By Geno McGahee

Ray Bradbury brings us into the future when time travel is possible in the 1989 episode of THE RAY BRADBURY THEATER, “A SOUND OF THUNDER.” Eckles (Kiel Martin) is a wealthy big game hunter, looking for something new and exciting. He has conquered every world and heard of this program where you can be brought into the past and kill a dinosaur. He quickly signs up and is very excited, but has to deal with Travis (John Bach), the guide that is a complete hard ass. Travis has no interest in what Eckles is saying. When he tries to explain why he wants to do this, Travis quickly cuts him off. That is terrible customer service.

They enter a time machine and go back in time and Travis brought back up. He has a guy with a patch. I don’t know why so many of the 1980’s TV shows and films put guys in patches. This took place in the future. Surely, if they had the technology to go back in time, they had the technology to fix his vision. Perhaps he just wore the patch to get chicks, but you would think his time travelling would do the trick. Then again, I can’t remember Doc from BACK TO THE FUTURE getting much loving after he created his time machine.

The time machine lands and the group approach a giant T-Rex and even though it could have looked much better, it wasn’t all that bad for a made for TV sort of thing. Eckles freezes and can’t pull the trigger, leaving the group to finish the job. Travis isn’t happy with the overall trip, but at least he can go home and everything will be OK. Well, as we know, any little thing that you change in the past can have a butterfly effect for the future and they even pounded the point home, making the problem butterfly related.

The future is now full of complete idiots. So he probably ended up in our time. Travis is furious with Eckles and puts a gun to his head. (SPOILER) He splatters Eckles brains and now must figure a way to get things back to normal. He has a time machine. All he needs to do is go back, talk to his old self, have him kill Eckles before the trip, and then everything will be great. Killing Eckles when he did didn’t make a difference. It probably felt good, but it didn’t accomplish anything. Besides, Eckles was not educated enough on the trip. He signed up and before he knew it, he was armed and walking onto a time machine with a guy with a patch marching behind him. He was probably thinking that “the guy with the patch better not whip out his T-Rex in front of me or I’ll bite the thing off.”

A SOUND OF THUNDER is a little bit TOTAL RECALL and a little bit JURASSIC PARK, but obviously not as good as those films. The performances were strong in this and it was enjoyable. The idea of time travel has always been interesting to me, but I’ve never wanted to go back to the dinosaur days. I would drop in to the sixties with the hope to save the world from 70’s bush. Perhaps one day the technology will be there and I will be chosen for such things.

I recommend A SOUND OF THUNDER. It’s interesting and has its neat moments.

Rating: 5.5/10

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By Geno McGahee

“You want to get inside of me. Make me a part of you.” – John (Michael Sarrazin)

John Colt (Michael Sarrazin) has no interest in getting blown. None whatsoever. He is an expert when it comes to the weather and has dedicated himself to exploring it. Unfortunately, he has come face to face during a mountain climbing expedition with an evil wind and this wind now haunts him. Ray Bradbury may have been smoking something when he wrote this or just ran out of ideas, but I wanted to know how hard this guy got blown. So, I watched it through. Perhaps Ray Bradbury was being blown when he wrote this. I bet he was. I know he mentions a question at the beginning of every show. “Where do you get your ideas,” they ask. Not me. I figured this one out.

The winds blow hard against the house and John does what he can to keep it out. He puts up wood doors on the windows, which also helps with zombie invasions. He calls his good buddy, Herb (Ray Hendwood) and remarkably wants to speak to his wife, Susan (Vivienne Labone). Was he nailing Herb’s wife? I don’t think so, but why would he ask for the wife? Herb does all the talking as Susan takes jabs at poor John throughout.

The wind gets stronger and it begins to take a toll on John. When he sees that the wind has destroyed some of his work, he gets furious. He throws things, kicks things and stomps around the house. This was relatable. When we get those strong gusts of wind and the trash cans are knocked over and garbage goes everywhere, I stomp around and blame the wind too. Fucking wind.

Even though Susan dismisses John’s pleas as nonsense, Herb is very concerned. He keeps calling John back, but John is losing his mind. He is walking around, maniacally laughing, and he even gets so out of control that he throws his phone through the window. When he realizes that he has destroyed his connection to Herb, he looks at the broken wire and screams “No” three or four times. The overacting of Sarrazin was something special.

