Anyone else a fan? It was by happy accident I discovered this small but mighty cult horror show from the 80s! I impulse bought the DVD set believing it would be a Jason/slasher quick fix, but it turned out to be a completely separate universe from its film counterparts. It's got quite the hook: two twentysomething cousins inherit an antique store from their dead uncle who made a deal with Satan to sell cursed antiques. They must hunt down the "antique of the week" to put their uncle's evil under control in the store vault. Micki and Ryan (the cousins) have a unique and quirky chemistry, mostly alternating between squabbly and faux-flirty (or is it?). They feel like a proto-Mulder and Scully. As a huge genre fan I was thrilled to discover they face a rogues' gallery of horror and sci-fi tropes every week: the undead, ventriloquist dummies, werewolves, serial killers (not Jason), Satan, vampires, robots, deformed freaks, clones, etc. The gore and body horror content was off the charts for late 80s TV. Very ballsy. The show is the perfect mix of campy and creepy. I was also delighted to discover that Robey (the actress who plays Micki) also had a new wave dance club hit with her 1984 cover of "One Night In Bangkok"! Just wanted to gush and see if there are any fellow fans.
The gf and I got the complete series dvd set to watch last Halloween (along with Tales From the Crypt and Tales From the Darkside). Fun 80s cheese
The tastiest of cheese. If you're jonesing for more, Warehouse 13 is a reboot of F13, with a more sci-fi bent and more laughs. Same overall concept though. Good stuff.
I watched it pretty avidly back in the day, at least the first two seasons. I don’t remember the cast change that took place with the third season at all. I haven’t seen it since, though. David Cronenberg directed one episode, not surprisingly, as the series was shot in Canada (as was Jason X, which included a Cronenberg cameo).
Love the Crone-Bone's episode! John D. LeMay (Ryan) left the show after season 2 and was replaced by Steven Monarque as Johnny, a pretty useless character. Not his fault though, but the writers'. However the cast change left room for much more Micki stories, which is fine by me. Jennifer Lynch directed the episode "Repitition", extremely creepy even for F13!
I watched it when it aired originally. I recently bought the DVDs and am about halfway through the first season. I'm still enjoying it but, man, what did they do, use vhs tapes for transfer?
The first VHS tape I ever bought of Texas Chainsaw Massacre was so bad that the noise from the transfer added to the fright. Had to play it really loud just to hear what was going on.
There was a mini-renaissance of thriller and horror themed TV shows in the mid-80's. You had Friday the 13th, Monsters, Tales from the Darkside, the first Twilight Zone reboot, and War of the Worlds, which was much closer to horror than science fiction. Friday the 13th was fun, but Tales From The Darkside was my favorite.
I LOVED War Of The Worlds! So gory and fun! I don't think season 2 was as bad as its reputation suggests... there was some scary stuff
There was also A Nightmare on Elm Street: The Series, with Freddy Krueger as a Cryptkeeper-style host. Tobe Hooper directed the pilot episode, a prequel to the first movie. Some of the episodes, including Hooper’s, are pretty good. EDITED TO ADD - the show’s title was Freddy’s Nightmares, apologies.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the show was shot on film, then transferred to videotape when it aired. If I’m not mistaken, something similar happened with Star Trek: The Next Generation, and Paramount spent a great deal of money upgrading the show for the blu ray format (the special effects were shot on video from the start, and had to be redone for the blu ray sets, I think).
I don’t think it’s ever been released on home video, at least in recent memory, but some episodes are up on Dailymotion, last time I checked. A few future stars like Brad Pitt and John Cameron Mitchell turn up in early roles.
I was a big fan of Tales from the Darkside. I didn’t really notice it as a kid, but rewatching the show as an adult, I realized how low-budget it was, even for syndicated television. Each episode had usually only one or two settings, and rarely more than three or four actors. A few episodes were one-actor stories. Many episodes are basically filmed one-act plays.
I remember a Freddy's Nightmares episode about demonic kids making a babysitter fatter and fatter. Scared the **** out of me as a kid.
I remember watching Friday the 13th on the air back then as a kid. I loved those big hair redheads back in the day, like Havilland Morris in Gremlins 2. I remember liking the series enough to stick with it for a while. It had a decent scary mood to it. I remember watching the pilot of War of the Worlds but then bailing out. I also remember seeing a series called Werewolf with a lead character named Eric, which apparently aired on Fox in 1987-88.
I loved this show and watched it every Saturday night from the first episode to the last. I also like the Nightmare On Elm St. series which was short lived.
Sorry for the late addition to this thread. In 1989 I was in my mid 20's and living with a roommate in Hollywood. He introduced me to Friday the 13th as he had a huge crush on Robey. I watched the one episode but nothing more. Later that year he and I attended a 4th of July party at the house of someone that he knew. I knew no one there and was just strolling around chatting people up. I wound up sitting & talking with a pretty redhead. At one point in our conversation, my roommate interrupted us! This was unprecedented. We always supported each other's efforts to meet women. I couldn't understand why he'd step on my chat. After he'd moved on, the redhead and I continued our conversation. She asked what I did for a living. At the time I was a courier, driving about LA, so nothing exciting or impressive. She told me she was an actress. Now it was not at all uncommon to meet and "actress" or a "singer" in Hollywood. So I asked the obvious question, "oh? Have you appeared in anything I might have seen?" Of course, she mentioned the Friday the 13th TV series. Now my roommates behavior made sense, this was the star of that show, the one he had a big crush on. She stated that she was a singer as well. I told her that I was a songwriter & did home recordings as a hobby. She asked what type of music I did. I told her that I'd just finished a cover of the Tommy James song "Tighter & Tighter". Turns out she had covered the same song. So we had lots to talk about. Knowing who she was, I felt like she was way out of my league so I didn't ask for her number or anything like that. What would be the point? When we said goodbye she told me that she'd like to hear my cover of Tighter & Tighter. Sure, I'd be happy to make a copy for her. She asked if I might drop it off at the hotel she was staying in on Sunset Blvd. So, the next day or so, I dropped off a cassette at the front desk of the hotel. The desk clerk asked if I wanted to speak to her. No, I said, I don't want to bother her. He gave me a knowing look that said "don't be an idiot" and pretty well ordered me to call her room on the house phone. Which I did. She told me that she was going out that night and asked if I wanted to join her. That sounded great but I was just coming from work and wasn't presentable for a night out. So she told me to get cleaned up & pick her up at 8pm. We bounced around to three different gatherings during the evening. The last being some close friends of hers where I didn't feel very welcome. Honestly, it didn't feel at all like a date, more like I was a her escort to keep others at bay. The best part of the evening was chatting in the wee hours back at her hotel. She did make it clear that she had a boyfriend back in Canada, so I took that as an indication that she didn't want any attempts at romance from me, so I behaved. She took my number but, not surprisingly, I never heard from her. But I had a pleasant time with a lovely redhead and fond memories of a nice woman.
That's an incredible story, man! This is the kind of content I hoped for when I signed up for this forum. Wow!! Have you heard her "Tighter Tighter"?
