Friday the 13th: The Series (TV Series) Cupid's Quiver (1987) User Reviews

Typical of the series

[xbatgirl-30029 · 6/10 · 3 November 2022]

I watched this series as a teen when it was first on and absolutely loved it. For sure, it hasn't aged well. I don't know who want would watch it now except out of nostalgia or academic curiosity.

You have to realize when this was first on, the only horror movies or shows we got in the 80s were slashers or anthology shows like Tales From the Darkside. We'd been raised on the Love Boat and Dynasty as peak tv. So I think the audience at the time was more forgiving of illogical plots and two dimensional characters. And the plot here definitely doesn't make a lot of sense. But I was starving at the time to get an occult themed show every week. So I was very willing to ignore most of its faults.

I wish I could remember my impression of this particular episode when I watched it for the first time. Culture has definitely changed to the point that you can't watch it now the way you could then. The creep of the week probably actually comes off as much more sinister now. Back in the 80s, he probably seemed more of a sad sack type who just can't get women. Now it's more obvious he's an unstable serial rapist. And the women seem even more ridiculous to put up with him because back then there was more emphasis on being nice and accommodating of every creep's feelings and advances, even as he threatens and harasses you. The only people who want to go back to that time are the harassers. Anyway...

Personally I think most of the people who got hold of artifacts on this show were dark and unstable to begin with, unless they were very young. Then they would have been dealt a really bad hand, like Sarah Polly's character in the first episode. I disagree with another reviewer who seems to see them as innocents who simply had the misfortune of finding a cursed antique. So I don't see this episode as different from the rest of the series at all.

Regarding the violence, I have to think, because it was tv, the producers were worried about showing any blood or gore - hence the ridiculous bee scene. They wanted to be extreme without actually being extreme and it just didn't work.

I can believe the trivia someone added here that says this was the first episode filmed. There's very little backstory or depth to Micki, Ryan, and Jack. As for the direction, it is surprisingly decent for this type of show. There was actually suspense at times, something I didn't notice as much in the previous two episodes. I did like the point of view shots from the creep (Eddie?) where you just see quick cuts to his focus on a woman's mouth or sliding down her chest. You can see Atom Egoyan was already better than average even when dealing with schlock.

I guess if people feel this was the worst the show ever got, that's not bad, especially if it was the first episode made. The plot is barely an outline, and like everyone points out, nothing that the characters do makes sense. It's nice to see Carolyn Dunn in an early role. She would lead in multiple shows I was a fan on in the nineties.

One of the weaker episodes.

[The_King_of_Cool · 5/10 · 16 September 2017]

Episode 3: Cupid's Quiver- ** ½

This episode has the trio on search for a cupid statue that when used the person will fall in love with them, but that person then has to be killed. Weak episode, but I'll cut it some slack since its only episode 3 and the concept and characters are still being developed, but this one is mostly boring. The idea was solid, but just doesn't fully work.

Directed by Atom Egoyan who directed the film the Sweet Hereafter, which earned him an Oscar nomination for best director and screenplay for adapted material.

The Diabolic Cupid

[claudio_carvalho · 6/10 · 17 March 2024]

When Micki, Ryan and Jack read on the newspaper the murder of a woman in a hotel room, they conclude that the cursed cupid statue that Lewis sold is involved. They head to the room and learn from the manager that a fraternity teenager has stolen the statue. Meanwhile, the unbalanced janitor Eddie Monroe wears a T-shirt from the fraternity and poses as member. He is obsessed for the student Laurie Warren and takes photos of her all the time. When he sees the cupid statue in the room of the college boy, he steals the object. Meanwhile, Micki, Ryan and Jack are looking for the cursed object. Soon Eddie uses the statue in a bar to seduce a woman. They go to the park in his car and when she says she loves him, he kills her. Now he intends to use the statue to seduce Laurie.

"Cupid" Quiver" is a reasonable episode of "Friday the 13th: The Series", with a poor story. Or maybe because Atom Egoyan is not specialist in horror movies. The plot is not good, although the performance of Denis Forest is excellent in the role of a deranged and obsessed man. The statue could be smaller. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): "O Cupido Diabólico" ("The Diabolic Cupid")

the worst the series ever got

[movieman_kev · 3/10 · 5 March 2009]

An evil statue of a cupid who vaguely resembles Mad Magazine's Alfred E. Newman is in the hands of a sad little college going miscreant who uses it to make the women want him, which he kills post-coitus. Micki & Ryan have to go undercover yet again to get the evil antique back.

I'll make no doubts about it, of all 72 episodes of this series, this one is the worst. The characterization is of, the attempts at humor fall ridiculously flat and the mere idea of someone carrying a stature that tall around while bar-hopping is just insanely stupid. If you saw this episode and still liked it, more power to you. It just didn't work for me. However, the similarly themed later episode "Vanity's Mirror" & it's season 2 sequel episode "Face of Evil" are still classics of the series.

