Editorials
[TV Terrors] Remember the 2002 Revival of “The Twilight Zone”?
Horror and science fiction have always been a part of the television canvas, and constant attempts have been made over the years to produce classic entertainment. Some have fallen by the wayside, while others became mainstream phenomena. With “TV Terrors,” we take a look back at the many genre efforts from the 80’s, 90’s, and 00’s, exploring some shows that became cult classics, and others that sank in to obscurity.
- Aired from 2002 – 2003
- Aired on UPN Network
Rod Serling’s “The Twilight Zone” has had a long and storied history on television with an iconic 1959 original run, and an acclaimed and highly regarded iteration from 1985. After the death of the anthology series in the early aughts, producers still hoped to mine some gold from the property with the 2002 iteration that aired primarily on the UPN Network. To say that last iteration is not well regarded is something of an understatement. In the breath of the first two “The Twilight Zone” runs, the 2002 version is often ignored, or jokingly dismissed as the failed launch for the new generation.
The show originally ran for forty four episodes on a prime time slot, so its chances of taking off were pretty slim, but the series itself garnered a line up of episodes that ranged from painfully mediocre to downright abysmal. Even the best episodes of the series will leave you shrugging with indifference and struggling to cherry pick the finer qualities. It’s a shame since Forest Whitaker does a pretty solid job as the narrator; he’s just a good actor stuck in a bad adaptation. 2002’s “The Twilight Zone” featured a slew of thirty minute episodes, all of which were either original works, or modernized remakes of a few of the classic episodes.
Among some of the notable episodes, there’s the ridiculous “Cradle of Darkness.” Answering the age old question “What if you could go back in time and kill Hitler as a baby?” we meet covert agents with the ability to travel through time. The female agent, as played by Katherine Heigl, is tasked with murdering baby Hitler, but soon finds it impossible to mix in, especially as she grows fond of the baby, and begins getting seduced by his father. The episode is goofy, and the plot twist is more of a groaner than anything else.
“Azoth the Avenger is a Friend of Mine” is one of the more comedic episodes, saved only by Patrick Warburton, who plays a Conan-like warrior whose been torn from the comics of young Craig who is being bullied and abused by his father. Rory Culkin stars in this considerably campy turn, looking as if he’s half asleep the entire time.
“Night Route” is one of the standout best episodes of the iteration but is bogged down by its muddy message about life or fate or… accepting fate? I don’t know. Ione Skye is a young girl with a great life who is nearly hit by a car while walking her dog. Soon she begins to notice a large black bus driving down her street every night that stops wherever she is. As she begins to figure out what’s going on, she realizes there’s another bit of horseplay afoot. The character figures out what’s going on halfway through the episode, but it’s a fine enough installment if you can forgive the confused moral of the story.
There’s also “The Monsters Are on Maple Street.” The original episode is one of my all time favorites, a wonderful play on McCarthyism and the lunacy of humanity. This new version is pretty much about post 9/11 hysteria and is about as subtle as a brick in the face. The better writer would have taken more ideas about xenophobia and the terrorist fright and ran with it to make it more about a society consuming itself, but here we’re presented with a slew of wholly unlikable characters and a new twist ending that’s both clunky and damn stupid.
There are also modern takes on “Eye of the Beholder,” “Nick of Time,” and “It’s a Good Life,” all of which are woefully misguided contemporary updates. You’d assume for a series that premiered on September 2002, this new series would be ripe for social commentary, but alas, it’s one big letdown. While the new iteration aimed for episodes about racial inequality, police corruption, and the like, it just seems to play with kid gloves the whole time, pulling its punches and failing to be remotely evocative or bold. Even when the series is at its best, it’s absolutely anemic in tone and the narration by Forest Whitaker is a reflection of it.
Whitaker is a brilliant actor when put in the right role, but as narrator he lacks the dread and wry sense of humor that Rod Serling (and even Charles Aldman or Robin Ward) held. After one season and stale critical reactions, UPN pulled the series down and with nary a backlash from audiences. Suffice it to say whatever they were trying to achieve with this version flat out failed from the starting gates, and I’d only recommend it for morbidly curious fans of the franchise. Even when *not* compared to the 1959 original, “The Twilight Zone” is a failure on all fronts.
Here’s hoping CBS All Access’s brand new Jordan Peele-hosted reboot fares much better.
Is It On DVD/Blu-Ray? The episodes are all available in complete form on various video sites and “TZ” 2002 was released on DVD, fetching a hefty price tag in online shops.
Editorials
Not Another ‘Scary Movie’: Revisiting Forgotten Parody ‘Shriek If You Know What I Did Last Friday the 13th’
After Scream (1996) made a killing at the box office, as well as won over critics and audiences, a lot of folks in the movie biz thought they could do the same thing (and yield similar results). That thing, of course, being a slasher. Most of these opportunists wound up being pretty straightforward; they were low on humor or commentary. Yet others, like Scary Movie (2000), saw the potential for spoofing Scream, and acted on that impulse with both haste and excitement.
A few months after the Wayans’ comedy first hit theaters, Shriek If You Know What I Did Last Friday the 13th landed on the USA Network, as part of the channel’s “Shriek Week” programming. That straight-to-cable (then home video) destination is possibly why many people still don’t know about this one. Or they simply chose to forget. Whatever the reason, only one of these two horror parodies came out on top—and it’s certainly not the movie where Coolio channeled Prince, and Tom Arnold saved the day.
