JOURNEY INTO MIDNIGHT (1968)
Dirs: Alan Gibson, Roy Ward Baker

A somewhat unusual TV horror film, shot in England and originally intended as a pilot for a weekly horror series, Journey Into Midnight consists of two tales linked by witty and arch introductions from Sebastian Cabot (better known as Family Affair's Mr. French). Cabot would later go on to host a short-lived NBC supernatural series entitled first Ghost Story, then in mid-season changed to Circle of Fear. The show may be long-forgotten but Journey has found new life through, improbably enough, screenings on the Fox Movie Channel.

The first section of the film features Chad Everett as a smug American attending a masquerade soiree at a mysterious country estate. Although the segment hints of a sort of sinister ambiguity with unsettling personal enigmas, much like the tone of Robert Aickman's brilliant short stories, the narrative quickly collapses and nosedives into a predictable yawn of an ending. The only chiefly memorable aspects are the lush production design and the moody use of the English countryscapes.

Journey is saved however in its excellent second hour directed by veteran Hammer Films and Amicus Productions horror director Roy Ward Baker (The Vampire Lovers, Scars of Dracula, Asylum, Vault of Horror, And Now the Screaming Starts among many others) and scripted by Robert Bloch (Psycho, The House that Dripped Blood, The Skull). Once again Julie Harris lends her prodigious talents in the service of small screen horror, portraying a lonely rich widow desperate to contact her beloved husband via seance. Her young personal assistant (the beautiful and chic Tracy Reed) recommends her boyfriend for the job of watchguard; Tom Adams plays a detective specializing in exposing occult frauds (the sort of niche employment found alas only in the cinema). Essentially a smooth variation on the double themes of the dastardly ladykiller and the chicanery of fake spiritualists and mediums, "The Indian Spirit Guide" benefits as a whle from the strength of its parts.

Adams and Reed make a charmingly evil duo, Harris is marvelous as always (playing her stock character at first broadly, then adding shades of complexity and poignant affectations to her performance) and the script is smart and very briskly paced. Baker's direction shows a professional restraint with little of the vulgarities and abuse of the zoom lens he often employed. Perhaps the greatest moments though are the final 15 minutes, when Catherine Lacey is introduced as the aged character Miss Sarah Prinn. Late in her career Lacey, having begun in the 1930s with Hitchcock and other noted British directors, turned often to horror film roles, perhaps the only ones available to her. As in films as diverse in quality as The Servant (1963), The Sorcerers (1967) and The Mummy's Shroud (1967), the regal actress takes command of every scene in which she appears. A regional English entertainer who confined herself to roles in her homeland, Lacey reminds us in this cameo performance of how engaging a screen personality can be, and makes us at least long for a wider and more accesible filmography than she left behind.

NIGHT GALLERY (1969)
Dirs: Boris Sagal, Barry Shear, Steven Spielberg

The feature-length pilot for the successful NBC television series, this film establishes the show's weekly format of three tales introduced by host Rod Serling, with a representative painting serving as starting point. It's no surprise that the final segment, "Eyes", directed by a young Steven Spielberg, is the standout piece. Joan Crawford (busy reinventing herself as a horror legend after Whatever Happened to Baby Jane, Strait-Jacket, I Saw What You Did and Berserk) stars as, in Serling's typically florid words, "an impervious, predatory dowager", blind from birth and secluded from the world in her luxe Park Avenue penthouse. Tom Bosley (four years prior to his most lucrative acting of his career, Happy Days) is a two-bit bookie with massive debt who agrees to give up his eyes so that Crawford may experience 12 hours of sight after experimental transplant surgery. Indeed the wicked millionairess does get to glimpse the world for the first time, but only for a few fleeting seconds; upon removal of the bandages, New York City is plunged into a massive blackout lasting the entire night. Spielberg does an admirable job with an intensely overwrought script, and shows his naive inexperience only through an occasional reliance on artsy, film school effects (this being his first professional gig upon graduation from AFI). He uses the same interior monologue technique so effective in Duel three years later, though "Eyes" is more fanciful and decorative than that gem of realistic horror. Crawford brings a vicious grandness to her role, in a mature performance better than much of her long previous career.

The other two segments are less interesting by far. In the opening tale, straight from the pages of E.C. Comics it seems, Roddy McDowell is a vile, money-grubbing trifler, who murders his uncle in order to obtain his inheritance. Naturally, the old man wreaks havoc from beyond the grave, and with the help of his servant (Ossie Davis) destroys McDowell in a predictable ending (even the additional twist is trite and hackneyed).

