A Special Kind of Nanny

If there’s a movie about an anatomically correct medical mannequin that somehow inspires family strife and murder, you can bet your bottom dollar it’s getting covered here at the Doll’s House. Hence, after sitting atop my queue through the change of the seasons, 1988’s cult classic Pin finally gets its chance.

Quick Plot: Ursula and Leon grow up under the questionable parenting skills of their haughty mom and doctor dad, a cold and clinical man who naturally earns a few raised eyebrows based primarily on the fact that he’s played by Terry O’Quinn. For the kids, the warmest relationship they seem to have is with Pin, the full-size medical dummy that  hangs out in dad’s office and occasionally offers advice, makes bets for clothing, has sex with the middle aged nurse and explains the birds and bees.

Naturally, Ursula and Leon don’t grow up to be Mr. and Ms. Well Adjusted. Ursula takes a few trips to the backseats of the football team, eventually leading to an abortion at 15 performed by...dad. Naturally. 

Leon, on the flip side, blossoms into the awkward David Hewlett (yes, the surly dude from Cube), a promising young man with little personal skills and a continued obsession with befriending Pin. When their parents die in a car accident, a frilly aunt attempts to move in but to Leon, the tragedy is the perfect chance to make Pin an official member of the family.

Pin is certainly an odd film, one that seems to scream ‘cult classic!’ in its very concept. Within the first few scenes, I felt a strong Flowers In the Attic vibe, something that made perfect sense once I learned it was based on a novel by future V.C. Andrews ghostwriter, Andrew Neiderman. Like those modern gothic tales or 1980’s Magic, Pin is far more about the dysfunction bred in cold families (particularly those upper class Caucasian ones) than the exploits of a killer doll.

There is indeed something strange about Pin, but it’s clearly Leon who needs a little help. Ursula pieces it together from a part-time job at the library, where she spends some time working, some time flirting, and a fair amount of the rest researching schizophrenia. Leon is damaged and confused, primarily from being raised in such a detached manner coupled with his own possible leanings towards mental illness. The story of Pin could have been told without the presence of a creepy skinless mannequin, but director Sandor Stern and his strong cast work off it to create a unique and unsettling tale.

High Points

The characterization of Ursula and Leon works incredibly throughout the film, an impressive feat when we see them as innocent children, curious adolescents, daring teenagers and finally, sad adults

Low Points

There’s definitely a drag felt in the film’s latter half, where there’s not necessarily a drive at any conclusion

Lessons Learned

When working in a library, avoid the urge to hum

If you’re normal, you can look forward to eventually feeling ‘the need’

Counting down from 100 by 7s is hard at any age

Rent/Bury/Buy

Pin is oddly hard to find on DVD, but North American audiences should take advantage of it streaming on Netflix. The film is far from perfect, but it’s quietly creepy and truly unique, well worth 90 minutes out of your evening. Plus, this is probably your only chance to see John Locke perform ventriloquism and letting that pass you by is akin to not pushing that button in 108 minutes. Think on that, won’t you?

Lottos and Torture and Boars, Oh My!

The time has come.

Kind of.

On May 23rd, the world said goodbye to something very special. Scoff at unexplained physics, the mere presence of Nikki & Paulo, and the weekly questioning of “Why are you telling me this?” but for six years, LOST gave us a weekly viewing experience unlike anything else ever seen on television.

So how to fill that Hurley-sized void in your Island-less heart? One way ticket to Hawaii? Pricey. Enlistment in the Dharma Initiative? Perilous. New career as a con man/spinal surgeon/fertility doctor/rock star/protector of golden light? There has to be an easier way!

And naturally, there is and all you need are a few great horror movies. So dear Islanders and Tailies, Sideways inhabitants and Others, I give you a few key elements of your favorite ABC show and how you might fill them.

1. Terry O’Quinn

Even Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof couldn't let go of one of the industry’s longest underrated actors, a bald and enigmatic presence so vital to the universe that he took on a whole new role as Evil (maybe) Incarnate in the final two, post-dead John Locke seasons. So where does one go for that sparking blue-eyed smile that never quite feels right? The late 80s, naturally. In 1987’s The Stepfather (and its first sequel), O’Quinn plays--wait, who is he again? We’ll call him Jerry, the name he takes to woo a lovely widow and later, attempt to kill her and the family she has left. By far the second best way to see this charmer wield an oversized knife.

