You know your pregnancy has gone off the rails when Bosley from Charlie’s Angels is hypnotizing you and demanding to know who the real father of your child is! But what else is your husband supposed to do when he’s had a vasectomy, but you somehow go and turn up all preggers despite swearing up and down that you’ve always been faithful? Do you want to save your marriage or not? Then keep your eye on the swinging pendant and try not to claw your ears out listening to David Doyle’s gravelly voice interrogating you about your sex life! Continue reading “The Stranger Within (1974)”
Category: TV Movie
Scream, Pretty Peggy (1973)
Imagine Psycho, but if instead of running a motel, Norman Bates was a sculptor, his mother was still alive and a raging alcoholic and Marion Crane didn’t take that shower, but performed light housekeeping duties and was an art student who had a crush on Norman. By the time the denouement finally occurs, it’s clear that at best Scream, Pretty Peggy was heavily influenced by that earlier, far superior film and the only suspense is whether it really is going to blatantly rip off Psycho. (For fans of homely guys in drag, it happily does!) Continue reading “Scream, Pretty Peggy (1973)”
Gargoyles (1972)
Let’s get the obvious out of the way right up front. Gargoyles is a straight up stone cold classic TV movie. It isn’t because of the story tough. Monsters hiding out in the desert who appear every 600 years or so? If you couldn’t get the job done back in the Middle Ages when our ancestors were pooping in the streets and probably chased you off with nothing more lethal than a garden hoe, I’m not worried about you going up against us now. Even when, as here, it’s some small town cops and dirt bikers. Continue reading “Gargoyles (1972)”
She Waits (1972)
Despite Mark Wilson’s characteristically ugly early 1970s haircut I felt bad for him. He’s taking his new bride to meet his mother for the first time, an event fraught with peril even under the best of circumstances. Any dude who’s ever been married will tell you that more likely then not all that’s coming from that visit is that the two most important women in your life will be pissed at you simultaneously for something you had absolutely nothing to do with. Continue reading “She Waits (1972)”
Runaway! (1973)
A train full of skiing revelers on the way down the mountain! But engineer Holly Gibson (Ben Johnson) has never seen it this cold before! But by tomorrow it won’t even matter because Holly is just one day from retirement! (The savvy traveler never takes public transportation piloted by a guy who is just trying to get through his last shift! It’s in all the guidebooks!) Continue reading “Runaway! (1973)”
Welcome Home, Johnny Bristol (1972)
A couple of years spent in a tiger cage, only the memories of his idyllic childhood in small town Vermont to cling to in attempt to keep him and his buddy sane, it is perhaps inevitable that when Johnny Bristol finally comes marching home again (his buddy doesn’t make it), that he’s going to have issues. But is Johnny going crazy, suffering from PTSD? Or the victim of a government conspiracy? Or maybe he’s just gone full Jacob’s Ladder on us and never really made out of Vietnam at all? Continue reading “Welcome Home, Johnny Bristol (1972)”
The Victim (1972)
Taking the plot of every episode of Dateline NBC, but draining all the mystery and tension from it with its painfully bland story and gussied up with a literal “dark and stormy night”, The Victim (or Out of Contention as it is even more absurdly called on the print I saw) is highlighted mostly by Elizabeth Montgomery and her lustrously awesome blonde hair (at least until she gets drenched in the non-stop rainstorm) running back and forth between various rooms in her sister’s house chasing sounds and shouting some variation of “who’s there!” Continue reading “The Victim (1972)”