¶ Intro / Opening
Wait wait, same.
¶ Episode Breakdown: The Shrine
Welcome back to Midnight Viewing, the Horror Anthology podcast. With this season, we're taking a look at Georgia A. Ramero's nineteen eighties series Tales from the Dark Side. Sharing the Midnight view with me are the Culture Cast Chris Statue.
I asked you last time, We'll ask you once again. My name is Isha, Candisha, and that's where that's If you don't refer, I'll leave, I'll go possess Phyllis Diller and leave.
And also joining us is the projection boos Mike White.
You can refer to me as the Old Soft Shoe.
Yeah, yeah, that's because tonight we're taking a look at two episodes from season two. Those are The Shrine and the Old Soft Shoe. The Shrine is season two episode seventeen, originally aired on February the ninth, nineteen eighty six. This was written by Julie Silbo from a sworrri by Pamela Sargeant and directed by Christopher T. Welch, starring Lorna Luft,
Colleen Gray, Virginia Keene, and Janet Wood. This is a story of Christine returning home after years of suffering a mental breakdown to discover her mother has a younger, better, less disappointing version version of herself already living there. What do you think about this one, Chris.
Man, I'm living this episode, not just it's a given my personal life situation, living in my parents house right now, house sitting for them, watching this episode. It was a little odd. I don't think my parents wish they had a say that. I think that this is. I think that this episode is an interesting idea. I don't know how well executed the ending is. I think the ending is.
I think we will probably talk a fair about a fair bit about the ending ultimately, but I will say I think for me, I understand what they were getting at. But this kind of smacks of a little bit of Twilight Zone eighty five. One might say, oh, the wistful days of when things weren't fucked up, and what if I could start again? And it's like, what if you fuck it? Have to deal with the hand you've been dealt and you can't start again, because that's reality, and
that's what this episode kind of gets at. Right at the end, the runway is about to disappear and the plane just barely lifts off at the end, sort of I don't know. I think it's a it's all over the place. I like what they were going for. I think they somewhat get there, but I don't think they nail it the way they think thing. What about you, mister Mike White.
Yeah, very similar feel this. It's so weird. This actually happened to me. So, yeah, I came home and my mom had a younger version of me that she liked a lot more. The name was Richard, not Richard had him and Richard Seltzer. He was a foreign exchange student. She really liked him a lot more than me.
So I was d was Richard had him.
That would be something, especially since he's a little older than I am. But yeah, yeah, no this, Yeah, I wanted just a little bit more, just a little bit something more. I don't know if it was a voiceover or that this new child was some sort of malevolent spirit that could tell that the mom was disappointed and glombed onto her somehow or something like that. But the idea is interesting. The idea, of course, of the whole
I screwed up. My mom wants to do over with this other girl who's way better than I am, and fulfills all of her needs. But yeah, it just felt like it wasn't coalescing exactly the way they wanted it to.
I will mention, by the way, before you go, Father blon frere is jaka freireras.
Jakah jesus doorm.
Vu doorm vu is as bad as for he's a jolly good fellow. As far as I'm concerned, it has now entered the pantheon of things that I will never be able to unhear in this context ever.
Again, I have a special note here just about don't use children's rhymes. Now, this is like nineteen eighty six. You know, they haven't really pushed horror to the rhyming children limit yet. You know, Freddie's just now doing it. But by now, my god, revisiting it, it's not scary. It kind of never has been. Honestly, this one gave me a lot of hope when it began, because we
were getting a very convincing or rather interior exterior. They're shooting from inside a set, and they've got an exterior set outside with rain and such going on in lightning, and the lightning was the only source of light in the room where the mother has falling asleep at the sort of kitchen table, and I thought, oh man, this is pretty atmospheric. This is looking good. And then it starts.
It's a tale of a mother and a daughter, which we don't get that often so on an anthology sort in an anthology series, and galing head on with the issues that mothers and daughters have with each other. So I got very excited. And then it falls apart because it is incredibly crazily poorly paced, and they go to the lengths. They go to lengths to set up that she's returning after six years and she had had a
complete mental breakdown. What they're trying to do here is what they did on The Nightmare of twenty thousand Feet, which is there a gremlin on the wing? Or is this guy just losing it again? But they never really traffic in that because they're showing us some ghostly things happening without her on screen, so we know it's just some sort of supernatural thing going on behind that door. So there was like never really any tension. Having said that, I did like how when she meets her younger self,
how mean her younger self was to her. That was nice.
The younger herself is her younger self is a real piece of shit. Oh yeah, I kind of like get away that. It does remind me of things we've seen before where I'm like, is she like a demon? Is this like a malevolent spirit? Is this an Isha Candisha type thing? I mean, I made the joke. I mean obviously because at this point it's just the most obnoxious thing, one of the most obnoxious things we've seen on the show.
