Tag Archives: detective

The Horror Show (aka House III) (1989) | James Isaac

Evil Electricity, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

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After viciously murdering over 110 people, the serial killer known as ‘Meat Cleaver Max’ Jenke (Brion James) gets the death penalty, sentenced to fry in the electric chair. Max doesn’t go easily, staying alive for nearly ten minutes as they zap him with everything they have before expiring. However, something happens in the process of electrocution that allows Jenke to live on as a supernatural entity of electricity – one that seeks revenge on the cop that arrested him, Lucas McCarthy (Lance Henriksen). McCarthy suffers from PTSD, forced into a leave of absence while seeing a psychologist until well enough to return as a detective. However, despite seeing Jenke executed with his own eyes, McCarthy sees him everywhere – in his dreams, on his TV, and popping up whenever he’s out and about. Either Jenke truly is a supernatural being taking up residence in McCarthy’s furnace, or McCarthy’s delusional and putting his family in grave danger.

Erratum: Once again, I refer to composer Harry Manfredini as Henry Manfredini, likely because of the composer Henry Mancini.

Night of the Creeps (1986) | Fred Dekker

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Jason Lively and Steve Marshall are the primary stars as Chris and J.C., a couple of nerdy college freshmen fraternity pledges who must steal a corpse as part of their initiation. They accidentally end up releasing a small army of leeches, jettisoned from an alien spacecraft, dormant in the cryogenic cadaver they find in the university’s research facility. These leeches jump into the mouths of any humans they can and proceed to consume their minds, controlling their bodies like zombies with only one mission: to kill and infest the bodies of others they can find. Also starring is Tom Atkins as the town’s hard-nosed but slightly cracked disgruntled cop, Detective Ray Cameron, who has seen these events before, nearly three decades in the past, when his ex-girlfriend had been viciously murdered with an ax-wielding psycho. Fred Dekker writes and directs.

The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad (1988) | David Zucker

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The comedy writing team of Jerry Zucker, Jim Abrahams, and David Zucker brought this first of a trilogy, based on their short-lived 1982 TV show “Police Squad”, of zany screwball comedies to Hollywood in 1988, offering plenty of sight gags, plays on words, pop culture sendups, and downright silly slapstick.  Leslie Nielsen returns to star as Lt. Frank Drebin, who seems to have a high success rate in closing his cases despite being an overconfident buffoon. His latest case involves trying to prevent the assassination of Queen Elizabeth II while on a visit to America. A hunch leads Drebin to look into wealthy philanthropist Vincent Ludwig (Ricardo Montalban), who Frank thinks is also a scam artist. Drebin ends up falling for Ludwig’s beautiful but klutzy assistant, Jane Spencer (Priscilla Presley). George Kennedy and O.J. Simpson also appear.

 

Trail of the Pink Panther (1982) | Blake Edwards

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Trail of the Pink Panther is a film done nearly two years after the death of Pink Panther franchise star Peter Sellers, compiling the best clips and unused outtakes from prior films, along with new material to hang together a plot around the. That plot involves the theft of the infamous and priceless Pink Panther diamond from the fictional country of Lugash, and Chief Inspector Clouseau, at the request of the president of Lugash, is brought in yet again to investigate its whereabouts, against the wishes of Commissioner Dreyfus. In the course of the globe-hopping investigation, a plane carrying Clouseau goes down into the ocean, where it is presumed he might have finally met his fate. A television reporter is called forth to talk to those who knew Clouseau well, from co-workers to those he helped put away, as well as those who knew of his activities prior to joining the police, from his childhood upbringing to becoming a resistance fighter for France in World War II. Herbert Lom, Joanna Lumley, David Niven, and Robert Loggia also appear. Blake Edwards directs.

Who’s Harry Crumb? | Paul Flaherty

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John Candy plays Harry Crumb, the bumbling son who never quite lived up to the reputation of his sleuthing father and grandfather in his family’s long-standing detective agency. Instead of running the company, he’s been relegated to being a lowly trainee as their Tulsa office. Ineptitude is just what the CEO of the company, Eliot Draisen (Jeffrey Jones), in Los Angeles wants from an investigator for reasons of his own. Draisen flies out Crumb to Los Angeles to crack the case involving the kidnapping and ransom of Jennifer Downing,  the beautiful heiress daughter of P.D. Downing (Barry Corbin) and his philandering new wife Helen (Annie Potts). Crumb begins to use his penchant for disguises to get to the bottom of things.