Made for TV Movies ?

[mr. henry]

i don't know if anyone mentioned this one scott, but what about...

MAZES AND MONSTERS with tom hanks???

self-promo: i have a review for it at my site www.310am.com

how about after school specials? i remember several, the one that really sticks out is the one about angel dust when that actress from MAD ABOUT YOU jumps out of her school's second story window...bad trip...

stay cool,
mr. henry

www.310am.com

[JohnL]

>No one seems to have mentioned "The Bermuda Depths" from 1978.

I forgot about that one.

[Yaddo42]

I think what misleads people about "Damnation Alley" is that many people (including me) first saw it on network TV in the early 80s, having never heard of it before then or were too young to remember it being in theaters. Plus after "Star Wars" and other films, the effects of DA looked very dated and even cheaper than they probably were. Also George Peppard and Jan-Michael Vincent were best know around that time as TV stars. When I first saw it on NBC as a kid, it was all we talked about the next day at school, and we all thought it was a TV movie.

Does anyone else remember "Special Bulletin", the TV movie from 1983 done "War of the Worlds"-style as a fake newscast? It involved terrorists who claim to have a nuke on a tugboat in the harbor of Charleston , SC, and the news crew they take as hostages. The network ran disclaimers that it was fake during commercial breaks. Caught when it first aired and years later on TBS during the afternoon movie, can't rmember if they had disclaimers when they showed it, but I don't remember them showing it again. Pretty gripping for its time. I'd love to see it again. Between its age and subject matter I can't see it turning up on TV anytime soon.

[Kory]

Funny you mention it, now I don't have to start a new post.

I saw "Terminal Invasion" yesterday- it's a 'made for Sci--Fi Channel' movie starring Bruce Campbell (and nobody else).

The basic story is that Bruce Campbell is a murderer on his way to a prison to be executed.  During transport, they hit a snow storm and have to hole up at a small charter airport in a podunk town.  They're stuck in this building with a bunch of other people, some of which are murdering aliens that want to take over the world and use humans as slaves.

Anyways,

"A made for Sci Fi Original" should have been my first clue, but I figured if The Bruce was in it, it might have some redeeming qualities.  I was wrong.  The Bruce made me chuckle a few times, but the movie was so FREAKING HORRIBLE that Bruce alone couldn't save it.  Terrible movie.

Would I watch it again?

Yep.

[Fearless Freep]

He he, last night's entertainment was night really "Made for TV" but coming from U.F.O productions well...you can guess at the quality.

I refer to Silent Warnngs, a crop circles/aliens tale probably trying to prey off "Signs" .  Starring an apparently desperate-for-money Stephen Baldwin getting top billing but very little screen time, Billy Zane as Billy Zane, and a host of unknowns.  

Pretty decent minute-to-minute, but don't stop to think about it because in the end, nothing that happened made sense.



Post Edited (09-05-04 20:18)

[James]

 Thanks alot John.  Trapped was indeed one of my favorites along with A Cold Night's Death.

[Dave Munger]

Man, I was sure Damnation Alley was made for TV. Positive. Weird. I think it's mainly because the actors in it are TV types. I had a book by the same author, Roger Zelazny, that had a picture on the front of it of a robot kicking a door down. I thought it made quite a statement - I'm the kind of guy who reads books with robots on the cover kicking doors down.

The Bermuda Depths and Rona Jaffe's Mazes And Monsters were both movies I was about to bring up because I like them, didn't realize they were made for TV. Don't see a lot of Chris Makepeace anymore, do you? Speaking of him, I should probably mention The Last Run with him and Lee Majors. No idea if it was made for TV, but I actually liked it (few do). Lee Majors was a race car driver, cars were illegal. He has one stashed and makes a run for Free California in it, taking Makepeace the hacker nerd kid for some reason. They send Burgess Meredeth, the last fighter jet pilot, after them. I always think of this when I mention the 80s cliche that computers are magic. At one part, the kid starts hacking away while some bad guy's are next to a Coke truck, and he makes the Coke cans explode somehow (???).

I seriously didn't intend to go of on The Last Run like that. Anyway, the mysterious beautiful girl in The Bermuda Depths (my favorite Devil's Triangle movie ever) is Connie Seleca, the bride of Tesh. I just thought of it the other day because I saw a busted umbrella that reminded me of the Horror.

[odinn7]

Bad Ronald

It

V

Parker Stevenson was in one about a computer controlled house that fell in love with some woman and tried to kill anyone that got near her. Can't recall the name but I saw it sometime in the late 70's.

[Dave Munger]

Sound's like Demon Seed, althoght I'd be surprised if that was made for TV, with all the roborape implications. I think Dean Koontz did the novelization of the screenplay. It started to sell well, then the movie came out and hurt the book (by being way less good).

[odinn7]

Nope, not Demon Seed but close. I did a search on Parker Stevenson and came up with: This House Possessed, a made for tv movie in '81. Memory didn't serve too well as it is the movie I was thinking of but there may be more involved than a computer being stuck on the woman. According to what I just read, it's a modern, fully automated house but the house itself and not a computer is what winds up being in love with a nurse.

Also, how about this one. Hopefully someone saw this piece of crap and can tell me what the name of it was. Shortly after Star Wars turned out to be so popular, everyone was trying to cash in, even tv. I saw a made for tv "western" that was almost a rip off of Star Wars set in the old west. I seem to remember some old, mystical gunfighter teaching a young guy to be a gun fighter. They even had a special gun that they made...a 7 shooter with that extra bullet being for an emergency. They used something similar to the "force" to be great gunfighters. Oh yeah, of course they were good guys and there was this ultra bad guy that had similar powers. Anyone?

[BoyScoutKevin]

"The Amazing Dobermans" was also a theatrical film. It was the second sequel to 1972's "Doberman Gang," which I saw,  and was also preceded by 1973's "The Daring Dobermans."

[BoyScoutKevin]

This has already been done. While sadly out of date, there needs to be an update, , Alvin Marill's "Movies Made for Television" lists every made for television move up to 1986, and at that time there were 2069 of them, in alphabetical order.

There is also indexes for producers, directors, writers, actors, and perhaps most interestingly, in the back, the films are listed in chronological order.

October 7, 1964, televsion history was made. The first made for television movie, "See How They Run," appeared on NBC.

[MovieBuffRob]

Two tv movies that I think haven't been mentioned are "The Legend of Lizzie Borden" (1975) starring Elizabeth Montgomery as the alleged ax murderess. Excellent version of the true story. The other tv movie (is in my opinion the greatest made for tv movie ever made) is called "Murder By Natural Causes" (1979) starring Hal Holbrook,Katherine Ross,and Barry Bostwick. This mystery has the most incredible twists I've ever seen in any movie,including theater releases.Many critics have also called it the greatest made for tv movie ever made.

[MovieBuffRob]

I believe burnt offerings was a theater release.

[Ozzymandias]

You mention Gargoyle. I worked on a horror movie show in the late 80's in Springfield MO.  We showed Gargoyle. The regular host wasn't on the show that week so I filled in as a gargoyle, who talked like David Letterman. I read a Top 10 too.

I noticed nobody has brought up pilot movies. My favorite two are "Ironside" from 1966 and "Wonder Woman" from 1974 (I think).