But it does have that same feeling of like, sheau is this like an extra lies demon or is it a like pross hole far or what is it?
The problem is the episode is structured as such to be what I said it was, which is we're supposed to question her sanity for a good at least half of the episode before it's revealed that the little girl is actually in that room, whereas it should have been the fucking first scene. It should have been been dealing with herself from beginning to end, and maybe not dealing with the mother, but maybe not, you know, like somehow
disconnected or something. Because I do want to know what this thing is, because it hints that it might be a demon, it hints that it was called and it's fulfilling a need that this broken person has one that you couldn't like there's a really potent dynamic going on here. It's just so poorly shot and it's so set downd like this. Once the lights come on, all of my praise drains away because this just looks like a set
that they threw up. And considering there's no real action or anything going on here, it ought to be crackingly good because it's basically a two hand or a threehander. But yeah, I don't know. It's just I love all the like you guys said, I love all the ideas going on here, but it just doesn't ever really click. I never get my teeth into any of these characters.
And the other thing is and Father Malone. You've mentioned this before on other things. We talked about it a lot on Tales from the Crypt, and I think you've alluded to it here. God, it's so set bund Ooh, it's it is just the one of the more setbound things we've seen on this show. Like they never go anywhere. They're in this house the whole time, they're almost in this room the whole time, and it's just how can you shoot one tiny twelve foot by twelve foot room,
different ways. Let me show you. We'll put up in this corner, in this corner and down on the ground and behind the thing.
And it's like they did it with the smoking episode. It can be done. You can do interesting stuff in a bottle episode. It's just that this isn't even a bottle episode.
It is though it totally is. That's the problem.
But they've got different rooms to move around in and stuff. They've got different locations to go to the scene with the best friend who shows up, who, by the way, speaking of the acting across the board in this episode is fucking terrible, and including best friend who shows up like she's some soap opera best friend, like she's just going for the fucking back of the auditorium.
Yeah. I well, first off, I recognized the name Lorna Luft, but I had no idea who she was. I didn't know she was what Judy Garland's one of her daughters. I always thought that Lorna Luft was a born star because just that name sounds like a horn star name to me, Lorna Luft, So it's like, but yeah, and then I thought she was the old woman, So I don't look her up again. But yeah, no, nobody's really nailing it. And yet the little girl acting is up there.
The demon possessed girl gruel and all was way better at an actress than this one.
Great, Yeah, it's just that she was disgusting. This girl is just a poor actress. And you know what, if I came downstairs and no matter who I was in a fight with, if they made me breakfast, I'm gonna eat that breakfast juice. You're just gonna drink juice. This character she doesn't deserve to live there. I'm glad she's been replaced.
She doesn't deserve to live period.
According to that little girl in this episode.
My god, this felt a bit like honestly, it felt like another slice of boomer bullshit.
That's what I'm saying.
Yeah, not as clumsy as Twilight Zone eighty five, not as wistful as Amazing Stories, but still kind of in there and not really suited for the dark side.
No, this feels like Twilight Zone nineteen eighty five in the worst way. The worst impulses of that show are being repeated here in a way that I am shocked because for me, this is we have never held that against this show as hard as we held it against Twilight Zone for he's a jolly good fellow for fucking example, And now here we are once again. Thankfully it's only
this like, it's only this one so far. But this is a pretty poor episode of this show, to the point where it almost feels like if you ask me what show this was, I would say it's Twilight Zone eighty five.
I genuinely I completely.
That they like shot on tape in a sound stage instead of using that back.
In Canada ending or maybe even Tails from the Crip. Now this isn't Tails from the Crypt. Nothing is tailed. This is Tails to the Crypt. Season seven is such an atrocious entry into media it's not even worth mentioning.
Yeah, and to your point five, this show is called Tales from the Dark Side, so we're not questioning her, Sam, i'd be at the beginning. We know weird shit's gonna happen in this so why are you setting it up like we don't know the name of the show. We didn't just hear the ominous voiceover.
Yeah, get to it. What's this thing all about? I want to know if they throw up so much interest and then just squander away with mystery.
I don't know.
It doesn't work for me, and I don't and I
¶ Episode Breakdown: The Old Soft Shoe
think it could have, and I think it should have, because again I think the story has an interesting idea that it's getting at, but it for me, just it unfortunately never gets there.
All right, Hopefully the next one will probably not.
If it's spoilers, it's.
Like you're a liar, sir, don't buy to your audience. See no better?