With no other options (spoiler alert), John decides that he is not going to be haunted anymore. He is going to hang himself in his basement and take the power away from the wind. Now, I know that wind can be a pain in the ass if you are into badminton, but wouldn’t it be nice in the fall or spring? I think that John wasn’t thinking about the great 50% of the year that he would be experiencing from this haunting. Also, all the leaves in his yard were probably blown into the neighbor’s yard. That’s less work for him. He is definitely a half empty sort of guy.

After John kills himself, Herb starts getting haunted by the wind and hears John’s voice, laughing. Why was he laughing? Was this wind tickling his balls? Bradbury left that up to us to decide, I guess. In the end, THE WIND isn’t a great episode, but it’s a good one. Had it not been for the over the top performance of Sarrazin, this would have easily been a stinker. He kept this tale alive and that was not easy to do, considering that he had to act alone and work with mediocre material. I recommend this one, but there are certainly much better ones out there.

Rating: 6.5/10

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By Geno McGahee

Ray Bradbury obviously had a hard on for carnivals. In 1983, he wrote SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES and that movie was terrible despite the fact that a carnival is the ideal setting for a horror movie. Seven years after that flick, perhaps Bradbury wanted to redeem himself with THE BLACK FERRIS, a tale about a carnival with many similarities to the movie, or he may have just run out of ideas.

Hank (Zachary Bennett), a young boy, has been sneaking into the shut-down carnival and spying on Mr. Cooger (Frank Whitton). Every night, Cooger takes a ride on the Ferris wheel and as it goes in reverse, he gets younger. I think we can all guess how this one will end. After he turns young, he visits an old woman and steals from her and then back to the Ferris wheel he goes to become old again.

Hank teams up with his friend, Pete (Nathaniel Moreau), to stop Cooger from stealing the jewelry from the old woman, and they plan to expose him for the fraud he is. You would think that a man that has a machine that makes him younger would not have to steal jewelry. Perhaps he could come up with a better plan. I imagine that the electricity to run the Ferris wheel night after night might be more value than the shitty jewelry he was able to take. Why didn’t he find some old rich guys and offer them youth in exchange for a mountain of money. Perhaps Bradbury was sniffing glue when he wrote this one.

The kids ambush the carnival and now Cooger is stuck on the Ferris wheel going in the normal direction, but this is how he gets older and now he is quickly changing to an old man and then eventually turning into a skeleton and dropping the bag of jewelry. How sad. All that trouble for maybe 200 bucks worth of jewelry. I wonder what Mr. Cooger was going to use that money for. Why did he need it so badly and why not just show up at the old lady’s house, punch her in the stomach and take it? Why go through all that fuss?

Outside of theft, Cooger didn’t do anything wrong. Did he deserve death for taking jewelry? I think not. The boys could have gone to the police and reported their findings and then let the authorities deal with him. They didn’t have to break his Ferris wheel and send him to death. I’m hoping that his buddy can still slam that thing into reverse and bring him back, but I’m not sure if it’s possible if he is dead.

THE BLACK FERRIS is a pretty neat tale, but this is another case of kids being rewarded for doing bad things. In another tale, a man moved into a boarding house and was killed by a kid after doing nothing wrong, but the kid was cheered on by the adults. Now we have two kids basically killing a guy for stealing, and I’m not sure that the old lady didn’t tell him that he could have the jewelry. Maybe he was going to take her on the Ferris wheel in exchange. Who knows? Freaking kids.

Rating: 7/10

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By Geno McGahee

I’m not a big fan of that futuristic wasteland sort of movie…the Mad Max stuff. So, maybe I would like this better if I was a fan of that look and that situation, but then again, I’m not sure if this is a wasteland or the future or what the fuck is happening. In the beginning of every episode, Bradbury says “people ask where do you get your ideas.” Well, here, in the tale called “A MIRACLE OF RARE DEVICE,” he got it from a pile of crap. If he was alive, I’d say it to his face.

Now, I am a fan of Bradbury, but after suffering through this mess, it’s fair to say that he could have done much better. Will (Wayne Robinson) and his friend, Robert (Pat Harrington JR) are on the road in a beaten up old truck with Ned (William Kircher), a biker, on their tail. They note that Ned always takes things from them and that they had to lose him before he did it again.

