6WH: October 25th

The final week of Halloween begins. Man, time flies when it's your favorite season.

Tales from the Darkside: "I'll Give You a Million" (1984) directed by John Harrison
A couple of evil businessmen make a deal that one will buy the other's soul for $1 million. Turns out, the devil loves collecting the souls of evil business men. When the seller dies, he grabs the seller's soul before the buyer collects. The shock of witnessing this gives the buyer a fatal heart attack and the devil grabs his soul as well. It's an all right EC comics-style episode. (6/10)


The Stepfather (1987) directed by Joseph Ruben
I love horror remakes. Not because I like to watch them -- most of them are wastes of time -- but because they almost always herald a special edition DVD/BD release of the original movie. It's even better when, like The Stepfather, the movie's never been released at all. It's been years since I've watched this one on VHS back in high school. It must have made some kind of impression on me, as I bought the new DVD without a thought.

I think the impression made came mostly from Terry O'Quinn, who turns in an excellent performance. O'Quinn as Blake actually only kills two people onscreen. Much more interesting is watching Blake struggle to contain his insanity/anger as his new family falls short of the '50s TV family ideal in his head. Some of the subtle things he does will his facial expressions nail the character of a sociopath. (7/10)