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  • Writer's pictureDerek Faraci

A Very Spooky... Quantum Leap


This Article Originally Ran On Blumhouse.com


Welcome to A Very Spooky… where we take a look at and review a classic TV series that is not known for horror but would, on occasion, dip its toes into the waters of terror…


This week, for the first outing, we’ll be discussing Quantum Leap season 3, episode 4: “The Boogieman”.


How can I best describe Quantum Leap to those who have never seen it? I love the show, but I tend to ramble, so I would go on for 20 pages about just on Sam Beckett’s life before he started Project Quantum Leap. I suppose the easiest way is to use the script from the show; every episode opened with the same description, told by a third person omniscient voice…


"Theorizing that one could time travel within his own lifetime, Doctor Sam Beckett stepped into the Quantum Leap Accelerator and vanished.


He awoke to find himself trapped in the past, facing mirror images that were not his own, and driven by an unknown force to change history for the better. His only guide on this journey is Al, an observer from his own time who appears in the form of a hologram that only Sam could see and hear.


And so Doctor Beckett finds himself leaping from life to life, striving to put right what once went wrong, and hoping each time that his next leap... will be the leap home."


So there you go - every week, viewers would watch Sam leap from life to life, fixing things. It was like a sci-fi A-Team, even including an older guy who smoked cigars!


Usually, the leaps that Sam did were situated on the usual drama/mystery settings - stop a mom from leaving her family, find the murderer of a up and coming actress - things like that. Once, he did leap into Lee Harvey Oswald and had to assassinate JFK, but usually the stakes were way lower than that.


Still, what Sam, with the help of Al, was doing ended up pissing off some people, or in the case of the episode we’ll be discussing, some forms of pure evil. The concept of religion was brought into Quantum Leap pretty early on. Once things went, as Al Calavicci would put it time and again, “ca-ca”, Sam and Al theorized that God was really the one sending Sam through time to fix what once went wrong. It wasn’t something the show spent too much time on (until the final episode) but it did posit the concept every now and then. This allowed Quantum Leap to occasionally slip into the paranormal. Which brings us to October 31st, 1964 where Sam finds himself in the body of Joshua Ray, a writer who is described as a second rate H.P. Lovecraft.


From moment one, Sam doesn’t like where he’s shown up. The house is creepy, filled with goth architecture, cobwebs and black mamba in a fish tank. Sitting on the table in front of him is a book on witchcraft. Sam is not happy. Not happy at all.


As he begins to search the house for clues as to who he is, Sam hears a noise, a groaning from behind a door. As he goes to investigate the sound, walking up the first of two flights of stairs, the door flies open, revealing a human with the head of a fly. At the same moment, another being jumps down from the staircase behind Sam. Sam, understandably, freaks out and takes a tumble down the stairs.


Lucky for Sam, these are not real monsters, but Mary Greely, Joshua’s fiance, and Stevie, their teenaged friend who looks like he stole George Romero’s glasses. The two were just playing a prank, a fun little Halloween prank! Good times for all, except for Sam, who still doesn’t really know what the hell is going on. Through casual conversation, Sam is able to figure out that the house they are in, which is a an old church house, isn’t usually so creepy - it is being made into a haunted house for the night.


As Sam starts to feel comfortable with his surroundings, he hears a knocking coming from upstairs. Sam heads up to once more investigate, first coming across a shelf of Joshua Ray books with some fantastic titles:


I would totes read Skull Party.


Sam finds Tully, a maintenance man who is fixing a window. It seems that Tully’s method of fixing windows is to climb way too high on a ladder, then bang on window sills. Tully fills in the creepy old guy portion of horror by randomly bringing up a woman who was burned at the stake as a witch in the sixteen hundreds, then talking about how for Old Scratch, time means nothing.


A goat hanging around the base of the ladder, apparently tired of Tully’s shit, pulls on a rag stuck under the ladder, sending the ladder falling, and Tully with it. Tully is dead, his head smashing into a rock. So long you old creepy bastard!


