Friday, May 02, 2008

This is the opening of a true howler: "Invitation to Hell"; an 80's shocker from Wes Craven before he hit it big with " A Nightmare on Elm Street". A mish-mash of "The Stepford Wives" and "Rosemary's Baby", this features Robert Urich and Joanna Cassidy as a couple who move into the the house seen previously in "Poltergeist" with their two kids so he can work on a new space suit that will be used by NASA to visit the superheated surface of Venus. It can also shoot lasers and has a built in flame-thrower, as well as detect non-human life forms. For those of you who have never seen a movie before this is called "foreshadowing". But the real star is Susan Lucci as the Devil herself. This Devil doesn't wear Prada: she wears big-shouldered jumpsuits she stole from the set of "V" and hair bigger than a Chrysler. As this clip shows, you don't go mow down La Lucci with your craptastic K-car wagon and live to tell the tale....

Yes, it's available at Netflix and I recommend it. The scene where the newly-evil Miss Cassidy mauls Urich is laugh-out-loud funny (he mewls like a starlet on the casting couch as she grinds him as much as is acceptable for "family night" and visibly blanches at her intentions), and is capped by him playing the next morning scene exactly like Mia Farrow in the Polanski movie. One half expects Miss Cassidy to remark that she didn't want to miss "baby night" and Ruth Gordon to pop in with his blender drink.

Go rent this right now!

Thanks to Robin at NowSmellThis for pointing it out..
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