Throwback Thursday - Old Flames/Right to Life by Jack Ketchum

Well this sucks. Jack Ketchum, one of my favorite authors, has died. I got to meet him on a couple of occasions and it was a huge privilege and pleasure. He always had a kind word for his fans and made everyone feel appreciated. It was sort of funny that he was such a nice guy considering how brutal his work was, but that only made him even more interesting to talk to. Listening to him discuss where he got his ideas from was an experience that I'll never forget. 

With his passing I decided to dig deep into the vaults for this Throwback Thursday and dust off a couple novella reviews that I wrote years ago for my old website. These aren't some of his better known works, but are pretty awesome. 

This is a double feature from one of my favorite authors Jack Ketchum.  What we have are a couple of novellas that run about 150 pages each.  The first story is about a woman named Dora that has had terrible luck with the men in her life.  We pick up the action in the middle of a bad breakup, the latest of many.  After meeting up with a friend from her school days they tell her about a service called Old Flames.  This is a detective agency that looks up that lost love and take another chance on them.  Dora finds the “one that got away” only he is married and has a couple of kids.  The rest of the story is her manipulating her way into his life and his bed.  She gets what she wants but then things go bad, very bad.

I really like Old Flames.  The pacing is quick with Ketchum wasting no time getting to the setup and meat of the story.  This makes for a quick read even for a novella that is only 130 or so pages.  Dora is an interesting character and while I thought I knew where the story was headed it surprised me with the brutal ending.  The fact that nothing that happens to her justifies her actions means that Old Flames’ main character is really unlikeable and despicable.  Dora isn’t happy so she is going to leech onto someone else’s happiness and steal it from them.  I can’t remember reading a book that had me hating our protagonist so much.  I found this both interesting and fun.

The second story is called Right to Life.  This one is a bit different, though again our main character is a woman with a problem.  Her name is Sara and she is pregnant by a married man.  They decide to have the baby aborted but on the way to the clinic Sara is kidnapped by a sadistic man and his wife, who isn’t as twisted but is complicit.  Soon Sara is locked away in their basement the victim of all sorts of humiliations and assaults.  We watch as the abuse builds and soon Sara is so happy for the slightest kindness that she actually bonds with her captors and is given privileges.  It isn’t until she has a revelation that she again understands whom she is dealing with.

At times this is a brutal story.  Some of the things that are done to the Sara character are hard to stomach.  The way she is dehumanized and callously injured for fun made me really hate the man that locked her in the basement.  But this is the perfect tone to set and makes the ending all that more satisfying.  The couple are so evil and their intentions so foul that Ketchum sets up the reader to root for Sara when she finally has had enough and acts to protect herself and the baby that she now wants.  If any Ketchum story or book that I’ve read has a “happy” ending then Right to Life is it.

I’d recommend picking up Old Flames and Right to Life.  They are great reads and a nice way to either continue with Ketchum’s work or to dive into it if you haven’t had the pleasure. He was an amazing author that deserves more attention from fans of horror fiction. The world is far less interesting with his passing. 

© Copyright 2018 John Shatzer

Death Cruise (1974)

Are you ready for another installment of made for television mayhem? Changed things up and instead of a straight up horror movie this time I’ve covering Death Cruise, a murder mystery. It has a solid cast featuring some actors who were just about to hit it big! There isn’t much love on this boat, but there are bodies so that should be fun. This is also the first ABC movie of the week that I'm covering!

The plot gives us three couples that have won an all-expenses paid cruise on a luxury liner. There are the empty nesters, David and Elizabeth, who are trying to figure out what they are now that the kids have moved out. We also get the estranged husband and wife, Sylvia and Jerry. She is just about finished with him cheating on her and lets him and everyone know about it! Finally, there is a young couple James and Mary. They initially seem happy, but they have their own issues regarding starting a family. Toss in the ship’s doctor who is an amateur sleuth and you have the components for a decent murder mystery.

So, what happens? Well someone starts to kill off the vacationers one at a time. When the doctor tries to figure out their connection to one another all he knows is that they won the trip from a nonexistent company. Someone wanted them all to be on the ship to be knocked off, but who and why? The only other thing that they all share is that they were in Atlanta in 1970. What the heck is going on?

Nice shirt Mr. Bosley

Some of the television movies that I’ve reviewed I enjoy because they are cheesy and dumb. Thinking of you Killdozer! But Death Cruise is something completely different. I’m a sucker for a good murder mystery and this is one. They spend twenty minutes establishing the couples and their relationship issues before the first murder occurs. That means we get to know a bit about them resulting in a lot of suspects and motivations. But the writers have fun with that because as they set up likely suspects they then knock them off. So, you really don’t know who the killer is until the very end, which makes sense and is satisfying.

