In other words, think of him as the Frasier of the 1940s. As first glimpsed by us in 1942’s The Great Gildersleeve, Throckmorton P. Gildersleeve is an “overstuffed walrus” with a scary laugh and a deep, singsongy voice. He also serves as guardian to his orphaned niece and nephew (Nancy Gates and Freddie Mercer), but […]
Supernatural
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Chiller: The Complete Television Series
And, as with any media in the omnibus format, some episodes clearly work better than others. The irony is that Chiller begins to find its footing as the hours click by, yet it’s all over and done with after five. The two-disc set contains the entire quintet of the supernatural stories. The first, “Prophecy,” […]
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Painted Skin: The Resurrection
Five hundred years ago, a fox demon (Xun Zhou, Cloud Atlas) was imprisoned in the ice. Five hundred years later, she is freed, is nursed back to health, and wants to be human, yet has a heart hot enough to melt ice. This being an Asian epic fantasy, that doesn’t strike the other characters as […]
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The Pact
Following the death of her mother, an independent-minded waitress named Annie (Caity Lotz, TV’s Death Valley) returns with dogged reluctance to her childhood home — and that’s before her sister (Agnes Bruckner, Kill Theory) and friend (Kathleen Rose Perkins, TV’s Episodes) have vanished there. As made perfectly clear by the cover art, a malevolent force […]
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Supernatural Activity
The gist is that for its season/series finale, one of those ridiculous ghost-hunting shows goes to Hicksville, Texas, in search of the “yeti-demon” known as Smallsquatch. To give you an immediate idea of the level of humor the flick operates, the creature tickles its victims to death. Ha-ha! I mean, ha-ha? This flimsy setup allows […]
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The Awakening
OK, to be honest, I kind of loved it. Based on arguably Bram Stoker’s second most famous novel, 1903’s The Jewel of Seven Stars, the movie casts Charlton Heston (Soylent Green) as Matthew Corbeck, just the kind of greedy, selfish archaeologist who unearths warnings of evil to be loosed upon the world, yet digs anyway. […]
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Fringe: The Complete Third Season / Supernatural: The Complete Sixth Season / Nikita: The Complete First Season
And neither “Fringe,” “Supernatural” nor “Nikita” are household hits, despite being enjoyable TV. Perhaps Blu-ray and DVD releases of their last seasons will boost viewership in the new seasons. In the case of “Fringe,” being allowed to operate under-the-radar, as it were, has been to its creative benefit, altering and manipulating its own DNA, experimenting […]
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Supernatural: The Anime Series
The storyline remains the same: brothers Sam (Jared Padalecki, who reprises his role for the anime) and Dean Winchester (Jensen Ackles, who voices only a few episodes) travel the country in their ’67 Chevy Impala, encountering monsters, spirits and other paranormal activity along the way. They ain’t ‘fraid of no ghosts. The actors and series […]