Shriek If You Know What I Did Last Friday the 13th previously went by the name of I Know What You Screamed Last Semester. That Trimark acquisition then settled on a wordier title, just so it could avoid the litigious wrath of Miramax Films. Folks may or may not remember that Columbia Pictures was sued over the “implied connection” between I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997) and Scream. So, yeah, there was no way that this competing Scream parody wasn’t going to be kept on a tight rein.
A Heavy Reliance on Late ’90s TV References
Simon Rex, Julie Benz, Majandra Delfino, Harley Cross, Danny Strong, Tom Arnold and Tiffani-Amber Thiesen in Shriek If You Know What I Did Last Friday the 13th.
Naturally, there would be similarities between Shriek If You Know What I Did Last Friday the 13th and Scary Movie—their scripts are built on the backs of the same two movies. It goes without saying that the other big slasher of the 1990s, I Know What You Did Last Summer, was as much of a target as Scream. However,the film pads itself with more TV references than Scary Movie did.
Half the cast coming off of (and in some cases, returning to) a WB show could be a reason why. Dawson’s Creek is particularly zeroed in on, based on how there’s a central character named “Dawson Deery“, and how the teen drama’s teacher-student affair plotline is satirized to the nth degree. As if there weren’t enough nods to television, Baywatch, VH1’s Pop Up Video, and even those cheesy Mentos commercials all serve as joke prompts.
Shriek director John Blanchard and writers Sue Bailey and Joe Nelms all hailed from television, so it’s understandable that they would stick close to home. The movie’s humor in general makes more sense, in light of learning that Blanchard worked on SCTV, Kids in the Hall, and MADtv. The writers, on the other hand, were each fairly green, with Bailey being the most experienced of the two; she wrote and produced the game show BattleBots. Nevertheless, they, plus Blanchard, churned out a passable, joke-a-minute movie. The whole thing is staggeringly of its time, but no one here was aiming for longevity.
Having seen enough of these kinds of movies, we know to expect jokes of the low-hanging fruit variety. That’s the parody’s whole prime directive. From the characters having names like “Screw Frombehind” and “Doughy Primesuspect”, to stereotyping that feels taboo nowadays, this is a movie from a different era of comedy. Its coarse, corny, and unapologetic sense of humor won’t sit well with everyone in these more enlightened times. In which case, Shriek If You Know What I Did Last Friday the 13th can be treated as a time capsule.
Does Shriek If You Know What I Did Last Friday the 13th Humor Still Hold Up Today?
“You may already be a victim”—Someone receives a most peculiar threatening piece of mail in Shriek If You Know What I Did Last Friday the 13th.
Although Shriek doesn’t live up to its own claims of being so funny that you’ll die of laughter, its bawdier parts could still lead to some nervous laughter. For instance, after this movie’s parallel to Drew Barrymore’s Scream character is done in—not by the killer but by a bug zapper—the movie throws a newspaper next to the victim’s fresh corpse. The headline? “Popular slut killed! Football team mourns”.
We then move on to the wacky and inappropriate goings-on at Bulimia Falls High School, home of the Hurlers. At this nexus of constant absurdity, indecency, and surrealism, students are seen fornicating on the lawn, cheerleading squad applicants are advised to be comfortable with partial nudity, and terrorists openly prepare for an anthrax attack. It can be a tad jarring to watch, especially if you didn’t grow up witnessing this style of comedy firsthand. Hell, even if you did, you may still have a “what the hell were they thinking?” reaction.
It’s not just the aggressively edgy humor here that can make you chuckle—the slapstick, the sight gags, and the ribaldry all have a decent chance of landing. The movie’s own villain, whose hockey mask was instantly transformed into a crudely Ghostface-esque one after coming in contact with an open flame, commits more cheap laughs than kills. His and his victims’ chase sequences, most of which are cartoonish in nature, left this writer grinning. The Scooby-Doo fan in me also totally ate up that clever unmasking joke.
Final Thoughts on This Forgotten Horror Parody
Shriek If You Know What Did Last Friday the 13th
Now, the jury is still out on whether these comedies are to blame for the death of the first slasher revival. There is more to consider than some parodies. At the very least, the likes of Scary Movie didn’t exactly encourage big studios to put their money on a trend that was being derided to death (and not as profitable as the spoofs). These sorts of movies also felt unnecessary at the time, given how their principal inspiration is already a deconstruction of the genre. But like anything else that quickly becomes popular, mockery is unavoidable.
Shriek If You Know What I Did Last Friday the 13th is indeed a movie nobody asked for, much less needed. As a sample of pre-millennium humor and cultural attitudes, it’s not always precise. But as I’ve laid out, your mileage may vary. Horror parodies typically don’t have the best track record, so managing one’s own expectations here is recommended.
Upon rewatching, I for one laughed a bit more than I did back then. Only this time, I responded to the jokes that my younger self didn’t notice or find all that amusing. So it just goes to show that the movies don’t change—we do.
Harley Cross and Majandra Delfino must unmask the killer a number of times in Shriek If You Know What I Did Last Friday the 13th before learning their true identity.
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