpetually endangered Marylee is finally safe.  The director makes the decision to reveal his hand here; and the result is a memorable and shocking composition: one that acknowledges "otherworldly" justice but without the specter of fear or terror being involved.   It's a surprising, unconventional and almost lyrical moment in presentation; a perfect punctuation to a movie that has been -- in large part -- about human ugliness. 

Non-traditionally, Dark Night of the Scarecrow ends with beauty and a hand offered in love...the visual notion that friendship lasts, even beyond death.

But save for those valedictory moments, De Felitta commendably holds his fire throughout Dark Night of the Scarecrow.  The scarecrow is utilized to maximum effect throughout the film, but as just that: a scarecrow.  One who appears in the wide open fields, seemingly by magic, and stands there in long shot...unmoving. The scarecrow is a juggernaut waiting to come to life, waiting and waiting...

These shots are great because as viewers we expect the scarecrow to move, to come to life and burst into murderous action.  But De Felitta purposefully denies us that visual so that mystery is maintained and more than that, fear and anxiety build and build.  When will this avenging creature come to life?

The final shot, described above, relieves that mounting anxiety in an unexpected, emotional way, and it's all because of De Felitta's decision to not to reveal the Scarecrow in action, essentially a lumbering Jason Voorhees-type figure with a pitchfork.  Because we don't get that particular visual; the Scarecrow emerges as a larger more luminous threat in our psyches, in our fearful imaginations.

De Felitta proves an impressive director elsewhere too.  Rather than revealing the guard dog mauling Marylee, he cuts to a montage of garden gnomes, in close-up.  And he transitions from the wood chipper set-piece to a close-up of a bloody red ketchup dollop landing on Otis's plate.  In the former example, we get a metaphor for the townspeople. The gnomes, like the people of Bogan County, stand by unmoving and unaffected while an injustice is committed.  In the latter case, we get the idea that blood (or ketchup) is on Otis's hands (or plate...) because he was the ringleader who pushed the others to kill Bubba.

In terms of sub-text, Dark Night of the Scarecrow  really concerns racism -- or any "ism" that has taken hold of men who despise and deride any person who is different from the local norm. 

In this case, Otis and his brethren fear what Bubba -- a "physically grown" man might do to a local white girl  --  and set about to destroy him. They use the flimsiest of motivations to do so.  I

f this TV-movie were set in the Old South, the mentally-deficient Bubba might readily be replaced by an African-American.  But the point is absolutely the same.  Dark Night of the Scarecrow exposes the "good old boy mentality" and network that protects its own and seeks to destroy anyone who might look different, think differently, or not know his or her place in the established patriarchy.

The TV movie actually goes a bit deeper than that.  An almost throwaway line in the film marks Otis as a child molester, and there are some disturbing scenes in the film of Otis threatening the young Marylee.

But the important thing here is that Otis is guilty, we must assume, of the very crime that he pins on Bubba.  He is also "physically grown," after all, and apparently has worked out his unwholesome sexual urges before. 

So Dark Night of the Scarecrow gets at a critical point about these vigilantes.  Such folk often project their own behavior upon others; blaming others for crimes they themselves have committed.  It's all surprisingly nuanced, especially for a TV movie, and Charles Durning proves mesmerizing here as Otis Hazelrigg.  Never, ever does Durning reduce the character to cartoon dimensions.  Instead, Durning's Otis is a believable -- and terrifying -- face of hatred.

As I noted above, EC Comics also frequently traversed the realm of comeuppance "from beyond the grave."  I suspect this sort of story is so popular and long-lived because real life has never been, is not now, and likely never will be totally fair or just.   It's difficult to reconcile a belief in justice with the town's treatment of Bubba in Dark Night of the Scarecrow, for instance.  Hence the entrance of the "supernatural mechanism" in stories such as this one to fill that void. 

Dark Night of the Scarecrow expresses well the belief that justice is a universal constant, even if the scales of justice must be balanced outside the flawed auspices of man's law. 

But the great thing about this memorable TV-movie is that it goes one step further beyond meting out justice "eye for an eye"-style, to poetically suggest the beauty -- and endurance -- of good human qualities such as love and friendship.

CULT TV-MOVIE REVIEW: Satan's School for Girls (1973)

All considerations of quality aside for the moment,  a conscientious reviewer has to give Satan's School for Girls (1973) some pretty serious plaudits over that incredible title. 

But then again, Satan's School for Girls comes to us from the great age of TV-movies; when they boasted colorful and memorable monikers such as Don't Be Afraid of the Dark (1973), or A Cold Night's Death (1973). 

As the title makes abundantly clear, this made-for-TV movie was also produced during the rarefied age of  1970s Devil film: the wonderful spell between Brotherhood of Satan (1971) and The Exorcist  (1973).

Specifically, this Aaron Spelling TV-movie first aired on September 19, 1973, and later earned a reputation, according to The New York Times, as one of the most "memorable" made-for TV horrors of the disco decade.  It was even re-made in the year 2000, with Shanen Doherty in the lead role.

