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Are You In The House Alone?: A TV Movie Compendium 1964-1999
Beginning in the 1960s through its heyday in the 1970s and beyond, the telefilm stands as an important cultural artefact masquerading as disposable entertainment. Made specifically for the small screen, within the tight constraints of broadcasting standards, what these humble movies lacked in budget and star appeal, they made up for in other ways. Often they served as an introduction to genre films, particularly horror, mirroring their theatrical counterparts with a focus on sinister cults, women in prison, haunted houses and even animals in revolt. They were also a place to address serious contemporary issues ― drugs, prostitution, sexual violence and justice ―albeit in a cosy domestic environment.
Production of telefilms continues to this day, but their significance within the history of mass media remains under-discussed. Are You in the House Alone? seeks to address this imbalance in a series of reviews and essays by fans and critics. It looks at many of the films, the networks and names behind them, and also specific genres ― everything from Stephen King adaptations to superheroes to true-life dramas. So, kickback and crack open the TV guide once more for the event that is the Movie of the Week!
Production of telefilms continues to this day, but their significance within the history of mass media remains under-discussed. Are You in the House Alone? seeks to address this imbalance in a series of reviews and essays by fans and critics. It looks at many of the films, the networks and names behind them, and also specific genres ― everything from Stephen King adaptations to superheroes to true-life dramas. So, kickback and crack open the TV guide once more for the event that is the Movie of the Week!
337 pages, Paperback
First published May 1, 2017
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405 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 29 of 29 reviews
February 21, 2019
Brought back many memories of watching tv movies during their heyday when I was a kid--early to mid 1970's through to late 1990's as an adult . I recommend to anyone who is obsessed with the made for tv movies they remember from their childhood.
December 22, 2018
This book is a lot of fun and wonderfully captures the cheesy delight of the 1970s TV movies (the “scary Zuni fetish doll” from the classic movie-of-the-week Trilogy of Terror is mentioned four times in just the first 16 pages of the book!).
But the MOWs, as they were called, were more than just the TV equivalent of “grindhouse”/ “exploitation” movies. They were also a vivid reflection of our society at the time. Sadly, these often terrific movies are very hard to find, rarely showing up either on DVD or in syndication, and are very underappreciated. And that’s a shame, because as editor (and Made for TV Mayhem blogger) Amanda Reyes notes, “the seventies are considered the heyday of the made for television movie…the phenomenon of the television movie, while fairly well known, still struggles for recognition and remains one of the most overlooked mediums.” MOWs were also, as she observes, “a welcoming place for classic actors hoping to make a fast buck” and for “TV actors to break the mold of a long-running series in which they were often trapped.” Those of us of a certain age still remember the delight of seeing wholesome Andy Griffith become a baddie in the classic MOW Pray for the Wildcats or the spectacle of a faded big screen star like Bette Davis in the awful Madame Sin
Are You in the House Alone? is essentially a collection of hit-or-miss essays leading into a large section of reviews of some of the most memorable TV movies. The best essays are those focusing on the heyday of MOWs, the 1970s, and some of the thematic issues they tackled. The essays on “World War III in Television Movies” and “The Plight of the Small Screen Superhero” feel more like blogposts that the authors didn’t bother to flesh out for the book. And the section on mini-series (this is a book about TV movies, isn’t it?) and the TV films of Wes Craven read like filler.
Perhaps the best portion of this 338-page paperback is devoted to movie reviews, even if some of the choices are rather perplexing. I can see why Reyes included reviews of MOWs that were failed pilots for TV series (like Look What’s Happened to Rosemary’s Baby, Baffled, or Men of the Dragon), but I don’t get why include they also included a few that became series (like the MOW pilots for HAWAII FIVE-O, COLUMBO and HARRY O)? I would have preferred to see reviews of more obscure, unjustly forgotten MOWs. My other quibble with the reviews is that they all list the director and principal cast — but not the screenwriter. That strikes me as a major oversight (though, in some cases, the screenwriter was mentioned in the course of the review).
That said, this book was a giddy delight (a feeling clearly shared by many of the authors towards the movies), thought-provoking….and a welcome bit of nostalgia. It had the same effect on me as hearing Burt Bacharach’s ABC Movie of the Week theme has on Reyes… “it brings back more than just the movies…it brings back a time, a place and a moment when your television set turned into a bonafide movie theater and anything was possible.”
But the MOWs, as they were called, were more than just the TV equivalent of “grindhouse”/ “exploitation” movies. They were also a vivid reflection of our society at the time. Sadly, these often terrific movies are very hard to find, rarely showing up either on DVD or in syndication, and are very underappreciated. And that’s a shame, because as editor (and Made for TV Mayhem blogger) Amanda Reyes notes, “the seventies are considered the heyday of the made for television movie…the phenomenon of the television movie, while fairly well known, still struggles for recognition and remains one of the most overlooked mediums.” MOWs were also, as she observes, “a welcoming place for classic actors hoping to make a fast buck” and for “TV actors to break the mold of a long-running series in which they were often trapped.” Those of us of a certain age still remember the delight of seeing wholesome Andy Griffith become a baddie in the classic MOW Pray for the Wildcats or the spectacle of a faded big screen star like Bette Davis in the awful Madame Sin
Are You in the House Alone? is essentially a collection of hit-or-miss essays leading into a large section of reviews of some of the most memorable TV movies. The best essays are those focusing on the heyday of MOWs, the 1970s, and some of the thematic issues they tackled. The essays on “World War III in Television Movies” and “The Plight of the Small Screen Superhero” feel more like blogposts that the authors didn’t bother to flesh out for the book. And the section on mini-series (this is a book about TV movies, isn’t it?) and the TV films of Wes Craven read like filler.
