An elderly janitor, caught in a top secret laboratory explosion, begins aging in reverse, and is pursued by a mysterious government agency.Director: Kenneth Fink (ep.1), Allen Coulter (eps. 2,4,6), Michael Gornick (eps. 3,7), Stephen Tolkin (ep.5)
Starring: Keith Szarabajka, Felicity Huffman, Ed Lauter, Frances Sternhagen
Airdates: July 16–August 22, 1991 Network: CBS
An elderly janitor, caught in a top secret laboratory explosion, begins aging in reverse, and is pursued by a mysterious government agency.
Beginning life as the outline for a novel that sat gestating in Stephen King’s notebook for years, Golden Years would ultimately materialize as an original television production, with King himself writing the screenplay for the first five episodes, and providing a detailed outline for the final two episodes. Initially, the idea was for Golden Years to be a continuing series, but when CBS decided not to go ahead, the original cliffhanger ending to the seventh episode was edited for subsequent broadcasts and home video releases, to give it a more concrete and optimistic conclusion.
At the time of its original broadcast, King described Golden Years as “like Twin Peaks without the delirium.”2 Unfortunately, it also lacked the wit, characters, dialog, ambience and beautiful production design of David Lynch’s cult television series. There’s barely enough story, let alone characters, to keep it interesting and engaging for the seven episodes, let alone try to see where they could have possibly taken it had the show in fact continued as originally planned.
The set-up of Golden Years is certainly promising enough, even if it is established in pure 1950s sci-fi B-movie simplicity. Reversing the aging process is something we all probably think about at certain points as we get older, and the best and most emotionally impacting moments of Golden Years explore the relationship between the main character, elderly Harlan Williams (Keith Szarabajka), who is growing younger and more virile by the day, and his beloved wife and lifelong partner Gina (Frances Sternhagen) who will continue to age as normal. There are some great moments between the two, particularly as Gina starts to worry that Harlan will stop finding her physically attractive as he grows younger, yet the screenplay doesn’t really explore the layers of the relationship as much as it could, instead getting derailed with a lot of political and espionage subplots involving The Shop, the fictional top secret government agency that King has featured in several of his stories, which has been established to investigate paranormal and strange activity, but are evil and malicious in their methods and intent.
Produced by Richard P. Rubenstein and his Laurel Productions (whose long association with King began with the 1982 horror anthology Creepshow), Golden Years has a very cheap and bare bones look to it, and the makeup used to age Keith Szarabajka is unconvincing and obvious from the start, which is a pity as Szarabajka’s performance, along with that of Sternhagen’s, provides one of the few real highlights of this moderately entertaining but ultimately disengaging tale. As he often does, King shows up in a cameo role, playing a bus driver in the fifth episode. Of course, hearing the classic 1975 David Bowie song Golden Years on the soundtrack certainly brings a brief sense of cool to the show whenever it pops up. It should have used it more often. [John Harrison]
Nightmarish imagery in the shape of Tim Curry’s Pennywise in IT.
IT
Director: Tommy Lee Wallace
Starring: Richard Thomas, John Ritter, Annette O’Toole and Tim Curry
Airdates: November 18 & 20, 1990 Network: ABC
Seven young friends forge a bond when they confront and supposedly defeat a mysterious figure of evil in the midst of their otherwise quiet town. Three decades later, their supernatural nemesis returns.
Probably the most viewed small screen adaptation of any of Stephen King’s works, and almost certainly the most successful, this epic coming-of-age horror story (originally screened as a two-part miniseries) rightfully takes its place as a true classic of its kind.
The highly respected source novel—a huge tome and one of King’s longest works—was ripe for TV audiences whose patience for the master’s scares was perhaps better satiated over a couple of nights rather than months. Indeed, it was a hugely successful exercise that paved the way for a spree of highly anticipated small screen adaptations in the immediate years that followed— some good, others less so—but none ever came close to matching this one for sheer fun, scares and excitement; the three key elements that King fans line up for.
The film is of course best remembered for introducing us to the horror genre’s most famous killer clown. So much has been made of Tim Curry’s scene stealing performance as the shapeshifting antagonist Pennywise (a casting decision that even detractors of the film unanimously praise) that it’s easy to forget the contributions of the rest of the cast. Both the young and adult ensembles are instantly likeable and share a genuine chemistry that is never less than engaging. However, it is the teleplay by Laurence Cohen and director Tommy Lee Wallace that deserves the most recognition, being more concerned to depict real people in an unreal situation—the essence of which marks King’s best work—rather than simply concentrating on the narrative’s purely fantastical elements; the latter approach most often opted for by filmmakers with inevitably dismal results.
Since its original release, IT has a garnered a cult following among genre fans, appealing primarily to the nostalgia crowd as a kind of “gateway” horror title, being that it contains just the right mixture of thrills, chills and undeniably cheesy melodramatics that are the stock and trade of all beloved TV movies. As with any adaptation from a popular work, the film has its vocal critics, too; the chief consensus being that far too much has been omitted from the book’s narrative pertaining to the relationships among the characters and the very nature of IT itself. But these arguments, as ever, are rather churlish; readers have already been appropriately serviced by the novel, whereas television audiences have an altogether different palate, and this one plays perfectly to the taste of the armchair horror junkie.
IT is both landmark television and a landmark horror title. Admittedly, aspects of the production have dated somewhat, but the majority of it still works well enough and its merits far outweigh the snobbish criticism it has attracted in some quarters. This is not a hatchet job of an adaptation. The epic size of the source novel has been skillfully pared down to a lean, mean three hours of horror that has characters you actually care about and a truly iconic villain that you’ll never forget. [Kevin Hilton]
THE LANGOLIERS
Director: Tom Holland
Starring: Patricia Wettig, Dean Stockwell, David Morse, Mark Lindsay Chapman & Bronson Pinchot
Airdates: May 14–May 15, 1995 Network: ABC
When a red-eye commercial flight passes through an aurora borealis, ten passengers discover that everyone else onboard has vanished.
Despite the almost grade school nature of the computer effects used to visualize the title creatures, The Langoliers is one of the more effective Stephen King projects to have been adapted for the small screen.
Based on a novella that first appeared in King’s 1990 collection Four Past Midnight, The Langoliers works so well not so much because of its characters or performances, but in its central themes, the effective build-up of tension, and its clever twist on time travel tropes.
The set-up is pure Twilight Zone: a passenger flight passes through an aurora borealis, sending it back only fifteen minutes in time, but to a world that is completely deserted save for the ten people who were sleeping onboard the plane at the time. As the survivors, who manage to land the plane at an airport, try to work out what has happened to them and the people around them, an ominous noise grows slowly louder from over the other side of a mountain range. Described invariably as like “milk being poured on Rice Krispies” and an army of “coked-up termites,” it’s when the source of this noise finally makes itself known that The Langoliers really delivers its sting. In King’s take on time travel, the past doesn’t exist, and there is no going back to correct mistakes, as the past is literally eaten by the Langoliers, large flying/bouncing balls with nothing but a giant mouth filled with rows of huge, shining and sharp metal teeth that continually rotate like a deadly chainsaw. The Langoliers follow just behind us in time, mercilessly and unstoppably devouring the past, including anyone and anything trapped in it.