I was also impressed with the cast. You get a pre-Happy Days Tom Bosley playing David. He is very good and shows real emotion after his wife is killed. This includes some introspective moments that I was surprised that they took the time to show. This is excellent writing and shows that the networks were very serious about the quality of these movies of the week. We also get a pre-Charlie’s Angels Kate Jackson as the young wife Mary. I don’t feel like they give her much to do, but she is very pretty. That was probably sexist… But this is a movie from the ‘70s so that makes it okay. Right?

My only complaint is the terrible fake “old guy” makeup that they do. The killer is clearly moving around the ship in a disguise that would never fool anyone in real life. That was a bit of a bummer, but it is bad enough that you can’t tell who is under it. Now being able to figure out who it was under all that latex would have certainly spoiled Death Cruise. The final twist and reveal is satisfying and a decent payoff.

This movie is fairly short at less than eighty minutes and worth every second of your time. I recommend checking out Death Cruise. As with the other made for T.V. movies I've linked to the full movie instead of the trailer. 

© Copyright 2018 John Shatzer

Spectre (1977)

Made for T.V. mayhem continues with this movie from 1977. Like The Ghost of Flight 401 this was also made for NBC and has another batch of familiar faces both in front of and behind the camera. Though instead of being a stand-alone movie this was meant to be a lead in for a series that never happened.

Cool ad trying to get the show on the schedule

Robert Culp stars as William Sebastian, a brilliant criminologist, and apparently a huge jerk. His former friend, Dr. Hamilton, comes to Sebastian’s home at his request. This is in spite of them having a falling out. I did mention that Sebastian is a jerk, didn’t I? When he arrives, Sebastian tells him that he has figured out why there are so many random acts of crime. Evil exists, specifically a supernatural force and he has been fighting it! Along the way he picked up a voodoo curse that is slowly attacking his heart and killing him. He wants Dr. Hamilton to join him on his latest investigation so that he can be there in case he needs a doctor to treat his condition. Hamilton reluctantly joins him and together they head off to England at the behest of the Cyon family. The only daughter thinks her older brother has been corrupted by evil and she wants Sebastian’s help to save him. Something must be up because before they even arrive it becomes clear that something or someone is trying to prevent them from helping.

The pacing of the movie is slow. Spectre takes its time establishing the characters and the world in which the story is taking place. Sebastian is an arrogant jerk and he doesn’t care. There is a real Holmes and Watson vibe between our main characters. In much the same way that Holmes is confident of his abilities so is Sebastian. It seems like he even takes some pleasure in keeping his allies in the dark as to what he is planning. This is reinforced in the climax of the movie when it does a bit of a switcheroo on the audience. Though I was expecting it. I mean they did want this to be a continuing series so you knew things couldn’t end too poorly for the characters.

I have never seen this one before. Considering some of the content it doesn’t surprise me that my parents vetoed it. The main characters are doing battle with demons, specifically Azmodeus and his minions. The first one that they meet up with is a succubus sent to tempt Sebastian before they even leave the States. This is a common theme throughout as we find the elder Cyon brother surrounded by beautiful and willing young ladies. Heck even Dr. Hamilton wakes up surrounded by temptation! I was shocked by how risqué this was for the mid ‘70s. I’ve seen a lot of television from that decade and this was pushing the envelope.

Robert Culp rules. We will see him again...

While I’m on the subject of beautiful ladies and naughty stuff let me give you a bit of warning. The copy that is floating around is from the European print of the movie. After the series wasn’t picked up NBC packaged this as a theatrical release overseas. When they did that they added a few brief nude scenes to spice things up. Pretty tame by today’s standards but I thought I’d warn you anyway.

Finally, I wanted to talk about the cast and crew. Robert Culp is great as Sebastian playing him with just the right about of arrogance and charm. He is a jerk, but you still like him. Gig Young is good as Dr. Hamilton but the circumstances surrounding his real life future wife’s (whom he met on the set of Spectre) death makes me a bit uncomfortable praising him too much. The youngest Cyon brother is played by the late great John Hurt. Majel Barett is Sebastian’s mysterious housekeeper. Not a surprise that she is in this considering her future husband Gene Roddenberry wrote the script. Finally, I was surprised about another name on the credits. Associate producer Danny Steinmann! Yeah that guy worked on the movie. I’d like to think that is why it has such a sleazy feel to the proceedings.

This one might not be for everybody. It does a slow burn before things start to happen. Personally, I like the characters and Roddenberry has written some killer dialogue to set the scene for what happens later. He also does an amazing job creating the universe where these characters live and do battle. Sadly, we will never get to see any more of it. On a brighter note I linked to the YouTube channel with the version of the movie that I watched for this review. Cheers!

© Copyright 2018 John Shatzer