Perhaps the best portion of this 338-page paperback is devoted to movie reviews, even if some of the choices are rather perplexing. I can see why Reyes included reviews of MOWs that were failed pilots for TV series (like Look What’s Happened to Rosemary’s Baby, Baffled, or Men of the Dragon), but I don’t get why include they also included a few that became series (like the MOW pilots for HAWAII FIVE-O, COLUMBO and HARRY O)? I would have preferred to see reviews of more obscure, unjustly forgotten MOWs. My other quibble with the reviews is that they all list the director and principal cast — but not the screenwriter. That strikes me as a major oversight (though, in some cases, the screenwriter was mentioned in the course of the review).
That said, this book was a giddy delight (a feeling clearly shared by many of the authors towards the movies), thought-provoking….and a welcome bit of nostalgia. It had the same effect on me as hearing Burt Bacharach’s ABC Movie of the Week theme has on Reyes… “it brings back more than just the movies…it brings back a time, a place and a moment when your television set turned into a bonafide movie theater and anything was possible.”
June 12, 2018
A much-needed resource for fans of classic TV movies. It's hard to find information about many of these since Leonard Maltin started leaving them out of his movie guide, so the last half of this book, a compilation of fairly lengthy reviews of these movies, is something I'll go back to quite often as I find more of these films on YouTube (the point is made in the book that very few have been released on DVD). The first half, a collection of essays on specific genres of TV movies, is less essential, with many of them being too short to do their topics justice. But overall, a welcome addition to my movie reference bookshself.
November 9, 2020
“The seventies are considered the heyday of the made for television movie, and serve as an important benchmark in the landscape of our society.”
— Amanda Reyes
The year 1972 is a long way in the rearview mirror, of course. But even though I’m fifty-five now and was just seven years old then, the memory is still as fresh to me now as it was forty-eight years ago, almost to the day: sitting in the dark basement rumpus room in my footie pajamas, my face a foot from the TV screen, quietly, illicitly, long after my bedtime, watching spellbound as The Baroness from The Sound of Music chased shrieking little Sally Field, knife in patrician fist, through the dark rainy woods.
It’s a scene from the climax of HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS, a made-for-TV movie. And pretty typical of the time and genre: neurasthenic women, patronizing men, an isolated mansion, darkness and bad weather, hot tea, sedatives, gaslighting and murder. And a cast full of TV veterans (Field), slumming movie stalwarts (Eleanor Parker), fading Golden Age stars (Walter Brennan) and up-and-comers (Jessica Walter).
It was silly, shrill, sexist and semi-nonsensical. And it scared the Underoos off me.
We are a wonderfully weird bunch, those of us who would rather watch, say, a 1970s TV movie like DEVIL DOG: HOUND FROM HELL on YouTube than the latest buzzworthy binge-gasmic series on Netflix. Perhaps it helps to be “of a certain age.” (I suppose I am; I was born in 1965 and saw many of these movies on TV when they first aired.) But we are a tribe, small perhaps but dedicated, and for us Are You In The House Alone: A TV Movie Compendium 1964-1999, is like an early and everyday Christmas with birthday cake for every meal.
Editor and writer Amanda Reyes, who co-hosts the Made For TV Mayhem blog and podcast, works with a cadre of smart and enthusiastic essay contributors who bring humorous observations and serious sociocultural perspectives to every page. Jeff Burr’s opening essay wonderfully captured the essence of my personal experience:
“Being a precocious cinephile, a weekly ritual for me was looking at the TV Guide for the week and seeing what new movies were going to be showing, carefully noting the day and time. A campaign of anticipation then followed, hyping the movie to reserve that timeslot in a one-TV house. More often than not, my mom and dad would be caught up in my enthusiasm (ANDY GRIFFITH AND CAPTAIN KIRK ON MOTORCYCLES YOU GUYS!! WHAT COULD BE COOLER???), and we would be rewarded by seeing Pray for the Wildcats, A Cold Night’s Death, Birds of Prey or Brian’s Song.
“The elementary school version of the ‘water cooler conversation’ was at the monkey bars on the playground. It was there where you learned what you missed, or could tell what you saw. ‘Did you see that movie last night? Andy Griffith played this a**hole and he got killed riding off a cliff!!’
“You could rate how the movie entered the zeitgeist by the amount of kids who chimed in and the intensity of the discussion.”
Some of the standout moments in ARE YOU IN THE HOUSE ALONE? Include a rundown of well-known actors who successfully used made-for-TV movies to stretch out acting muscles long constrained by sitcoms (Andy Griffith, Barbara Eden, Robert Reed and Elizabeth Montgomery, to name just a few). Other highlights touch on issues of sex and gender, particularly in 1970s fare, and a short-lived but intense small-screen preoccupation with Satanism, possession and the occult.
And while my interest remains in 1970s fare, I enjoyed a breakout session on the latter-day oeuvre of original USA Network films, many of which were neo-noir favorites that captured something of the spirit of the first wave of made-for-TV fare, just twenty years later, with the same kind of B-list casts and brutally-low-budget efficiency.
And I enjoyed the smart snarky tone throughout. Some great examples:
• Of HORROR AT 37,000 FEET, a 1973 thriller: “Prepare for an onslaught of supernatural mayhem including voodoo baby dolls that spew green ooze, blasts of artic air so cold they freeze a dog mid-bark, killer elevators, human sacrifices, ominous chanting pouring out of earphones and a creepier than you’d expect, late in the flight, appearance from a funky phantom in a hooded robe.”
• Of THE INITIATION OF SARAH, a campy 1978 horror-thriller: “During the course of this production if you find yourself asking, ‘In exactly what universe would Kay Lenz be considered a frumpy, undesirable underdog?’ the simple answer is, ‘In any universe where Morgan Fairchild declares it so!’”
• Of SATAN’S SCHOOL FOR GIRLS, a camp-horror classic from 1973: “The sight of a group of girls happily facing immolation and, in one of the genre’s most memorable images—Satan casually walking into an inferno—do go a good way to outweigh a slightly ludicrous chase scene which ends with a poor guy being hit with a stick by Cheryl Ladd.”