A big part of the success of The Langoliers lies in the choice of Tom Holland as writer and director. Having written the screenplay for Psycho 2 (1983), as well as writing and directing two great eighties cult horror films in Fright Night (1985) and Child’s Play (1988), Holland brought to the table a handful of strong genre credentials, and had previously honed his skills in fantasy television by directing episodes of Amazing Stories (1985–87) and Tales from the Crypt (1989–86).
Holland’s screenplay is able to take what is essentially a short film or one-hour television episode at most, and stretch it out to two ninety-minute installments without stretching the viewer’s patience. While his direction is solid and he gets some nice performances out of several of the cast members, in particular Dean Stockwell (as a mystery writer trying to apply the logic and deduction found in his books to what is happening to him) and Mark Lindsay Chapman as a British secret service hitman who is questioning his career choice. The most over-the-top performance belongs hands-down to Bronson Pinchot, co-star of the popular sitcom Perfect Strangers (1986–93), who chews almost as much scenery as the Langoliers themselves. Pinchot plays an arrogant and failed broker driven to the point of psychological collapse by his domineering father, who always scared him with tales of the Langoliers, and how they would come and gobble him up if he ever wasted time or got lazy with his schoolwork (Stephen King cameos as his boss during a hallucinatory fantasy sequence).
Filmed primarily on location at the Bangor International Airport in King’s hometown of Bangor, Maine—where much of the story also takes place— The Langoliers has the same fairly bland and flat low budget look of many telemovies and miniseries’ from that period, but its intriguing plot and an effective, pervading sense of mystery more than helps to cover its visual and technical shortfalls. [John Harrison]
SALEM’S LOT
Director: Tobe Hooper
Starring David Soul, James Mason, Bonnie Bedelia, Reggie Nalder, Lance Kerwin
Airdates: November 17 & 24, 1979 Network: CBS
A novelist returns to his hometown to find that sinister changes in his idyllic community might be the work of a vampire infestation.
I was only a youngster when I first saw “prodigal son” and writer Ben Mears (David Soul) swiftly turn two popsicle sticks into a makeshift crucifix to protect himself from an undead Marjorie Glick (Clarissa Kaye). And my heart skipped a beat when I heard Mike Ryerson (Geoffrey Lewis) hiss “Look at me teacher…” while his yellow eyes glared with disturbing burning intelligence, all the while baring his twisted fangs in front of a shaky Matt Burke (Lew Ayres).
From the first viewing of Tobe Hooper’s Salem’s Lot on TV, I was hooked. Addicted. Obsessed by the idea that an entire town would fall victim to darkness; and that one by one, these all-American characters (that looked as though they had popped out of Thornton Wilder’s play Our Town) would become bloodthirsty, predatory and genuinely terrifying vampires.
This two-part miniseries hit a nerve for me and one of the core reasons it did was that it presented a narrative structure that I have always been insanely attracted to—the Ten Little Indians motif. This concept of “the next one is gonna be me” has always appealed to me, and Salem’s Lot, with its fundamental core essence as a story about townsfolk being birthed into vampirism, served this story-type hunger.
Tobe Hooper’s adaptation of Stephen King’s sweeping novel about small-town America being devoured by something ancient and very evil is incredibly moody, beautifully structured, happily unsentimental and intelligent with its handling of the terror and its thrills. The pacing is also a major highlight, as, given its two-part structure, we are allowed to spend necessary time with these characters. The townsfolk of Salem’s Lot are so well written, nicely developed and always interesting to watch that when they turn into parasitic feral monsters it is both creepy and heartbreaking. The film boasts legendary character actors, such as Marie Windsor as boarding house owner Eva Miller and Elisha Cook Jr. as town drunk Ed “Weasel” Craig, as well as newcomers of the time, Fred Willard as realtor Larry Crockett and Lance Kerwin as the brave and intuitive boy Mark Petrie, who survives the vampire holocaust.
Promotional artwork.
Reggie Nalder proves to Lance Kerwin that he takes no prisoners in Salem’s Lot.
Besides the inspired casting and slickness of the piece, three major narrative elements of Salem’s Lot inspired me from the get-go. Firstly, this was the first time I remembered seeing working class vampires. Replacing the oft-used characteristic of aristocracy (the multiple times I had seen Dracula or fellow counts, princes, countesses and so forth) with school teachers, waitresses and truck drivers gives Salem’s Lot a very grounded realism that even at a young age I responded to. Instead of a devilishly decedent European gothic terrain where horse-drawn carriages lead hapless victims to opulent but oppressive castles, we had stretches of countryside where a young art teacher like Susan Norton (Bonnie Bedelia) could happily sketch among the grassy surroundings and pristine white picket fences framed the neatly manicured lawns of small-town America. This was Peyton Place—a halcyon serene Norman Rockwell painting conceived in mundane normalcy, but much like Grace Metalious’ novel (and sequential filmic adaptation from director Mark Robson in 1957) this town had secrets—secrets that would be rendered meaningless once introduced to the town’s most recent residents: the urbane Renfield-stand-in Richard Straker (James Mason) and the elusive Kurt Barlow (Reggie Nalder).
The characterization of Barlow would be the second major highlight for me in regards to how Tobe Hooper altered Stephen King’s original vision. Having read the novel after seeing the miniseries, I was so glad Hooper went with the blue-skinned, feral Nosferatu-like towering menace instead of King’s sophisticated Mephistopheles. The introduction of Barlow is forever etched in my memory: In a quiet scene where local handyman Ned Tibbets (Barney McFadden) is lying on a bunker in a jail cell, the door gently glides open as if by some unholy magic, and we are greeted by stabbing shock as the horrific image of Barlow’s monstrous face snarls head on in full closeup. And later, when Barlow appears in the disheveled Petrie kitchen only to smash June (Barbara Babcock) and Ted Petrie (Joshua Bryant) into each other was a childhood trauma.
Thirdly, and possibly most profoundly, is the fact that Salem’s Lot would be the first vampire outing to introduce a generation of horror fans to child bloodsuckers. Sure there would be more to come as seen in Near Dark, The Lost Boys (both 1987) and Interview with the Vampire (1994), but here in Salem’s Lot, the iconic imagery of vampire children Ralphie Glick (Ronnie Scribner) and Danny Glick (Brad Savage) tapping at the window and floating in midair—eyes piercing the darkness and pearly white teeth exposed, with skin deathly pale—is a thing of nightmares. A dark play on the Peter Pan mythology where you will never grow up and therefore never face responsibility—something spookily endearing for second wave monster kids growing up in the late seventies and early eighties.
Salem’s Lot is a perfect summary of “small-town disease”—the perpetual darkness, the endless quiet and the inability to connect. Vampirism consumes the New England residence, but it is truly emptiness that suffocates its townsfolk—transforming them into soulless leeches lost in post-McCarthyism America. [Lee Gambin]
THE SHINING
Director: Mick Garris
Starring: Rebecca De Mornay, Steven Weber, Will Horneff, Melvin Van Peebles & Courtland Mead
Airdates: April 27–May 1, 1997 Network: ABC
A recovering alcoholic, trying to make his mark as a writer, descends into violent madness when he takes his wife and young son to look after the isolated Overlook Hotel.
