THE RAY BRADBURY THEATER - Season 01, Episode 02 - "The Playground" (1985)

Tonight's Weird Wednesday feature is just that! It's from season one, episode two of "The Ray Bradbury Theater," a show that was on for six seasons from 1985 to 1992!

I've been a big Ray Bradbury fan ever since I read "Something Wicked This Way Comes" in high school, but honestly, I didn't really get this story called "The Playground."

This one just might be better off to read instead of watch!

The show opens with Ray in his office that is just a big mess of everything, and that pretty much describes this whole show as far as I'm concerned, just a big mess!

Of course the real reason I chose this particular episode to watch was because William Shatner is in it!

I don't remember ever seeing The Shat in the role of a Father before! Here he is Charles Underhill. His son Steve is played by Keith Dutson in one of his only three credits!

The super small cast includes Kate (Murder In Space, Alligator Pie) Trotter as the live-in sister.

The Shat shares a pensive moment!

The Playground is just down the street from their home, and is also a place where Charles Underhill was harassed and bullied as a child, so Charles doesn't really want his son Steve to go there to play!

The whole place just freaks Charles Underhill out!

After much begging from Steve, and badgering from his sister, Charles finally agrees to take Steve to the Playground.

They don't get a very good reception from the local kids!

Then somewhere along the line, everything goes to Hell! You don't really know if Charles is just having flashbacks, or hallucinating for some reason, or if this is the new reality!

You don't know if the kids are really monsters.....................

.............................Or are they just monsters in Charles's mind?

What you do know is that something ain't right!

Pretty cool that they had to have a "DANGER Electrical Equipment" sign in the Playground! That's always fun!

Charles is confronted by Ralph, the specter bully from his past!

I thought maybe I was just stupid because after it was all over, I had no idea what happened, so I went online to see what other people thought the ending meant, and I was surprised to see that a lot of people were just as confused as me. I'm a little short on time right now, so you're just gonna have to go figure it out for yourself! Have fun!

THE DEMON / The Screams You Hear May Be Your Own! - 1979

Welcome back to the ether, today we have a movie that's just a series of bizarre murders with the unexplained stalking of the main characters by an unidentified person with no apparent motive. And, if you're looking for a real demon, forget it, it ain't happenin' here!.. This very weird movie was shot in South Africa, alternate title is MIDNIGHT CALLER. Hey, great tagline!

We did this one in 2008 but for reasons beyond our control, I did it again today. That can happen when we've done more that 3000 posts!

This one stars Jennifer (MISFITS OF SCIENCE) Holmes, Cameron (241 acting credits!) Mitchell and Craig (SHORT CIRCUIT 2) Gardner, with lots of beautiful women being terrorized!

Fourteen year-old Emily Parker has gone missing and a search for her ensues...

Cameron plays Col. Bill Carson, he's a psychic and claims he can find the the Parker's daughter because, quote... "I'd like to make a few things clear. Whatever you've heard about me, I'd like to straighten you out. You see, I'm not a kind of medicine man. I'm not a mystic. I'm just someone who has been gifted with ESP- extra sensory perception. I ask the same questions the others ask. The only difference, sometimes, I get the answer."

"Sometimes I get these... feelings. Vibes, as the kids would say."

Who, me? Nothing!

So, half way through the movie, Mrs. Parker critiques Col. Carson's performance so far...

After the Colonel explains his position on the matter, well, Mrs. Parker shoots him in head!! Seriously though, that's exactly what he deserved, dude was worthless!!

This is our main character, Mary. She's ready to take a bath, when, she hears something that frightens her. She discovers that there's a psycho in the house, and she has to flee wearing only her baggy granny panties!

Here are two nice shots with shadows, the top one shows the intruder tearing the crap out of Mary's bath robe after he finds it on the floor.

Mary makes it back to the bathroom where she puts the shower curtain on for clothes, and sets a slippery trap for the maniac...

A big guy comes through the door only to get a face full of water spray from a sink fixture.

Mary also finds a large pair of scissors and she doesn't hesitate to quickly stab the pursuant in the throat with them!

You can see it's a big guy when he falls into the bathtub. Yet, after a few moments, his face turns into THIS!!.. It's one of those 'what the Hell just happened?' movies, check it out when you can! So, here we go with another week of wild reviews, here at The Dungeon!!..

TENEBRE - "Darkness" (1982)

 The Saturday Night Special this week is another one of those non-stop laugh fests from the twisted mind of the Maestro Dario Argento!

 The original title was "Tenebre" but they changed it over to "Tenebrae" so you English speaking peoples could understand it better!

"Tenebrae" has a religious connotation but is also Latin for 'Darkness.'

"Tenebrae" has quite a cast that includes Anthony Franciosa as famed author Peter Neal. Over the course of his fine career, Anthony, also known as Tony, starred in at least five different TV shows from the 60's to the 80's including ""Valentine's Day," "The Name Of The Game," "Search," "Matt Helm," and "Finder Of Lost Loves."

Peter Neal has gone to Rome to promote his new novel called "Tenebrae."

There are so many pretty girls in this film that's it's hard to keep up with them!

Usually by about the time you get acquainted with a character, they get murdered in some grisly fashion usually including a straight razor or an axe!

John (The Evil Eye, Queen Of Blood) Saxon has the role of Peter Neal's agent!
With 198 credits under his belt, John is still working today, and has two new films in pre or post production!

The stories about the filming of "Tenebrae" could be made into a movie themselves, like the one about why Daria Nicolodi had the role of Anne, and how her new found relationship with her co-star Anthony Franciosa irritated the Hell out of her main squeeze Dario Argento!

 

Lara (Satan's Wife) Wendel is lovely as ever in the role of Maria Alboretto, an innocent young lady extremely persecuted!

Movies like this drive me crazy because the subject matter is so ugly, but the filming of it is so beautiful! There's one incredibly amazing 2 1/2 minute crane shot from the outside of a building that took three days to shoot! That's how meticulous Argento is!

"Tenebrae" crosses enough lines and is so grisly that it was banned in England until 1999, and was also banned in Germany for at least 25 years!

The hand of the killer in a black leather glove that is seen in a number of scenes, is the hand of Dario Argento himself!

Poor Maria is not only murdered!

She is persued first by a relentless Doberman Pinscher that can seemingly jump over, or scale every fence known to man! You really want her to get away, but you just know it's not going to happen!

Flanked by Daria Nicolodi as Anne, and Christiab Borromeo as Gianni, Peter Neal thinks he's got the whole thing figured out!

Just waiting even takes on whole new meaning when Dario Argento is running the show, and only Argento can make something as boring as just sitting around into something interesting!

The music is performed once again by Goblin, as they did in "Deep Red" and "Suspiria," but this time they are credited as the individual players Massimo Morante, Fabio Pignatelli, and Claudio Simonetti, instead of Goblin, because the drummer was no longer with them and owned the rights to the name Goblin!

 

 Daria Nicolodi is the reason I watched "Tenebre," and this last scene will show you why!

Despite all the horror films I've watched, I'm still not a big fan of stilettos, axes and straight razors, but Dario Argento always takes it to another level, and that's all I'm gonna say!

You can read all about it in this very extensive Wikipedia article!