Friday the Thirteenth: The Series

"Friday the Thirteenth: The Series" (which has no relation to the film series of Friday the Thirteenth) was a horror series of the late Eighties, a time when there was a veritable glut of genre television programs, mostly anthology shows such as "Tales from the Darkside," "Tales from the Crypt," "Amazing Stories," and the revived "Twilight Zone." "Freddy's Nightmares" was essentially an anthology series, but each episode was connected by the presence of the wisecracking, razor-tipped glove-wearing mad slasher of dreamland. "Werewolf" was one of the best of them, but suffered from the same fate as the Bill Bixby and Lou Ferrigno starring series of "The Incredible Hulk": there are only so many plots you can place the shape-shifting drifter into while assuring at least ONE transformation into a monster before the credits roll (i.e. it all gets a bit redundant). Rounding all of this out was the short-lived pseudo-comic show "Monsters," which was obligated to feature a new creature every episode, and a television adaptation of "The War of the Worlds." It tanked early, as did "Max Headroom," and a series spin-off of the mega-hit TV movie "V" and its sequel "V: The Final Battle."

But, if you were a sci-fi or horror fan in the Eighties, you had plenty to watch on the weekends. We could mention cable shows such as the forgotten "The Hitchhiker," and the revival of "Alfred Hitchcock Presents," but we'd better get to the meat of this review (and never mind the resurrection of "Star Trek" as "The Next Generation") or else we'll be here until, pardon the expression, "Hell freezes over." "Friday the Thirteenth: The Series" had a great opening theme, a camera's eye view through a keyhole and a slow floating camera lurking in a room full of antiques like a creeping ghost until the titles appear smokily in glass, and then explode, and are then glowing on a tombstone. The concept of the series is laughably dull.

Uncle Lewis Vendredi (R.G. Armstrong) is an occultist who owns an antique shop ala' Kurt Barlow. After making a "deal with the Devil," he is killed by same Devil, and his cursed antiques, which he has been selling for years, end up being inherited by his niece and nephew Ryan and Micki (John D. Lemay and model and actress Lousie Robey, known then as just "Robey"). The shop they rename "Curious Goods". Before the death of Uncle Lewis, we have a prologue of sorts wherein he sells a cursed doll to a spoiled little girl (Sarah Polley), who takes it, leaves the shop, and uses it to kill a man in a surprisingly graphic scene where his throat is cut. She returns to the shop, the parents so worried sick about her disappearance that they don't even bother to go out into the night to find her, and then leave with the doll, even though Uncle Lewis tells them firmly, "Nothing in this shop is for sale!" He then falls down an elevator shaft into Hell.

Micki and Ryan don't like each other at first, Micki coming off as an irritable, no-nonsense superbitch and Ryan as a dude that treats almost everything in life in a lighthearted manner. Tubular.

They are joined by fat, tweedy occultist Jack Marshak (the late Canadian actor Chris Wiggins), who breaks into the antique store looking as if he's out to harpoon a whale, and then confesses that he taught Uncle Lewis everything he knew about Majic (or rather, Magick) but that he drew the line when it came to selling his soul to Satan. Understandable; Faust didn't fair so well.

The little girl uses the doll (which talks and goads her to be even more of a fairy tale rotten little witch) which she sort of "hisses" into life, and this causes her babysitter to be attacked by poltergeists throwing seven-inch vinyl records, and her Wicked Stepmother to die in the hospital of a cardiac arrest. Along the way, Jack sets the tone for the rest of the series and scans the papers for mysterious deaths that might be related to the antiques they have to reclaim. (And if they don't reclaim them, Something Bad will happen, something TERRIBLE. But we are never told exactly WHAT.)

I'm not sure how we get there (the prescription meds turn my memory into cheese whizz), but in the end, Robey confronts the little girl as she is riding one of those push-powered merry-go-rounds you find next to the swingsets in children's playgrounds. The sky darkens up but the Power of Goodness prevails, and everything is okay again, at least so far as this episode is concerned.

This is the set-up for 71 additional episodes or three seasons. It's hard to imagine how they got that much out of this flimsy concept, but the show was genuinely dark, brooding, and atmospheric, and featured the Canadian-accented Robey, which was a plus. The second episode I tried to watch featured Robey posing as a male in a medieval monk's robe, yet she still looked exactly as if she was just a young woman wearing a medieval monk's robe. She wasn't fooling anyone. (It did feature a cool scene with a floating monk who plunges to his death, while a whispery and evil-sounding Brother of the Order writes with a cursed quill in a log book or grimoire or something. But I haven't watched it yet.)

On the whole, not too shabby, and for me, personally, a stroll down childhood memory lane. Watching it, I began to feel older than a cursed antique someone sold his soul to the Devil over. Or some such.

Out.

Friday the Thirteenth: The Series Season 1. Episode 1 "The Inheritance".