Well said? Hopefully I qualified it, all right. This is the Old Soft Shoe season two, episode eighteen. This aired originally on February the sixteenth, nineteen eighty six. Written by Art Montrostelly, written by Art Montastelli, and directed by Richard Friedman. This one stars Paul Dooley, John Fiedler, Kathy MacLean, and Dorothy Park. This is about a traveling lingerie salesman who rents the wrong room in a hotel or is it the right one. He's befriended by Glinda, a ghost of
a former occupant who just so happens to love lingerie. Anyway, that's the rom com version that I'm selling to Sony and pitching it to them next week. Anyway. Anyway, what do you think of this one, Mike.
You know, I went to a Art Montrostelli school when I was just a little kid.
A whole little early learning joke for all you parents out.
There, and go Paul Dooley and John Fieldler in the same episode. I thought I was gonna be a pig in slop. Here I am with two of my favorite character actors and fucking John Fiedler. That the outfits he's.
Wearing in this.
Little early booty shirt things.
Hell, where where John Fiedler ever been sexier?
That's oh never, never, Oh my gosh, house coat over a dressing at a nightgown like a sleeping Ebenezer Scrooge style, and then an overcoat over that with a hunting cap and a shotgun. That's a look.
He's the sexy version of not since Colchak has John Fieedler been so sexy.
Like the Elmer Fudd pin up, you know? Yeah, And then there's the whole thing of how Chester Caruso, the Paul Dooley character is hitting on this woman that he meets and she keeps thinking that he's coming on tour. There's a fucking people in the bathroom. What am I watching here?
Is this?
It's really put in there.
It's just yeah, you know what, sometimes there's gonna be peoples. Are you gonna look through it?
What are you gonna do?
And he never gets caught. There's no real comeupance for that other than if this ghost is the come uppance?
Yeah? Was that? It was it the fact that he was married and was hitting on the girl and then immediately falls into the arms of the ghosts. That occurred to me halfway through, I.
Know, I was like, what is the karma deficit that is causing this ghost to plague him? And no one believes him or anything? And then the sheriff at the ends this all ties into a story about a person that was murdered. I'm like, why didn't you what? The guy who runs the hotel doesn't know that, but the cop does. Chris, what did you think of this one?
H fatherm alone. I think it's time we haven't talked.
Oh, don't you blame the abe?
Wait a second here, Wait a second here. I felt a certain level of responsibility for tales from the crypt and inviting you. I'm just kidding. I don't blame you. Wh what universe should blame me? Harvey, don't punish the boy I thought it was fine. I think it's another muddled attempt at telling a story that has no place in this show. This is another Twilight Zone eighty five.
It's a night gallery. It's a night gallery.
Yeah, I can see that. Maybe this remind me I thought there was going to be a fortune telling machine in the lobby of this hotel. That's what this one reminded me of.
Bat Yeah, yeah, is that what it needed? I just think it needed a purpose. I think it needed a direction. I don't think it had for me anyways. What I was hoping for in an episode that this one is where you've got this guy in this hotel room that's seemingly haunted. I guess that's what we're being led to assume. It's like a fourteen oh eight thing, because John Fiedler doesn't John Fidler doesn't stop him really hard from going into that room. He's bride don't want to go in there.
If I could do, John Fieeddler's vlaice me, you can't go away, eh, and that I don't know what that was not John Fiedler maybe like Jimmy Cagney, but he doesn't. It's not like he stops him any harder than just don't go in there. That room's not available, and he's like, I'll give you an extra ten bucks. He's like, okay, the easiest convincing possible. And then the way the episode wraps up is just bizarre, to say the least. It comes out of left field. It seems like the episode
missing a good ten minutes maybe or more. I don't know. I don't think this episode would have benefited from having more. I think this episode would have benefited from having someone actually rewrite certain parts of the narrative to make more sense. Because him interacting with these ghosts in this room over and over again, it's just not entertaining.
I do like the idea of a sitcom fourteen oh eight, because that's what this is.
That's what it's trying to be.
Right, Yeah, here's the talk. I don't think you should take this key. I want the gy Okay, you can have to get pretty much. That was not James Cagney.
But no, no, no dirty rats or anything.
We're mentioned this one. This one's tough because I like a simple ghost story. I will say it's if we're comparing this to the last one, this one is better shot it's better acted. I actually think the dialogue is written better here. It's just that they're telling a story that we've seen a thout. It's a campfire story. He checks it into the wrong room and a ghost is there and she's alluring and and it seals his doom. It's just that he acts like a fucking moron here. Okay,
spectral woman shuts up in your room. Okay, you know it's a ghost. You gotta know it's a ghost, right, And if you would hope and if you don't, when she pulls the gun and shoots you and then nothing happens, you think you're actually shot. Go back and everyone convinces you that you're crazy. You go back to the room. Do you go back to the room. Okay, you go back to the room. She shows up again, and you just it's all casual, like there's no there. Never feel like there are any steaks in here.