Although widely considered not only one of the better film adaptations of his works, but a cinematic horror classic in its own right, it is well known that Stephen King never particularly liked Stanley Kubrick’s 1980 adaptation of his 1977 novel The Shining. King reportedly was unhappy with the way Kubrick handled the story’s themes, and the suggestion that the lead character, Jack Torrence (Jack Nicholson) was well on the road to craziness long before he even reached the Overlook Hotel.
As a result of King’s dissatisfaction with Kubrick’s film, the author was always keen to re-imagine his book for the screen, taking advantage of the string of television adaptations of his work that were being produced throughout the 1990s. Curiously, despite The Shining being King’s story, Kubrick obviously still retained some control of its cinematic rights, as the remake was only given the green light after King agreed not to speak publicly about his dissatisfaction with Kubrick’s film.
Creepy TV Guide cover promoting the small screen adaptation of The Shining.
Bringing back the director of The Stand, Mick Garris, was a smart idea, and King as sole scriptwriter was able to adapt his novel the way he always envisioned it. Even though he disliked Kubrick’s version, there can be little doubt that King would have felt pressure to try to deliver something that could live up to the lofty expectations set by it. And while it doesn’t have anywhere near the level of cinematic craft or engaging performances captured in Kubrick’s film, it is a surprisingly effective retelling of a classic ghost tale. For people who have loved the 1980 movie but never read the original source novel, the most interesting aspect of watching the miniseries is to spot all the changes that were made by Kubrick (who clearly wanted to make a “Kubrick film” first and foremost, rather than a Stephen King adaptation). King devotees, meanwhile, will enjoy the miniseries for giving them a more faithful version of the story they are familiar with (an advance in computer effects also allowed the miniseries to depict, albeit not very convincingly, some elements of the novel which at the time Kubrick would not have been able to include even if he had wanted to—such as the animated and shapeshifting hedge animals).
Anyone stepping into the role of Jack Torrence after Jack Nicholson was going to have their work cut out for them, but Steven Weber carries the weight fairly well, and his performance and the screenplay is much more successful in portraying Torrence’s madness as something brought on by the presence in the Overlook Hotel, rather than something that was already boiling inside of him prior to his arrival. As his wife Wendy, Rebecca De Mornay does not have the same haunting and lost features of Shelley Duvall, but she is always terrific to watch in any of her roles from around this period, and the rest of the show’s limited cast, including Courtland Mead as young Danny Torrence, Melvin Van Peebles, Elliott Gould and Pat Hingle, all earn their paychecks for their respective roles.
The Shining slowly but effectively builds a palpable and mounting sense of horror and dread throughout its nearly five-hour running time, and King buffs will appreciate that a lot of the miniseries was filmed at the Stanley Hotel in Estes Park, Colorado… the hotel that King used as the inspiration for the Overlook in his original novel. [John Harrison]
SOMETIMES THEY COME BACK
Director: Tom McLoughlin
Starring: Tim Matheson, Brooke Adams, Robert Rusler and William Sanderson
Airdate: May 7, 1991 Network: CBS
Jim Norman was a boy when he witnessed the murder of his older brother by a trio of punks. Decades later, back from the dead, the killers are hell-bent on revenge.
Adapted from a short story from Stephen King’s Night Shift collection, though not quite as dark as the prose piece that inspired it, this made for TV movie is nevertheless a gutsy, tightly paced treat that goes full throttle all the way, successfully belying its limited budget and small screen trappings.
Favorably benefitting from a small but recognizable cast of talents and assuredly directed by genre journeyman Tom McLoughlin (One Dark Night, Friday the 13th Part VI), the emphasis here is on gore and cheap thrills rather than touchy-feely melodramatics, although an awkward smattering of the latter forgivably remains.
For fans of such fare, the most refreshing thing about this production is that it is a “straight-up” ghost story—the first King adaptation to properly deal in this subgenre since The Shining—but whereas Stanley Kubrick’s movie set out its stall (some might argue, rather clunkily) on the psychological aspects of a family’s haunting, this one takes the opposite approach, exploiting the subject matter with all the visceral, ghoulish joy of an old EC Comics strip, and in fact, the project was originally intended for inclusion in the theatrical horror anthology, Cat’s Eye, an earlier Dino De Laurentiis production based on the writer’s works.
Tim Matheson as the terrorized Jim Norman strikes the correct balance of fear and resolve, while Brooke Adams as his suffering wife sensibly plays it straight, her performance appropriately anchoring the narrative in a vague sense of reality before proceedings becomes too awash with comic book silliness. However, as in any good horror movie, the villains steal the show, with cult fan favorite Robert Rusler being particularly impressive, clearly relishing the opportunity to ham it up as the leader of the gang.
Sometimes They Come Back is not without its faults; the noticeably threadbare plot makes little attempt to refine itself with any logic, and as such, suspension of disbelief is an essential viewing requirement, but for those willing to give themselves over to the carny theatrics, there’s much to enjoy. It was ultimately successful enough to be followed by two direct-tovideo sequels. [Kevin Hilton]
THE STAND
Director: Mick Garris
Starring: Gary Sinise, Molly Ringwald, Rob Lowe, Laura San Giacomo
Airdates: May 8–12, 1994 Network: ABC
After a deadly weaponized strain of influenza kills off ninety-nine percent of the Earth’s population, a small band of immune survivors across the US prepare for humankind’s final stand between good and evil.
First published in 1978, The Stand was one of Stephen King’s most epic and ambitious novels, certainly to that point in his writing career, and any filmic adaptation would need to be similarly grand in order to do the book justice. Fortunately, those involved with the production, including once again Richard P. Rubenstein and his Laurel Entertainment Company, realized this, investing a then rather sizeable amount of $28 million into making sure the vision and scope of the novel was successfully translated to the small screen. The result is impressive and makes for one of the better live-action interpretations of a Stephen King work, certainly of those produced for the television medium.
With solid direction from Mick Garris (Psycho IV: The Beginning, Sleepwalkers) and King providing the screenplay, The Stand contains a lot of the elements, tropes and character traits that are well familiar within the writer’s horror oeuvre—including the accident at a government facility that triggers the whole disaster, and ordinary people experiencing psychic visions—but mixes them all in with just the right doses to make the story appear fresher and stronger than perhaps it really is. The prospect of germ warfare or a killer virus let loose into the atmosphere is a real and very terrifying one, and invokes a sense of paranoia as well as feelings of helplessness against an attack. King makes the situation more relatable and palpable by populating his apocalyptic story with a roster of primary characters that are nicely realized and fleshed-out.
Ominous main titles for The Stand.
Turbulent terror arrives during the Storm of the Century.
Another reason why The Stand miniseries works so well is because of the outstanding cast assembled for it, most of them turning in terrific performances. Gary Sinise in particular shines in the lead role, as a Texas everyman trying to comprehend why everyone but him is dying of the flu, but he is ably supported by the likes of the exotic Laura San Giacomo, Miguel Ferrer, Ray Walston, Shawnee Smith and Jamey Sheridan as the demonic Randall Flagg, a character who would re-appear in a number of King’s subsequent works. And it’s fun to see two former members of the infamous 1980s “Brat Pack,” Molly Ringwald and Rob Lowe, not only together in a project but really digging deep and creating an impact with their roles. Stephen King puts in his usual cameo, but also popping up onscreen are such faces as film directors Sam Raimi, Tom Holland and John Landis, along with noted drive-in movie critic Joe Bob Briggs (credited under his given name, John Bloom) and uncredited appearances by Kathy Bates and Ed Harris.
