In the Groove: Miguel Ferrer returns for his fourth(!) appearance on the show as a pissed off radio host whose show basically consists of him pretending to have sex. Following a long ratings struggle, he meets an ideal co-host (Linda Doucett) who brings out his repressed anger to a potentially dangerous extent. Ferrer is brilliant and Doucett is subtly effective as the sweet little devil on his shoulder. Slash from Guns N Roses also has a small role as a rival DJ, for no other reason than it's the 90s and Slash has to appear in accordance with the showbiz laws of the era. A-
Surprise Party: Ray (Adam Storke) defies his father, who had tried to keep him from inheriting a farmhouse on a valuable piece of property. With the old man gone and the will unchanged, he arrives at the place to find that there's a party going on. But what's the occasion? Well it turns out Dad had a good reason for trying to keep him away. The writing is pretty bad but there are some nice makeup effects near the end. B-
Doctor of Horror: Two put-upon security guards (Hank Azaria and Travis Tritt) working at a mortuary make a deal with a mad doctor (Austin Pendleton) conducting some very unorthodox experiments. It's funny but also very dark and has a great cast. Pendleton gives a creepy and charismatic performance while Ben Stein shows up to call the guards "lowlife shitheads" before getting killed. Considering how uninspired much of this season has been, it was a delight to see the episode totally go for broke in the climax, where the Re-Animator influence becomes very clear. A
Comes the Dawn: Before 30 Days of Night, there was this episode about poachers hunting bear in Alaska and finding vampires instead. Michael Ironside plays a former colonel who enlists a mysterious tracker (Vivian Wu) to help find a grizzly, but someone...or something got to it first. It's effective and the vampires look good, but some of the acting is just strange. Ironside is a pro but Wu uses two or three different accents and I don't even know what to make of Susan Tyrell in a brief but bizarre role as a bartender. B
99 & 44/100% Pure Horror: Say what? Is this an episode or a wi-fi password? It's actually a play on an old advertising slogan for soap, which makes sense for a story about a wimpy executive (Bruce Davison) who runs a soap company and his spoiled bitch wife (Cristi Conaway) who designs the advertising. When the Board of Directors decides they want to go in a new direction, he's forced to fire her and I think we've gone through enough of these episodes to know what's coming. Still, there's a fantastic payoff, but gory and darkly humorous. Meanwhile, the Cryptkeeper is training himself for the "Diecathlon." B
You, Murderer: Like the comic it was based on, the season finale is shot entirely in first person. Director Robert Zemeckis changes the protagonist to a criminal who, to elude the police, had plastic surgery to make himself look like Humphrey Bogart. Although he had been dead for over a decade, Bogart shows up for a few shots via manipulated archive footage, the same technology that Zemeckis had recently pioneered in Forrest Gump (which the Cryptkeeper makes fun of in the intro). The director attracted an excellent cast that includes John Lithgow, Isabella Rossellini and Sherilynn Fenn. It's a gimmick in search of a story, but it's nice to see some true ambition in a season where that often felt lacking. B+
That's all for this year, kiddies! Join us next October for the final season!
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