Demon in Lace (1975)

It was Gerta who said, we love girls for what they are. Well, even a great Gerta could have learned something from the tale that took place on the campus of Illinois State Tech May ten to eleven or two. Don Whine of the school star running back in Candidate for All American was off for a drive. Don never didn't make All Americans. That was the voice of reporter Carl Kolchak with the case that we call Demon in Lace, directed by Don Weiss.

This episode was released originally February seventh, nineteen seventy five. I am Mike White with me as always is mister Chris Stashe. You can call me the Demon in Lace Chris. Everyone wants to know what did you think of the Demon in Lace episode. I think it's nice to finally be watching colecheck from nineteen seventy five, that's for sure.

It's like a palette cleanser. I think it's an interesting episode. I think the effects are special. It's one of these things where when we talk about the show, we really have to put ourselves in the time it came out, but at the same time remove the nostalgia goggles that many of us have when watching this show. My big takeaway with this episode of the show is that there are a lot of great character actors.

There are a lot of great performances. There's a lot of great interaction with Cole Check and Jack Grinnage and Vincenzo and Miss Emily. The main story is kind of secondary to my enjoyment of the episode though. As far as the main story, I found it to be really super solid this time around. I had a lot of fun watching Demon and Lace.

Yeah, it's it's you know, it's it's fun. It's solid. It doesn't really go and do anything crazy or out of the box or nuts, but it's fun. It's pretty straightforward, and you know, it kind of checks all the boxes at this point of what my expectations are when we think about Cole Check to Night Soccer. We've got some great sexes here with Colchack just humiliating the female reporter.

You shut up women. Oh my god, I am out lost it. I fucking almost lost it, man. I was like, this is boy, this has not aged well at all. Yikes.

Man. So this episode takes place at a college campus and there are a series of deaths where we find that these hunky young gentlemen are being killed. I'm not really sure how they're being killed. Are they really having heart attacks? Something is happening to them.

It is not made clear to us what that is, but they keep saying it's a heart attack. Something's happening to these guys. But the real story is that the women that are with these guys are dead. So we've got a little bit of a zombie thing going on here. The women die in various ways, but they are also more than just dead.

They are reanimated corpses from a spear it from Mesopotamias from long time ago, and this spirit is going around killing all of these guys who are involved with Professor c Evans Spate, who's played by Andrew Pryne and Andrew pryn Man. He is rocking that ascot like nobody's business. He really rocks it, and he really makes it work. He makes it work, that's for sure. He actually literally makes it work because he gets to pull it off at one point and cover his mouth with it.

He uses it for a purpose other than just looking like a dork, which he totally looks like a dork. Yeah, you know, he was kind of like looking at pictures of Peter Bogdanovitch and he's like, I could do this, Yeah, I could do this. I appreciate in this episode that there are so many weird side characters. It's there's a lot more here than there normally. Are I really like that.

I think that that's really cool and like that they all kind of have a purpose and they don't really feel some of the episodes that we've seen it's like, Okay, sure, here's x y Z, you know, guest actor on the show, And like, I didn't feel that way about this episode. I was so happy to see Keenan Wynn come back as Captain Joe mad Dog Siska. That was fantastic. Very angry man. Really, that name, the name says it all.

He is very very mad. He is a very madman, like he is content to make Colchak's life a living hell. So I have to say, those conversations that he and the coroner have, they are just information dumps, like crazy, and Colcheck is always there to listen in or try to record these things. And I'm just like, guys, you might want to like talk about that back at the office, maybe just a little, just a lot of it, huh, give us as much exposition as humanly possible, because that's what we really want to know is just give us all the exposition right here, right now. It's a little dorky, right, it feels like a lesser show, which, like, let's be honest here, this show has its fair number of problems, but the exposition dumping has kind of always been something that I just kind of overlook because like whatever, it's a show from the seventies, like there, you know, my expectation with the show is not that they're going to really have some high idea of writing, if that makes sense, right, And as far as like what the mystery is, it's really not that much of a mystery to anybody.

I mean, oh god, no, Carl figures it out pretty quickly, gets a little help maybe from miss Emily kind of like helps crystallize something. She's not like his, like his Wilson to house or anything, or her she's not Watson to his homes. But the whole thing with the crossword puzzle, I think kind of helps out some stuff. Well, and again, let's be honest here, I think, at least for me, and I don't know how you feel about this, Like one of the reasons I love this show so much is the back and forth between Vincenzo, miss Emily, and Cole check and when they're all firing on the same cylinder, like it's so good. It is so good, Like those interactions with the three four of them in the office is just it's fantastic, right yeah, And this whole thing where we get to find out that Vincenzo want a talent contest and he did an amazing version of stomping at the Savoy and it's just like, yeah, give me more of this stuff or right like he wasn't even saying he's like a drummer or no oh yeah yeah, Like again, it's further fleshing out this character in a way that like felt it felt it felt realistic, like it didn't feel like they were really reaching.