Complementing the production values and fine performances is the rather excellent soundtrack, which brilliantly uses Blue Öyster Cult’s 1974 rock classic (Don’t Fear) The Reaper over its opening sequence of bodies dropping dead at the weapons facility, along with other pop hits like Don’t Dream It’s Over from Crowded House and Boogie Fever by The Sylvers, to go with the instrumental score composed by W. G. Snuffy Walden. [John Harrison]
Director: Craig R. Baxley
Starring: Timothy Daly, Colm Feore, Casey Seimaszko and Jeffrey DeMunn
Airdates: February 14– 18, 1999 Network: ABC
The close-knit community of Little Tall Island is preparing for a blizzard, but discovers it has bigger problems when a stranger with dark powers arrives.
By the end of the nineties, Stephen King’s popularity—having originally migrated from novels to cinema—was now firmly bankable on the small screen, as well. After a run of notable successes, the ABC network offered him carte blanche in selecting which of his works he might favor to adapt next. Admirably, he decided to try something a little different, creating what he referred to as “a novel for television”; which was essentially a teleplay based on an original idea that he hadn’t published.
Storm of the Century begins promisingly, and arguably boasts Stephen King’s best writing for television. Fans of his fiction will certainly be pleased that the diverse palette of small-town characters that color his novels have made the transition to the screen perfectly. But the premise itself, delightfully chilling as it may be, simply does not contain enough elements to truly justify its running time. However, the production quality for the most part is high enough to distract from the lost opportunity of its concept.
In regards to the cast, Colm Feore is particularly impressive as the villain, bringing to the proceedings an air of menace and evil in reserve, while character actor Jeffrey DeMunn is his reliable self as the irascible town leader. Timothy Daly as the Sheriff, protagonist and everyman, suitably embodies the typical Stephen King “hero,” despite being given little to do but make grandstanding speeches and look puzzled at the supernatural events happening around him.
The film’s narrative thrust essentially derives from a moral dilemma presented to the Sheriff: provide an unspeakable sacrifice or risk damning the town’s population to an even worse fate. But, like the movie’s villain itself, the film takes a ridiculously long time laying out its intention, leading to a thematically satisfying, but fairly predictable ending.
Whether they love ’em or hate ’em, King fans enjoy comparing the adaptations to the novels, and while this “adaptation” without a source story is an interesting experiment, it’s not a wholly successful one. There are too many elements of the narrative that feel as if they aren’t properly realized, or perhaps, which is more likely, King’s remarkable gifts at suspending our disbelief for hokey goings-on is best realized in prose.
Fairly ambitious and passably entertaining, Storm of the Century is a slow burn that’s chief flaw may be that it demands a little too much from the casual TV viewer, or, on the contrary, the audience may prefer to dedicate the considerable attention required of it to one of the master’s novels instead. [Kevin Hilton]
THE TOMMYKNOCKERS
Director: John Power
Starring: Marg Helgenberger, Jimmy Smits, Joanna Cassidy, Traci Lords
Air dates: May 9–10, 1993 Network: ABC
The inhabitants of a quiet American town undergo subtle but sinister changes after a writer discovers an unusual structure in the woods near to her house.
The TV adaptations of Stephen King’s novels are almost as prolific as the writing of the man himself, and not always for the better. Having caught a screening of Bag of Bones (2011) on TV a week before sitting down to watch The Tommyknockers, let’s just say my expectations weren’t especially high. I was pleasantly surprised, then, that The Tommyknockers turned out to be quite an entertaining, well-paced two-parter.
Committed fans will find many King hallmarks to make them happy here: tales of an ancient and mysterious force in the depths of the woods recalling Pet Sematary’s Indian burial ground, and the obligatory reference to the town of Derry (appearing here as a refuge from the Tommyknockers’ power). There are also more than a few unsubtle echoes of 1980s horror movies: Nightmare on Elm Street (1984), and Dolls (1987), but most notably Poltergeist (1982), as young Hilly (Leon Brown) talks, enraptured, to an unseen force and later hears the voice of his brother—who has mysteriously disappeared—calling for help somewhere in the house.
Fittingly, the series takes on the tongue-in-cheek approach of many eighties horrors, with slightly silly comic book elements that make it more Creepshow than Children of the Corn. One of the less disturbing of the Tommyknockers’ traits is their desire to help the residents of Haven Falls with various inventions, all powered by an unearthly luminous green light (though it’s never quite clear why such an all-powerful force is also heavily reliant on common-or-garden batteries). Consequently, café owner Bryant constructs a device that will automatically make BLTs, writer Bobbi a “telepathic typewriter,” and postmistress Nancy—played by Traci Lords—a mail-sorting machine. It’s hard to take Lords seriously as she gushes about her “invention,” but then we’re not supposed to—her casting as the slightly cartoonish bombshell postmistress is inspired, and elsewhere in the film she puts in a genuinely creepy performance as she too falls under the spell of the Tommyknockers.
Artwork promoting The Tommyknockers.
The success of The Tommyknockers lies in the fact that, by the end of part one, the viewer is none the wiser as to what or who the Tommyknockers actually are. Sure, we know there’s something not quite wholesome about them, but the various goings-on in this first part cleverly build a sense of unease without offering any clear pointers. (And if you’re reading this without having yet watched The Tommyknockers, I suggest you turn the page now.) Midway through part two things get more interesting, as Hilly’s grandfather begins to investigate the strange incidents that have taken place in the woods over the years: murders, accidents, and hints of an ancient curse. Personally, I was slightly disappointed when the reveal finally came—not ghostly or demonic forces, but aliens… As Bobbi (Helgenberger) and husband Jim (Smits) explore the spaceship full of desiccated extraterrestrial bodies that has been hidden in their back yard for who-knows-how-many years, I felt slightly cheated, much as I am by the abominably lazy “It was all a dream!” revelation. While the aliens are certainly grotesque vampiric creatures, the sudden switch from subtly creepy to full-on, sometimes slightly cheap, monster effects (very similar, in fact, to the IT miniseries) is a shame considering the effective build-up, but—I have to admit—entirely in keeping with the comic book horror aesthetic that The Tommyknockers seeks to (successfully) evoke. [Jennifer Wallis]
According to Alvin Marrill’s Movies Made for Television, the debut of the miniseries was The Blue Knight, which premiered in November 1973 (although Vanished from 1971 is noted as the first “long form” TV movie, airing over two nights). While it looked a tad different than the way we tend to envision the miniseries (this layered and complex four-part series was composed of only one-hour episodes, and lacks a lot of the glamorous location and period piece details of some of the more famous entries), it proved that audiences were willing to involve themselves in a limited series. Much like the TV movie, the miniseries took a little time building steam, but by the mid-seventies, this format was generating critically acclaimed productions that varied in themes and topic, covering everything from slavery to vampires.