There are a lot of critic-fans of thrillers and horror flicks who will pump out tens of thousands of words on the grungiest, cheapest, grind-houesiest slasher/splatter flick on the grounds that it had a big-screen release, even of the blin-and-you-missed-it kind, and never even consider made-for-TV movies cut from the same broadly thematic cloth because they never graced the marquee of a drive-in movie house.
That’s a shame because made-for-TV movies have proven they can be just as silly, just as exploitative, just as dark and just as zeitgeisty as anything Joe Bob Briggs would soil himself over. And, sometimes, just as good. There are some legitimately great genre films in there (CROWHAVEN FARM, SATAN’S TRIANGLE, WHEN MICHAEL CALLS, SAVAGES, etc.). And they deserve notice all the more for the fact that their genre brothers and sisters are mostly dreck. And even the dreck deserves notice, because somebody thought at some point somebody wanted to see what they came up with, and not only put money behind it but found at least a handful of talented and recognizable actors to work on it.
And even when the movies were awful, the people behind them usually weren’t wrong. Laugh all you want at titles like SCREAM PRETTY PEGGY or THE FEMINIST AND THE FUZZ or KILLDOZER, but they got great ratings, and tens of millions of people gobbled them up with two spoons. So I’m glad there’s a small but dedicated cadre of making sure that the sometimes forgettable fare of this unforgettable genre gets its critical and cultural due.
— Amanda Reyes
The year 1972 is a long way in the rearview mirror, of course. But even though I’m fifty-five now and was just seven years old then, the memory is still as fresh to me now as it was forty-eight years ago, almost to the day: sitting in the dark basement rumpus room in my footie pajamas, my face a foot from the TV screen, quietly, illicitly, long after my bedtime, watching spellbound as The Baroness from The Sound of Music chased shrieking little Sally Field, knife in patrician fist, through the dark rainy woods.
It’s a scene from the climax of HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS, a made-for-TV movie. And pretty typical of the time and genre: neurasthenic women, patronizing men, an isolated mansion, darkness and bad weather, hot tea, sedatives, gaslighting and murder. And a cast full of TV veterans (Field), slumming movie stalwarts (Eleanor Parker), fading Golden Age stars (Walter Brennan) and up-and-comers (Jessica Walter).
It was silly, shrill, sexist and semi-nonsensical. And it scared the Underoos off me.
We are a wonderfully weird bunch, those of us who would rather watch, say, a 1970s TV movie like DEVIL DOG: HOUND FROM HELL on YouTube than the latest buzzworthy binge-gasmic series on Netflix. Perhaps it helps to be “of a certain age.” (I suppose I am; I was born in 1965 and saw many of these movies on TV when they first aired.) But we are a tribe, small perhaps but dedicated, and for us Are You In The House Alone: A TV Movie Compendium 1964-1999, is like an early and everyday Christmas with birthday cake for every meal.
Editor and writer Amanda Reyes, who co-hosts the Made For TV Mayhem blog and podcast, works with a cadre of smart and enthusiastic essay contributors who bring humorous observations and serious sociocultural perspectives to every page. Jeff Burr’s opening essay wonderfully captured the essence of my personal experience:
“Being a precocious cinephile, a weekly ritual for me was looking at the TV Guide for the week and seeing what new movies were going to be showing, carefully noting the day and time. A campaign of anticipation then followed, hyping the movie to reserve that timeslot in a one-TV house. More often than not, my mom and dad would be caught up in my enthusiasm (ANDY GRIFFITH AND CAPTAIN KIRK ON MOTORCYCLES YOU GUYS!! WHAT COULD BE COOLER???), and we would be rewarded by seeing Pray for the Wildcats, A Cold Night’s Death, Birds of Prey or Brian’s Song.
“The elementary school version of the ‘water cooler conversation’ was at the monkey bars on the playground. It was there where you learned what you missed, or could tell what you saw. ‘Did you see that movie last night? Andy Griffith played this a**hole and he got killed riding off a cliff!!’
“You could rate how the movie entered the zeitgeist by the amount of kids who chimed in and the intensity of the discussion.”
Some of the standout moments in ARE YOU IN THE HOUSE ALONE? Include a rundown of well-known actors who successfully used made-for-TV movies to stretch out acting muscles long constrained by sitcoms (Andy Griffith, Barbara Eden, Robert Reed and Elizabeth Montgomery, to name just a few). Other highlights touch on issues of sex and gender, particularly in 1970s fare, and a short-lived but intense small-screen preoccupation with Satanism, possession and the occult.
And while my interest remains in 1970s fare, I enjoyed a breakout session on the latter-day oeuvre of original USA Network films, many of which were neo-noir favorites that captured something of the spirit of the first wave of made-for-TV fare, just twenty years later, with the same kind of B-list casts and brutally-low-budget efficiency.
And I enjoyed the smart snarky tone throughout. Some great examples:
• Of HORROR AT 37,000 FEET, a 1973 thriller: “Prepare for an onslaught of supernatural mayhem including voodoo baby dolls that spew green ooze, blasts of artic air so cold they freeze a dog mid-bark, killer elevators, human sacrifices, ominous chanting pouring out of earphones and a creepier than you’d expect, late in the flight, appearance from a funky phantom in a hooded robe.”
• Of THE INITIATION OF SARAH, a campy 1978 horror-thriller: “During the course of this production if you find yourself asking, ‘In exactly what universe would Kay Lenz be considered a frumpy, undesirable underdog?’ the simple answer is, ‘In any universe where Morgan Fairchild declares it so!’”
• Of SATAN’S SCHOOL FOR GIRLS, a camp-horror classic from 1973: “The sight of a group of girls happily facing immolation and, in one of the genre’s most memorable images—Satan casually walking into an inferno—do go a good way to outweigh a slightly ludicrous chase scene which ends with a poor guy being hit with a stick by Cheryl Ladd.”
