Monday Afternoon Movie, a Podcast

Written by Jennifer Manriquez, Editor-In-Chief, Paddy Jack Press

If you were alive in the 70s, you might be lucky enough to remember those dark, dour, and delicious made-for-TV horror films that premiered on any given major television network every week.They always featured one major star, to draw you in, like Shelley Winters, Kate Jackson, or Linda Blair. No matter how inappropriate for children they may have been, the entire family gathered around to watch, absolutely enthralled by every word and movement on the screen. The 70s heralded the dawn of the “Satanic Panic” era, so the plots almost always revolved around Satan and his minions. The crazy exploits of the characters in these films were all anyone at school talked about the next day.

“Did you see the little goblins in Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark last night?” “Holy cow, can you believe what happened at the end of Satan’s School for Girls?” I loved these films as a kid, and still love them now. All of them are on YouTube in their entirety, absolutely for free, complete with all the little scratches and pops leftover from the VHS tape they were recorded on 40 years ago. 

So, I was beyond delighted when I recently stumbled across a gem of a podcast, created in honor of these made-for-TV wonders of yesteryear; hosted by actor, writer, improviser, and comedian, Sam Pancake (yes, Pancake is his real last name). It’s called Monday Afternoon Movies. Every week Sam invites a friend to watch a 70s-era made-for-TV film, and they discuss it down to every detail of costuming, casting choice, and goofy hairdo. It is captivating and absolutely hilarious. 

Sam is the perfect host. He is competent and clever, and he genuinely loves the subject matter. He states in the first episode that his mom always made him go to bed before the movie was finished, and she promised to tell him how it ended, but by the next morning she could never remember. It drove him crazy, so now he’s making up for all of those missed opportunities and botched endings by re-watching the films from his youth and actually finishing them. 

Sam is openly gay and, while I wouldn’t generally bring up someone’s sexuality in a podcast review, it’s important here because it is a huge part of Sam’s life and professional persona, and Sam wields it beautifully, with heart and aplomb. He’s like the gay best friend you always wanted in college, and the one you desperately need dropping truth bombs about your life choices as an adult. To put it to you straight (no pun intended), Sam is utterly fabulous! And his guests are amazing too. He invites boisterous drag queens, hilarious comedians, experienced actors, and clever friends to guest-host the show with him. The conversations are keen, thoughtful, and extremely funny. I’ve been bingeing the show for the past week and I can’t get enough of it. There are only two seasons so far, and I’m desperate for a third. Even if you’ve never seen or heard of these movies, you can easily enjoy this podcast. They discuss the plot from front to back, so you’re never left out of the loop with regard to story. And, I promise, you will never fail to laugh. 

Monday Afternoon Movie is available on all the standard podcast platforms, totally free. You can also visit the website https://www.mondayafternoonmovie.com/ for more information.

Bloody Birthday (1981)

Written by Jennifer Manriquez, Editor-In-Chief, Paddy Jack Press

A spoiler-free review!

I enjoyed The Other so much, I thought I would do an entire retro series on "killer kids." Everything I can find from the 80s and before. So, here we go with Bloody Birthday. It’s a 1981 horror flick that combines Village of the Damned with Day of the Triffids. There’s an eclipse, and the three babies born in this one hospital, in this one city, during this freaky eclipse, become killers right before they turn 10. Why? Who knows? It’s a mind-numbingly flimsy premise, but it’s easy to shrug off because the film is just so much fun! 

We start with the kids just a few days before their tenth birthday, which they all celebrate together every year for some reason. Much like the kids in Village of the Damned, they seem unusually bonded, always around each other, always traveling in a pack. They aren’t family, but to an outsider they seem like they are. They can communicate with each other using only nods and glances. And, while there’s no indication that they are communicating telepathically, they always seem to know what the others are doing or planning. 

The kinder-killer trio consists of two boys, Steven and Curtis, and one girl, Debbie. Steven is blond and is several times seen wearing a denim vest and jeans get-up that transports me right back to my elementary school yearbook, where that same outfit can be seen ad nauseum. He’s a little blond terror, who doesn’t say much, but seems to act as more of a henchman, leaving the clever strategizing up to Debbie and Curtis. 

Speaking of Curtis, Curtis wears glasses. That’s how you know he can figure out anything having to do with electronics. They’re those fake glasses from old movies with the flat lens in them, which I’ve always found really distracting, but I get it. How else would I know that he’s smart if he wasn’t wearing them?