It felt a little weird knowing where his character is now, but like I liked it. It's it's great, you know, giving these characters something to do. It is more than Kimby said for the reboot, the two thousand and six reboot that seemingly has no idea what to do with the characters at all, right, where we didn't even see their Vincenzo in the last episode, maybe even two episodes. Who knows their Vincenzo might as well not exist because he is just a completely They have a Vincenzo in there because they need to have Vincenzo. And I've been reading this book, this X Files book that talks about every single episode of the show, like critically, and they make a very interesting point in there that relates to coal Check.

This show and the reboot is the rebooted version of coal Check wasn't trying to emulate coal Check. They were just trying to remake The X Files, and it very much feels that way. And when you watch this original version of the show where it got lost in translation, is weird to me because this version of the show is about coal Check. That's it's very much his show. Darren mcavan's performance really is what you signed up for.

It's what keeps us coming back every week even if I wasn't watching it for this podcast. And he's great in this episode once again, even when he's being a sexist dick. It was almost fun watching him be a sexist dick in this episode because we knew it was coming. And the reporter, she doesn't necessarily get to her come upance of him. You know, she doesn't get his goat, but I like that she left him abandoned at the gas station.

I was like, Okay, this works. There's problems with shows that were made in the seventies watching them now, and I don't think that I'm the first person or the last person to feel that way, but you know, it is kind of what it is. It was made at a different time, and rut Row, you could get away with acting like an asshole to women on TV, and that's kind of what happens in this show. And we've seen that throughout the show. I mean, this isn't the first time, no, god no, not by any like stretch of the imagination is the first time.

It's really not. You mentioned some of the side characters as supporting actors, and I was very happy to see Jackie Vernon show up and here as a coach to me and his whole thing about the young men who have not treated their bodies as well as they could, basically that they all have the clap from running around being with our areos. And I don't necessarily understand the tuna fish thing, but I was going to ask you if you understood it, because I have no idea what the hell is going on? No, I don't. Did you recognize Jackie Vernon in this?

I didn't, But should I have? I grew up watching all of the Ranking Bass cartoons and Claymation things that they were doing stop motion animation things. Jackie Vernon is the voice of Frosty the snow Man, So as soon as I hear the voice, I don't even look at the face, but I hear Frosty the Snowman every single time. And then it was a real shocker to me when I watched the Microwave Massacre from I think it was like eighty three or something like that, and he plays pretty much a vicious killer in there, So it was very disconcerting for me to see Frosty the snow Man being this murderer in there. Yeah, I didn't recognize him.

And also, dirty little secret about my stuff, I don't like those Ranking and Bass movies or the TV specials or whatever you want to interpret the mess. It's one of those things that like, I know that there are a lot of people your age and my age that really had this like affinity for them, and I just I can't get behind him. I just don't like him. Different strokes, different folks. It's just cheesy, you know, like it's cheesy and it's like almost cheesy for cheesiness's sake, which I mean a lot of people really like that.

It's just I know, I'm a weirdo. Sorry, I'm sure you recognize the registrar though that cole Chak tries to bamboozle those played by Carolyn Jones. I can, like, I feel like I should. Well, normally isn't blonde. Yeah, she normally has long black hair and she's usually wearing a very form fitting dress.

Yes, okay, yeah, because she was more Titia Adams. Right, I did recognize her, but like again, it was like so fast, right, it was such a quick kind of it wasn't like you know what I mean, Like she she shows up and then she's gone. It's not like Jackie Burnon where they get this like really long drawn out conversation. Yeah. I wish that she had a little bit more myself.

That's the thing about this show that is so much fun is going back and getting to see all of these like actors, these really big actors from the seventies and getting to see kind of like, this is what it's like then being in these shows and seeing these like big character actors from the seventies and late sixties in a show that's like, you know, kind of like The X Files for them, except if this had been The X Files and they had been guesting in the show, they would have been murdered, because that's what happened to like all the guests and the X Files, they were like either they were the bad guy or they were murdered. What about Alex Trebek, Jose chungs, let's not even this is not the podcast for that.

That's so good. That episode of the show is perfect TV writing. Alex Trebeck makes that, and then you've got the Governor of Minteoda as well with his ponytail. But that's why I love this show is because it has that thing to it where it's like they're really utilizing these character actors in ways that make sense and don't feel that don't feel like ham fisted. I will admit the old guy who's trying to sell Colchack magazines who Colecheck eventually steals all of his books from him.

That guy, Milton Parsons is the actor's name. He was in like one hundred and fifty some things. I know I've seen him in things before, but I sure didn't recognize that guy. But he had a great face. But at the same time, like his character, that bit was like a little like I was kind of like, let's just get to the end.

