Campy tv movies and mini-series that you still watch every once in awhile

I should start searching these out. I have fond memories of so many. I was the perfect age for them. It was a great loss when they disappeared. At one time ABC had several a week, with a great generic opening theme.

A really good one is "Along Came a Spider" with Godess Suzanne Pleshette and Ed Nelson. I hope it's out there, somewhere.

The Stranger Within -Barbara Eden is pregnant with an alien baby...

The Girl Most Likely TO -Stockard Channing as a former fat girl who murders all the people who humiliated her...

Planet Earth - John Saxon takes off his shirt repeatedly in a failed Gene Roddenberry pilot...

City Beneath the Sea -Irwin Allen reuses sets, props, costumes, and actors from his TV shows to tell the story of an underwater city threatened by bad writing...

Death Cruise -Kate Jackson and a few other DL faves on a cruise where people are murdered one by one...

The House That Would Not Die -Barbara Stanwyck plays both sides as a loving auntie and demure girlfriend in a haunted house story...

Maybe I'll Come Home in the Spring -Sally Field eats garbage as a teen runaway...

Where Have All the People Gone? - A plague reduces most of the population to powder while dogs go feral and eat surviving children...

Bad Ronald - The neighborhood creepy kid kills a girl and hides out between the walls spying on the new family that moves into his house...

Seven In Darkness - The only survivors of a plane crash are a group of blind people who try to climb down a mountain...

God! TV used to be so much better!!

Bad Ronald is a favorite of mine. It was released on blu-ray within the past couple of years.

What was the true story movie (maybe Lifetime?) starring Melissa Gilbert about a fertility doctor who was using his own sperm to impregnate scores of women, anyone know?

The Jessica Savitch Story

Jewels

Anything with Judith Light

Life of the Party: The Pamela Harriman Story

Blind Faith

Save By The Bell

California Dreams

Surviving, which is surprisingly good (and has an excellent score).

“Mother, May I Sleep With Danger”: A mom grows suspicious that her daughter (Tori Spelling) has found a too-perfect new boyfriend (Ivan Sergei), and that something is very wrong. She’s correct, of course.

The Legend of Lizzie Borden - Elizabeth Montgomery tv movie festival is completely worth it.

Condominium - made for syndication version of a John D. McDonald novel with a class of total B listers

Hollywood Wives

Lace and Lace II

The Stranger Within - Kate Jackson and Ricky Schroder

Almost any tv movie with one of Charlie's Angels, or with Markie Post, or Nancy McKeon

David with Bernadette Peters

Liza's tv movies are pretty good - Sam Found Out, A Time to Live. The West Side Waltz is a dud, despite the cast.

In theory I'd enjoy the ones with Pam Dawber, Connie Selleca, and Veronica Hamel getting kidnapped by terrorists and all, but their weird non-acting wears thin pretty quick. Also I'm not a fan of Meredith Baxter-Lesbian in her down-in-the-mouth, serious actress TV movie mode, even as Betty Broderick.

“Mother, May I Sleep With Danger?”

Beverly Hills Madam starring our girl Faye.

R8, I’ve always wanted to see Condominium. I don’t think it’s streaming anywhere.

Roots (the original 1977 mini-series)

Backstairs at the White House (1979)

The Holocaust (1978)

Angels in America (2003)

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (1979)

Shogun (1980)

Takes of the City (1993)

Shattered Innocence - Melinda Dillon plays the mother of a rebellious teen who runs away to Hollywood and becomes a porn star. Dillon is good but Jonna Lee as the doomed porn star is camp-tastically bad. There's a good quality version on youtube

Our girl Dorothy Faye as Evita or also known by its other title “Bitch Squared”.

I loved Backstairs At The White House -My sister actually hunted it down on DVD for me for Christmas last year.

For R11...

r12 has some interesting ideas about what constitutes "camp." (Unless he's thinking of CONCENTRATION camps.)

To Die For

A Matter of Justice and any other Patty Duke/Martin Sheen Made for TV movie

“V” (1983) - Aliens come to Earth, focusing of course on Los Angeles, and although they appear to be very attractive humans, they are of course lizards from space in disguise. Nazis to boot, complete with a stylized alien swastika symbol, as well as douchey sunglasses to protect them from our sun’s ghastly brightness.