There are a lot of critic-fans of thrillers and horror flicks who will pump out tens of thousands of words on the grungiest, cheapest, grind-houesiest slasher/splatter flick on the grounds that it had a big-screen release, even of the blin-and-you-missed-it kind, and never even consider made-for-TV movies cut from the same broadly thematic cloth because they never graced the marquee of a drive-in movie house.
That’s a shame because made-for-TV movies have proven they can be just as silly, just as exploitative, just as dark and just as zeitgeisty as anything Joe Bob Briggs would soil himself over. And, sometimes, just as good. There are some legitimately great genre films in there (CROWHAVEN FARM, SATAN’S TRIANGLE, WHEN MICHAEL CALLS, SAVAGES, etc.). And they deserve notice all the more for the fact that their genre brothers and sisters are mostly dreck. And even the dreck deserves notice, because somebody thought at some point somebody wanted to see what they came up with, and not only put money behind it but found at least a handful of talented and recognizable actors to work on it.
And even when the movies were awful, the people behind them usually weren’t wrong. Laugh all you want at titles like SCREAM PRETTY PEGGY or THE FEMINIST AND THE FUZZ or KILLDOZER, but they got great ratings, and tens of millions of people gobbled them up with two spoons. So I’m glad there’s a small but dedicated cadre of making sure that the sometimes forgettable fare of this unforgettable genre gets its critical and cultural due.
July 1, 2017
To those of us of a certain age, this book is a treasure trove of nostalgia, a gluttony of "I remember watching that!". To those of you of a different age, this book is going to show you what you missed. The witty and insightful reviews cover the heyday of TV movies and beyond, hitting many of the classics as well as some of the lesser known films. The essays cover the various facets of TV movies, from subject matter to trends to scream queens to Wes Craven, all of them well-written and fascinating.
The TV movie is an endangered species. This book is an excellent preservation.
The TV movie is an endangered species. This book is an excellent preservation.
August 26, 2020
It calls itself a compendium and that is exactly what it is. So it’s on me for wanting more out of this book...but I wanted more out of this book. The essays in the beginning were great and I wish the reviews that comprise the bulk of the book were complied in a more thoughtful way (like the excellent Paperbacks from Hell).
December 31, 2019
Fan-flippin-tastic! A very good compendium, although I want to read the premier volume which expands just a wee bit more on the subject. But first I gotta get through the mile-long list of made-for-TV films I jotted down as I read the book.
December 28, 2020
I'm about to do something I never do here on GR. I'm going to recommend you read somebody else's review of a book before you get to my ravings.
Jim Thomsen's review captures one hundred percent of the nostalgia, excitement, and fun which fuels this trip through the neglected back-waters of TV-Land in a way that only someone who lived through all of it (and who is also a professional writer, I might add) can.
The bit about living through it all is important. Being forty-three, I remember an awful lot of the things Reyes and her cadre of co-conspirators chronicle here. When you get your start in 1977 but the book goes back to 1964...well, you can see the problem, right? My earliest television memories are of things that happened in the early 80's. I can remember quite well the stir of everyone wondering "Who shot J.R.?" that summer. I remember the early years of the USA Network, the birth of Up All Night, the antics of Joe Bob Briggs, and countless network promos for movies shot especially for ABC, NBC, and CBS.
But I was a few years too late to catch the inaugural showing of Home For the Holidays with Sally Field, Walter Brennan, and Jessica Walter. I missed the premiere of Horror At 37,000 Feet by four years. Satan's School For Girls had stopped admitting new students by the time I came around. Jim, though? He was there from the get-go, and that's a voice well worth listening to when it comes to a topic like TV movies pre-Y2K.
Seriously, go read Jim's review. I'll wait.
* * * * *
Back? OK, my turn.
Television scares and I go back a long way. I had quite the over-active imagination as a child, so even something as innocuous as a jump scare could send me over the edge into terror. I have vivid memories of my mom racing to cover my eyes when a TV spot promoting a new horror film like Alien or Halloween II came on the tube, because otherwise I'd work myself into an inconsolable mess for ten minutes, then continue to dwell on what I'd just seen (or what I thought I'd just seen) all night when laying in bed.
In fact, one of the scariest things I had ever personally witnessed on television haunted me for literal decades until I uncovered the secret. All I could remember was a room engulfed in flames, a wall of stuffed animals coming to life and screaming in pain as the fire touched them, and a girl crying out as she watched toy soldiers marching towards her through the flames while their heads explode one by one. I saw this horrifying sequence while sitting in the living room of my grandparents' house when I was around nine years old, and it's never left my memory. It's my personal example of "nightmare fuel", and I was forty-one years old when I finally found out that sequence came from the rerun of an episode of Fantasy Island from 1978 entitled, appropriately enough, "The Nightmare".
Here's the exact clip, in case you want to have trouble sleeping tonight:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ph5B...
TV Nightmares and I are good buddies is what I'm getting at, and I've made it my business now that I'm older to experience all the awful things which traumatized me at such a young age. I said I was older, not necessarily wiser.
So when I saw Are You in the House Alone?, I knew I had to snap it up. After all, what better way to learn about all the potential traumas I missed out on by virtue of not having been born yet, right?
* * * * *
Made-for-television movies hold a morbid kind of fascination for me. I feel like their limitations on budget and what FCC regulations would permit always forced them to over-promise and under-deliver. These weren't traditional cinema fare pared down both for commercial breaks and to excise sex, violence, and foul language from the print, no. These were specially produced for the small screen and came pre-fitted with ad slots and a lack of anything too objectionable. And yet, they often covered topics apropos of the day, whether that was the mutually-assured destruction pacts of the Cold War immortalized in movies like The Day After, child abuse in daycare facilities (Do You Know the Muffin Man?), the Satanic Panic which helped launch Tom Hanks' career courtesy of Mazes & Monsters, or the always-topical issues of sexual assault (Don't Touch My Daughter), alcoholism (The Boy Who Drank Too Much), kidnapping (The Abduction of Kari Swenson), obscene phone calls (The Secret Night Caller), vampires preying on the innocent (Kolchak: The Night Stalker), natural disasters (Meteor), animals on the rampage (Tarantulas: The Deadly Cargo), technology gone berserk (Killdozer), or people secretly living under your house (Crawlspace).