The miniseries is different than a telefilm in several ways, including its multi-episodic but limited nature, and its larger, overreaching story arc (something that became predominate in long running series in later years). It was also often backed by the kind of money most television filmmakers would have bent over backward for, and its epic, sweeping cinematic quality set it apart critically from its telefilm and even TV series counterparts. Still, there are plenty of genre offerings to be had, and while one tends to think of The Thorn Birds (1983) or North and South (1985), true crime, horror and sci-fi were all given the royal treatment in this format. Like the telefilm, the miniseries still relies on restrained storytelling devices, focusing on mood and characterizations. But the miniseries has the time and money to immerse its audience in adventures that are just not feasible in a shorter TV movie format, and are also too limited to warrant a full television series run. Inevitably, the miniseries helped to legitimize genre films for television.
THE DARK SECRET OF HARVEST HOME
Director: Leo Penn
Starring: Bette Davis, David Ackroyd, Rosanna Arquette, Joanna Miles
Airdates: January 23 & 24, 1978 Network: NBC
As a relocated urban family comes to grips with an idyllic village’s local traditions, there is a suspicion that paradise isn’t what it seems.
Screened on NBC in 1978, the miniseries The Dark Secret of Harvest Home is an unusual entry in the seventies folk horror canon, but one that certainly deserves a place within it. Following on the heels of the cult classic The Wicker Man (1973), the tale of an urban family moving to an unsettlingly perfect rural village owes more than a little to atmospheric Hammer offerings such as The Witches (1966).
Original TV Guide ad.
Bette Davis provides a direct link with this Hammer lineage. As the matriarch of Cornwall Coombe village, she bears a striking resemblance to her character in The Nanny (1965): in a black high-necked dress, white cap, and owlish glasses, she perfectly embodies Widow Fortune, outwardly kindly with a hint of something malicious beneath the surface. Widow Fortune presides over Cornwall Coombe as doctor, wise-woman, and counselor, and it is this insular standpoint that appeals to the Constantines, who are the archetypal neurotic city family. Nick (David Ackroyd) drinks while Beth (Joanna Miles) attends regular appointments with her psychiatrist to get over Nick’s carrying-on with another woman; their daughter Kate (Rosanna Arquette) suffers from stress-induced asthma attacks—hardly surprising considering that she is paying a street gang not to harass her on her way to and from piano class. Moving to the Coombe, and beneath the wing of Widow Fortune, appears to remedy all their ills: Kate’s asthma disappears, Nick applies himself to his work as an artist, and the Widow seamlessly takes the place of Beth’s shrink.
Gary Cole impresses in the miniseries Fatal Vision.
Monsters are afoot in House of Frankenstein.
Things slowly unravel as Nick detects subtle hints of something rotten beneath the nauseatingly twee façade of their new home. The Dark Secret of Harvest Home uses an awful lot of its five-hour running time to repeatedly signal to the viewer that something is amiss in the Coombe. The residents are quite sickening in their enthusiastic vaunting of “tradition,” continually harping on about the wonders of self-sufficiency and emphasizing—rather ominously—that no one need ever leave the village. The rural idyll motif is overdone at times—as Nick crosses a street we see a succession of horses and carts, while the sound of sheep bleating in the background is so frequent as to be almost comedic. There is shock among the onlookers of a ploughing contest when the village rebel uses a tractor rather than a horse and cart, leading to loud cries of “It’s against the ways!” “The ways” are tediously present throughout, the villagers using them as both badge of honor and threat, and one begins to wonder why Nick and Beth found Cornwall Coombe so attractive in the first place (particularly bearing in mind that Nick’s photographs of it on their first visit revealed the figure of Widow Fortune lurking, reaper-like, in the background of every shot).
The slow pacing of Dark Secret, though, does allow the more sinister manifestations of “the ways” to build gradually without the whole becoming too schlocky. A hallucinatory elixir is given to the couple by Widow Fortune in a nod to Rosemary’s Baby (1968), corn dollies are found strewn in the fields, and an erotically-charged harvest dance leads up to the obligatory ritual-in-the-woods scene. This final scene, revealing “the ways” in all their bloody glory, is a rewarding end to what is a sometimes slightly plodding, convoluted narrative (a subplot about villager Grace Everdeen, buried outside the cemetery gates in disgrace, for example, never feels properly resolved). Perhaps the most tantalizingly underused element is the appearance of Donald Pleasance, in voice only, reading Great Expectations on an audio cassette continually played by the Constantine’s blind neighbor—I’d have paid good money to see Donald in the flesh, playing a bumbling police investigator alongside Bette’s formidable materfamilias. [Jennifer Wallis]
FATAL VISION
Director: David Greene
Starring: Gary Cole, Karl Malden, Eva Marie Saint, Barry Newman
Airdates: November 18 & 19, 1984 Network: NBC
Based on the true crime case of Jeffrey MacDonald who was convicted of killing his wife and two small children.
Although time would bring a little gray into the black and white world of the murder of Dr. Jeffery McDonald’s family, at the time NBC adapted Joe McGuiness’ bestselling true crime book of the same name the real-life justice system and the court of public opinion had already convicted the doctor of the heinous crime. Prolific television screenwriter Joe Gay’s adaptation follows the book fairly closely, and director David Greene creates a harrowing and heartbreaking film broken up into two very specific parts, as a way to represent the alleged dual nature of the convicted husband.
The first section of Fatal Vision sets up McDonald as the innocent and loving, if a tad eccentric, family man who woke up to a group of hippies terrorizing his home, à la the Manson Family. Brutally, but superficially, stabbed across his abdomen, McDonald finds himself helpless to save his wife and two daughters, aged two and five. Attempting to leave the past behind, McDonald’s in-laws stand by his side as accusations fly. However, his father-in-law (the exquisite Karl Malden in an Emmy winning turn) slowly begins to see cracks in McDonald’s story and soon embarks on an almost decade-long crusade to see his daughter and granddaughters’ murders brought to justice.
The second half of Fatal Vision shows a different side of McDonald. One who is cloying, manipulative and sociopathic. A man who had affairs and one who seems to truly enjoy the attention he’s been getting from the press. But which side is really McDonald, a man who is still serving his sentence and still claiming his innocence? Probably both.
It’s easy to see how audiences could have been swayed by this story. The claim of a marauding hippie group had caused much anxiety at the time, but it is still frankly ludicrous. However, McGuiness, who was hired by McDonald before his trial began, openly admitted that once he got into the convict’s good graces he became sure of his guilt and wrote the book with that slant. McDonald later sued McGuiness, and the case was settled out of court. Subsequently, several publications have refuted his book.
At the time, however, America was convinced, and the film does nothing to sway viewers any other way. Even with these ethical issues in mind, Fatal Vision is a fascinating watch. It is engrossing, uncomfortable, and full of top notch performances. While Malden is the clear standout, Gary Cole, who had yet to find fame in Office Space, or as Mike Brady in the big screen Brady Bunch adaptations, is magnificent as the man with two faces. While his character attempts to portray shades of innocence throughout the film, there is a continual glimmer of guilt, as well as one of subdued glee for getting away with it. It’s an early marker of the brilliance that was to come from Cole and his prolific career.