No.
And THENL.
Dooley's not afraid that there's a fucking ghost in his room. He's woh, this is making me horny, And it's like, bro, what the fuck is going on here? She shot you, She shot you, and he shot you three times?
I mean, don't ink shame Chris.
Oh my god, and here we go with the kink shaming again. Me a shot with guns is dangerous and if that's a hink, I'm sorry to tell you there ain't.
Me and William s Burrows. There's certain things that we agree on, okayim.
Bear ben Way, what injecting heroin into your scrotum's not enough?
Yeah?
That and shooting our wives. Oh, also, we're gonna do the old William tellat Come on, how many mugwumps can I get you?
Is this potentially just a condemnation of like, how stupid men are that, no matter what the warning sign are, will just fucking keep going until they've drowned us in the baths?
Up, Yes, men are stupid. First off, the answer to your question is are men stupid? No?
I know that. I know that I'm saying it's not what this episode is saying. Because if that's what they're getting at, then okay, I like it a little better.
I mean, Paul Dooley's a piece of shit in this episode, That's the thing. It's not. I'm not gonna say he was asking for it. He was asking for it by going back to that room where she was knowing that she had shot him already and going hit let me keep hit on you, and then he gets drowned in a baptub. Deservedly is what it is. What deservedly is what the show makes it feel like. Whether or not that's the real my take or any of y'all's take, the show's inherent moral compass would lead us to believe
that he got what he deserved. Per the narrative, you know what we needed one phone call with the wife, right well, we had one.
We had one at the very beginning, remember when he's like, oh, hold on, the line's pricking up.
Yeah, it's true what we need, but we needed to speak to her again. We needed to know that she's sweet and he's being a dick, because if it's what they're getting at that, like he deserved this, But is it that? I mean, is it? Or is it? Just don't go in that room?
Right?
Yeah?
Again, think her as a presence probably would have been nice at some.
Point instead of having the other woman who he was also hitting on. Maybe she's that, maybe it is, it's just not it doesn't feel pointed in any way this episode. It's just things are happening and we're watching them, and then he's dead. That's pretty much.
It seems like there. Like I said, it seems like there was a lot of missed opportunities to really get us to the point where we can understand why the things are happening, as opposed to the things happening in the episode just going see he drowned and wait a second here, Like I would like for it to feel inevitable, the way the best versions of these shows do, where it's like the inevitability is known from the moment we see this kind of piece of shit husband acting the
way that he's acting. It's like sometimes they're redeemed in the end. We have seen those episodes where there's a you know, there's a nice redemptive moment, but in a lot of these, especially this show, it's like, nah, fuck them, fuck them in the ear, fuck them in both ears.
Somebody please make a Saturday Morning version of the way. I think that's what I took, quite just like a little bit cartoon version with no stakes, just everyone has a good time. But anyway, oh there you go. Yeah, all right. On the next episode, we are going to be taking a look at two new episodes from season two those are the last car and a choice of dream.
¶ Closing Thoughts and What's Next
Midnight Viewing is a proud member of the Weirdingway Media group. Our theme song was composed by HP with an assist by Donald Rubinstein. Until next time? What are you working on? Where can people find it? Mike White?
Everything that I do, with the exception of one thing, one thing is available at Weirdingwaymedia dot com. That one thing is available at patreon dot com slash Projection Booth or patreon dot com slash Culturecast, and that is the podcast like Chris and I do with our friend Richard, the guy who replaced me with my own mother. Oh my god, it's slipped that is available at once a month over at our patreons and we talk about James Bond and have a good time.
How about you, Chris, Weirdingwaymedia dot com. It's where you can find all the stuff that I work on. Like Mike said, Patreon as we can go to support us, but more importantly head over to patreon dot com slash Father alone to support this show, which is the show that you're listening to now. And he's doing this show twice a week with other people that aren't even know us. Anymore all the time. This is a big undertake. Now, this is not just some This is not just some
Mickey mounth. This is not my beautiful house. This is not my beautiful wife.
We met one of follow Alone's other co hosts last night and it was weird. He looks exactly like a young Christachio. Weird, almost like he's trying to replace you.
I knew it, Fazaka Fresh. It's the doormt vu part that really makes me mad. I'm saying forks fine, but doormay vu over and over his system, weirding way media, those where you can find my stuff, them alone, what.
They said and if money's tent. You can do us a solid by giving us a five star review, subscribe, like share, tell somebody else to listen. Thank you all for joining us here at midnight viewing. Until next time, try to enjoy the.
Daylight along.
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