2 Warps to Neptune

Midnight Lace (premiered February 9, 1981): A remake of the 1960 film of the same name, Mary Crosby (Bing Crosby’s daughter) plays a TV reporter harassed and stalked by an unseen psycho. Is she going insane, or is her assailant for real? I found the Time review of the 1960 version interesting:

Another of those recurrent thrillers in which a dear, sweet, innocent girl is pursued by a shadowy figure of evil who threatens her with all sorts of insidious molestation… Like its predecessors, Midnight Lace is not very interesting in itself, but it is uncomfortably fascinating when considered as one of the persistent fantasies of a monogamous society…

The fantasies of an entrenched monogamous society in the early sixties give way to anxiety over the seeming breakdown of that monogamous society in the eighties.

Midnight Offerings (Premiered February 27, 1981): Melissa Sue Anderson, trying to shed her good girl image from Little House on the Prairie, plays a Satan-worshiping witch wreaking havoc on her ex and his new girlfriend (Mary McDonough), the good witch. Anderson, who appeared in a nifty horror movie called Happy Birthday to Me the same year, is a really good bad girl. Otherwise, the movie is rushed and bland. Marion Ross (Mrs. C.) has a short part as a psychic. Watch the movie (lower quality) here.

The Midnight Hour (Premiered November 1, 1985): This one is a fun horror-comedy. It’s Halloween, and some mischievous high school students unwittingly release an ancient curse upon their New England town. The dead climb out of their graves and wander into the big Halloween costume party, where the head witch-vampire starts biting the living. There’s an extended, somewhat arty vampire seduction scene set to the The Smiths’ “How Soon is Now?”, likely the first time anything by the band was introduced to a mainstream American audience.

Peter DeLuise and Levar Burton play two of the students. Both of them would land the shows that made their careers two years later: 21 Jump Street and Star Trek: TNG, respectively.  Kevin McCarthy (from the original Invasion of the Body Snatchers) plays a drunk dad who gets what’s coming to him. Watch the movie (good quality) here. Here’s the dance scene. The gorgeous young witch is played by Shari Belafonte, Harry Belafonte’s daughter.

(Images via Nostalgic Collections and Randy Rodman)

(Video via bmoviereviews)

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