Friday, September 15, 2017

Day 319: Friday the 13th, The TV Show

This show aired late at night on the weekends when I was growing up. I think it only lasted for three seasons.

Friday the 13th, the series, has nothing to do with Jason Vorhees and Camp Crystal Lake. Rather, it was about an antique store where the owner made a deal with the devil to sell cursed objects. After the devil collects the owner's soul, his niece and nephew inherit the store. They decide to regather all the cursed objects let loose by their uncle and proceed to scour the world for them. Each week dealt with a different cursed object with a different evil ability. It was kind of like the X-Files in that the three leads (the niece and nephew had an older gentleman who helped them with backstory) would become imperiled each week but make it out alive with the artifact locked safely in their vault.

Sometimes the artifacts would be as creepy as a doll that kills or as complicated as a trephaning chair that drains brain fluid from one person and injects it into another. One of my favorites was an episode called 13 O'clock where a pocket watch stopped time for an hour after midnight every night. Others involved a radio that tells people what they want to hear (and leads them astray). One episode even featured all the antiques being freed from the vault by the vengeful ghost of the uncle, setting the team back to square one (but really so they could redo some of the favorite ideas from earlier).

I have to say that Louise Robey had a big impact on my puberty as Micki, the red-headed lead. As far as anthology horror goes, this was close but works as a proto X-Files. It may not have aged that well.


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