The front third of the book consists of individual chapters about specific genres or types of pictures which present an overview of a particular point in TV movie history, whether it's the arrival and demise of the USA World Premiere Movie, a rundown of Stephen King's prolific made-for-TV ouvre, a look at the rape-revenge and rape-response films decade by decade, or an essay about all the means nature had at her disposal to remove humans from the top of the food chain. These are all excellent in their own right, penned by Reyes and numerous other contributors like David Kerekes (author of Killing For Culture), Kier-La Janisse (author of House of Psychotic Women), and Lee Gambin (regular contributor to Fangoria magazine among others). And if the entirety of the book was presented in this format, it would still be a top-notch publication with plenty of info to offer the sort of nutbag who devours these things whole.
But the true star of the show is the enormous Reviews section, broken down by categories, which list hundreds of these silly, schlocky, sometimes scary, sometimes surprising low-budget treasures. While the essays are great and cover a wide variety of topics, it's this section to which you will return again and again like an addict seeking a fix, in search of the next film in what will become a maddening and obsessive hunt.
See, with other film review guides, you're pretty much assured that you can lay your hands on a physical copy of the movie in question. Depending on the film's age and who owns the rights to it, that might mean hauling the VCR out of the attic and out-bidding some other schlub for the tape via online auction, or it could mean a quick search on your favorite streaming service, but virtually every movie released to theaters in the last thirty years has received its own subsequent distribution on home video.
Not so when it comes to the made-for-TV crowd. That's not to say some of these pictures haven't found a second life through the DVD bargain bin or even the occasional A-list treatment -- 1985's The Rape of Richard Beck, for instance, got a DVD release in 2004 courtesy of Kreative Digital Entertainment under the Steven Seagal-esque title, "Deadly Justice" and pretty much every Stephen King made-for-television film or mini-series got a later video release thanks to name recognition alone -- but for the most part, these movies were the very definition of limited-run. The network made them, broadcast them once, then promptly forgot about them because they had eleven other films to get in the can that year. So if you weren't at home and in front of your television at 9pm Saturday evening October 24th, 1981 with the station tuned to CBS (or didn't own a VCR you could program), then you missed Dark Night of the Scarecrow because they weren't likely to broadcast it again.
In fact, an awful lot of the movies discussed in the book exist now only within the confines of the viewers' memories, or courtesy of some enterprising individual who dumped a thirty year old VHS tape on to YouTube and has thusfar avoided a copyright strike. That's an awful state for such an enormous segment of TV history, but more and more studios are becoming aware of the value of these relics, along with their potential revenue-generating possibilities. The aforementioned Dark Night of the Scarecrow, for example, got the Blu-Ray treatment back in 2012, and is currently available for viewing through Amazon's Prime video service.
Are You in the House Alone? is a time capsule, documenting a decades-long period of recent history which, nevertheless, remains mostly forgotten or ignored today. For weirdos like me though, its cover price provides an E-ticket ride through a dusty, neglected corner of cinema which nevertheless teems with fascinating, alluring, cheesy, and surprising attractions I guarantee you're young enough to have never heard of before, or old enough to have forgotten all about.
Or maybe, like me, you have your own special brand of childhood trauma nightmare fuel you remember from the small screen. No promises, but Are You in the House Alone? might help you find it so you can confront it again and put it back in the past where it belongs.
Jim Thomsen's review captures one hundred percent of the nostalgia, excitement, and fun which fuels this trip through the neglected back-waters of TV-Land in a way that only someone who lived through all of it (and who is also a professional writer, I might add) can.
The bit about living through it all is important. Being forty-three, I remember an awful lot of the things Reyes and her cadre of co-conspirators chronicle here. When you get your start in 1977 but the book goes back to 1964...well, you can see the problem, right? My earliest television memories are of things that happened in the early 80's. I can remember quite well the stir of everyone wondering "Who shot J.R.?" that summer. I remember the early years of the USA Network, the birth of Up All Night, the antics of Joe Bob Briggs, and countless network promos for movies shot especially for ABC, NBC, and CBS.
But I was a few years too late to catch the inaugural showing of Home For the Holidays with Sally Field, Walter Brennan, and Jessica Walter. I missed the premiere of Horror At 37,000 Feet by four years. Satan's School For Girls had stopped admitting new students by the time I came around. Jim, though? He was there from the get-go, and that's a voice well worth listening to when it comes to a topic like TV movies pre-Y2K.
Seriously, go read Jim's review. I'll wait.
* * * * *
Back? OK, my turn.
Television scares and I go back a long way. I had quite the over-active imagination as a child, so even something as innocuous as a jump scare could send me over the edge into terror. I have vivid memories of my mom racing to cover my eyes when a TV spot promoting a new horror film like Alien or Halloween II came on the tube, because otherwise I'd work myself into an inconsolable mess for ten minutes, then continue to dwell on what I'd just seen (or what I thought I'd just seen) all night when laying in bed.
In fact, one of the scariest things I had ever personally witnessed on television haunted me for literal decades until I uncovered the secret. All I could remember was a room engulfed in flames, a wall of stuffed animals coming to life and screaming in pain as the fire touched them, and a girl crying out as she watched toy soldiers marching towards her through the flames while their heads explode one by one. I saw this horrifying sequence while sitting in the living room of my grandparents' house when I was around nine years old, and it's never left my memory. It's my personal example of "nightmare fuel", and I was forty-one years old when I finally found out that sequence came from the rerun of an episode of Fantasy Island from 1978 entitled, appropriately enough, "The Nightmare".