Rounding out the film is a story of an ex-nazi refugee in Argentina, haunted by ghosts of the past and seeking an end to painful memories. Unfortunately he is saddled with a drunken prostitute-philosopher of a neighbor in his flophouse, and the scenes involving her ruminations on his past evils are laborious and embarassing. More than the other two stories, this tale is indicative of what the series Night Gallery would become: a venue for often interesting premises weakened by sloppy direction and talkative scripts.

A COLD NIGHT'S DEATH (1973)
Dir: Jerrold Freedman

A high point in made-for-television cinema, this Spelling-Goldberg production is unusually smart, classy and decidely offbeat. Nearly everyone involved raised the personal bar for a film sadly neglected and forgotten. Prolofic composer Gil Melee abandoned his usual muzak schmaltz (think Fantasy Island) for a truly eerie electronic score that greatly enhances the unsettling atmosphere of the film. Robert Culp and Eli Wallach deliver performances of greater control than previously seen. Rolland M. Brooks' sets are astonishingly claustrophobic and grim, and even the cinematography by Leonard South exceeds the typical television constraints (menacing handheld and unusually dark photography, graceful long tracking shots, sophisticated camera setups). But top honors go to director Freedman and screenplay writer Christopher Knopf for their creation of a psychological thriller dripping with mood and macabre ambiance.

Two scientists journey to a remote research station in Antarctica to replace a colleague gone mad. Upon their arrival they find their predecessor frozen to death in front of an open window, but are ordered to continue his primate experiments involving the effects of high altitude and isolation. Within days they too begin to question their sanity as they battle an unseen force bent on destroying any human life in this frozen wasteland.

A Cold Night's Death is loaded with creepy set pieces, from a late night stroll through the dilapidated research center to the sometimes upsetting experiments conducted on the chimps to the discovery of the tapes left by the "first victim". More frightening than a few well-placed shocks though is the continually building suspense, kept low-key through such a somber tone. It's so difficult to imagine Mikey slurping his Life cereal during a commercial break, one wonders who the sponsors were during the original airing of the film.

Hard to find but essential viewing for anyone interested in the genre.

At home, working hard in Brooklyn to provide you with plenty of new updates in the weeks ahead.

HAUNTS OF THE VERY RICH (1972)
Dir: Paul Wendkos

Horror in the 1970s became famously bleak, with Evil often triumphing over Good, and even television was willing to forgoe the obligatory happy ending in service of the new national trend towards nihilism. Haunts of the Very Rich is a rarity beyond even those parameters though - a made-for-TV exisitential horror movie. Basically, No Exit in polyester and blue eyeshadow.

A group of strangers arrive at a posh resort called Portals of Eden; fabulous upon initial appearance, the hotel soon turns ominous. Paradise is lost on the first night, when a savage tropical storm rips through the island, rendering the isolated vacation spot without electricity, phone service, accesible roads and limited food and water. A snake enters a guestroom, the temperature rises to unbearable degrees and the guests begin bickering amongst themselves. One by one each member of the party reveals a back story, always ending with a terrible accisen tor brush with death. Starting to get the picture? The ultimate premise of the tale is perhaps trite to contemorary viewers, but must have delivered a real jolt at the time of showing (For the record, two Amicus productions of the same year and the following one, Tales from the Crypt and Vault of Horror, respectively, utilized a similar surprise ending).

Besides a carefully building sense of dread and bewilderment, the strongest element of Haunts is its ensemble cast of 70s tv pros. Donna Mills is a shag-haired newlywed having second thoughts about her new husband; Ed Asner is an even grouchier version of Lou Grant; Cloris Leachman is fragile single woman facing spinsterhood; Lloyd Bridges is a swinging adulterer (giving the weakest performance of the lot); Robert Reed is years from Mike Brady as a priest losing his faith, etc. The petty infighting and growing realization of their tragic fate is handled superbly by the group in general.

Above all else, Haunts of the Very Rich is immenently watchable, highly engaging and a superb example of 70s style and vibe. More than many other films discussed here, this bleak horror-drama could hold its own as a time capsule depiction of the decade's aesthetic, language and changing ideology. Although nearly impossible to find, this is one film worth the search. Campy characters and a few stock characterizations aside, the final moments deliver a cleverly constructed finale with true resonance.