Peter Nelson played one of the hotter aliens, in his human form at least.

Don't Be Afraid of the Dark

#4 - are you me???? Those are some of my favorites!! To see lovely Robert Urich making an ass out of himself crying lovesick tears and singing “Lady” over the t phone to Robin Dorian Lord Stasser - the swim meet and Joanna KEARNS holing her rose …..Jewels with Annette O’Toole - the nazis take over her home as headquarters - didn’t her older husband come back from the war sickly? ….. Jessica Savitch’s coke filled Bicentennial Minute - So many random memories!!!!

^ Finally, I have found someone on here who matches my level of taste and sophistication…….. and just to make your bussy even wetter………did you ever watch the classic “Liz: The Elizabeth Taylor Story” with Sherilyn Fenn?????

Little Gloria- Happy At Last (1982)

There is something quite homosexual about this miniseries and I enjoy watching it every so often.

They're planning one about Anderson Cooper called- Little Albino Homosexual Happy At Last.

An Inconvenient Woman and The Two Mrs. Grenvilles

I LOVED An Inconvenient Woman and Two Mrs Granville’s. I don’t know HOW I could have missed The Elizabeth Taylor Story with Sherilyn Fenn! I will have to watch it! ….. Ine of my old favorites was “Murder Ordanined” - JoBeth Williams seduces wimpy Rev Bird played by Terry Kinny. He kills his wife and her husband Terrance Knox. Keith Carridine, Kathy Bates and Hohn Goodman . ….. Also In the Best Interest of the Children with Sarah Jessica Parker and Sally Struthers.

R26 Your excitement is contagious!! I can feel it vibrating even as I write...

Linda Purl did a whole slew of these but I have a soft spot for Accidental Meeting.

Black Christmas-you gotta watch.

Ooh, the Linda Purl mention made me recall the Single White Female-ish Body Language with Purl and Heather Locklear. Haven't seen it in years but I remember it being a lot of fun, though it would have made more sense for Purl to play the exec and Locklear the ambitious assistant. And what's with the generic, Skinemax-ish title?

Why is it so hard to see Bad Ronald? It’s NEVER on YouTube!

Here, r31

"Liz: The Elizabeth Taylor Story” with Sherilyn Fenn is the best shit ever. I watched it every single time it aired in the 90s which was often, and rewatched it again a few years ago.

Linda Purl is incredibly nice. She does a lot of concerts and theatre now and is in a LTR with Patrick Duffy.

The Thornbirds

--or don't you thinks that's campy?

𝐆𝐚𝐫𝐠𝐨𝐲𝐥𝐞𝐬 (1972) linked below

𝐒𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐄𝐯𝐢𝐥 (1972)

𝐘𝐨𝐮'𝐥𝐥 𝐍𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐫 𝐒𝐞𝐞 𝐌𝐞 𝐀𝐠𝐚𝐢𝐧 (1973)

𝐊𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐝𝐨𝐳𝐞𝐫 (1974)

𝐒𝐚𝐭𝐚𝐧'𝐬 𝐓𝐫𝐢𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐥𝐞 (1975)

𝐇𝐨𝐥𝐨𝐜𝐚𝐮𝐬𝐭 𝟐𝟎𝟎𝟎 (1977), aka 'The Chosen,' aka 'Rain of Fire'

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐌𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐢𝐚𝐧 𝐂𝐡𝐫𝐨𝐧𝐢𝐜𝐥𝐞𝐬 (1980)

Linda Purl and Shaun Cassidy in Like Normal People

Midnight Offerings with Melissa Sue Anderson

Love the Liz Taylor with Sherilyn Fenn but she’s gone full MAGAT so, fuck her.

R36, I liked You'll Never See Me Again

Another one from the Linda Purl as villain oeuvre

Here's the trailer.

Home For The Holidays, every Christmas. Not Jodie Foster's cinematic dramedy, but the 1972 ABC CIrcle/Aaron Spelling TV movie, starring DL faves Sally Field, Jessica Walter and Eleanor Parker, along with Sal Mineo beard (or girlfriend?) Jill Haworth, all playing sisters who suspect their stepmother, DL fave Julie Harris, of being responsible for their father's death.

