Invitation to Hell is the latest flick in The Last Movie Outpost series on made-for-TV horror movies.
Previously, we looked at The Intruder Within, Midnight Offerings, Curse of the Black Widow, Satan’s Triangle, Killdozer and Devil Dog: The Hound of Hell.
Invitation to Hell aired on ABC, May 24, 1984.
Invitation to Hell gets off to a fast start. A wood-paneled station wagon runs over Susan Lucci. Lucci is dressed like Thing #3 from The Cat in the Hat. She pops back up behind the car and melts the driver with a finger gun. No one bats an eye at this.
I don’t know how to frame this in my brain. I feel like an H.P. Lovecraft character who just encountered a world of non-Euclidean shapes built by monster penguins.
Let’s get into the madness…
Invitees to Hell
Cut to a new family moving into a town that is almost certainly the same town featured in Poltergeist. Robert Urich is the head of the family unit. Urich is the man. He has been on more TV series than Eric Roberts has been on straight-to-VHS movies. Yet, Urich’s last name is unfortunate. Most words that start with “ur” are not good words.
Urine. Uremic. Urea. Urethra. You get the idea.
Joanna Cassidy is Urich’s wife. Seeing Cassidy as a traditional lady is also difficult to comprehend. Cassidy’s role as Zhora in Blade Runner is iconic. I expect her to be wearing a Saran Wrap blouse with a snake wrapped around her neck.
And is that Barret Oliver as their son? It is! I love Barret. Oddly enough, The Neverending Story, D.A.R.Y.L. and Cocoon are not the first roles I think of from Barret.
I always think of Barret in the 1987 made-for-TV version of The Secret Garden. His performance, combined with the fact that his character died in the war while the wheelchair brat got the girl, always stuck with me in a bittersweet way. It almost made me experience an emotion. Almost…
And is that Punky Brewster as the daughter? Egad! It is! This movie is a cavalcade of stars! Punky is the daughter of Virgil Frye, who was in Revenge of the Ninja and was born in a Podunk town only half an hour from me. If only I had known. We could have talked about corn for hours.
Not only does Invitation to Hell feature a lot of talent in front of the camera, it features a large amount of talent behind it, as well. Wes Craven directed this little ditty the same year he hit the jackpot with A Nightmare on Elm Street.
Meanwhile, Dean Cundy is the director of photography. You can almost always tell a Cundy movie, at least from this era. He loved mixing his warm colors with cool blues. It works especially well in The Thing, with its arctic setting and flares.
RSVP to Hell
Invitation to Hell is clearly trying to capitalize on the exploding computer market of the early 1980s. Urich is a computer programmer, and Barret has a sweet Eagle PC that can tell him when a mover steals one of his candy bars.
Such were the dreams of integrating computers into real life back then. PCs were magical boxes that could do anything. Since then, they are mostly used for video games, porn, movie sites for toxic fans and video games that are also porn.
In case you are ever a contestant on Jeopardy, Eagle computers were an IBM clone, which led to the company’s downfall. IBM sued for copyright infringement of their code, and Eagle never recovered. It went defunct in 1986. The more you know…
Proving they are a normal family, Urich and his family sing songs around the fireplace that night. Ah yes, many is the night the family and I sang songs around the fireplace, classics like The Muffin Man and Fat-Bottomed Girls.
A family friend played by Joel Regalbuto crashes the party. Regalbuto has shown up in everything from Magnum P.I. to The Sword and the Sorcerer. He even got to be in an Arnold Schwarzenegger movie, Raw Deal. Regalbuto brings his wife and kids along. His wife wears Guess jeans, so she must be a happening chick. Anybody who was anybody had Guess jeans in my school.
I had Lee jeans. Actually, that explains a lot…
What strikes me is how happy these people are, despite the fact they lived under the continual threat of nuclear war in the 1980s. Cut to 2024 and people actively seek out reasons to be unhappy whether nuclear war is looming or not.
Highway to Hell
Urich and Cassidy go to bed, and she is in the mood for loving. They just moved, unpacked their entire house, sang around the fireplace, had supper with friends, put the kids to bed and now they want to engage in marital relations? This stretches suspension of disbelief too far. In real life, they would collapse into bed with exhausted farts echoing into the night.
The next day, Urich goes to his new job at Micro-Digi-Tech. Urich meets his secretary, an old lady with a mysterious red binder that she keeps hidden. The way she acts leads one to conclude the binder is perhaps filled with pictures of kittens in S&M gear.
Urich’s job is to computerize a space suit that will be used to explore Venus. The space suit is clearly the idea the movie was built around. It even has weapons: a laser and a flamethrower. Why does it need a flamethrower if it is going to Venus? The entire planet is a flamethrower. That’s like arming a deep-sea diving suit with a squirt gun.
Urich returns home. Cassidy immediately starts in on him about redoing the house that they just moved into yesterday. Every man everywhere nods with PTSD understanding.