And that brings us to Debbie. Debbie’s my favorite of the three. First of all, my mom’s name is Debbie. Secondly, Debbie has fluffy blond ponytails and a face full of freckles, which are both flawlessly tied together by her cute, little upturned nose. She’s a darling kid, but the eyes. She has dark, beady eyes that she can squint together to make her entire countenance change from “cute kid” to “evil kid” in a nanosecond. Debbie is clearly the ringleader of the crew. She rarely gets her hands dirty. She lets the boys do most of the work, and when they get caught, she starts yelling, “Stop! Stop!” Debbie is an evil mastermind.

I watched this movie on the Shudder channel and was a touch hesitant when the description stated that the film “contains violence and gore.” I’m a huge horror fan, but believe or not, I tend to eschew gore. It’s not my favorite thing. I can handle the average smattering of blood and guts, but I hate that torture-y stuff. So, I was admittedly a touch nervous. But it turns out the “violence” and the “gore” are nothing more gruesome than what you might see on an episode of Knot’s Landing. What the description should have said is, “contains lots and lots of titties.” So many boobs in this movie. And butts. And even some frontsies. There’s a lot of making out, with closeups on nipples. And, everytime you see this, one of the kids is watching! Debbie likes to charge a quarter to let the boys watch her sister (played by 80s-icon, Julie Brown) undress. The “undressing,” however, turns out to be more of a striptease, wherein Julie slowly takes off her underwear while dancing around her bedroom, then inexplicably puts on pants and a shirt, with no underwear, afterward. To quote the musical, Bye Bye Birdie, “KIDS! I don’t know what’s wrong with these kids today.”

In addition to Julie Brown, I recognized a handful of other faces as well. Curtis is played by Billy Jacoby, whom 80s kids might remember as the perverted younger brother of cross-dressing-for-equal-rights Terry in Just One of the Guys. The older sister of one of the trio’s playmates (a kid named Timmy that they’re always trying to murder) also played the doomed older sister in The Day After. Remember the gal who runs out of her family’s bunker and goes skipping through the fallout screaming that it’s a beautiful day, gets chased down by Steve Guttenberg, and later dies from radiation poisoning? Yeah, that’s her. Her name is Lori Lethin, and IMDB said she did all of her own stunts in Bloody Birthday, but there are a couple of shots where a car is chasing her through a junkyard that I’m pretty sure weren’t her. The linebacker-shoulders and the bad wig kind of gave it away. Timmy is played by K.C. Martel, whom you might remember as Eddie, from the comedy duo of “Eddie and Boner,” on Growing Pains. 

There are some genuine cringe-worthy moments in this flick, especially if you were a kid in the 80s. Remember the "Refrigerator Scare?" It was an urban legend about a kid hiding in an old refrigerator and not being able to get out. So, that’s how we all knew never to shut ourselves into a refrigerator. This was a genuine fear that each and every one of us had back then! Bloody Birthday played on that fear by locking a kid in a refrigerator. This scene probably doesn’t play as particularly scary to modern audiences, but the 80s-kid in me clinched up her butthole real tight. Ack!

Overall, I really enjoyed this movie. It’s got a handful of cringe-y moments and a heaping helping of 80s kitsch. Plus, if this interests you, a lot of boobies. I’ll definitely watch it again, and I sincerely hope Joe Bob Briggs will include it in a future episode of The Last Drive-In on the Shudder channel. Go watch it!

The Other (1972)

Written by Jennifer Manriquez, Editor-In-Chief, Paddy Jack Press

A spoiler-free review!

The Other was released theatrically in 1972, which is strange because it has the well-established patina of a 70s-era made-for-TV movie. After watching it, I was surprised that it had a theatrical presence at all. Visually, it looks like an episode of Little House on the Prairie. It’s a fairly slow-moving, but well-written and well-acted film, with one twist that is broadcast from the very beginning (it may have surprised audiences in the 1970s, but it will surprise no-one in the early 2000s) and another that even seasoned horror buffs won’t see coming. To put it simply, I watch horror films day and night, and very little surprises me, but something happened in this film that made me gasp and cover my mouth with my hand. Sometimes it’s the little things that get you. 

The boys who play the twins (real-life twins, Chris and Martin Udvarnoky) are boyishly cute, with chubby legs and chili bowl haircuts, which serve to leave the audience conflicted about their true intentions. They do a great job of conveying their inherent evil and their complete naivete toward it, leaving us wondering what fate they truly deserve. They’re only children, after all. 