The original Satan's School for Girls stars fetching scream queen Pamela Franklin (And Soon the Darkness [1970], Legend of Hell House [1974]) as Elizabeth Sayers, a young woman investigating the apparent suicide of her beloved sister Martha. 

To that end, Elizabeth masquerades as a new student at Martha's former school, the exclusive and 300-year old Salem Academy for Women.

Elizabeth enrolls immediately in two classes: Behavioral Psychology with creepy Professor Delacroix (Lloyd Bochner) and an art class with hunky Dr. Clampett (Roy Thinnes).   In the latter class, Clampett urges the female students to "hang loose" and remember that everything in life is both "illusion and reality." 

Elizabeth soon befriends several students, including resourceful Roberta Lockhart (Kate Jackson), popular Jody (Cheryl Ladd) and the troubled Debbie (Jamie Smith-Jackson).  Debbie, in particular, appears afraid...and has painted a creepy portrait of the dead Martha trapped in what appears to be an old cellar.

Elizabeth locates that ancient cellar in her very dorm, Standish Hall, and learns from Roberta about a creepy local legend; about eight Salem witches who were hanged in a cellar just like that. 

After Elizabeth discovers that Debbie has also committed suicide, she investigates the files in the office of the Headmistress.  She learns that all the students at the school have been orphaned; just as Elizabeth herself has been orphaned.  She also learns that student files on Debbie and Martha are missing...

Then, late at night, when the power goes out, Dr.Clampett evacuates the campus save for Roberta and Elizabeth.  

In the dark, quiet loneliness of the cellar, Satan soon makes his play for eight young, impressionable and father-less souls to replace the ones he lost in Salem all those years ago. 

"I welcome what man rejects," he tells his would-be acolytes with open arms

And he's reserved a spot  just for Elizabeth...

Now, I'm not quite old enough (but almost old enough!) to remember Satan's School for Girls from its original transmission  Rather, I first saw it sometime in the early 1980s in weekend syndication.  I probably saw it when I was eleven or twelve, and it has stayed with me ever since.

And now, after watching Satan's School for Girls again, at least I have a better understanding of why that's the case. 

The movie, released on DVD by an outfit called "Cheezy Movies," looks like a relic from another lifetime.  The TV-movie is simple, straight-forward and even innocent in a weird sort of way by today's standards.  Yet some of the horror moments really do get the blood pumping.  This is a major accomplishment, because it's clear the movie was made for next to nothing.  There are no real visual or make-up effects to speak of, and almost the entire film takes place in just four of five interiors.

But Laurence Rosenthal's steroidal musical score works over-time to build shivers and anxiety, and director David Lowell Rich does an effective job keeping to the basics.  Many scenes have been lensed entirely at night, or in the dark, Gothic passages on the campus.  Thunder roars on the soundtrack, lightning crackles, and heavy doors creak regularly.  The fear expressed here -- simply -- is of being alone at night, in the darkness, and wondering if something malevolent might be hiding in the impenetrable blackness close-by. 

Nothing more complicated than that.

Yet it's amazing how many modern horror movies forget that it is the simple things that scare us the most.  A basement in the dark.  A storm at midnight.  The intimation of the diabolical.  Roy Thinnes in tight polyester pants...

Okay, I try not to do snark, in part because there are so many other places on the Internet where you can so readily find it, but if you're inclined to laugh or giggle at Satan's School of Girls, it's probably easy to do so.  I can't, in good conscience, deny that. 

The performances -- much like the narrative -- are oddly naive and almost child-like   But  if you're willing to buy into the movie (and it helps if you have some nostalgia for it), Satan's School for Girls unnerves in a very efficient, very 1970s fashion.  You want to giggle and assure yourself that a cheap TV-movie effort like this couldn't possibly bother you.

But just try watching it alone in the dark.  At night.  The cheesiness sort of evaporates and you find yourself in the midst of this very sincere, very straight-forward and eminently creepy tale.  Everyone involved really committed to it (just look at that actress screaming for her life in the still near the top of this post!) so what the hell is our excuse for not doing likewise, right?

And, if you dig just a little under the surface of Satan's School for Girls the movie actually features some interesting  ideas.  It's a movie about girls who don't have fathers, and who try to find a father figure in either Professor Clampett or Professor Delacroix.  Clampett urges the girls to "condemn nothing" and "embrace everything" -- the 1970s equivalent of "just do what feels good," and Delacroix treats the students like rats in a maze; hoping to awake them from their "passivity" should they ever encounter real "terror."

If you've seen the film, you know which of these guys is really the Devil in the disguise -- either the liberal artist or the paranoid psychologist -- but the push-pull between the clashing philosophies at least gives the viewer something to think about between scenes of screaming ingenues.

Satan's School for Girls is worth a curiosity viewing just for the cheeky title (as well as the bizarre opening sequence in which Martha grows terrified -- terrified I tell you! -- at the  sudden, unexplained appearance of not one, but two strange old men).  But more than that, if you let yourself buy into the premise of this 1973 made-for-TV movie, you might just get a good schooling in old-fashioned terror.