They lose Ned and come across a mirage. The mirage is different for both men, but they see the potential in profiting from it. They make a sign and begin charging passing cars for the chance to check out the mirage, but everyone sees something different. Ned gets wind of it, files some claim on the land, and is now in charge of it and begins trying to make that money, but the magic is gone. Everyone demands a refund and Will and Robert rejoice.

Will and Robert return to the scene after Ned storms away and reflect about life and that’s about it. What a terribly boring and meaningless tale this was. What the hell were you smoking Bradbury?

A MIRACLE OF RARE DEVICE is barely sci-fi without any horror elements. Usually, there is something in a Bradbury tale that is really enjoyable, even if the story isn’t that good, but not here. This is one of the tales that is not worth watching. It is terrible.

Rating: 1/10

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Ray Bradbury liked futuristic stuff, but I guess that makes sense. He was considered a sci-fi writer and a great deal of sci-fi stuff takes place in the future, but this was the 1980’s version of the future. I grew up in the 1980s and loved it and when I watch these shows and see their vision of the future. Remarkably, as with most futuristic stories, a lot of the science fiction becomes science fact, and in the 1989 episode of The Ray Bradbury Theater “THE VELDT”, you get that, but there is social commentary here that is truer today than it was back then when this first aired.

George (Malcolm Stewart) and his wife, Lydia (Linda Kelsey), are from a time in the future and they have a house that is run by a computer system. All they have to say is “open door” and the door opens, and their food is prepped by the same system. They have it made. It’s sort of like TOTAL RECALL or BACK TO THE FUTURE 2…where the computers have taken over and technology is so good that humanity has lost touch with what it means to be a living being. Nobody does anything anymore and that is a point of discussion with George and Lydia. They have lost touch with their kids and society because of this technology.

In the kids’ room, there is an adjustable theme and the focus of the children has been Africa, but it has been getting more real by the day. Somehow, it seems that what they see on the screen is intruding into reality, forcing George and Lydia to put their foot down. Peter (Damien Atkins), the oldest child of the two, and the younger Wendy (Shana Alexander), protest. Peter calls his dad by his name and is a total prick. Wendy is just following what her older brother tells her to do, but Peter is spoiled and will not listen to either one of his parents. In fact, he has a certain disdain for them and he does not hide it.

David (Thomas Peacocke), a family psychologist, advises the couple to shut off the house and live…to go outside and experience life beyond the technology, but there is a heavy price to pay when they shut down the home, leading to a predictable ending, but a good one nonetheless.

THE VELDT is a decent watch, but what I found most interesting was the obvious concern from Bradbury about the direction of the technology. He probably saw some dude walking down the street with a big boom box on his shoulder and said “oh my god. What if they make that smaller? Nobody will talk to anyone.” He was right. Technology has separated society as everyone is on their phones instead of mingling. At least with the 80’s boom box, you could stop them and say “what cassette tapes do you have for that? Anything from Cutting Crew?” Now people are in their own worlds and technology has moved along dramatically.

One thing I wanted to mention about this episode. At one time, they scan over to a set of TV sets and each one has an episode of the Ray Bradbury Theater playing. Jeez…this guy must have been full of himself. In his future, ONLY his show is playing. Dream on Bradbury.

I really did like this tale. It’s not a standout, but it’s absolutely worth a watch. I recommend it.

Rating: 6/10

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I get the sneaking suspicion that Ray Bradbury dealt with a lot of assholes in his rise to fame. After watching so many of his stories, there is a common theme. If the lead is a writer, which many of them are, they deal with somebody either totally dismissing them or outright telling them that they suck and to find a real job. Bradbury died before the term “haters” was first used, but he is laughing at the haters from the other side right now.

In Ray Bradbury Theater episode “THE FRUIT AT THE BOTTOM OF THE BOWL,” William Acton (Michael Ironside), is a struggling screenwriter, seeking the approval of Jerome Huxley (Robert Vaughn), but not only does he not receive that, he gets told in a frank way that he is a terrible untalented writer. Also, Huxley is nailing his wife too. That 1-2 punch of bad news is enough to send Acton over the edge.