My Grade: D

The Role That Made Denis Forest the Go-To Guy for Creepy Losers

[Gislef · 2/10 · 25 July 2020]

Okay, Forest probably played a creep in stuff before this. I haven't seen any of his previous IMDB-listed roles. I just remember him as the cloaked Malzor in "War of the Worlds", Nosferatu in "Dracula the Series", Will Swill in "Brisco County", and Sweet Eddy in "The Mask". And he'd go on to play a creepy antique killer in three more episodes of "Friday the 13th: the Series".

Here Forest really cements the role as Eddie Monroe, a... well, creepy obsessed janitor who sweats a lot and laughs manically over photos he's pasted together of himself and his obsession/target, Laurie (Carolyn Dunn).

The episode doesn't do any favors to anyone involved. Micki is an idiot, Ryan comes across as almost as creepy as Eddie (he jokingly suggests using the Cupid on Laurie), Jack doses a fraternity with sodium pentothal to get information, and both Micki and Laurie play love-enraptured idiots. The second murder, with Eddie throwing a hive full of bees at his victim, makes no sense and gives Forest a chance to leer and laugh at the woman as she takes forever to die. Yes, being stung to death by bees (by having honey smeared on your hands, and Eddie just happens to keep a squirt bottle of honey in his glove compartment?) would probably take a while. Still, it's boring. That's why they invented camera cuts.

Most of the people are stupid, particularly the security guard. The guard thinks Eddie is a student, and a frat brother, although he's clearly neither. Shouldn't the campus security guard _know_, or at least check. There's some perv hanging around campus, and the guard just accepts the perv's story that he's a student although Eddie is clearly too old: Forest was 27 at the time. And then the guard just hands Eddie the Cupid on his way to taking it to lockup.

The episode hasn't aged well, either: watching females fall rapturously in love with first Hastings and then Eddie is just creepy and not in a good way. They basically rape the women and then kill them. You also wonder what the appeal of the Cupid is. So it lets you have sex with a woman you picked up in a bar and then forces you to kill her. Maybe if the love spell lasted more than an hour. Then again, Eddie doesn't seem to need much incentive to become a killer: he's already a creepy stalker.

Basically, the Cupid continues the show's early trend of making the antiques nothing more than uber-powerful weapons. You get something, and you have to kill for it. There's no sign of the intricate curses we would get in later episodes. And no corruption either: Eddie is already a creep, and doesn't get pushed into being a creep. The Cupid is just a magical artifact in in his hands.

There's nothing good in this episode. Ryan "defeats" Eddie when Eddie conveniently falls to his death. Laurie, under the influence of the Cupid, betrays the trio but all is forgiven at the end. Maybe the episode would be a little better or at least more imaginative if the genders were swapped. What if Eddie was interested in men? What if "Eddie" were Edwina? Eddie uses the Cupid on Micki, after two other women are murdered. That's typical of the show, abusing its female characters. I don't recall Ryan or Johnny (or Jack *heh*) getting ensnared by an antique, although it happened to Micki over. And over. And over again. Having Eddie be interested in women is not only unimaginative, but makes the women look like dolts.

But that's just my opinion, I could be wrong. What do you think?

Love hurts

[allexand · 2/10 · 1 July 2009]

Micki, Ryan, and Jack go after a sinister-looking Cupid statue that causes women to fall in love with its owner who must then kill them after he seduces them and gets them to formally declare their love for him.

"Cupid's Quiver" is just beyond terrible. Many more episodes like this and the show might have actually gotten canceled.

The things that really make this episode bad are as follows: the special effects are not very good, though better than "The Poison Pen" (almost anything is), it moves along at a snail's pace, Denis Forest and Carolyn Dunn give lousy performances, no college would allow one of their students to live in a basement, Micki foolishly goes to meet the guy alone, somehow procures a blond wig in the middle of the night and the villain tries to escape by walking along a flimsy pipe.

I haven't even gotten to the worst part of all: the death scene of the woman in the bar. I'm not referring to woman who is strangled in the prologue, mind you, but the woman that our loser villain picks up later. He kills her by locking her in a truck with angry bees. First of all, where did he get a beehive in the first place? How did he not get stung himself carrying the thing over there? Finally, the special effects used to create the bees are just awful. It looks like she's being attacked by a bowl of Rice Krispies.

I would list some positives but I just can't think of any here. "Cupid's Quiver" is definitely the low point for this series. Fortunately, it does get better. If you want to see this kind of plot done better, I would recommend the episode "Vanity's Mirror" later in this season. Even though Denis Forest and Carolyn Dunn absolutely stunk they would be given chances to redeem themselves in later episodes (as different characters each time, amusingly enough). Denis alone would go on to torment the Curious Goods trio in three more episodes.