Here's the exact clip, in case you want to have trouble sleeping tonight:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ph5B...
TV Nightmares and I are good buddies is what I'm getting at, and I've made it my business now that I'm older to experience all the awful things which traumatized me at such a young age. I said I was older, not necessarily wiser.
So when I saw Are You in the House Alone?, I knew I had to snap it up. After all, what better way to learn about all the potential traumas I missed out on by virtue of not having been born yet, right?
* * * * *
Made-for-television movies hold a morbid kind of fascination for me. I feel like their limitations on budget and what FCC regulations would permit always forced them to over-promise and under-deliver. These weren't traditional cinema fare pared down both for commercial breaks and to excise sex, violence, and foul language from the print, no. These were specially produced for the small screen and came pre-fitted with ad slots and a lack of anything too objectionable. And yet, they often covered topics apropos of the day, whether that was the mutually-assured destruction pacts of the Cold War immortalized in movies like The Day After, child abuse in daycare facilities (Do You Know the Muffin Man?), the Satanic Panic which helped launch Tom Hanks' career courtesy of Mazes & Monsters, or the always-topical issues of sexual assault (Don't Touch My Daughter), alcoholism (The Boy Who Drank Too Much), kidnapping (The Abduction of Kari Swenson), obscene phone calls (The Secret Night Caller), vampires preying on the innocent (Kolchak: The Night Stalker), natural disasters (Meteor), animals on the rampage (Tarantulas: The Deadly Cargo), technology gone berserk (Killdozer), or people secretly living under your house (Crawlspace).
The front third of the book consists of individual chapters about specific genres or types of pictures which present an overview of a particular point in TV movie history, whether it's the arrival and demise of the USA World Premiere Movie, a rundown of Stephen King's prolific made-for-TV ouvre, a look at the rape-revenge and rape-response films decade by decade, or an essay about all the means nature had at her disposal to remove humans from the top of the food chain. These are all excellent in their own right, penned by Reyes and numerous other contributors like David Kerekes (author of Killing For Culture), Kier-La Janisse (author of House of Psychotic Women), and Lee Gambin (regular contributor to Fangoria magazine among others). And if the entirety of the book was presented in this format, it would still be a top-notch publication with plenty of info to offer the sort of nutbag who devours these things whole.
But the true star of the show is the enormous Reviews section, broken down by categories, which list hundreds of these silly, schlocky, sometimes scary, sometimes surprising low-budget treasures. While the essays are great and cover a wide variety of topics, it's this section to which you will return again and again like an addict seeking a fix, in search of the next film in what will become a maddening and obsessive hunt.
See, with other film review guides, you're pretty much assured that you can lay your hands on a physical copy of the movie in question. Depending on the film's age and who owns the rights to it, that might mean hauling the VCR out of the attic and out-bidding some other schlub for the tape via online auction, or it could mean a quick search on your favorite streaming service, but virtually every movie released to theaters in the last thirty years has received its own subsequent distribution on home video.
Not so when it comes to the made-for-TV crowd. That's not to say some of these pictures haven't found a second life through the DVD bargain bin or even the occasional A-list treatment -- 1985's The Rape of Richard Beck, for instance, got a DVD release in 2004 courtesy of Kreative Digital Entertainment under the Steven Seagal-esque title, "Deadly Justice" and pretty much every Stephen King made-for-television film or mini-series got a later video release thanks to name recognition alone -- but for the most part, these movies were the very definition of limited-run. The network made them, broadcast them once, then promptly forgot about them because they had eleven other films to get in the can that year. So if you weren't at home and in front of your television at 9pm Saturday evening October 24th, 1981 with the station tuned to CBS (or didn't own a VCR you could program), then you missed Dark Night of the Scarecrow because they weren't likely to broadcast it again.
In fact, an awful lot of the movies discussed in the book exist now only within the confines of the viewers' memories, or courtesy of some enterprising individual who dumped a thirty year old VHS tape on to YouTube and has thusfar avoided a copyright strike. That's an awful state for such an enormous segment of TV history, but more and more studios are becoming aware of the value of these relics, along with their potential revenue-generating possibilities. The aforementioned Dark Night of the Scarecrow, for example, got the Blu-Ray treatment back in 2012, and is currently available for viewing through Amazon's Prime video service.
Are You in the House Alone? is a time capsule, documenting a decades-long period of recent history which, nevertheless, remains mostly forgotten or ignored today. For weirdos like me though, its cover price provides an E-ticket ride through a dusty, neglected corner of cinema which nevertheless teems with fascinating, alluring, cheesy, and surprising attractions I guarantee you're young enough to have never heard of before, or old enough to have forgotten all about.
Or maybe, like me, you have your own special brand of childhood trauma nightmare fuel you remember from the small screen. No promises, but Are You in the House Alone? might help you find it so you can confront it again and put it back in the past where it belongs.
February 11, 2020
When this book was announced, I was extremely enthused and eagerly awaited publication. Would I finally resolve a decades old torment - the name of a film, seen in early childhood on the ITV Murder, Mystery And Suspense strand, about a man who has recurring dreams of his own death? Having read the finished product, I was somewhat disappointed. I feel this book is a major missed opportunity, since i don't expect the subject of TV movies will receive similar treatment again. A far from definitive volume, there is no encyclopedic listing of TV movies with synopses and reviews. The essays are variable, of a generally good standard, but the subjects selected feel well worn to me. The essay concerning The Day After and Testament particularly struck me as perfunctory and I have read much more enlightening coverage elsewhere. There is a great deal of writing on the subject all over the net - perhaps the ephemeral, anecdotal - almost folkloric - nature of the TV movie more naturally lends itself to web analysis. TV movies are like the repressed memories of a generation. A site like Kindertrauma was well suited to dredging up distant memories of Bad Ronald, the infamous Trilogy of Terror and suchlike. But that feels like a cop out. There is no single resource devoted solely to the subject, nor an examination of the strange nature of the phenomenon - neither film nor episodic TV show, like island of mutations adrift on the viual flotsam. Weirdly, from the censorious constraints and demands of television production, come some indelibly weird and disturbing visions. It would have been a nice touch to organise the book chronologically. As the TV movie originated in and was predominantly an American phenomenon, it would have been interesting to arrange the contents into sections according to President, maybe with an official White House portrait (or not) of the C-in-C in question. So the TV movie begins with LBJ, an era that includes Don Siegel's The Killers, infamously refused a TV showing and given a theatrical release. It's the pictures getting smaller: the President becomes a media character as surely as the so-called Silver Screen's dimensions are reduced and domesticated for home consumption. The book is readable and for those new to the subject, or simply not as geeky as me, it will prove very informative. By the way, the title I was looking for was The Deadly Dream (1971), with Lloyd Bridges - not included in this volume!