Huxley challenges the failed writer to kill him, going as far as to put the gun in Acton’s hand and pointing it at his chest. He pulls the trigger but there are no bullets and Huxley begins laughing loudly at the spectacle. He made Acton look like an ass again and it felt so good, but Acton has had enough. An attack, a strangulation and we have a dead Huxley on the floor, but it’s not the perfect crime. What about the fingerprints?

The concern over leaving behind fingerprints consumes Huxley. He desperately wants to prove that he’s not a screw up and eventually stays inside the house for a lot longer than he should, desperately trying to remove all evidence. Unfortunately, he goes a little bit too far over the edge and loses his mind in the process, but at least he got rid of that mean Huxley.

THE FRUIT AT THE BOTTOM OF THE BOWL isn’t a great story and really doesn’t do anything remarkable. What make it good are the performances of both Michael Ironside and Robert Vaughn. Ironside has made a name for himself for playing a tough guy as he did in TOTAL RECALL and THE V: THE FINAL BATTLE, but here he shows his flexibility by playing a total worm, and he plays it very well. Vaughn just has that presence and brings it here, proving great contrast to the weak character of Acton. This was cast very well and these two could have worked with anything and made it good. I recommend this one.

Rating: 6/10

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What if you had a vampire living upstairs from you? What if that vampire did absolutely nothing wrong and was just on vacation? This tale really is about vampire hate and how it drove one troubled boy to commit murder. This Ray Bradbury Theater episode “THE MAN UPSTAIRS” is very odd and the ending doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. It just left me really sad.

Grandma (Micheline Presle) violently stabs a turkey and lets the guts fall out in front of her grandson, Douglas (Adam Negley). He asks if humans look like that and she laughs and proceeds to sew up the turkey for some reason. I have no clue why, but she did. Douglas probably shouldn’t be raised in that home. Grandma may be a few cards short of a deck.

Koberman (Feodor Atkine) comes into town and rents a room from Grandma and tells the family that he is there for recreation. He is mysterious and keeps to himself mostly, which attracts the interest of Douglas. How dare Koberman not be talkative!

Douglas has these binoculars that are either night vision or heat sensing or both and he uses them to spy on Koberman walking and somehow, they can see to his organs and reveal that he has different organs. It looks like he has two hearts, connected. Douglas, sneaks into the room of the guest and sees pictures of him from many different times, proving that he has not aged and has been around for a long time. He is not human. He is either a vampire or an alien, BUT he has done nothing wrong. He’s on fucking vacation!

With knife in hand, Douglas creeps up on the sleeping guest, and guts him, tearing out his double heart and then sewing him up like the turkey. OK, police, come and arrest this punk and throw the book at him! I’m waiting… Nope, they stand in awe of the corpse and note that the kid basically did a service. He killed a vampire or an alien or something and that is what we should do. Kill everything that is different. It’s no wonder why people hate police with shit like this being allowed to happen.

THE MAN UPSTAIRS is a curious tale. I felt so bad for Koberman. His only wrong was smashing the binoculars of that little shit, Douglas, but he promised to buy other ones. He was just protecting himself, and the end of this tale shows exactly why he had to. Koberman, RIP. You got a raw deal.

Rating: 7/10

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The year 1986 was a breakout year for Jeff Golblum as he starred in the horror film “THE FLY.” OK, maybe he didn’t capitalize on it as he should have, following up with movies like VIBES and EARTH GIRLS ARE EASY, but showing his great talent, his career survived those speed bumps and he’s a big star even now. On top of THE FLY, Golblum also starred in an episode of the Ray Bradbury Theater called “THE TOWN WHERE NO ONE GOT OFF.” That sounds like a town with a major problem.

Cogswell (Goldblum) is a writer and is sitting on a train with no destination in mind. He sits across from a salesman (Cec Linder) and begins discussing his dreams and ideas. He is quickly cut down and challenged by the salesman to actually do something rather than always talk. I think there is a lot of self-reflection in this episode for Bradbury. He may have had moments where he felt he was doing more talking and dreaming than doing or he may have just met a real big prick on a train. Either way, this episode seems to his close to home.

Accepting the challenge, Cogswell gets off the train in a random small town. The conductor notes that nobody gets off in that town, which makes it more of a challenge. He gets off the train and the town is quiet and almost seems abandoned. The attempts to enter businesses or to even mingle fail. Cogswell’s only interaction is with an old man (Ed McNamara). The old man begins following him and the discussion begins.