Sam explains to the Sheriff about the goat, which no one else has seen. Being that no one else saw it, no one believes Sam. Finally, way later than usual, Al appears. Al, who always has the info Sam needs in order to fix the problem he is there for, quickly gets a scolding from Sam, upset that he was unable to save Tully. Al explains to Sam that he didn’t leap into Joshua Ray to save Tully, but to save Mary, whose body will be found at midnight, strangled to death in the church house. One of the main suspects? Joshua Ray.


So Sam comes up with his plan - if Joshua is the killer, Sam, being in Joshua’s body, won’t kill her. In a weird moment, Mary senses Al, and she is visibly uncomfortable about it. Even weirder, Sam comes across a typewriter that has a slip of paper in it. Typed on the paper is the story of Tully’s death.

The town gossip, Dorothy Jaeger, comes by to drop off some candle holders for the haunted house. She, along with Sam and Mary, reminisce about Tully and how shitty he was at his job. Dorothy heads to the kitchen to get herself some apple cider. Sam sits with Mary, trying to convince her to cancel the haunted house. A scream comes from the kitchen. Dorothy is dead, bitten by the black mamba. Sam is way pissed. Way, way pissed.


Once again, Sam explains to the police what happened, and once again the police don’t fully believe him. Al has become convinced that Mary is the one who let the black mamba out of the fish tank in order to kill. As Al puts it, “There’s something hinky going on here”. Sam and Al find a new page on the typewriter, written on it is a description of Dorothy’s death. Mary peeks in and sees Sam talking to air. She gets upset, real upset. Like Carrie upset. Suddenly, as if something sudden, a skull on a shelf flies across the room, almost hitting Sam. A moment later, Mary has a seizure, though Al is pretty sure she is possessed.


At the hospital, Mary is sleeping as Sam and Al talk about the flying skull. Sam, ever the scientist, explains that psychokinesis is theoretically possible. He believes that when Mary’s epileptic seizure started, her neurons shorting out stimulated her psychokinetic abilities. Al still thinks Mary’s a witch or possessed by the devil. One or the other.


Sam and Al go to Mary’s house to further investigate her. Al is not very excited to go - Mary’s address is 966 Salem Avenue - a little too close to 666 for Al’s tastes. Sam decides to let Al go in first, being that nothing can hurt Al. The house is filled with Halloween decorations, though Al thinks there’s a more sinister meaning to all of it. Sam finds a pamphlet for the church and learns that the Board of Deacons consists of Mary Greely, Tully Martin, and Dorothy Jaeger. Sheriff Ben Masters shows up - he’s pretty sure Joshua/Sam is responsible for the murders, but can’t prove it yet. Sam is pretty sure that the Sheriff is the murderer, mainly because the Sheriff is kinda a dick and he chews on matches. Again, not enough evidence!


Sam makes a stop at the hospital to check in on Mary before driving back to the church house in Joshua’s 1958 Plymouth Fury. Sam is nervous it is getting closer to midnight and he still hasn’t found Mary’s killer. He realizes that he is being followed and starts to drive faster. A black cat jumps out from the back seat of the car, spooking the crap out of Sam, who almost runs over that damn goat who killed Tully! He swerves to miss the goat, and nearly drives into a living scarecrow, the same scarecrow that has been sitting outside the church house all day!


Sam barely misses hitting the scarecrow and drives off the road, hitting a tree. The scarecrow runs up, pulling off it’s head to reveal that it is Stevie in his Halloween costume, why he’s running through the streets in it is beyond me. Stevie says his car broke down, but who the hell would be able to drive with a damn pumpkin on their head!? Sam, angry, tired, and likely confused by Stevie, skips asking that question and claims that the car seemed to have a mind of it’s own, “like Christine”. Stevie has no idea what that means. It is 1964, after all.


Sam returns to the church house and comes across the witchcraft book again. He sits down and begins to read it, realizing something, though we don’t know what. Al shows up, spooking Sam (accidentally) and they go over the clues. Sam is confident that the Sheriff is the killer, Al suggests that it may be the Boogieman. Sam calls the police precinct to speak with the Sheriff only to find that the Sheriff is missing. Sam calls the hospital to check on Mary, only to learn that she is waiting for the Sheriff outside. Leaping (pun intended) into action, Sam drives to the hospital.