While true crime has never been an anomaly in the made for television movie genre, at this point in the mid-eighties, there were still a few years to go before crime really began paying for the networks. Grabbing audiences’ attention with a headline, several strong early miniseries’, such as The Atlanta Child Murders, and Out of Darkness set the stage for the true crime films that flooded the networks less than a decade later. Fatal Visions is one of the best. [Amanda Reyes]
GOLIATH AWAITS
Director: Kevin Connor
Starring: Mark Harmon, Christopher Lee, Frank Gorshin, Emma Samms
Airdates: Circa November 16 & 17, 1981 Network: Syndicated
During an impromptu underwater salvage mission, a crew finds the Goliath, which sank forty years earlier. Also discovered are the surviving passengers and their offspring.
Back in the 1970s when made for television movies were all the rage and the smaller independent stations didn’t have the access to quality first-run syndicated programming, several stations banded together and formed what they would call Operation Prime Time (OPT). These indies teamed up with larger studios, such as Universal’s MCA TV, and Columbia, who would foot a certain amount of production costs, with the smaller stations shelling out the majority of the bill. The goal was not to create a fourth network; rather, it was simply an option for smaller stations that wanted to provide unique programming fare from time to time.
OPT was a rather short-lived, but influential, venture, lasting a little over a decade, and their mostly memorable output was typically lush and epic. While they threw a few contemporary romances or comedies into the mix, period pieces and historical dramas were often the name of OPT’s game. Goliath Awaits is a mixture of the big and small OPT projects, merging grand scale storytelling in the modern day.
Shot on the Queen Mary in Long Beach, California, Goliath Awaits was an idea that took years to reach its fullest potential in production. To add some believability to the over-the-top premise, the producers called in experts and the US Navy for consultation. The results manage to make the somewhat hinky science fiction that was so prevalent in film during this era seem far more palpable. Phosphorescent algae lighting up a submerged luxury liner? Sure, why not?
Workmanlike direction from TV stalwart Kevin Connor doesn’t offer much in the way of flourish, but is capable, and the director inserts a touch of realism to the some of the technical sequences (some of which were apparently culled clips from other films). Connor was quite at home with fantastical adventure, having previously helmed At the Earth’s Core (1976), and Warlords of the Deep (1978), among others.
But, what makes Goliath Awaits so substantial and worth a look is the knockout performances from Christopher Lee, Frank Gorshin and many of the other cast members who ranged from seasoned (Eddie Albert, and John Carradine in a warm and thoughtful supporting role) to relatively new faces such as Emma Samms and Mark Harmon. Other cast members include a pre-Cheers John Ratzenberger who goes on and on about the tasty delicacy of octopus eyes, real-life married couple John McIntire and Jeanette Nolan, and the prim and proper Jean Marsh who plays the lovelorn medic who sets her eyes on one of the landlocked cuties. Only Alex Cord seems out of place with a southern accent that goes in and out like the tide.
But even with all of those friendly faces, it is Lee’s compelling portrayal of a maybe-benevolent leader who has developed an intense God complex that will keep you glued to your seat. As his right hand (hit)man, Frank Gorshin walks a line that could easily have set him into indulgent bombast but he’s uniformly terrifying, providing the right amount of underwater menace.
Goliath Awaits was met with mixed reviews and its VHS release further truncated the sprawling and complex tale, leaving out some of the meatier and more interesting subplots, such as the top secret letter Eddie Albert has asked Robert Forster to intercept. But those who first saw this fantastical yarn upon its original voyage, er, airing, tend to look back on it fondly. [Amanda Reyes]
GUYANA TRAGEDY: THE STORY OF JIM JONES
Director: William A Graham
Starring: Powers Boothe, Ned Beatty, James Earl Jones, Randy Quaid
Airdates: April 15 & 16, 1980 Network: CBS
The true story of the Peoples Temple and their journey from San Francisco to mass suicide in the jungles of Guyana.
One of the challenges of “based on a true story” cinema is that your audience knows where the story is going as soon as it begins. William A. Graham acknowledges this fact, and thus begins his Guyana Tragedy: the Story of Jim Jones at the end, in the blackness of the Guyanese jungle. Sirens blare, sending the pajama-clad residents of Jonestown rushing to Jim Jones’ makeshift amphitheater for a “white alert”—a planned mass suicide to occur as mercenaries approach Jonestown. The throngs eagerly gulp down a liquid of unknown origin, some feeling relief, others disappointment, when Jones announces that this was merely a drill.
“Why” and “how” were the two nagging questions left in the public’s mind in the wake of the tragedy at Jonestown. Specifically, “why had they killed themselves” and “how had Jones convinced them to do it?” These questions are at the heart of Guyana Tragedy, which was actually the second film on Jonestown. The first was Guyana: Crime of the Century from Mexican B-movie king René Cardona Jr.; a quickie, “names have been changed” exploiter that nevertheless was largely factually accurate. Guyana Tragedy is decidedly more upmarket in terms of production values and presentation, however it is no less exploitive—teasing the audience with an opening scene that hints at the symphony of death they are going to have to wait over three hours to see. Guyana Tragedy presents itself as a biography/psychological case study of Jones but much of it ultimately feels like it is only there to delay the inevitable. Graham appears to be working under the (incorrect) theory that the longer the film makes you wait for the final “white alert,” the less exploitive it is, but the longer it is delayed the more the concept of it overpowers the narrative.
Guyana Tragedy falls short of answering the questions in viewers’ minds but this is less a fault of the film than simply due to the many inexplicable aspects of Jones’ life. We follow Jones from child minister to a segregation-defying crusader for social justice, the latter of which he supported by being a door-to-door pet monkey salesman. Guyana Tragedy’s structure is its strength, often presenting the many inconsistencies in Jones’ life more ably than the narrative does. One particularly masterfully done scene has the still mild-mannered Jones lamenting to his wife about how exhausting his charity work is. She suggests amphetamines, and as soon as the word is spoken the film abruptly cuts to Jones bathed in light, wearing a solid white robe and his trademark sunglasses indoors. Drugs take the blame for Jones’ transformation from an idealistic young preacher to a faith-healing, sex-crazed megalomaniac but the personality shift is so dramatic that this explanation won’t be accepted by most viewers.
The charismatic Powers Boothe terrifies as Jim Jones in Guyana Tragedy.
Guyana Tragedy is a deeply engaging document of a compelling figure. The film offers few satisfactory answers, but the strength of the material is such that few will mind. It features a truly star-making performance by Powers Boothe as Jones. Boothe’s charisma rivals that of the real Jones and it is doubtful that a lesser actor could have adequately portrayed the enigmatic leader without overacting. Like Jones, Boothe alternates between benevolence and menace with terrifying ease and his performance alone makes Guyana Tragedy rank among the best the genre has to offer. [David Ray Carter]
Director: Tom Gries
Starring: George DiCenzo, Steve Railsback, Nancy Wolfe, Marilyn Burns
Airdates: April 1 & 2, 1976 Network: CBS
The true story of the investigation of the Tate-LaBianca murders and the arrest and trial of Charles Manson and his “Family.”
Of the numerous judicial sideshows that have been dubbed the “trial of the century” over the years, only one of them has been so omnipresent that the American President himself has weighed in with his thoughts on the matter. That distinction goes to The State of California vs Charles Manson, et al.—the Manson Family trial—and Richard Nixon’s widely publicized declaration of Manson’s guilt during a critical phase of the trial. Manson held up a copy of the Los Angeles Times bearing a “Manson Guilty” headline in an unsuccessful attempt to have a mistrial declared. This incident and the several others like it make up the most memorable scenes in 1976’s Helter Skelter, based on Manson prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi’s book of the same name.