2. Torture

Sayid, you scamp! From the Iraqi National Guard to Sawyer’s fingernails, everyone’s favorite curly-haired loveboat was quite the expert when it came to inflicting pain. Life won’t quite be the same without his sad puppy dog eyes seeking validation or that petite Benjamin Linus accepting that sweaty fist in his cheek, but thanks to the 21st century trend of torture porn, you can at least pretend their spirits live on. Sure, you could go standard and find a cheap boxed set of Saw or Hostel, but why not make like Charles Widmore sipping aged scotch and go classy with the philosophical genre twisting Martyrs. Yes, you’ll have to read subtitles (unless you decide to wait for the American remake, brought to you by the people who made Twilight which is sure to be the best thing you can possibly ever in your life witness) and yes, the film isn’t for everyone, but much like Lost, Pascal Laugier’s Martyrs takes viewers on an ambiguous, poetic, and post-death journey (maybe) that happens to be accompanied by a whole lot of blood and beatings.

3. Crazy French Woman Trying to Steal Your Baby

Danielle Rousseau, we hardly knew ye, but one thing we were sure of was just how much you missed your little girl. Left alone for 16 years with nothing but surprisingly tame bangs and a rifle, this shipwrecked mother wanted nothing more than her child back in her arms...even if (briefly), she had to take someone else’s. Where to find that special mother with a hole in her heart? Easy: Inside. Beatrice Dalle’s La Femme. Basically, it’s the same exact thing. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.

4. Surgeons Under the Influence

From Jack’s shaky pain medicated hands to his dad’s functional alcoholism, Lost was never a role model for hospital interns. Now that Dr. Shepard squared has gone on to a better, hopefully less accident-prone place, where will we fans ever find our illegal and falsified prescriptions of malpracticing hunks? Canada, naturally. In David Cronenberg’s 1988 masterpiece Dead Ringers, Jeremy Irons plays--whaddya know--two related gynecologists slowly slipping into a drug addicted depression. While wielding medical instruments. On women’s vaginas. Wow. This makes a mere 18-hour spinal cord rebuilding look like a romp on the beach.

5. Undoing the Past

“What happened, happened!” shouted so many an island survivor, but Lost’s final season tried awfully hard to put us in a reality where it didn’t. For a somewhat similar plot thread, check out 2004’sThe Butterfly Effect, an ambitiously flawed sci-fi love story of sorts that also shared a few random Lost ties: leading men temporarily bound to wheelchairs, likable dogs, surprise bombs with devastating results, and black-and-white journals that also serve as vouchers for time traveling.

6. Boars

John Locke instantly proved his worth by serving up porkchops his first week as a castaway, but Gary Oldman found himself on the wrong side of dinner when his wheelchair-bound--whoa! double link!--millionaire molester reunited with Anthony Hopkins’ Hannibal Lector.

7. Smoke Monster

Gray precipitation that moistens the air and summons ghosts? Call your lawyer, John Carpenter! Though Smokey, aka The Man In Black When Mobile didn’t have a whole lot in common with the pirate ghoulies of 1980’s The Fog, there are plenty of random links: shipwrecks, radio towers, Maggie Grace (a few steps removed of course). But hey. It’s John Carpenter’s The Fog. Do you really need another reason?

8. The Lottery

Ever say to yourself “If my numbers would just come up, all my problems would be solved!” Then you watched Hugo “Hurley” Reyes lose his friends, grandfather, and sanity in a pile of green and said, “Well, A LOT of my other problems would still be solved!” Maybe you need a harsher lesson in the fickle nature of Lady Luck. If that’s the case, queue up Final Destination 2 for a reality check, where one newly minted motorcyclist learns the hard way that money may buy gold rings and frozen dinners, but it won’t pay off Death to spare you from an eye gouging via fire escape.

9. Plane Crash

First class or coach, passengers on Oceanic Flight 815 started the series with a horror movie of their own, a crash that had the nerve to menace them even on land (pity the poor sucked-into-engine pilot). For the big screen, few films have ever quite matched the chaotic horror of 1993’s Alive, a crash made all the more terrifying by the fact that it actually happened.

