Stay Tuned - Review

 

The 1992 film Stay Tuned, probably the oddest film the late John Ritter ever appeared in. Still feels so weird saying "late" in front of his name, doesn't it? Anyway, John is Roy Knable, on-the-verge-of-being-divorced father of two and devout television (and fencing) fanatic. One night after a trophy related mishap his beloved TV becomes smashed. As luck would have it late-night door to door television salesman Spike arrives at his door - almost immediately after his old TV (let's call her Lucille) bites it - with the bitchin-est TV and massive satellite dish 1992 had to offer, at an unbeatable price. On the house.

Of course Spike is no ordinary late-night door to door television salesman, he's actually the Unlord Almighty. Or Satan, if you will. And this is no ordinary television, it's a....telEVILision (right?) featuring 666 cable channels from hell. 666, The Number of Channels of The Beast. Through a series of wacky shenanigans Roy and his wife Helen end up sucked into the massive satellite dish, right into the very programs that are airing. All live, all the time, apparently. They have to survive 24 hours bouncing from evil TV show to evil TV show or they have to surrender their eternal souls to Spike. It's kind of like Pleasantville, only with more Satan. And wrestlers. In addition to Ritter the film also stars Jeffrey Jones as Spike (aka Lucifer), Eugene Levy as Crowley (Evil!) and the legendary Don Calfa as Wetzel.

It's a pretty weird movie and one I wouldn't mind seeing remade. It's a decent enough movie, but some of the humor falls pretty flat, especially now, over 15 years later with dated Northern Exposure or Wayne's World references. Of course now it'd probably look a lot like those mercilessly horrible "________ Movies" they are churning out twice a year now. I think someone like Michael Gondry or God-willing, Terry Gilliam might be able to have a decent go at it.

Set phasers to... Torture!

The Monster Squad finally hits DVD

Today marks the release date of a DVD that fans have been waiting a decade for, The Two-Disc 20th Anniversary Edition Monster Squad DVD. It's been on the top of a lot of people's most wanted DVDs list since the format was first introduced, and for whatever reason it's taken this long to come out. I always just figured it to be a rights issue, since it featured five of the classic Universal Horror creatures, I thought that might've somehow made matters more complicated and would explain why a popular title like this would take so long to come out. I've actually had pretty high quality bootleg DVDs of both The Monster Squad and Fred Dekker's other horror film Night of the Creeps for a while now, but it's good to see an official release of at least one of them after all this time. Despite not having the original artwork, the whole package still looks very nice and I've already gotten used to the new cover. Plus it's a great set with 2 commentaries and a documentary longer than the movie itself. The movie is about 76 minutes, this documentary is about 90. There's also a funny interview with Frankenstein. I don't mean an interview with Tom Noonan in the Frankenstein costume, I mean an interview with Frankenstein, the actor. He talks about being in the business for 50 years, what he's really like and his personal feelings about the Wolfman. Despite what you've seen in movies, Frank is actually very eloquent and really has a lot to say.

I never noticed the amount of Burger King product placement there was in the Monster Squad. First Sean and his Dad eat Burger King on the roof while watching Groundhog Day part 12. Later Fat Kid jokingly says "Why don't we just go over and do it in Burger King?" Then you've got people and monsters running back and forth in front of the BK several times during the finale. I'm not one to bitch about product placement, I'd rather have someone say Google instead of making something up (although jokes with Google or eBay in the punchline drive me nuts). Just saying with all this product placement where the hell were the Monster Squad toys? I would've loved to have had a chance to get my hands on a Scary German Guy figure or a Hot Wheel modeled after Dracula's phantom hearse.

Now that this one is out, and seems to be selling very well (it's currently #12 on Amazon's top selling DVDs list, right alongside stuff like 300, House and Zodiac) let's hope they haul ass and get the official Night of the Creeps DVD out. The Monster Squad is a blast, but NOTC is better in my opinion.

Also, in case you missed it, Bruce Broughton's score is available here. They've announced an official limited soundtrack that will be released soon, so grab this one now before I have to take it down.