October 23, 2022
An excellent compilation of (Mostly) genre tve movies and articles which highlights the importance of these, many times, reviled productions.It will help you to remember and discover dozens of important movies not usually pointed inthe nostalgia forums, but not for that, less interesting.
I've discovered this book in the "Eli Roth's history of horror" documentary series, where Amanda Reyes was invited to, so kudos to the ol' good Eli for that.
A very, very interesting handbook, any fans of sci fi or horror cannot miss.
I've discovered this book in the "Eli Roth's history of horror" documentary series, where Amanda Reyes was invited to, so kudos to the ol' good Eli for that.
A very, very interesting handbook, any fans of sci fi or horror cannot miss.
December 18, 2021
A look back at all the TV movies and after school specials you may have grown up watching from the good, the weird, and the Bad Ronald.
A fun and informative trip down memory lane. If you remember any of these or have a fondness for that period this is a well done overview of that time in TV history.
A fun and informative trip down memory lane. If you remember any of these or have a fondness for that period this is a well done overview of that time in TV history.
February 1, 2020
Fun book for browsing, 1970s nostalgia and learning things you never knew about the career arcs of Andy Griffith and William Shatner.
February 24, 2021
I regret buying this book new. There are several essays, none of which are likely to be insightful to those who grew up watching tv movies in the 70s/80s, and I suspect most of the "research" was cobbled from online resources. However, what was most grating for me were the reviews, too many of which were written in that particular tone we too often find on blogs or amateur reviews >>Goodreads<< which tries hard to be fun, dramatic, or cute, but only succeeds in making us feel kind of embarrassed for its writer, or in my case, extremely annoyed.
I would recommend a much better book to those interested in the subject, Television Fright Films of the 1970s by David Deal.
I would recommend a much better book to those interested in the subject, Television Fright Films of the 1970s by David Deal.
June 11, 2017
An essential tome that does the lord's work by examining, uncovering, and parsing the wheat from the chaff re: the unknowable and infinite library of TV movies - many of which have yet to receive any kind of official, home video release.
I anticipate I'll be returning to this often, and the writing - especially the essays covering sub-genres of TV films - is exceptionally perceptive at every turn.
I anticipate I'll be returning to this often, and the writing - especially the essays covering sub-genres of TV films - is exceptionally perceptive at every turn.
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December 22, 2019Fun look at genre TV films. Given I was exactly the right age when they aired, these were pretty much my gateway to horror/thrillers. The book jogged my memory about a whole slew of TV films I hadn't seen in decades. I'll note that a many are available for viewing on YouTube, but largely in rather ragged form. ("Isn't It Shocking?" is a good place to start--definitely a cut above the norm.)
March 27, 2018
Ahhh. Memories memories memories. Late night popcorn and guilty pleasures. they don't makes movies like these anymore.
October 31, 2020
If you are my age and you are still having nightmares about the Zuni fetish doll featured in Trilogy of Terror, or the slow motion Gargoyles, from the movie of the same name, or just really have a thing for Roy Thinnes, then this is the book for you! If you have seen my movie check ins on FB and wonder to yourself- where the hell does he find this stuff, the answer is- this book!
If you are a fan of horror and the supernatural I highly recommend you read this book. If you are a fan of horror and the supernatural and have a campy, gay sensibility and love watching Hollywood Diva’s like Bette Davis, Gloria Swanson, or Anthony Perkins in B made for TV movie bliss- then you absolutely have to read this book.
Readers of Arts Journal! and long-time friends know that film criticism is my true love and some of these essays remind me of the type of writing I was doing in college for my film classes. Back when I still hand dreams of a life in Hollywood. The opening of the book is a collection of essays that discuss several of the films grouped together based on a genre or political or social movement. This is the best part of the book for me! The second half of the book consists of reviews of the films grouped by decade and although many do draw in comparisons to other films like the one being reviewed, these are mostly stand alone reviews lacking the depth of the opening essays.
Amanda Reyes is the editor and major contributor to the book. Her essays and reviews are my favorite, because no matter how terrible of a turkey she is reviewing, she still finds some merit in the work.
If you are a fan of horror and the supernatural I highly recommend you read this book. If you are a fan of horror and the supernatural and have a campy, gay sensibility and love watching Hollywood Diva’s like Bette Davis, Gloria Swanson, or Anthony Perkins in B made for TV movie bliss- then you absolutely have to read this book.
Readers of Arts Journal! and long-time friends know that film criticism is my true love and some of these essays remind me of the type of writing I was doing in college for my film classes. Back when I still hand dreams of a life in Hollywood. The opening of the book is a collection of essays that discuss several of the films grouped together based on a genre or political or social movement. This is the best part of the book for me! The second half of the book consists of reviews of the films grouped by decade and although many do draw in comparisons to other films like the one being reviewed, these are mostly stand alone reviews lacking the depth of the opening essays.
Amanda Reyes is the editor and major contributor to the book. Her essays and reviews are my favorite, because no matter how terrible of a turkey she is reviewing, she still finds some merit in the work.
