Dr. Strange (1978)
Article 6060 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 7-2-2022
Directed by Philip DeGuere Jr.
Featuring Peter Hooten, Clyde Kusatsu, Jessica Walters
Country: USA
What it is: Failed series pilot, comic book subgenre

Ancient sorceress Morgan LeFey is sent to Earth by the forces of evil to prevent a sorcerer from passing his powers to his successor, thereby making sure an origin story doesn’t take place.

If the trivia section of IMDB is correct, this was one of Stan Lee’s favorites among the comic book adaptations he worked on during the seventies. It’s definitely a failed pilot; the movie makes all the moves you’d expect from something intended to launch one. However, the movie failed to garner much attention from an audience probably watching “ROOTS” at the time. Still, I do wonder if it would have flown as a series. In my own estimation, if they found a different score and were careful with the special effects, they might have pulled it off. In my own opinion, it’s okay at best, and I personally felt it was the type of story for which it would have been better to save for an era when the special effects had reached a higher level.

The Devil’s Rain (1975)
Article 6059 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 6-13-2022
Directed by Robert Fuest
Featuring Ernest Borgnine, Eddie Albert, Ida Lupino
Country: Mexico / United States
What it is: A 64-pack of Crayola crayons left in the sun.

A family in possession of a book of evil do battle with a Satanic cult.

With Robert Fuest’s name in the credits, I expected there would be some interesting stylistic touches to the movie, and there are. In fact, the movie’s vibe works pretty well for me during the first third of the movie. At that point the movie starts to wander, and once we reach the sequence in which we find out about the burning of a sorcerer three hundred years ago, it shows it’s not averse to traversing the path of well-worn cliches. The movie seems mostly remembered nowadays for two things. One is the presence of John Travolta in an early role, but I certainly wouldn’t recommend it to his fans as anything but a curiosity. The other is the extended meltathon that ends the movie, and since we get a taste of the effect in the opening scenes of the movie, it’s a bit like enjoying a hamburger in the beginning and then having to eat the whole cow at the end. It’s a shame; I like some of the aspects of the movie so well (especially the desolate locations) that I wish a decent story had been attached to the movie.