The Wild Women of Chastity Gulch (1982) starring Priscilla Barnes, Lee Horsley, Joan Collins, Pamela Bellwood, Morgan Brittany, Phyllis Davis, Howard Duff, Jeanette Nolan, Donny Osmond, and Lisa Whelchel. Brought to you by Aaron Spelling (predictably, with that cast). It's on YouTube.

I don’t think is a Lifetime movie, but I do think it’s a good campy movie starring the underrated Sally Struthers.

INVITATION TO HELL, a 1984 TV movie with Susan Lucci as the proprietess of a country club that's actually the portal to hell. Robert Urich plays the lead very straight. You'll howl.

One that really should be better known (especially if you like CONDOMINIUM) is TERRACES, a 1977 TV movie about the lives, lusts, loves, and secrets of residents in an upscale Los Angeles high rise. The art design and costumes are the height of 1970s avocado green polyester atrociousness and the highlight is Julie Newmar as "Chalaine," a former chorus girl. Lloyd Bochner also plays a closeted doctor.

It was the pilot for a series that never sold. It's on Amazon Prime (and probably YouTube) and it's 200 proof camp.

The 2-part miniseries from the 80’s, Lace. ‘Incidentally, which one of you bitches is my mother?’ Phoebe Cates’s attempt at some kind of European accent is hilarious.

Lace is hilariously bad

R46 it is so bad, and most of the time, it's just BAD bad. It has a few glimmers of good bad, but not enough to justify watching it imo.

Sweet Hostage, a 1975 tv movie with Linda Blair and Martin Sheen. He is an escaped mental patient, she's a misunderstood adolescent tom boy from the south. He kidnaps her. No its not a thriller, it's a love story. Yeah yeah yeah, pearl clutch all you want about Stockholm syndrome, its a sweet story and Sheen is hot in it.

Linda Blair in "Sarah T: Portrait of a Teenaged Alcoholic"

Right up there with "Go Ask Alice"

R44- What about this datalounge holiday favorite?

“Short Walk to Daylight.” An earthquake in NYC traps a handful of racially diverse strangers in a subway tunnel. James Brolin’s New Yawk accent is hilariously bad, but he looks great. Suzanne Charney (lead dancer in the Rich Man’s Frug, from “Sweet Charity”), and her whistle. Abby Lincoln dramatically stating, “Mah KIDS are up there!” Laurette Spang, as a drugged-out hippy chick. Subway crash, water flooding in from the East River, dark tunnels, and explosions! This TV movie-of-the-week has EVERYTHING!

"V" was amazing

“A Little Game,” starring Diane Baker and Ed Nelson. Mark Gruner (Clark Tyson, Jan’s crush from The Brady Bunch) plays a psychotic student home from military school. His slow-witted classmate is played by Christopher Shea (the voice of Linus in the Charlie Brown specials). Did Mark murder a fellow student? Might he kill again? Can his craziness be contained?

This ABC Movie-of-the-Week from 1971 scared me as a child.

“Katie, Portrait of a Centerfold” starring Kim Basinger. It’s hilarious mess!

This clip summarizes everything I love about TERRACES — '70s porn-quality photography and music, terrible acting, and the titular TERRACES.

Julie Newmar seems to be like Susan Tyrrell ... one doesn't direct her, one just lets her do her thing when the camera rolls. And Kit McDonough's performance as her plain neighbor wouldn't pass muster in a high school theater class.

Darling, it's Saturday night and time for a movie! Come to the TERRACES!

1985's Irwin Allen's Alice in Wonderland/Through the Looking Glass.... Carol Channing! Ann Jillian! Red Buttons! A magnum opus with songs by Steve Allen (Jayne Meadows also struts around since she's sleeping with the lead musician).

All those stars, R56, and not a decent song among them...

R57. Oh, come on! "Whats one and one and one and one and one and one and one and one and one and one and one and one plus two? Yes, you!" Should have won at least 3 grammys.

r53, I just discovered that one myself very recently. Not sure how I stumbled across it but it was entertaining. I was hoping for a The Good Son type ending where he'd have to choose between saving his stepson or the friend but I suppose that would have been too much for early 70s network TV

“SINS” is EVERYTHING.

