Knight Rider - "Halloween Knight"

"Halloween Knight"
Knight Rider - Season 3, Episode 5
Original Airdate: October 28, 1984

Halloween Knight

How much Halloween kookiness can be crammed into one episode about the adventures of a vigilante crime-fighter and his talking car?  So much your brain will hurt.


The episode begins with KITT's mechanic Bonnie stuck alone with a cold in her new apartment, as the other residents in the building have a loud Halloween party.

Bonnnie downs some night-time cold medicine, and then witnesses a gorilla murder a woman through her window before passing out!  The next day, everyone just assumes she was hallucinating, but Michael Knight believes her, so he and KITT begin an investigation to find out what really happened.

"Darling, don't you monkey with the monkey!"

During the investigation:

• The theme music from Psycho is played on the soundtrack, but done in Knight Rider's signature 1980s synthesizer style!
• A dead body appears and dissapears in a bathtub!
• A witch threatens to put a hex on Michael unless he gives her KITT to use as her "Witchmobile!"
• A spectral floating demon head talks backwards!
• Michael visits a horror movie prop house and is nearly cut in half by an axe!
• A gorilla driving a car tries to run Michael over!
• Michael meets a sweaty, knife-wielding, Norman Bates wannabe with a collection of taxidermied animals and bugs!  Bonnie later goes on a date with him!
• Michael and Bonnie find a dead body in a house that is a dead ringer for the Bates Motel Psycho house!
• Michael gets into a sword fight at a costume party!
• Michael finally catches the murderer at a drive-in showing The Creature from the Black Lagoon!

Spectral Demon Head

The episode concludes with Michael and KITT solving the mystery and capturing the killer, who was using Hollywood special effects to trick Bonnie into thinking she was hallucinating.

But in a final twist, the show ends with Michael falling under the spell of the "Witchmobile" witch!  As Michael bends down to look at the food she has prepared in a crock pot, KITT uses his super powers to analyze what is in the pot, and is horrified by what it contains.  He begs Michael not to look in the pot, but the bewitched Michael smiles benignly and stares into the pot as the image freezes and the credits roll!  Spooktacular!

Coroner at the Psycho House

More screencaps after the break...

Starcrash (1978)

Starcrash (1978) - Movie review plus screencaps:

"Starcrash!"  a.k.a.  "The Clash of the Stars!"  a.k.a.  "Stellar Clashes Beyond the Third Dimension!"  a.k.a. "The Adventures of Stella Star!"

 Spoilers, I guess...

This Italian Star Wars knock-off from 1978 fails on every level.  Wooden acting.  Hideous costumes.  Fake plastic spaceships.  Out of focus special effects.  Nonsensical plot twists.  Oh, and one of the stars is David Hasselhoff.  Needless to say, it's FANTASTIC!

Smooth Characters

 The movie stars Caroline Munro modeling her exciting space bikini as criminal-slash-adventurer Stella Star.  She's sort of a female Han Solo.  It also stars Marjoe Gortner as Akton, a white guy with a giant space afro who fights with a fake lightsaber and gains various super powers throughout the movie.  He's like a cross between Luke Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi.  Other characters include a robot sidekick with a cartoonish Texas accent and a bald guy with green skin.
 

"Damn, I'm Evil!"

The villain of the flick is Count Zarth Arn who is constantly laughing maniacally while flapping his Dracula cape around.  So evil.  Oh, and I can't forget Hasselhoff; he's basically Princess Leia, although he wears a lot more makeup than I ever saw on Carrie Fisher.

Hoff's Going Heavy on the Makeup

Christopher Plummer is the only person in the film who can act, which makes him stick out like a sore thumb.  He plays Hasselhoff's dad, "The Emperor of the Galaxy." He delivers all his lines like he's in Hamlet or something, with dramatic, William Shatner-like pauses.  The effect is bizarre... like he doesn't realize what movie he's in.  He also has the best line in the movie, when seconds before our heroes are about to die in an explosion, he gazes up at the ceiling and shouts, "Imperial battleship...  halt... the flow of time!"  And then time stops so our heroes can escape, with no explanation ever given for how this amazing feat was accomplished.  Awesome.

Christopher Plummer Doesn't Know What Movie He's In

The plot is a lot of silly nonsense, with Stella Star and her intrepid band of space buddies travelling around in their spaceship getting into adventures while trying to save the universe from the evil Count Zarth.  So the film is broken up into various episodes where we see Stella fight Space Cavemen, Space Amazons, a giant space robot, and what not.
 

Pressing Buttons

Later, the good guys attack the Count's version of the Death Star, which,  is shaped like a giant flying space hand.  Oh, and when it goes into combat, the giant space hand contracts into a fist!  Awesome!  Anyway, they attack the ship by shooting giant golden dildos at it.  Once the dildos crash through the windows of the spaceship, they pop open and soldiers jump out.

Pew! Pew! Pew!

The movie's costumes and sets are ridiculously colorful and goofy.  It looks more like it was made in 1968 than '78, it has the same pop art sensibillity as films like Barbarella, Diabolik, or the Adam West Batman TV series.

Captured by Space Amazons

This movie is DUMB, but it is fun.  And Caroline Munro does look pretty sexy in her space bikini.  I recommend this title to all discerning fans of science fiction cinema.

Rating: 3½ Robots (out of 5)

I See You!

More screencaps after the jump...