The very well-known stage actress, and winner of multiple Tony awards, Uta Hagen, stars as the boys’ grandmother, Ada. There is a distinct difference in Uta Hagen’s acting style compared to everyone else in the film. The other actors act, Uta Hagen ACTS HER ASS OFF. She chews the scenery like a starving person who just happened upon a church barbecue. She pours a palatable wash of emotions into every word she speaks. Every part of her face says the words with her. Her hands say the words, her posture says the words. She is a force to be reckoned with, and the audience knows they can trust her. Her love for the boys is evident in every move she makes, every glance at them speaks of her neverending devotion to them. If nothing else, watch the film for her performance. 

Also, in a don’t-blink-or-you’ll miss it appearance, you can spot the late, great John Ritter in one of his first film roles. 

There is a sense of unrealness to this film, the bright but somehow muted colors making it feel dreamlike. As I watched it, I kept wondering if the whole thing might turn out to be a dream in the end (which it, thankfully, doesn’t). The setting is Connecticut in the summer of 1935, and the freedom experienced by these kids evokes love for the summers of my youth (I grew up in the 70s and 80s). We weren’t put into summer camps to keep us busy and out of trouble all day. No sir. We got on our bikes as soon as we finished breakfast and we did whatever we pleased, with total freedom, until dinnertime. “Home by dinner” was the rule for all the kids in my neighborhood. Watching the twins, Niles and Holland, running around in nature completely unsupervised reminded me of those days long ago. Kids today will never know that level of freedom. My own daughter, who’s in a theatre camp as I type this, will never know that level of freedom. Stealing pickles from an old lady’s garage, wandering a wooded area and watching the little critters scurry and fly around, finding a secret entrance to the basement you’ve been warned away from. These are all things the twins get into during the film, and all things I could easily tie to my own past, which is why I think I was able to sympathize with these characters so well. They’re just boys. Let them have their fun. They won’t hurt anyone… until they do. 

I’ve been told that I give these older films more credit than I should, but I disagree. I’ll admit that I have a special, nostalgic sort of love regarding made-for-TV films. And, while I know this had a quiet theatrical run first, I also know that it was aired quite a bit on television in the late 70s and early 80s, with a slightly different ending tailored to TV audiences. That makes it enough of a made-for-TV film for me. I honestly don’t know what I like most about 70s made-for-TV horror. Is it the pancake makeup, the fact that almost nobody plays their age, or is it the silly anachronisms and low-budget special effects? I can’t put my finger on it, but that’s okay because I love it all. Despite their flaws, some of these films are truly very frightening and can easily stand the test of time. This is one of them. I recommend watching it on a warm summer night, with a glass of lemonade and a plate of cookies. Pull out your grandmother’s old lace shawl and wrap yourself in it. Turn off your phone and put it away. Immerse yourself in the colors, the performances, and the story. I think you might just be surprised where it takes you.  

Greta (2019)

Written by Jennifer Manriquez, Editor-In-Chief, Paddy Jack Press

Two words: hot mess.

Do you remember in Scream when Sidney Prescott said of scary movies, "Whats the point? They're all the same. Some stupid killer stalking some big-breasted girl who can't act who is always running up the stairs when she should be running out the front door. It's insulting."

This film personifies that quote to a tee. The young protagonist, played by Chloe Grace Moretz, makes the most inexplicable choices. At one point, she smacks Greta on the head with a rolling pin, then runs to the front door, which of course is locked from the inside and requires a key (yes, a key, to get out the front door; what?), but since she can't find the key she goes running down a flight of stairs we've never seen before into a basement, where she proceeds to bang on a tiny thick window to no avail. Oh, did I not mention that the door had a standard window in it that she could have easily fit through? My bad. Did I also fail to mention that right next to the door there was a huge window that she could have just busted out with the rolling pin and simply walked through without even hunching over? Again, my bad. I mean, give me a break! I think the director is hoping viewers won't notice these glaring errors, but no dice buddy.

I'm also thinking the director gave Chloe Grace Moretz instructions to never close her mouth because every other scene is her doing this...

Now, I don't mean to malign the performances of Moretz or Isabella Huppert, who played title-character Greta. Honestly, both actresses did a very professional job with a garbage script. If it weren't for their strong performances, this would have been a B movie at best.

My opinion is, don't bother unless you're a fan of either of the actresses. Go see it for them, don't see it for literally any other reason.