Unable to provide you with proposed posts about either PROM NIGHT or HALLOWEEN 2, please accept this previously aired post as my Halloween treat to you.
Let's say Roman Polanski decided to cast TV's lovely Barbara Eden (I DREAM OF JEANNIE, HARPER VALLEY PTA) in ROSEMARY'S BABY instead of Mia Farrow (PEYTON PLACE). Then let's say Polanski forgot EVERYTHING he ever knew about filmmaking...the result would be a 1974 ABC Movie of the Week called THE STRANGER WITHIN.
This rediscovered camp classic comes to us via the WARNER ARCHIVE COLLECTION.
Written by Richard Matheson (THE NIGHT STALKER) and directed by Lee Phillips (THE WALTONS), THE STRANGER WITHIN is a thriller devoid of any thrills. This is the story of Ann Collins (Eden) and her grizzled husband David (the appropriately named George Grizzard), a California couple living somewhere near Lake Hollywood before Madonna moved in and ruined the neighborhood.
Ann is a stay-at-home artist who is blue because she has missed her period and had "trouble" with a pregnancy a few years back.
Perhaps something to do with an astronaut and a purple bottle with throws pillows in it? David is not amused because he went under the vasectomist's knife three years earlier - so the future rugrat cannot be his!
Here is where we see the first of many repeated closeups of a bronze phallic clock with an axe aimed right at the said phallus. Ann swears up and down that she's been faithful, but David doesn't believe her.
He takes her to an abortion doctor (recommended by Dr. Bellows?).
This doc is clearly so popular in sinful Hollywood that he has TWO telephones! Ann decides to go all "pro life" on our asses and keep the baby. David is not amused.
Their marriage begins to crumble, as Ann becomes obsessed with the baby. And starts exhibiting strange behavior. And because it's 1974 (the year after THE EXORCIST), we naturally believe that Satan is the papa.
Ann's best friend Phyllis (Joyce Van Patten) thinks something's fishy and convinces her husband Bob (played by CHARLIE'S ANGELS' creepy sidekick "Bosley", David Doyle) to hypnotize Ann.
A hypnotist isn't exactly a priest but we'll go along with it. Ann then learns that her pregnancy is even further along that she originally thought. What a total slut!
What would Major Healey say? Soon poor pregnant Ann begins experiencing wild mood swings and hot flashes.
You'll pee yourself when she declares "I'm sorry I've been acting so terribly". That's okay Babs, we're used to it.
After that admission, Ann puts herself on a high-sodium and caffeine diet.
She starts covering all her foood with salt... and begins downing cups, then whole POTS of scalding hot black coffee like a swing shift hooker at an all-night truck stop.
Then when we think things can't get any crazier, Ann goes all Evelyn Wood and starts speed-reading just about any book she can get her hands on.
She also begins going galavanting in the Hollywood Hills at night, returning to her avocado, yellow and brown home all scratched up. Cat fights with Julie Newmar perhaps?
Without explanation her wounds begin to heal, causing Ann to believe that her unborn child is a gift from God. Ummm... right.
Or maybe it's a genie?
Before you know it, Ann begins speaking in tongues (an acting tour de force for Ms. Eden!)...
and starts preparing exotic gourmet meals like pigs feet and guts. (Pipchicks for dessert?)
Then things turn real dark as she pulls a knife on her husband!!!
Bob/Bosley puts her under hypnosis again and just when we think we are gonna find out who the devilish baby daddy is...we learn the real truth about THE STRANGER WITHIN!!!
SUPER RIDICULOUS SPOILER ALERT: Ann is NOT pregnant with the child of Satan. She was impregnated by an extraterrestrial being...or maybe Michael Jackson. Tests soon reveal that the fetus has not one, but two healthy heartbeats!
Ann flees her home and prematurely gives birth in the woods. No room at the inn?
The next morning, she is revealed to have given birth to a healthy baby boy...but she's not alone!
She is just one of many women who have been going through the exact same thing! It's The Sisterhood of the Traveling Spaceship!
Meanwhile, David discovers the a painting that Ann has been working on. It was her blue period after all.
Creepy! Kinda, sorta. But mostly very, very funny. THE STRANGER WITHIN gets a glowing 8 outta 10 because watching Barbara Eden pour salt on food and drink gallons of coffee is a million times more entertaining than THE HURT LOCKER will ever be. And that's how I see things.
Yes, Jacqueline Susann of VALLEY OF THE DOLLS, THE LOVE MACHINE and ONCE IS NOT ENOUGH fame wrote a science fiction novel! It was published posthumously in 1979. I've searched used books stores for at least 20 years and finally came across a copy last year in Palm Springs. It now holds a special place in my library of pop culture oddities.