Another familiar face enters the movie. It is Jason Presson, one of the boys from the movie Explorers. Presson and a couple of friends challenge Barret to a video game. Presson loses, so he throws the video game on the floor and smashes it. The only way to deal with this crisis is to play a poignant synthesizer solo as Barret and Punky pick up the pieces. They then decide to have a cookie to get on top of their traumatic experience.
I can’t really make fun of that. I often use cookies as homemade Prozac myself.
Road to Hell
Urich and his family go for a drive and almost get in car accident. Urich gets out to have words with the other driver. Susan Lucci steps out of the backseat. She is dressed in another outfit that looks like it could be worn to explore Venus, as well.
The movie always stops for Lucci when she enters the scene. This is because Invitation to Hell was something of a vanity project for Lucci. Her contract on All My Children guaranteed her a movie-of-the-week. This was it. Truly, she made her mark because here we sit, talking about it forty years later.
The movie moves on. Lucci is now with Regalbuto and his family. No Guess jeans in evidence this time. They are at the town’s exclusive club, wearing bathrobes and standing before a mysterious door with an awful lot of steam coming from it. That sucker must be the mother of all saunas. It could probably fit William ‘The Fridge’ Perry.
“You are now accepted into the inner circle,” Lucci says. “You must forsake all.”
“We do,” Regalbuto and his family mutter.
“Then enter into the spring and taste its power.”
Once the family enters the door, Nicolas Worth guards it. You know him. He was one of the goons from Swamp Thing. Worth must have been buddies with Craven and got on Invitation to Hell that way. Later on, Michael Berryman has a small cameo as a club employee, as well.
Registered Mail to Hell
The movie gets back to wallowing in future tech. Urich hooks his computer up to the Venus suit’s helmet, and we are treated to helmet POV. Total Airwolf, Blue Thunder stuff. Readouts on the HUD include things like air temperature and whether or not a subject is human or non-human.
For example, when the helmet is pointed at a plant, the HUD reads, “NON-HUMAN, BENIGN.”
When it is pointed at a person, the HUD reads, “HUMAN, BENIGN.”
This would be handy for singles bars. “PSYCHO, HERPES.”
Urich stays late to continue his work. His old lady secretary shows up and wants him to read her red binder. She must have decided Urich is a kindred spirit that can be trusted with pictures of kittens dressed in leather and chains.
Before that can happen, Kevin McCarthy enters the movie! McCarthy runs Micro-Digi-Tech and wants Urich to show Lucci around the lab. Upon being introduced to Urich, Lucci says, “We’ve already bumped into each other once or twice.”
Hahaha! Get it! Because they were almost in a car accident! This screenplay surely won numerous awards. I am going to Wikipedia to get a list of them.
…
I’m back. I was wrong. This movie did not win any awards.
Lucci admires Urich’s handsomeness, which makes sense. Don’t we all? She also says she can tell he was a rower in college from the way his body is muscled. Oddly enough, I thought the exact same thing!
“Join the club,” Lucci says. “We have lots of equipment. Lots of pleasurable things.”
Meanwhile, the camera takes us inside the helmet as Lucci stands before it.
The HUD reads, “NON-HUMAN, MALIGNANT.”
But we already knew that. We are dealing with a person from Hollywood, after all.
Prime Delivery to Hell
At work the next day, Regalbuto shows Urich his new office. Apparently, once Regalbuto pledged his soul to the club, he got a promotion. He asks to sponsor Urich for membership.
Urich is not into it joining clubs. Urich is his own man. This makes sense. He was a rower in college.
Meanwhile, Cassidy is back home and gushes over the new car Regalbuto’s wife is driving. It is one of those 1980s Cadillacs with a bustleback rear end. That car is probably more of a beast that whatever is in the club’s steam room…
Once Cassidy sees that car, she starts nagging Urich that night. She wants a piece of the pie, too, and if the club can help, why not join? Urich says he is a little scared of her attitude and the club. Cassidy says he is afraid of success. That is the last straw for Urich. He goes to sleep on the couch.
Sorry, man, but that’s what you get for marrying a stripper…
Urich hears a TV on downstairs. He discovers Presson in the kitchen, watching what looks like a documentary on Kristallnacht and laughing at the onscreen images. I hope that kid never watches a modern newscast. He will end up like people exposed to Smile-x.
Urich goes to work the next day and discovers he has a new secretary. McCarthy fired his old one. “She wasn’t company timber,” he says. “By the way, join the club, be one of us.”
Invitation to Hell River
Urich softens his stance somewhat and visits the club with his family. Lucci shows them around. She shares that the gym is her favorite room. “Everyone is encouraged to work out and stay trim.”
Urich thinks he hears someone crying and sneaks off to investigate. He discovers the mysterious door to the mega-sauna. He touches it and winces at the heat coming off of it. Lucci surprises him.
“I thought I heard someone crying for help,” Urich explains.
