Friday the Thirteenth: The Series "Helloween"

Note: The following review contains spoilers.

This morning I awoke, as per usual, at around five thirty, rolled out of bed, read for a few minutes, drank some decaffeinated coffee, and signed into my telephone job. While alternating between waiting for calls and drawing macabre faces with my charcoal pencils, I watched an episode of "Friday the Thirteenth: The Series" (which, by the way, has nothing to do with Friday the Thirteenth: The Movies) which was particularly memorable, as it was short on brains but high on shlock entertainment value.

Mickie (Canadian actress and model Louise Robey, or simply "Robey" as she was then known) and cousin Ryan (John D. LeMay, who also starred in Friday the Thirteenth movies--or, at least one, the aptly named Jason Goes to Hell) are partying down on Halloween night at their cursed antique shop (they collect cursed antiques you see, because Uncle Lewis Vendredi made a deal with the Devil, who cursed all these objects and then sent Uncle Lewis to Hell, and now Mickie and Ryan and sorcerer slash tweedy old fart Jack Marshak [the late Christopher Wiggins] are doomed to recover all these haunted objects). The idea of having a Halloween party at an antique store--where you invite complete strangers to come in, get drunk, and possibly damage, vandalize, or STEAL valuable items that are all crammed into a cramped little space, doesn't add a lot of verisimilitude to the proceedings. But, whatever.

Two young dudes go upstairs, full of dire lust for life, no doubt, and begin playing with a glowing crystal ball. I can't really remember what happens to them and don't much care, but Uncle Lewis comes back from Hell, all contrite, and there's a bed with his dead wife on it, and she's supposed to be beautiful which, in this case, is an entirely subjective assessment, and then some other stuff happens. I can't quite stop looking at Robey who was quite the dish back in 1987, but I am, after all a lonely Incel. Just a poor, lonely, lonely incel.

Anydamnway.

Jack gets kidnapped by a little lost trick-or-treater who turns out to be a sinister demon who is a dwarf. (She's a dwarf, because, you know, they're just naturally sinister, right? This shit wouldn't fly in 2023, I don't have to tell you.)

She imprisons him behind a conveniently placed set of prison bars that seems to abut some building or something, and two yokels who are dressed like trapeze artists (hey Billy-Bob, you got my spangled pink leotards?) rescue him somehow before he disappears in a cloud of smoke.

Anyway.

Everyone ends up at a funeral home, and then Mickie and Ryan end up in a couple of plywood boxes on a conveyor belt going into some crematory ovens. Which makes no sense, because you wouldn't very well cremate a body in an effin' coffin, would you? Plywood ashes and human cremains would get all mixed up, right? As Hüsker Dü sang, "Makes no sense at all."

Meanwhile, the demon dwarf and Uncle Lew are dancing around a mortuary slab with a fresh one on it, waving their arms and invoking Belial (a demon) and Ashurbannipal (actually a Babylonia deity--but then, all the ancient gods and goddesses became demons to Christianity later). They've had time to draw a perfect pentagram on the floor and get some tall sconces with black candles. (Did they carry them in?) Before this, they examined a couple of stiffs (after plunking the driver of a hearse over the head with a crate) and rejected each one of them as too icky or dead or something.

The demon dwarf ends up bloodily stabbed.

I've spoiled the whole thing, I know.

I love this series. It's short on brains, and long on shlock, but it's lots of fun nonetheless. And I can watch it for free.

Note. I was somewhat disappointed when I realized that the German metal band Helloween was NOT going to make a personal appearance in this episode. That shit is just false advertising.

Friday The 13th The Series 1987 S01E05 Hellowe'en