28 October: Deadly Messages

 

When you’re a kid, and you are too young to go see spooky movies on the big screen (or your parents are too square to take you!), it’s great when the scary movies come to you on the small one. Nowadays, with streaming services being what they are, it’s easier than ever to see anything you want, whenever you want. Back in the day, however, it usually took at least a year before a movie was played on TV or released on video. Luckily, TV networks created their own movies to fill all those programming hours and to quench the thirst of genre film fans. Made-for-TV movies, while not as graphic as films in the theaters, were often quite inventive with their scares. What they lacked in bloodshed, they made up for in suspense and all-around strangeness. For today’s Cinematic Void 31 Days of Voidoween, I want to talk Jack Bender’s 1985 made-for-TV movie Deadly Messages.

While Laura Daniels (Kathleen Beller) and her boyfriend Michael go out on the town, a young woman who is staying with the couple, Cindy (Sherri Stoner), finds a ouija board. Using it alone, Cindy contacts the spirit of a young man who claims that he was murdered. When Laura returns home, she’s forgotten her keys. She climbs the fire escape to her apartment’s window and witnesses a man in dark glasses strangling Cindy. Laura calls the police, but when they arrive and enter the apartment all signs of the crime have vanished -- including Cindy!

Laura uses the ouija board and contacts the spirit of Mark, the same spirit Cindy spoke to. Mark tells Laura that he killed Cindy and that he is going to kill her, too. Soon, Laura is being stalked on the streets of the city and the food court of the mall by a killer. Unfortunately, Laura is unable to convince anyone else, including Michael, that what she is experiencing is real. Will the killer get her? Will Michael believe her before it’s too late?

On the face of it, Deadly Messages is your typical made-for-TV fare. You got your woman-in-peril storyline and your nobody-believes-her storyline stitched together by a is-she-really-crazy storyline. Where Deadly Messages pushes the envelope is in the development of Laura Daniels’s past. I don’t want to give it away, but the truth about Laura is discovered and revealed in a really novel and charming way. It was such a pleasant surprise, and it opened the story up to new and weird possibilities.

Kathleen Beller was a staple of the made-for-TV landscape. She’d starred in such films as Are You in the House Alone?, No Place to Hide, and The Blue & the Grey. She was also a part of the cast of Dynasty for many years. Jack Bender had a heck of a year in 1985. In addition to Deadly Messages, he made Letting Go (with John Ritter) and The Midnight Hour.

Deadly Messages isn’t as over-the-top crazy as Dark Night of the Scarecrow, Trilogy of Terror, or Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark, but I think it’s got a great energy that drives it to a satisfying denouement.

It is 9 October. There are 22 days until Halloween.

My cat is annoying. Present him with a closed door, and he cries and scratches at it until you open it for him. Then, as soon as he peeks into the room that was off limits and sees what’s there, he gets bored and wanders off.

Ouija boards are that way for people in horror movies. Show someone a witchboard and they just gotta use it to open the door between this world and the next and see what’s there. And what’s back there is usually bad news. Has there ever been a movie where something good has happened as a result of playing with a Ouija?

Hmmm…it did make Tawny Kitaen swear like a longshoreman and gave the world one of the greatest end credits themes ever – but that’s the exception that proves the rule.

In this week’s movie, 1985’s Deadly Messages (a.k.a. Ouija), the Ouija board doesn’t just open a portal to some supernatural realm. For Laura Daniels (played by Kathleen Beller), it opens up a door to her past. A door that she had no idea existed.

Deadly Messages is a great example of what makes the made-for-tv movie genre so fascinating and so much fun. The story flows at a quick pace. Every scene is there to move the plot forward. There ain’t no time for foolin’ around. If you dawdle on some artsy-fartsy shot, then people may switch over to Three’s Company!

The acting is excellent. Ms. Beller is a veteran of the made-for-tv movie, especially of the woman-in-peril-who-doesn’t-know-who’s-after-her variety. Dennis Franz does his put-upon, skeptical cop schtick. His lines are delivered with the flattest accent permissible by law.

It’s a good mystery overall, too. Because the plot is driving forward all the time, you never lose sight of what’s going on, which allows the filmmakers to get pretty far out with the story. There is a plot twist about halfway through that I can say I did not see coming and I don’t think I’ve seen it again in another film. It’s very smart and enjoyable, and is keeping with the tone of the rest of the picture.

I know Deadly Messages isn’t your standard Halloween movie, but it’s got a lot of chills and thrills that I think are a good warm-up for the rest of the month’s viewing.