The Tate-LaBianca murders have served as the inspiration for countless films and documentaries since 1969. Most, however, end where Helter Skelter chooses to begin—the morning after the Tate murders. The movie accurately depicts the key aspects of the investigation and that of the subsequent LaBianca murders, including the LAPD’s initial insistence that the two crimes were unrelated. Helter Skelter never hesitates to chastise the LAPD, making much out of their inability to finger Manson and company for the crimes and their mishandling of one of the murder weapons, which, unbeknownst to them, had been in their possession since immediately after the crime.
The time spent on the Manson/Nixon incident and the foibles of the LAPD investigation all serve the same narrative purpose in Helter Skelter: the glorification of Vincent Bugliosi. Bugliosi places himself as the true star of the Manson trial, overcoming an inept police department, Manson’s tricks, and the inference of the President to secure a conviction. He frames himself as a dedicated but unknown Assistant DA, but the fact of the matter is that before the trial began a fictionalized version of Bugliosi appeared in NBC’s The DA: Murder One (1969), on which he had served as a technical consultant. It’s an interesting bit of trivia that Helter Skelter fails to include, instead presenting Bugliosi as a tireless crusader for justice with no interest in the limelight. Bugliosi’s self-aggrandizement becomes most transparent in Helter Skelter’s obviously fictional conclusion, which sees a remorseful Manson congratulating Bugliosi for defeating him.
Bugliosi’s grandstanding aside; Helter Skelter is an invaluable document of the Manson trial that makes a valiant effort to provide an objective view of events. It’s an unusual take on the now familiar story that places the lawyers and police officers at the center of the narrative instead of the famous victims and their infamous killers. Helter Skelter’s focus on the crime’s aftermath was unique for the time but would go on to become the standard of police procedural television; Law and Order being just one example of a series structured in a similar fashion. Keeping with the theme of objectivity and historical accuracy, George DiCenzo (Bugliosi) and Steve Railsback (Manson) attempt to outdo one another’s scenery chewing in much the same way one imagines their real-life counterparts must have. However, the film’s true overachiever is Nancy Wolfe’s scene stealing portrayal of Susan Atkins. DiCenzo and Railsback come off as simply overly theatrical—Wolfe appears to actually be criminally insane. [David Ray Carter]
HOUSE OF FRANKENSTEIN
Director: Peter Werner
Starring: Adrian Pasdar, Teri Polo, Greg Wise, CCH Pounder and Peter Crombie
Airdate: November 2 & 3, 1997 Network: NBC
Detective Vernon Coyle heads a murder investigation in New York City that unearths a vampire, a werewolf and Frankenstein’s creature.
High concept, but strictly low-grade sci-fi horror hokum; this two-part movie (or is it a miniseries?—either way, it’s ninety minutes too long) plays like an epic pilot for a TV show, that thankfully, never was.
It begins with promise, boasting fairly impressive production values— albeit, of the mid-nineties direct-to-video kind—but quickly loses its way, struggling to commit to essential creative decisions such as genre, pacing and… well… plot.
The tone veers wildly between the very broadest camp to straight face thriller and back again, which is fun for a while, but the lengthy running time ultimately serves only to allow the writers to buck the viewers’ investment so often, until finally, interest in any kind of narrative is lost altogether.
The real victims of the movie are the cast. The leads are all very credible talents, most of whom would find success in various small screen shows a decade later: Pasdar in Heroes, Jorja Fox in CSI and CCH Pounder in The Shield. But this is not anybody’s finest work, although Pasdar’s performance is arguably on the money, as a detective with perpetually furrowed brows baffled as hell and trying to make sense of the absolutely nonsensical happenings all around.
Perhaps some credit should be given for trying to resurrect the treasured Universal horror movie archetypes Dracula, Frankenstein and The Wolf Man. But merely a year after the stagnant horror genre had been revived by the very postmodern Scream (1996) and its countless clones that quickly followed, it should have been clear to any producer that this was not the time to be revisiting the old school. Even this sin would be forgiven were it not for the fact that the attempt had already been done ten years earlier, in the modestly popular but still quite underrated, The Monster Squad (1987), of which this feels very reminiscent, but not in a good way.
Fans of bad television, bad movies, bad anything may well rejoice in its anarchic plotting and madcap goings-on, but really, there are far more entertaining examples of supernatural silliness for TV fans to explore, without having to resort to this overindulgent monstrous mess. [Kevin Hilton]
THE INVADERS
Director: Paul Shapiro
Starring: Scott Bakula, Elizabeth Peña, Richard Thomas, DeLane Matthews
Airdates: November 12 & 14, 1995 Network: FOX
Based on the classic sixties series, an ex-con under alien mind control is fighting to save the Earth.
A complaint offered to plenty of movies is that they have nothing to say. They exist solely for entertainment, and that the creators of the film are just going through the motions of making something to kill an hour-and-a-half without any thought to the world at large. “Where’s the social context?” critics ask. “What’s the deep meaning behind all of this?”
This is not a complaint that can be leveled at 1995’s The Invaders, and not just because the two-part miniseries clocks in at just under three hours. No, The Invaders has a lot to say—about environmental concerns, about illegal immigration, about the media making us angry. Heck, the film even throws off a bit of dialog about disproportionate racial incarceration so casually that you could be forgiven if you thought they brought back Larry Cohen, the writer of the original sixties television series upon which it was based.
They didn’t, however, and that may have been a mistake. The original Invaders was a fondly remembered but little seen sci-fi series about one man against an alien invasion which creator Cohen acknowledged was in part a reaction to the Hollywood blacklist of the previous decade. It was only natural that a potential revival for the series as a two-part pilot would have some political context as well, but The Invaders tries to throw so much context into the concept that it often forgets the main reason for its existence—to be entertaining enough to make someone want to watch the characters’ further adventures.
The catalyst at the center of The Invaders is Nolan Wood (Bakula), a former pilot recently released from prison on a manslaughter charge of beating an environmentalist to death. This happened, he states, due to the voices in his head that he can occasionally overcome, though mostly he tends to go along with their wishes in a mopey manner. He wants to get back in touch with his ex-wife and son, but she’s since remarried (to Richard Thomas) and the two of them now operate a diner consisting solely of patrons that smoke and order exclusively steak and eggs.
Little does Wood realize that these voices are actually part of a secret alien invasion force dedicated to manipulating the environment of the Earth so that the alien life form can completely take over. To be fair, he realizes it eventually over the course of the two-part Invaders, but it also requires the assistance of Dr Ellen Garza (Peña), whose husband the police believes Wood murdered, Wood’s estranged son Kyle (Mario Yedidia), who counts flies on a tour bus, and Mexican immigrant Carlos (Raoul Trujillo), who seems to exist mostly as a way to get characters to meet up with each other. Roy Thinnes, the star of the original Invaders shows up briefly to advise Wood before vanishing off to parts unknown for reasons never adequately explained.
