Bringers of Wonder (Space 1999)

I first happened upon Space 1999 as a grade-schooler in the late 70s, when it appeared in syndicated reruns Saturday afternoons. This high-concept science fiction series, equal parts space adventure and interpersonal drama, followed the exploits of Commander John Koenig (Martin Landau), Dr. Helena Russell (Barbara Bain) and crew, trapped on a space station based on a Moon forever wandering the galaxy after being knocked out of orbit.

Despite its frequently cerebral tone and serious themes, Space 1999 wasn't immune to Monster-of-the-Weekism, presenting some truly frightening extraterrestrial terrors, most notably the 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea meets Alien abomination from a Season 1 episode called Dragon's Domain.

This man-eating tentacled terror even appeared on the Space 1999 lunchbox.

But for me, the real scares came in a two-part Season 2 episode titled Bringers of Wonder. Space 1999 never had a Halloween episode, but if it did, this would be it. The show is crawling with monsters, including a ship full of alien visitors who show up at their front door in costume (as normal human beings) and are using a trick in order to get "treats" (nuclear energy to revive their degenerating bodies.)

The unexpected visitors arrive on a faster-than-lightspeed craft staffed with friends and relatives of the Moonbase Alpha crew, and announce their intention to bring them all home at a festive reception party.

Only Commander Koenig (Landau), immune to the alien psychic powers that have clouded the perception of the rest of the crew, sees the visitors for what they really are...

Disgusting monsters! Yes, these alleged humans actually look more like Sigmund & the Sea-Monsters might look after climbing out of an eyeball and slime casserole.

They glow and undulate. Green globs literally drip down their bodies, and we get plenty of too-close views of their veiny eyeballs.

What really got to me throughout this episode is the fact that nobody else can see them for what they really are, standing among them completely unaware.

We later see a group of these inter-dimensional monsters stationed on the Moon's surface, waiting for orders to seize nuclear material from a remote waste site.

But the monster party doesn't stop there. Maya, a regular character added for the show's second season, is an alien "metamorph", and has the ability to transform temporarily into almost anything.

She uses that power to change into no less than five different monstrous creatures, including this fish-eyed alien...

...an amphibious man resembling the Creature From the Black Lagoon...

...a one-eyed, two-horned Moon Ape that wouldn't look too out of place on Jason of Star Command...

...and even a large cockroach that had me scratching uncomfortably at still fresh psychological scars from my viewing of Bug!

The fifth monster is one of our gooey, one-eyed haystack friends, a disguise Maya uses to try to infiltrate their ranks.

The Bringers of Wonder episodes can be found on DVD in Space 1999: Set 7.
Toss a copy of Jason of Star Command or Sigmund and the Sea Monsters in your cart while you're at it.

The Ordeal of Dr. Mudd (1980)

Quick, think of some made-for-TV movies that frightened or disturbed you as a child. Don't Go To Sleep, Bad Ronald, Dark Night of the Scarecrow, Duel, The Bermuda Depths...?

But I'm guessing the 1980 historical drama The Ordeal of Dr. Mudd didn't leap to anyone's mind. I saw it in my grade school years when it originally aired, and while it is technically not a horror film, it has plenty of horrific elements that were seared into my subconscious after that one viewing.

The Ordeal of Dr. Mudd is a dramatization of the real-life plight of Dr. Samuel A. Mudd, a Civil War-era physician who had the misfortune of treating the broken leg of a stranger who showed up on his doorstep in the middle of the night on April 14, 1865.

Unknown to Dr. Mudd (perfectly played by Dennis Weaver, of the aforementioned Duel and Don't Go to Sleep), President Abraham Lincoln had just been shot a few hours earlier, and the man whose leg he treated was none other than John Wilkes Boothe.

Mudd is soon implicated in the assassination plot by a crooked Northern court eager for revenge. After being railroaded by several phony witnesses, Mudd is sentenced to Jefferson Prison, an island in the Gulf of Mexico. And this is where the real horror begins.

The prison is surrounded by a moat, and upon arrival, one hapless prisoner makes a break for it.

But the water is shark-infested, and the other prisoners are forced to watch as the would-be escapee is eaten alive. For me, this scene stirred up residual fear I was still carrying from Jaws, which, even by 1980, was still fresh in my mind.

The prison yard resembles something out of a medieval torture chamber, with men hanging by their arms and stretched on racks.

These horrific set pieces would look right at home in a Moebius Monster Scenes model kit.

Mudd's cell is more of a Dark Ages dungeon than anything I would have associated with an American prison.

And at night, giant roaches crawl over his body, pushing my personal anxiety buttons in a way that had me flashbacking to an unnerving scene from one of my favorite guilty pleasures, Bug.

After getting caught drinking water slipped to him by another prisoner, Mudd is forced to march in a circle all day under an oppressive sun while a heavy weight hangs from his neck.

There's psychological torture as well, when the prospect of clemency is dangled before Dr. Mudd, only to repeatedly fall through for one reason or another.

The Ordeal of Dr. Mudd is available on DVD here.

Bug (1975) and The Brady Bunch

"Bug" (1975) was the last movie produced by horror legend William Castle. I was born too late to experience any of his classic shlocky horror films in theaters (13 Ghosts, The Tingler, House on Haunted Hill, Mr. Sardonicus, etc.), but I caught "Bug" as a grade-schooler when it played on television in the late 70s, and it scared the crap out of me.

"Bug" is not considered a great film by...well, anybody. But it has its moments. Based on a 1973 novel The Hephaestus Plague by Thomas Page, it's about some fire-starting insects (portrayed by what looks like dressed-up hissing cockroaches) that emerge from a crack in the earth and slowly, steadily wreak havoc on a little desert town. Unlike other "bug movies", these insects aren't immediately recognized as a threat. Just like ordinary insects, they are found chirping passively in the front lawn, or scurrying in the dark corner of the garage, and are at first seen as merely a nuisance.

Professor James Parmiter (Bradford Dillman) stars as an entomologist who becomes fascinated with the critters and captures a few for observation in his own home. In one particularly creepy scene, he carelessly leaves the bug cage unlocked.

The little guys creep out of the top of their box, scurry across the floor, and climb all over James' sleeping body.

The bugs are carnivorous, you see, and start nibbling away, drawing blood.

He wakes up in horror.

As a child that was simultaneously fascinated by and afraid of insects, and who had occassionally caught some in jars to keep in my room for a time, this scene really tapped into a very personal anxiety.

There is another scene where a woman is alone in her kitchen, unaware that a BUG has hitched a ride on the back of her clothes.

As she stands around pondering a recipe, the little guy sneaks up her back, into her hair, rubs its little feelers together and ignites a fire in her hair.

The kitchen had always struck me as strangely familiar. "Bug" was released in 1975, a year after "The Brady Bunch" had gone off the air, and both came from Paramount studios. I always wondered if they had used the Brady's kitchen set.

Years later, someone invented the Internet, and I was able to pursue this nagging issue. According to the trivia section of IMDB, the famous Brady kitchen and the "Bug" kitchen are one and the same.

Let's compare, shall we?

Bug:
The Brady's:

Bug:

The Brady's:

Here's a shot from just outside the kitchen area:

And a differently angled, but comparable shot from The Brady Bunch. The saloon doors added for "Bug" really added some kinetic energy to this space.