10. The Numbers

Though we never learned the true significance of 4, 8, 15, 16, 23, and 42, just knowing such digits held mystical and/or electromagnet powers was enough to keep us constantly ruminating on their place in the world (and on our own lottery tickets). What better companion piece is there then, than Vincenzo Natali's low budget 1997 mystery Cube, a film which shares Lost’s penchant for ambiguity, mismatched people forced to work together, and characters named after something they vaguely represent (in this case, American prisons). Also, savvy mathematicians (which thankfully includes one of Cube’s leads) are quick to latch onto the numerals found inside each cubic doorway, decoding their meaning and thus providing Losies with their own fan-fiction fantasy answer involving square roots and booby traps. 

Kids Today and Their Darn Dead Cheerleaders

For the last six months or so, I’ve been living a happy existence free of talking baby ads and Law & Order reruns. LIfe without cable has its downsides--live baseball and awards ceremonies chief among them--but I had successfully convinced myself that Hulu, Netflix, and the good old fashioned salt-of-the-earth books are worth well over a $60 cable bill plus hidden fees and the evil trolls that bicker on the morning news.


That all changed two weeks ago when, unable to hack into insecure wireless networks in my new apartment, the fine people of Cablevision made me a non-contracted offer I couldn’t refuse. Well, thought I, I’ll keep it for baseball season and do my damnest to avoid watching stupidly written sitcoms, whinily acted melodramas, and madmen-inspiring Signals currently and potentially poisoning the digital airwaves.


Fourteen days after C-Day, I stand before you with a review of a TV movie-of-the-week about a dead cheerleader and starring the former princess of TV movies-if-the-week, Kellie Martin called Death of a Cheerleader. Thank you Lifetime.


Quick Plot: High school sophomore Angela (Martin) is dowdily cute and brainy. While this will eventually land her a sweet little NBC contract and an ill-fated screen romance with Noah Wylie, being a good writer and nice girl doesn’t quite cut it at the age of 16--particularly when your principal (Terry O’Quinn, John Locke and The Stepfather himself!) preaches intense competitiveness and a stop-at-nothing attitude to BE THE BEST!

Since this is high school in the mid 90s, “the best” means nothing less than cheerleader, yearbook editor (what?), and Lark (a sort of minor league sorority). Standing in her way is none other than the, according to O’Quinn’s creepily inappropriate authority figure, “the prettiest girl in school,” Stacie Lockwood. Deep into virgin-era Donna Martin, Tori Spelling milks all the hairspray she can out of the snotty and blond Queen Bee. And then, if you didn’t guess, she dies.

See, Angela REALLY wants Stacie to be her friend. After an ill-fated invitation to crash an “older crowd” party, Stacie implies that Angela--already stressed from not making the squad OR the yearbook staff--is no better than the angry goth girl that storms the hallways with a constant scowl. Naturally, a bloodless and awkwardly slo-mo’d stabbing has to occur. How else can Angela get Stacie’s boyfriend and treasurer position with the Larks?

Why am I still talking about this movie? I. Don’t. Know. Maybe it’s because I felt that I needed to stay current. Maybe I wanted to try something different. Or maybe, just maybe, I was too lazy to channel surf or find a DVD but motivated enough to write a review.


High Points
Despite being pretty typical of the TV movie style I can’t really fault any of the performances. Martin is embarrassingly on target as the disturbingly needy Angela and as the lone sympathetic popular girls, a young Marley Shelton stands out.

A Blossum hat is worn with typically awkward sass


Low Points
Just because it’s about teenagers does not mean a film requires a babysitting montage


Lessons Learned
To be a cheerleader in 1994, all you really needed was enough memory to nail four simple arm/leg movements. It makes Marsha Brady look like vintage Paula Abdul

Never impress teenage girls with shoulder length hair and Novas


The girl that constantly shouts “I”m gonna kill you, bitch!” is usually not the girl that killed the bitch


Rent/Bury/Buy
There is absolutely no reason the world we currently live in to watch this movie. Okay, maybe if you have a teenage daughter whose newfound obsession with being a cheerleader is getting a little unnerving, or if your cheerleading daughter has a friend that seems to be harboring an unnerving obsession, or if you just really dig Lifetime movies.


Friends, followers, readers, and robots: I promise this week or weekend to put an actual horror film--not one merely about the hell of high school--on the site. Currently on loan from Netflix is Rumplestilskin, which can’t NOT be good, and Burnt Offerings, whose Bette Davis/Karen Black/Oliver Reed/Burgess Meredith cast makes me happier than Donna Martin graduating.