Now that the smoked has cleared. I think it's safe to rerun this controversial review of CAPTAIN EO from 2008. In light of news from last summer, I've decided to dust it off, clean it up just a bit and respond to some of my critics. 
It's not often that one gets an opportunity to review a theme park attraction movie, especially one that's over 20 years old and no longer used because of its star's reputation for being an alleged pedophile, so when given the chance to see CAPTAIN EO (1985, directed by Francis Ford Coppola!!!) again - I practically moonwalked!
This ambitious (to say the least) short was filmed in 3-D and had George Lucas attached as a writer/producer. Not the cool George Lucas of STAR WARS, but the cheesy George Lucas responsible for such dreck as the Ewoks and Jar Jar Binks. Also, I might add that this Francis Ford Coppola is not the class act "A List" director responsible for the GODFATHER saga, but the evil madman who foisted his daughter Sofia upon an unsuspecting world. One wonders if Coppola and Lucas signed a pact with the devil (aka Michael Eisner) to make this mess.
This $30 million movie (Imagine what I could do with that money!!!) tells the story of Captain EO (played by a pre-skin bleached Michael Jackson) and his "ragtag" crew (basically the Banana Splits from Saturday mornings past) traveling in his space craft, which I'll call MLSTR-1, on some sort of a mission from a hologram named Commander Bog (played by Dick Shawn, who later died on stage the next year during a performance of his one-man show), that I believe (from what I could decipher) to deliver a something to a evil queen (this is Disney after all - there HAS to be an evil queen and an innocent princess) named "the Supreme Leader" - played by the fabulous Angelica Huston in H.G. Giger meets KISS OF THE SPIDER WOMAN make-up -that's funny I always thought Diana Ross was the Supreme leader!
We first meet Captain EO and his Sid & Marty Krofft-inspired crew, consisting of a dumb, bumbling Dumbo-like creature named "Hooter", an annoying flying "bug" which I think is named Fuzzball (was WEBSTER not available?), a thing with two heads, a robot called Major Domo (?) with a small robot named Minor Domo, who plugs himself into the back of the larger robot. No comment. They soon fly past a giant space rock that looks like Michael's old nose, that explodes, reportedly causing the audience to scream with delight. I don't recall since 3-D movies give me migraines and I usually don't wear the plastic eye disease-spreading glasses that they hand out.
Once they arrive on Planet Huston, they encounter Angelica, who lives in a place that looks like a dirty, flithy warehouse, decorated with scrap metal and disconnected wires. She is the only cool thing in this entire 17-minute opus, and she orders her storm troopers to take them captive - and she sentences them to be tortured. IF ONLY, because I'm already in pain from watching this, and I don't like to suffer alone!
V, the series, wasn't nearly as successful. I loved the first miniseries and the sequel, but the mix of sci-fi and soap opera just never seemed to gel. The coolest part of the original story was that when the Nazi-like aliens (Visitors) first arrived they seeked friendship, and then were slowly revealed to be evil lizards! Once that reveal happened, it just became humans vs. lizards week after week and audience quickly abandoned the show. That notwithstanding, ABC is reviving the series this season - yes V returns to the airwaves weekly on Tuesday, Nov. 3, 2009. The 1984 series only lasted 19 episodes.
At 9PM, HUNTER, TV's answer to DIRTY HARRY, premiered and ran for 7 seasons, mercifully ending in 1991. Fred Dryer reprised the role in three TV-movies (1991, 2002 and 2003). An eighth season of HUNTER was then launched in 2003, but cancelled after only 3 episodes had aired.
At 10PM, it was time for "MTV Cops" also known as MIAMI VICE, the show that took network TV by storm. This was highly stylized weekly TV series that looked and sounded more like a feature film than anything on TV at the time. The show starred Don Johnson and Phillip Michael Thomas as Crockett and Tubbs, two Florida detectives working undercover in Miami. It ran for five seasons, from 1984–1989 and elevated reliable TV actor Don Johnson and his 5'o clock shadow to sex symbol status. "Sugar Walls" singer Sheena Easton joined the cast for the 1987-1988 season. Producer Michael Mann revisited detectives Crockett and Tubbs in 2006 with a feature film version of MIAMI VICE starring Jamie Foxx and Colin Farrell. I have never seen it, though my friend, director David Kittredge maintains that it is an excellent piece of film making. Tomorrow: Saturdays.