Along the way, he finds the Sheriff’s car smashed into a tree. Inside is the Sheriff, dead from a blow to the head. Sam sees the goat yet again and he’s had enough of this crap. Sam returns home, walking slowly. As he reaches the house, he sees the Sheriff’s car in the driveway. Standing outside the house is Stevie who tells Sam that Mary and the Sheriff are inside. Sam doesn’t appear to be surprised that the Sheriff is there. He seems to have expected it.


Sam enters the house, telling Stevie to go home. Stevie tries to tell Sam about an idea he has for a book, but Sam doesn’t have time to listen to some punk kid! Evil is afoot!


Inside the church house, Sam tells Mary that the Sheriff is dead. Then the Sheriff comes out from the kitchen. Sam confronts him, grabbing the Sheriff by the arm. The Sheriff turns into Al! WHAT THE HELL!!!!!!


Sam begins to break down the pieces - the clues to it all. Mary was never really in danger, the other Deacons were a ruse, a false pattern. Then, Al appears - the real Al. Looking at his device, Al explains that something was blocking him from showing up to help. Then he looks up and sees himself.


Mary asks Evil Al who he is. He explains, “Yin and yang. Good and bad. God and…”


Sam finishes for him, “the Devil”.


Evil Al explains why he is there - he is going to kill Sam for putting right the things he made wrong. He begins to choke Sam. Sam chokes Evil Al back. Things get cray as Sam passes out, falling to the ground.


He comes to at the stairs, Stevie and Mary standing over him, still holding the masks they used at the beginning to frightening him (a fun gag!). Al is there too, and begins to explain that Sam is there to save Tully.


Sam quickly runs up stairs and grabs Tully before the ladder can fall. The day is saved! Yay! Sam explains to Mary and Stevie everything that happened while they wait for Stevie’s mom to come pick him up. Stevie’s mom pulls up with a Saint Bernard in the backseat. Mary calls out “Hello Mrs. King!” and Sam puts it together… little Stevie is Stephen King! Sam and Al look at each other as Sam leaps out to his next adventure.


This episode has, in my opinion, everything that made Quantum Leap great - an interesting mystery where the clues are all on the screen, good back and forth between Sam and Al, Sam being confused most of the time, and a wink to someone or something. This episode also gave Dean Stockwell, who plays Al, the chance to really eat up the scenery when Evil Al reveals himself. You can see he’s loving it, a big goofy evil smile on his face the whole time.


There is an issue with how much of Stephen King’s work Sam seems to remember; in the episode, Sam brings up Christine, he starts to explain Carrie but stops, and he remembers Cujo. In the show, we are often reminded that a side-effect of Sam leaping through time is that he has lost many of his own memories. Sam slowly regains some of them - like that he had a brother and sister - but a lot of pop culture is lost to him. I guess maybe Sam was a huge King fan?


I’m sure that they didn’t plan this, but this episode would end up becoming very important in the Quantum Leap mythology. This episode would, in some ways, form the basis for a trilogy of episodes in season five where Sam faces off against an evil leaper who is going around messing up time, undoing the things Sam has fixed before.


This episode also has all the ingredients of a fun horror story, filled with cheap jump scares, crazy murders, a creepy goat, and the Devil. It plays like a late 70s / early 80s British horror. The feel of the episode reminded me of Ghost Story. The writer of the episode, Chris Ruppenthal, also wrote for The X-Files and The Outer Limits, and the director, Joe Napolitano, also directed for The X-Files. You can see in this episode that they get the basics of horror, but with a show like Quantum Leap, they couldn’t go all the way.


There are a few episodes of Quantum Leap that touch on the basic horror tropes - including vampires, ghosts, and serial killers, but this one really stands out, going full on into horror, though it never really gets scary - again, the style of the show lent itself more to mystery than to horror, so don’t come looking for this to give you the creeps. Except for that scarecrow. That thing looks freaky.

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