September 6, 2024
The real emphasis here is on the 1970s — the absolute heyday of the made-for-television movie — and to a lesser degree the 1980s. Lifetime tv movies (aka ‘women’s films’) get short shrift, but perhaps that is a topic meriting its own book. I have felt, increasingly moreso with time, that the 1970’s was the most interesting decade for motion pictures. I’ve slowly been working through viewings of many films from this period, and realized from another book I read that there was a wealth of made-for-television movies which I’d never heard of, and which merited my attention.
Thus, a deep dive into the vintage telefilm. As a direct result of reading this, and compiling a list of must-views, I’ve now watched several older films that — while not masterpieces — I found to be very entertaining, like “The Devil’s Daughter”, “Someone’s Watching Me” (John Carpenter’s first film!), “Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark”, and “The Initiation of Sarah”. If you’re into 70’s films, you owe it to yourself to check this book out and compile your own list… Much to my surprise, many of these are now available on Blu Ray and DVD! Although several aren’t, the miracle of YouTube has resulted in several posting variable-quality streaming versions of those movies, as well.
Thus, a deep dive into the vintage telefilm. As a direct result of reading this, and compiling a list of must-views, I’ve now watched several older films that — while not masterpieces — I found to be very entertaining, like “The Devil’s Daughter”, “Someone’s Watching Me” (John Carpenter’s first film!), “Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark”, and “The Initiation of Sarah”. If you’re into 70’s films, you owe it to yourself to check this book out and compile your own list… Much to my surprise, many of these are now available on Blu Ray and DVD! Although several aren’t, the miracle of YouTube has resulted in several posting variable-quality streaming versions of those movies, as well.
March 22, 2018
Wonderful look into the TV movie past
If you’re anything at all like me, then please get yourself checked. Afterwards, you may want to look into this fun book which is exactly what it claims to be: a compendium of TV movies from the 1960’s to 1999. The book first approaches the movies by general genres before offering a long list of, and review of, individual films. Though there were films created in many genres, the thriller (be it horror or mystery or the fantastic) seemed one of the most popular and therefore many of the films listed lean this way. Among the greats, such as Steven Speilberg’s seminal Duel or the stunning Trilogy of Terror get their due along with other (many other) more forgotten works, some of which deserve rediscovery, if only for the “I can’t believe s/he’s in a film like this” cast.
Highly recommended even if all you’re looking for is a blast from the nostalgic past.
If you’re anything at all like me, then please get yourself checked. Afterwards, you may want to look into this fun book which is exactly what it claims to be: a compendium of TV movies from the 1960’s to 1999. The book first approaches the movies by general genres before offering a long list of, and review of, individual films. Though there were films created in many genres, the thriller (be it horror or mystery or the fantastic) seemed one of the most popular and therefore many of the films listed lean this way. Among the greats, such as Steven Speilberg’s seminal Duel or the stunning Trilogy of Terror get their due along with other (many other) more forgotten works, some of which deserve rediscovery, if only for the “I can’t believe s/he’s in a film like this” cast.
Highly recommended even if all you’re looking for is a blast from the nostalgic past.
June 26, 2018
Very interesting review of films shown during what were labeled "Movie of the Week" back in the 60s, 70s and 80s, but this book also includes movies on channels like HBO and Showtime as well as Lifetime. I really enjoyed reading about the older movies as I remembered so many of them. Gives the background and information on the cast and the date the movie aired. A real retro ride through television when we had only 12 channels, but the quality was so much better. While some of the movies were forgettable, the author uses so much humor and perspective that it actually makes you want to check even some of the bad ones out. I caught one on YouTube that I did not remember and it was, as the author said, quite eerie with a very scary ending. Good book to keep as a reference as well.
October 3, 2022
Amanda Reyes has done movie fans a great service in putting together a much-needed volume on TV movies, which should no longer be considered a step-child of theatrical releases, but their own unique category, especially those features from the '60s through the '80s. So many (including myself) grew up with TV movies, which didn't require us to leave the house and were free. The limitations of TV movies were disappointing to young audiences eager for action, adventure, horror, and crime stories that matched those of the big screen, but we found that those same limitations offered up a vast array of creativity and invention. Seek this book out!
January 24, 2019
It's nice that there's a resource on this subject which is an often neglected corner of cinema. I thought this book leaned a little to heavily in the genre film direction. That's not a big problem. The scope of the subject is so large that you have to figure out how to carve a manageable piece. It does, however, mean that the book has a chapter on TV miniseries and it doesn't discuss "Roots", "Shogun" or any of the other giants in this area.
January 15, 2024
I enjoyed this for the most part. Reads as an interesting and very thorough guide to a lot of television movies from the 1960s to the '90s, and you can tell those involved writing the essays and reviews put in a lot of research and love behind this project. I've added a few things to my eventual watchlist as a result and I appreciated this.
September 28, 2019
This is a great resource for obscure films. It led me to a TV movie where William Shatner plays a priest on a possessed plane. So that was bliss. It’s not really a sit down and read book but it’s a fantastic reference
September 16, 2017
This was a fun book. Loved these movies from when I was a kid. Paced nicely and great film criticism. Subject was treated with great respect
August 2, 2019
It was an interesting read
March 27, 2021
Wonderfully informative. I'd have read 1000 pages of reviews if I could
December 3, 2018
Fun, thoughtful, and insightful TV movie criticism featuring work from some of my favorite fringe film writers like Uncle Lancifer from Kindertrauma and Kier-La Jannisse from Spectacular Optical. Recommended for fans of Paperbacks from Hell by Grady Hendrix.
I have to mention that the bookseller who sold this to me fell into a reverie about Ron Howard's 'nerds form a band' TV movie Cotton Candy, which he told me he loved at the age of 9.
I have to mention that the bookseller who sold this to me fell into a reverie about Ron Howard's 'nerds form a band' TV movie Cotton Candy, which he told me he loved at the age of 9.
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