There’s a good idea buried in The Invaders, and the idea of an alien invasion put together in order to deliberately destroy the environment of Earth via terrorism and getting rid of environmental regulations is one that could certainly have been explored in a compelling fashion. The problem is that it’s fairly obvious why the pilot wasn’t picked up as a series—while it sets up a number of curious ideas, the characters in the midst of them aren’t well-developed enough that you’d want to see how this ragtag batch of misfits prevents the planet from going to smog. Most of the leads barely share any screen time with each other, and the miniseries hobbles Bakula the most, turning one of the most affable leads in sci-fi television into a mumbling, uncharismatic flatline of a character due to his alien-driven mental disorder.
The Invaders isn’t a terrible miniseries by any means, and it offers a heck of a lot more depth in terms of ideas than plenty of similar outings. It’s also got a very welcome sense of humor, best shown by the occasional appearances of a right wing (though curiously pro-union) talk show host played by Richard Belzer, who never leaves his chair and makes a reference to how he “respects Law & Order.” The problem is that none of this depth or sense of humor go to the characters we’d potentially be following on a weekly basis, so the fact that we never get to find out what happened to them after the admirably conclusive finale isn’t particularly disappointing. [Paul Freitag-Fey]
Director: Kenneth Johnson
Starring: Marc Singer, Faye Grant, Diana Jane Badler, Richard Lawson, Andrew Prine
Airdates: May 1–2, 1983 Network: NBC
Supposedly bringing a message of peace, these extraterrestrials have a different visit in mind.
When Kenneth Johnson originally pitched the idea for V, the bad guys were a Nazi-esque fascist group. The network wasn’t interested. So, Johnson made the bad guys extraterrestrial lizards. The miniseries was picked up and put into production almost immediately. Presumably, it was the epic sci-fi angle that grabbed the network’s attention, rather than the metaphors regarding war, freedom, fascism, Nazis and so forth that Johnson layered into his script. At the start of May 1983, an epic four-hour miniseries aired on NBC to huge ratings. It was a pop culture phenomenon, followed by a second miniseries and a weekly series. Even after all the hype and all the passing years, V remains an intelligent, if simplistic, big budget epic TV miniseries with alien lizards.
One day, a series of large UFOs appear, hovering above the major cities of Earth. A very humanoid-looking fellow named John (Richard Herd) introduces himself. John says that his planet needs a chemical compound that they can only find on Earth. If the humans help them get what they need, the Visitors will help us out in assorted technological ways. It all seems very straightforward and nice. But, things aren’t always as they seem. Slowly, methodically, the Visitors gain more and more control over the Earth. The Visitors are perfectly willing to make people vanish, impart martial law, set curfews and be as awful as the Nazis or the Stalin Soviets to get what they want. But, what do they want exactly? Will any people stand up to them? Or is it already too late for the human race?
Kenneth Johnson has crafted a wonderfully entertaining epic. He skillfully weaves in scads of characters, including several different levels of Visitors. From the head Visitor, Diana (Jane Badler), who has stepped out of a 1980s primetime soap opera, to the quasi-religious spokesman John, to Willie, played by Robert Englund, who is the goofy Visitor. The humans are a mix of all races, all types of people. Marc Singer’s reporter leads the pack. There is the Taylor family, consisting of Dad working down at the refinery and his two sons, Dr. Caleb (Jason Bernard) and Elias (Michael Wright) who is a petty thief. There are the Bernsteins who have a son that is becoming part of the Visitor Friends (aka Hitler Youth) and a Granddad who was in a concentration camp in Germany. There is the young doctor, Juliet Parrish (Faye Grant), who, semi-against her will, becomes the leader of the resistance. And many, many more. Most of them are 1980s updates of resistance fighters from movies of the past.
From left: George DiCenzo and Steve Railsback in Helter Skelter; Roy Thinnes and Scott Bakula take on The Invaders; and Marc Singer works the uniform in V.
Throughout its 200 minutes, V keeps the pace at a steady level. Sometimes it picks up for wild and crazy action scenes. Sometimes everything is much calmer and more human. In general, the government response is omitted. So, the viewer sees the Visitors and the Rebels with no Middle Man. The removal of red tape adds to the pace immeasurably. The parallels between past conflicts that have plagued Earth and the Visitors resemblance to these is strong throughout. V simply has the addition of lizard aliens devouring guinea pigs in one big gulp. Plus, several laser battles and spaceship dogfights. Who is going to argue with that? The follow-up miniseries may have lost its way a bit and the TV series might not be anything to go crazy for but this original miniseries is still a strong viewing experience. V! [Daniel R. Budnik]
WORLD WAR III
Director: David Greene, Boris Sagal
Starring: David Soul, Brian Keith, Cathy Lee Crosby, Rock Hudson
Airdate: January 31–February 1, 1982 Network: NBC
The United States and the Soviet Union turn the Cold War hot with a skirmish in Alaska.
Set in “the future” (1987!), World War III—the film and the event—begins with Soviet paratroopers dropping into the frozen wastelands of Alaska. They are there to seize a piece of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline; retaliation for an ongoing grain embargo lead by the United States. Standing in their way is David Soul’s Colonel Caffey and a handful of National Guardsmen determined to hold the Soviets back. President McKenna (Hudson) searches for a diplomatic solution with Soviet Premier Gorny (Brian Keith), but the situation in Alaska threatens to spiral out of control and engulf the world in war.
World War III came early on in the Reagan era and thus lacks the jingoistic zeal that would later come to typify action cinema. Despite Hudson appearing very Reagan-esque, his President McKenna isn’t the hardline anti-Communist that the Gipper was, preferring reconciliation and negotiation to all-out war. World War III itself is “soft” on Communism by 1980s standards. The Soviet invasion is the work of a rogue military group and not an official action of the USSR, and the Soviet Premier is depicted as both intelligent and reasonable. The film’s militaries are made up of men— and surprisingly, women—and not the superhumans that would come to dominate depictions of the military by the close of the decade.
Although similar in premise to the later Red Dawn, World War III is first and foremost a political thriller. After an action-heavy opening sequence, the film takes an hour-long diversion for character development before the next gunshot is fired. Viewers tuning in to see victorious American soldiers repelling a vicious Soviet attack were instead treated to diplomatic negotiations and cabinet meetings; more “war room” than actual war. The end result is something far more realistic than is the norm for the Armageddon genre but decidedly less entertaining as well, thus explaining World War III’s status as one of the lesser known apocalyptic thrillers.
The film’s lack of success or acclaim makes one hesitant to call it influential, but World War III does prefigure those films dealing with the start of World War III. The idea of an “accidental” war would become a signature in Cold War cinema appearing in a variety of films from WarGames to the comedy Spies Like Us. The idea that a rogue element within the Soviet establishment would be the cause of the war reappeared in HBO’s By Dawn’s Early Light and several James Bond films including Octopussy.
World War III can also lay claim to being the first in a series of made for television films on nuclear war in the eighties; a rich subgenre that includes 1983’s Special Bulletin, Testament, and The Day After and 1984’s Threads. Each of the latter films wisely takes a more human approach to the subject matter, shifting the focus away from the prewar period and politicians to the post-apocalypse and common citizens. For its part, World War III ends with stock footage of various countries while the sounds of nuclear bombers fill the soundtrack. It’s a surprisingly powerful and effective ending but unfortunately does little to redeem the film. [David Ray Carter]
2New York Times, July 14, 1991.