In a garage, the old man begins telling him about how he’s been waiting for this opportunity forever and that Cogswell getting off that train, a stranger, was fate. When Cogswell discovers the old man’s hidden agenda, things get intense and become a life or death battle where only the creativity of the writer will rescue him.

THE TOWN WHERE NO ONE GOT OFF isn’t great, but it’s worth a watch. Goldblum once again does a great job and his conversations with the old man are pretty interesting. There are a lot of Bradbury tales where he just misses the mark. It’s made for TV, but he has done intense made for TV episodes like GOTCHA. This one is just too tame. It’s a good Sunday watch and I still recommend it, but it provides little to no scares.

Rating: 6/10

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The 1980s was a big time for robots. There was a genuine fascination with them that led to many toy manufactures to create radio-controlled robots for the consumer. I remember wanting one, but my fat cousin got one instead. I never trusted him alone with that robot either, by the way. I’m just throwing that out there.

Ray Bradbury noticed the trend and incorporated robots into his episode THE COFFIN and brought in a robot expert in one of the lead roles. Dan O’Herlihy plays the role of “Charles Brailing,” but the horror community will remember him as Cochran from HALLOWEEN III: SEASON OF THE WITCH, a great film despite the “there’s no Michael Myers” complaints. Get over it people!

Charles is an inventor and has created some robot helpers, but his focus now is on a coffin for himself. His brother, Richard (Denholm Elliot), comes over for a visit and it’s obvious as to why he’s doesn’t come over often. Immediately, Richard shows his jealousy, insulting his older brother every chance he gets. He just begins tearing into Charles, telling him that he has no friends and his wife was right to leave him. Charles gets so angry that he drops dead.

The death brings much joy to Richard as he inherits the mansion and the money, but Charles has left something else for him. The coffin has a few tricks and the robots have an agenda. When Richard begins living in the house, he realizes that he may not have won this family feud.

THE COFFIN is a very good episode. It was great to see O’Herlihy working with robots again. He is at his strongest working with robots, in my opinion. You don’t believe me? Well he was also in ROBOCOP. So shove that up your robotic ass. I highly recommend this episode. It was great fun.

Rating :8/10

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By Geno McGahee

The Ray Bradbury Theater series is absolutely a mixed bag. There are some real scares and some very interesting, but not so scary, stories. Then there are tales like THE EMISSARY that wanted badly to be a straight drama but squeezed in a horror element to get it a pass. I had a feeling that they would do that as I sat through 23 minutes of the 25 minute show.

Martin (Keram Malicki-Sanchez) is a sickly kid that has only one friend…his dog named “dog.” The dog is let loose on the town and comes back with different things. It runs through flowers and comes back with some pieces of it. It brings back a bone and other things and Martin considers it an education of the outside world. I’m sure a lot of people were educated when they stepped into what the dog left behind. There are leash laws for a reason. This dog was nice enough but it has to shit somewhere and without a human carrying a shit bag, some poor soul is going to be walking and take a big step into it.

The thought is that if the dog can bring home flowers and bones, perhaps it could bring Martin some friends. This is before the internet and TO CATCH A PREDATOR. Martin makes a special dog tag for him and sends it out to look for friends, leading to sixth grade school teacher, Miss Haight (Helen Shaver). She follows the dog home and befriends Martin…and this is before all those teacher/student sex headlines. Amazingly, the mother of Martin lets the two speak and closes the door to give them privacy. Wow, have times changed. Then again these are times when parents trusted Boy Scout leaders and priests. A female teacher is small potatoes.

Haight keeps visiting and then one day, dies. At the 22 minute mark, she dies, and nothing has happened out of the ordinary. (SPOILERS) You’re going to make her a zombie, Bradbury, aren’t you? Yes, he does. The dog goes missing and returns the house, bringing back his best friend, Miss Haight. It’s a rip off. You only see the skeletal hand…nothing more. I’d like to see full zombie.

EMISSARY is watchable but the weak payoff at the end and dull trip there make this one a lesser in the series. I can’t blame Bradbury. This was the second season and he may have been short an idea or two and just said fuck it and threw a zombie into one of his non-horror tales. I still recommend it but it’s not one of the better ones.

Rating: 5/10

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