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Black Noon
USA 1971
produced by Andrew J. Fenady for Screen Gems
directed by Bernard L. Kowalski
starring Roy Thinnes, Yvette Mimieux, Ray Milland, Gloria Grahame, Lynn Loring, Henry Silva, Hank Worden, William Bryant, Jennifer Bryan, Charles McCready, Leif Garrett, David S.Cass sr, Suzan Sheppard, Bobby Eilbacher, Buddy Foster
written by Andrew J. Fenady, music by George Duning
review by Dale Pierce
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This made-for-tv film from the 1970s is better than many big screen
presentations, with a fairly big cast for a tv movie and an interesting plot.
A travelling minister drives into the town of San Melas, where
people still live lives like in the wild west and they are even terrorized by
a local gunfighter. They are in need of a new preacher and this sucker
takes the job. Enter troubling images in a mirror and visions of a dying man,
trying to warn the new parson about something or another, which still
fails to damper this man's cause to bring freedom and religion to the
oppressed.
The gunfighter and the minister end up in a gunfight, where the minister
prevails. The town agrees to bury this villain and go on as if nothing has
happened, with the minister, now a killer, forced to stick around. Yet all is
not as it seems, for during the night burial in the local graveyard, the
supposedly dead gunman is seen lurking in the bushes, casually watching the
ceremonies with a bemused smirk on his face, as if he has seen all this
before. We later find out he has.
You see, this minister has been lured to this creepy town by satanic forces
and in the end, he, like the minister before him, is set up as a sacrifice for
the devil. The images in the mirror and in his head, he finds out too late,
have been attempts from beyond the grave from this past victim of the
devil-worshippers to warn him to get the hell out of San Melas.
Then, after this guy is toast, another sucker comes along, lured into town
where he and his family will face the same fate.
The scariest shot of all shows him passing a sign saying Welcome To San Melas,
but when this sign is reflected in the car's rear view mirror, the reality of
what is going on comes through.
Welcome to Nas Salem. Melas is Salem spelled backward. The witches in the
puritanicalc omminity of centuries past evidently escaped while patsies were
being hanged and formed their own community elsewhere, still practicing their
black arts and becoming good at it in time.
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review © by Dale Pierce
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Robots and rats,
demons and potholes, cuddly toys and shopping mall Santas,
love and death and everything in between,
Tales to Chill Your Bones to is all of that.
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a collection of short stories and mini-plays ranging from the horrific to the darkly humourous,
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all thought up by the twisted mind of screenwriter and film reviewer Michael Haberfelner.
Tales to Chill Your Bones to
the new anthology by Michael Haberfelner
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