YOU'LL LIKE MY MOTHER (1972)
Dir: Lamont Johnson

Fans of the sub-sub genre known as Winter Horror will relish this tale set in a creepy old mansion in the desolate northern reaches of Minnesota. Indeed the snowbound landscapes lend a suitable air to a story of a young widow visiting her mother-in-law and receiving a most chilly reception. Patty Duke is the young mother-to-be, calling on her dead husband's family for the first time just prior to giving birth. Rather than being welcomed into the fold, she is subjected to verbal and physical abuse by the imposing mother, and shocked by a highly dysfunctional household of a sweet but mentally challenged sister and a psychotic rapist (creepily played by Richard Thomas just a couple of years before he disappeared forever as an actor into the role of JohnBoy Walton).

Based on Naomi A. Hintze's novel of the same name, the clearest inspiration for the story seems to be the enormously similar Die! Die! My Darling (1965 Dir: Freddie Francis), in which Stephanie Powers plays the beleagured heroine to monsterous mom-in-law Tallulah Bankhead (who really stretched herself in the role of teetotaler, Bible-thumping zealot). Lamont johnson's film updates the scenario to have a timely relevance that still resounds with topical cultural references: Duke dresses in quasi-hippie garb throughout; her husband has been killed in the Vietnam War; bus drivers spout peacenik slogans; Thomas is an obvious draft dodger (in addition to being a sex criminal); psychoactive drugs are imployed to keep Duke a docile prisoner and even the evil Mother represents an archetypal Oppressive Authority Figure.

An impressive level of suspense and dread is maintained throughout You'll Like My Mother, with a downbeat mood typical of the decade. It would be hard to imagine a contemporary MTVM so persistently grim and imposing. Patty Duke is excellent in the lead, and far more subdued than her generally histrionic self, while Sian Barbara Allen is a standout as the disturbed sister-in-law. Rosemary Murphy's performance anchors the film however, as she imbues her villanous character with both cruelty and a sad weariness. Two scenes in which she comforts her sex offender son, hidden in a basement room, are touchingly perverse, her icy demeanour giving way to a mother consumed with guilt and maternal love.

DEATH AT LOVE HOUSE (1976)
Dir: E. W. Swackhamer

Robert Wagner and Kate Jackson portray a husband and wife team researching and writing a book based on legendary screen goddess Lorna Love. In order to soak up atmosphere and lend an authentic ambiance to their work, the pair shack up in Love's former Hollywood Hills estate, untouched since her untimely death years ago and redolent of former evil in residence. In the interest of narrative exigency, they quickly discover a pursed lip housekeeper, various objects left over from occult ceremonies, a ghostly figure in white flitting about the fountain area and a stuffed black cat. A murder and an attempt on Jackson's life follows, along with a string of bad weather, and soon the film is moving towards its overblown finale.

Silly, bland and tame even by television standards, Death at Love House has few recommending qualities. Among a paltry handfull are the cameos of veteran actors, contemporaries of the fictional Love character: John Carradine in a rain-soaked duster bearing tidings of doom; Dorothy Lamour as a bitter ex-rival of Love's, now hawking coffee on television commercials (uncomfortably prescient almost); and Joan Blondell's quirky portrait of the “ultimate fan”. Sylvia Syndey steals the show as the ominous housekeeper, and Jackson brings her usual dignity and quiet classiness to the hokiest of scenarios. A couple of minor twists in the final moments of the story are effective, but barely enough to justify the preceding 70 minutes.

Love House has neither the ability or intention to aspire to a classic Hollywood Gothic such as Sunset Boulevard or Whatever Happened to Baby Jane, yet it samples freely from both without absorbing any of those films' wry details. The 70s vogue for the 1920s and 30s (Paper Moon, The Great Gatsby, The Sting, Chinatown) inspired the script, but no effort was made to evoke the time periods; the “films” of Lorna Love, screened in the Spanish Colonial-style mansion of the dead star by an obsessive Wagner are amateurish and empty. A few sepia-tinted “reincarnation” scenes involving Love and Wagner could be outtakes from The Love Boat left too long in the developer.

HOW AWFUL ABOUT ALLAN (1970)
Dir: Curtis Harrington

Curtis Harrington is a director with often large ideas that never quite cohese on the small screen. Of his theatrical releases, the debut Night Tide (1960) and Games (1967) contain impressive moments of dreamy unease and menace, while others range from mediocre (What's the Matter with Helen? 1972) to inspired (Whoever Slew Auntie Roo? 1972). The fascination with question marks in the titles remains unexplained. Harrington's television output is consistent however – plodding, dull and predictable. The high point of How Awful About Allan is its sensational title – lurid and creepily colloquial at the same time.
An Aaron Spelling Production (no surprise for a 70s TV Movie of the Week), blessed with a truly thespian cast, the weak plot and stagey direction keep the production grounded. From potentially atmospheric settings to Alan's midnight wanderings, pursued by voices of potential madness and shadowy figures of the mind, Harrington's lackluster direction and general unenthusiam for the material keep the film from ever even getting off the ground. 90% of the action occurs inside three rooms of the house and the cast is essentially three characters in total. Neighborhood drama club production anyone? Adapting for the stage would be a snap.