“Probably someone crying out in ecstasy,” Lucci says. “You don’t care about money, but you do care about pleasure, don’t you?”
Urich resists her charms. Or maybe, he is just oblivious. Lucci is being pretty subtle here. Lots of mixed signals to sort through with women sometimes.
While Urich continues to show no interest in joining the club, Cassidy is a different story. She takes the kids and becomes a member behind Urich’s back. Cassidy and Barret go through the mysterious door. Punky is too scared, but Lucci shoves her through anyway.
That night, Urich comes home to Cassidy wearing a leather skirt. Barret and Punky act strange. Their dog now hates them. Sorry for not mentioning the dog earlier. I’m trying to keep this article a bit shorter than a James Michner novel. The dog behavior concerns Urich.
“For a second there, it looks like he was afraid of you guys,” Urich says.
Invitation to Hello Kitty
Urich goes to work the next day and receives a call from a mysterious old man. The old man says he is the husband of Urich’s previous secretary. He is also a veterinarian. It also just so happened that Cassidy brought their dog to the old man that morning. She said the dog was vicious and should be put down.
Wow, none of that sounds contrived at all!
Urich goes home to confront Cassidy. Cassidy grows steadily weirder. She chops vegetables in an evening dress and brandishes the knife threateningly at Urich. Next, she scratches Urich during their Friday night mutual molestation session. Then she plays piano wildly. A person half expects her to growl, “There is no Cassidy, only Zuul…”
In between all of that, Urich discovers his old secretary died in a car accident.
All of this motivates Urich to sneak into the club to revisit the mysterious door again. He brings a thermometer this time. The heat coming off the door is more than 800 degrees, so roughly the temp of the water during a woman’s shower.
Nicolas Worth discovers Urich and they have a fight that destroys a lot of cardboard boxes. Urich prevails by electrocuting Worth with a broken light while Worth touches a chain-link fence. Urich then says, “Was it…’Worth’…it?” and winks at the camera.
Just kidding. He probably wept guiltily for hours after ending a man’s life. Yet, another part of him strangely liked the sensation of snuffing out the breath of another human being, and sometimes, years later, he would find himself lying awake at night, wishing he could do it again…
I Can’t Think of Any More Subheads
Urich goes home. Punky is tearing her stuffed rabbit to pieces with a crow bar and screaming, “Bad bunny, bad!” Now there’s something you don’t see every day…
Punky and Barret attack Urich and speak with demon voices. It doesn’t sound like they were dubbed voices either. It sounds like Wes had the kids do the voices themselves, and it is kind of adorable. They sound a bit like Donald Duck with laryngitis.
Urich simply throws his kids in the closet for acting up. Come on, we’ve all done it. Cassidy then attacks with a golf club. Cassidy is a pretty effective physical presence. If she came at you with a golf club in real life, you could legitimately fear injury. She has genuine athleticism.
It all culminates with Urich donning the Venus suit and entering the mysterious door. He then descends into hell to rescue the souls of his wife and children. Since this is television and not a $100-million movie, the descent into hell is a shot of a cave set and then some sort of jump into a version of the town that exists in another dimension. This other dimension is achieved with a camera filter.
Urich enters a limbo version of his house where Cassidy plays the piano with a look of high anxiety, like she can’t stop playing the piano, kind of like Billy Joel. Cassidy also has a blue laser projecting a light cone around her.
Can Urich’s love break that cone? You better believe it! While he is there, his love also breaks the cones around his children, as well. They then warp back into the real world.
Oh yeah, Lucci also explodes. Or something…
Summary
Invitation to Hell starts out well. The idea of a man using a space suit to go into hell to rescue his family is as escapism as it gets. Yet, the movie doesn’t gel at the end of the day. Once it is past the initial setup, the story bogs, big-time. Invitation to Hell needed a subplot. It seems like the secretary with the red binder was set up for this, but it was never leveraged. We never learn what she collected in the red binder. We never learn why she collected it.
Richard Rothstein wrote Invitation to Hell. He wrote the great Jean Claude/Dolph joint Universal Soldier. Plus, he created the HBO Hitchhiker series. Perhaps, Invitation to Hell was simply from a time before he refined his skills.
Regardless, one imagines the movie was the talk of the playground the next day in 1984. Kids would have looked past all of the bad stuff because of the spacesuit and the overall concept.
Invitation to Hell is a fun enough to sit through and watch all of the talent behind it. It has some interest as a 1980s artifact. It’s also hard to go wrong with the secret-society plot.
Usually, it is a process of discovery, however. That is maybe what is missing from Invitation to Hell, as well. We know Lucci is the devil from the first scene. The viewer is about five steps ahead of the movie the entire time. It probably played better with commercial breaks. Then the repetition would be not as noticeable because you get up every fifteen minutes to go to the bathroom or get something to eat and then return to settle back in.
It is okay to RSVP “no” to this invitation, but if you must go, bring your own bottle to make it more fun.