At that point. His character, it was a it was a little kind of like okay, like he's fallen asleep and he's kind of like anarcaleptic, like okay, But the overall mystery of it, the whole idea of these women coming back from the dead being possessed by this spirit, I don't know. I just really enjoyed that. And then having Carl with his mortar and puzzle or whatever it is, his hammer breaking up yes, thank you, breaking up this Mesopotamian tablet, and Prince trying to stop him at first but eventually realizes that all kinds of weird shit is happening. I was like, Okay, this is good, and then it gets pushed over and breaks into a million pieces.

That woman that came in with the I can't remember if that was the Mike Thompson character. Of course, I latched onto his name because I've got a friend named Mike Thompson. But when she came in and was just laughing hysterically like that woman from the uh the fashion model episode the Trevy Collection, I was like, Wow, she's really going for it. Isn't she too bad about Mark Hanson? But with him gone, I don't need another assistant.

Life does go on. Michael Lucon I appreciate the opportunity. Good, okay for a start, why not go to the anthropology lab and get a copy of Quiet Hits Persua that Michael, where are your manners? Who is this incredibly beautiful creature I just met at the bookstore. She's really sum, isn't she Maria?

But please come in, professor, this is um. This is Maria Venegas. Wow, my pleasure. And then he goes like, stop acting like such a weirdo, like he even mentioned it I, which I thought was kind of like a fun little thing. It's like they're not gonna just hang a lantern on her being a weirdo, Like they're actually gonna like, you know, hey, you're fucking weird, Like you're freaking people out.

What are you doing? And there's so much sex in this episode, or implied sex. It's like that we open up with this woman stopping a car and that guy basically just like say, it's really it's kind of a really weird episode of the show because there's a lot of stuff going on that's like not what we're used to with the show. Also, the other thing is there are a lot of character actors, Like I keep coming back to it, like it feels like there's more than usual. I don't know, I felt like we got so many in Chopper that yeah, okay, it doesn't even phase me on this one.

I mean, I'm not complaining, but yeah, I forget kind of Chopper is like so inundated with like, oh, so many character actors. I'll tell you what, this is a much better episode than Chopper. I agree. If people were obsessed with this one as much as they were with Chopper, I'd get behind it. On It's like okay, yeah, this works for me.

Yeah, the obsession with Chopper just sure, go ahead, Chopper. I just don't get it because Chopper is not a good episode. If that opinion upsets you, it's my opinion, in my opinion alone, but Chopper is not a good episode. It is the effect. The effect alone spoils the episode.

At least, the effect in this episode is like not super distracting. It's kind of distracting, but at least it's not like Chopper, where it's clearly just a guy riding around with a motorcycle, like on a motorcycle, would like his like shirt has like the little see through like sheen black cloth so he can see out of it as there's like a fake like stump neck. So apparently part of this episode is going to be reused in the TV movie Demon and the Mummy. We'll have to watch that eventually to see how they kind of threw two episodes together and try to make it one TV movie, how they reappropriate parts of the episode we've already seen exactly and try to pass it off with something else. What a weird thing, What a weird thing to do?

Like that would not fly outside of like a clip show in twenty nineteen, right, Yeah, probably not. I can't really think of them doing that kind of stuff. But I mean, I remember years ago finding all of these quote unquote Planet of the Apes movies and Shaft movies, and I was like, what the hell is this them? They only made like the five Planet the Apes movies at the time they only made three Shaft movies. One are all these movies and only to find out that they were doing the same thing where they were taking two TV episodes and smashed them together.

I don't know if they were doing a linear thing with that and saying these two episodes go together, or if they were doing the same kind of patchwork that we're going to see with these Cold Check movies. It's honestly really disappointing that that is what we're going to get with Cold Check. Right, We're gonna get this like weird amalgamation amalgamation amalgamation thing where it's like, let's just kind of pick and choose from the other stuff and make it into something it's like, oh God, Like that's unfortunate. I can see it maybe working, like if they took all the scenes of the women seducing the men and then gave it a new voice over from Carl that they were I don't know, agents of Satan or something else, like a new context to it.

Yeah, exactly, maybe that'll work, but we'll have to see how it goes outside of the kind of goofy. And I don't know how you feel about it, but I felt like I felt like the effect on the succubus was a little goofy oh, the old woman makeup kind of thing. Yeah, where it's like crack face makeup, where it's like she's got like a cracked face. It's not as distracting as say the werewolf. I was really reminded of some Hong Kong movies from like the eighties when it came to that makeup effect.

