It's been a long time, Happy Horror fans. Did you miss me, and my unique take on horror? I've missed writing these articles, these little windows into both the past and into my opinion of whatever I'm covering. Today, we're going to open a different kind of window.
Back in the early days of the site, my cofounder, Wolfgang Nibori, covered just about everything he could think of, from B movies like Frankenfish (one of the first movie reviews on the original site) to Terror Tracks Tuesday, where he posted reviews of various horror related music acts. He also reviewed episodes of Fear Itself, a horror anthology series that was short-lived but excellently done. It's in that vein that I wish to open up a new chapter for the site: episode guides and reviews for horror television past and present! We've got your Tales from the Crypt, your Twilight Zone, your Z Nation, and this, one of the more unusual series from the late 80s, Friday the 13th: The Series.
Unlike shows like Freddy's Nightmares, which had some straight tie-in to the original films it was based on, Friday the 13th had its own original premise: a group hunts for items that are haunted or possessed before they cause bad things to happen to the people who bought them, or for the people they were bought for. Instead of basing it around the film series (though there was talk of including a hockey mask as one of the items they were hunting for), the series producer Frank Mancuso, Jr. had more of the superstitious elements of the date in mind, focusing on bad luck and curses (originally, the show was to be called "The 13th Hour"). The series ran for 3 seasons, so we're going to have quite a bit of material to work with on this one!
There will be some spoilers ahead for this one, so if you don't want to see what happens in this episode, skip ahead!
The first episode of the series was called "The Inheritance". It starts with a couple entering an antique shop with their young daughter, the mother (stepmother, we soon find out) telling her daughter not to touch anything. Heading away from her parents, the little girl, Mary, finds a (in my opinion) rather creepy looking doll and immediately pulls it off the shelf and into her arms. Sneaking outside with the doll, she's stopped by some teenagers who ask her what she's doing there. The doll then slashes one of the guys' neck and Mary runs back into the shop, where the owner takes the doll and throws the family out. Then the owner, Lewis, starts gathering up items from around the shop, including the doll, and takes them down to a vault deep in the basement. As he's locking them away, some flames start flaring up, trapping him and herding him into an elevator. The floor of the elevator disappears, dropping him into an equally fiery pit.
Flashing ahead a few months, we meet Micki Foster, apparent co-heir to Lewis's antique shop, talking to her fiancé about the situation. She wants to just get rid of the shop itself, sell off the merchandise from it and be done with the place. When she gets to the shop, she meets her cousin, Ryan, who is a little more reluctant to sell, liking the idea of owning the shop. However, Micki prevails on him to sell, and, with a little reluctance regarding a certain doll, just about everything gets sold off. Later that night, however, someone breaks into the shop. Said someone turns out to be Lewis's friend and ex-partner in acquiring items, Jack, who tells them about how their uncle made a deal with the devil to curse the items in the store in exchange for immortality. Finding the store's records and Lewis's personal diary, the trio see how the sale of the items correlate with disastrous happenings shortly afterwards.
Deciding to start with the doll they sold, Micki and Ryan locate the house the family live in, only to find an ambulance taking the stepmother away, and the father and daughter climbing in along with the doll. It seems that, after the stepmother tried to take the doll away from Mary, she suffered an accident and fell down the stairs. At the hospital, Mary and the doll finish the deal and finish the stepmother off. Shortly after, the father leaves Mary with a neighbor and the cousins approach the house just as things start getting out of hand with the doll again. Chasing her to a nearby playground, Micki tries to get the doll away from her but runs afoul of the doll as storm clouds start rolling in. Finally, they separate the doll from the girl and the weather clears. The episode ends with them returning the doll to the basement vault again, preparing to go after the rest of the items.
The episode was a good one, an excellent start to the show. The little girl, Mary, was a bit of a brat so that could get on your nerves after a while, and I don't know how anyone could not see the doll as being as creepy as it appeared to me (even when the stepmother took it away from her, it was just because Mary wasn't listening and not due to any supernatural occurrences at the time).
The cast has a few standouts in it. Playing Lewis Vendredi was R.G. Armstrong, who was a character actor in a number of old westerns, as well as playing Pruneface in the Dick Tracy feature film. John D. LeMay played Ryan, he was also in Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday, so at least there was an eventual link to the movies! Playing Mary in this episode was a very young Sarah Polley who went on to star years later in the Dawn of the Dead remake.
All in all, a great start to what looks like an interesting series. Hope you enjoyed this review and summary. I'll be back soon with some more great movies and television! Until then, this is Red Hawk signing out!
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