Returning from an 8-month stint in a mental hospital, after the death of his father and disfigurement of his sister in a household fire, Alan (Anthony Perkins) is suffering from hysterical blindness and a generally dyspeptic attitude towards everything around him. His sister (Julie Harris) is accomodating but frazzled, fearing for his sanity and doubtful that any real progress was made by the doctors. To make ends meet, the now financially strapped siblings take in a mysterious boarder with odd hours and an even scarier voice (imagine Paul Williams with laringytis). Naturally Allan begins to doubt his own sanity, especially once the boarder, or some stealthy night owl, takes to wandering the house whispering his name and pushing him down stairs.

The two standouts in the tiny cast are Harris (always good in her TV work, from guest spots on Roald Dahl's Tales of the Unexpected to her recurring role as Val Ewings' meddling hillbilly mama on Knot's Landing) and Joan Hackett as Olivia, the kindly next door neighbor and Allan's former lover. Perkins is watchable, but his character is so overwhelmingly annoying it is quite impossible to feel any concern for him or his predicament. Within the first half hour I kept hoping the phantom boarder would be successful in his attempts to throw him down the staircase or lead him out a window. Perkins really shows once again that he is the ultimate one trick pony, chanelling Norman Bates over and over in his large repertoire of disturbed protagonists. (Even worse, Harrington ends the film with a hack director's rip-off of Psycho's chilling final shot; Perkins grins menacingly at the camera, suggesting future horrors to come. Unfortunately the only horror the audience can imagine at this point is that the film might continue after the commercial break.)

Nonetheless the generic conventions of the horror film are, in their repetition and familiarity, reliable pleasures, and How Awful About Allan at least manages to give us a spooky house at night, thunderstorms and howling winds. Additionally, Harris and Hackett are great enough to rise above the material, particularly Harris, as she stares in the mirror ever so briefly at her damaged face, fingering the rubber skinpiece covering her burns, and smoldering with resentment.

Welcome to Satan's School for Girls! I created this blog to share with others my love of the Made-for-TV horror film, specifically those from the L'age d' Or of Horror, the 1970s. Chances are quite strong you may be the first visitor, and if you should check back for my very regular updates, even stronger that you belong to an ultra-small niche of film fans with . . .um . . .acquired tastes.

The television film after all has long been held in disregard, a distant step-cousin to theatrical releases and dismissed as trite fodder for the masses or a haven for aging stars and B-list celebrities. Additionally the made-for TV-movie ("MTVM") faces consistent obstacles - lower budgets, short shooting and post-production schedules, and a need to pander to restrictive censors and corporate advertisers. These restrictions often result in lackluster cinematography, a minimal number of camera set-ups and a dearth of atmospheric locations. Although a few films (again, primarily from the 70s, when popular filmmaking in general reached its artistic and experimental zenith) transcended the limitations, many others drew their charm from said obstacles.

Armed with nostalgia for one's youth (dependant on age, natch), made-for-TV horror movies offer a comfort food meal of cinematic terror and a yen for the innocence of programming past. While the films here are judged on their obvious merits or flaws, the experience of crouching in a darkened den or rec room past bedtime clearly fuels the persistent affection some of us feel for this forgotten genre. Good or bad, silly or scary, inspired or derivative, at Satan's School for Girls we are remembering these cultural relics with a museum-worthy reverence.

Though some of the essays/entries on this site may masquerade as reviews, they are not meant to be recommendations or condemnations. As previously mentioned much of the appeal of a specific MTVM is nostalgic, and inextricably linked to an initial viewing and surrounding personal details. If one happily remembers watching Death at Love House, and dragging G.I. Joe into the bed afterwards for comfort, my negative appraisal of the film's weak plot and poorly excuted period sequences will be irrelevant. Any critical discussion here is primarly meant simply to lend credibility and dignity to works fading into obscurity. It is common now, in hindsight, to repute the ouevre of a director like Brian de Palma, but though currently unfashionable his films are still actively discussed as historically relevant to cinema. I'm merely opening the gate wider to include Spelling-Goldberg productions.