It just looks like when like a Chinese hopping vampire gets exposed to sun or something, it's gonna look kind of fucked up like that. But yeah, as far as like a traditional effect, I mean it's it's uh, I mean, it's right up there with the last Coal Check two thousand and five that we saw. As far as the old woman kind of thing, it didn't really impress me as far as like, oh, this is a great special fact. It was just like, oh, this woman's kind of fucked up. You know.

At least we can see the monster in this episode. Some of the episodes of this show, some of the episodes of the reboot, we haven't even be able to see the monster. So at least we can see the monster. But sometimes maybe it's better to not I don't know. It's it's this weird thing with Colcheck where when they do the monsters, sometimes the monsters has just got awful and you're like, oh, I kind of wish that I didn't have to see the monster to begin with.

And then some of the episodes were like, oh, this is really cool, and like the monster is super cool, and then it's just the monster's design is really bad. Overall, I thought this was a pretty solid one. I thought it was a fun it's a fun episode, and again, like the premise is interesting that the amount of guests actors is just it's I would say, it's stunning how many people they fit into this episode and it and again it doesn't feel inherently like super shoehorned in and you know, yeah, I look the thing is like just like the X Files, just like Supernatural. The reason we come back to this show is because we like Darren McGavin's performance, and any amount of time I get to spend extra with Darren McGavin in the role as cold Check is good time.

As far as I'm concerned, it's good time and this delivers on that. So next month we will be back with another of the original col Check we'll be talking about Legacy of Terror, in which we get to see eric Ostrata playing like an Aztec priest of memory serves. Oh jeez, eric Astrata, mister nice man, eric Ostrata. Eric Ostrata is a eric Ostrata is one of my favorites. He's such a He's just great.

So it should be fun. Yeah, So I'm looking forward to that. I too, am looking forward to it. So, Chris, what have you been up to lately? Well, for me, we are doing some Stanley Kubrick films over at the culture Cast.

Mike, you have joined me on one The Killing and uh, you know we're not watching In two thousand and one or The Shining or Clockwork Orange. So if you've seen those movies like I have, but you haven't seen some of Stanley Kubrick's deeper cuts, even though he had like what ten movies, knows it Like, it's not Stanley Kubrick's filmography is not very deep, you know, Like there are like other directors like Spielberger, Scorsesey. Head on over to culturecast dot com where you can check out that episode and the rest of Stanley Kubrick Month and the rest of the podcast over there. Also, I do a little podcast with my good buddy Mike Wallace where we talk about tales from the Crypt. That podcast is called Chronicles from the Crypt and you can find that over at Chronicles FTC dot com.

What about you, Mike, what I've you been up to other than talking about Colchack, Well, other than talking about Colchack and talking about the twilight Zone eighty five, which you can find over at twilight Zone eighty five dot com, where I talk with you all the time. It's how it feels like we're talking all the time, Chris. I you know, it's not a bad thing, because I enjoyed talking with you, unless we're talking about twenty nineteens Twilight Zone, which we also talk about on that Twilight Zone podcast. I'm very curious to record the next episode of Dreams for Sale, just to see if we start touching more on that twenty nineteen show. If we're just going to leave it alone, I feel like we'd be doing a disservice to not talk about it a little bit more.

But at the same time, it's also not great, So it's also not very good, which is unfortunate. Well, other than talking with you all the time. I'm also doing a podcast called The Projection Booth, which you can find at projection boothpodcast dot com, where every week talking about a different movie or maybe even two. You never know. I'm kind of trixy like that, like a hobbit, you trixy like this serial.

So I want to thank everybody for listening. I want to thank John Walker for providing our theme music. And yeah, if you've given us a review over on iTunes, I haven't read it. I haven't gone over to see if we've even broken our five reviews that will actually possibly make a dent. Is that the thing?

Or is that like when you write a book for Amazon, that you had to have five reviews before they'll even start showing up. I don't know. I mean the books that I read on Amazon are like Chuck Tingle books, and those don't tend to have ratings because people are normally too embarrassed. I've read them. So have you read what was that Raptor has sex with Robert Muller report in the Butt?

I have not read that one, but I have read Bigfoot Butt Sammie, which is an actual title for a real book, and it is about Bigfoot eating someone's butt, and that guy almost wont to hugo. So we're clearly not doing anything right with our lives. So when he wins the rondo, call me. Well, when he wins a rondo, it still won't matter. So a campus security for us insisted on calling the Chicago Police press charges against me, but they found a sudden surprising resistance from doctor C.

Evans Spade, who claimed the tablet had been broken an accidental me and despite verification by a confused and frightened Michael Thompson and neither reporter Missus Rosalind Winters nor I had enough hard evidence to file a story, it had all turned to dust. However, a public story or not. I can only say to you that should you ever meet a young woman who seems just too lovely to be really of this world, we'll just remember him. It was a very good chance that she isn't a boat. It is a m h m hm