“Crowhaven Farm,” an ABC Movie-of-the-Week, from 1970. It’s like a cross between The Crucible and Rosemary’s Baby, especially with Paul Burke (instead of John Cassavetes) in the role of the heroine’s (Hope Lange) husband. There’s even a character in it named Mercy Lewis, which is a character in The Crucible. Contemporary (for the ‘70s) residents of a New England town might be old Salem witches (dressed in Pilgrim garb), trying to get their hands on Lange’s unborn baby. Lange is even pressed under a door and stones, like Giles Corey in The Crucible! Scared the crap out of me when I was 6, and I had no idea I’d end up playing Giles Corey in The Crucible 25 years later.

Lies of the Twins. Isabelle Rossellini is a high fashion model who falls in love with her therapist and gets more than she bargained for.

...Isabella..

Deceptions with Stefanie Powers as twin sisters who switch places to see how the other half lives (one twin is a housewife, the other a rich jet setter.) Things go awry when one twin is killed and the surviving twin has to figure out what happened and how to return her former life. Very tawdry and soapy and oh so 80s

Summer of Fear (AKA Stranger In Our House) -- It is directed by Wes Craven and stars Linda Blair, Lee Purcell, Carol Lawrence, and even Fran Drescher. Linda Blair is a teenage girl whose cousin has to stay with her family because her parents died in an automobile crash. Linda Blair later discovers the cousin practices witchcraft after she steals her boyfriend, her best friend, kills her horse, etc. But of course, no one will believe her.

Toughlove with gorgeous Jason Patric as a drug-addicted teen whose parents (Lee Remick and Bruce Dern) have had enough.

The Initiation of Sarah, another Carrie ripoff from 1978. Starring Kay Lenz (underrated actress); the Morgans, Brittany and Fairchild; crazy Shelley Winters, and Kathryn Grant (her return to acting since the death of Bing Crosby).

From IMDB: "Often regarded as a rip-off of Carrie (1976), actor Michael Talbott appears in both films as a character named Freddy/Freddie."

Second Serve. Vanessa Redgrave as a transgender eye surgeon and tennis player.

If I was Mother I'd be very suspicious about why this guy wanted to sleep with her..

THE SPELL, another CARRIE ripoff with a fabulous-looking Lee Grant as the mother of a tubby telekinetic teen who is tormented in school. Bonuses: a young Helen Hunt and a magnificent Spanish Mission style house where Fatso and her family live.

Tucker and Dale vs Evil.

The People (another Movie-of-the Week, from 1972), starring Kim Darby. A young school teacher takes a job in the back country (actually filmed in Marin County), where the people look like extras from The Waltons and act like they’re Amish. They shuffle their feet when they walk—because they’re hiding the fact that they’re aliens with super powers from another star system! They do this, because when their ancestors first arrived on Earth, they were persecuted as witches. Kim gets them to open up, enjoy music, and start flying around again!

Does anyone remember the tv movie (probably a Dan Curtis production) starring DL fave Parker Stevenson about a house that is love/has powers? I always remember a scene where a hose or sprinkler suddenly starts spraying boiling water.

Seriously R69, 'Danger' is way out of her league!

r73, that would be This House Possessed from 1981. I've never seen it but need to. That cast!

Poor Parker - they made him sing.

The setup has you thinking the movie is about him, but then Lisa Eilbacher shows up and the audience is entranced - praying the house kills her violently for her bad 70s acting.

Call Me Anna. Patty Duke stars as herself!

Thank you, R75, that’s exactly the movie I was thinking about.

R76, did Parker song on Hardy Boys with Shaun Cassidy?

Between Friends aka Nobody Makes Me Cry. Carol Burnett is a sex addict and Elizabeth Taylor can't get a date.

R70 I just watched this last month on Criterion. That house was spectacular. It pissed me off when the daughter destroyed it at the end.

Mother, May I Suck Your New Husband Off?

r81, I can't believe this campfest was on Criterion! Hilarious.

R83 It shocked me too. Criterion also had John Carpenter’s Someone’s Watching Me! at the same time.