Beyond Witch Mountain

In 1982 there was an attempt to revive the "Witch Mountain" franchise. Completely ignoring (and negating) events that took place in 1978's "Return to Witch Mountain," "Beyond Witch Mountain" directly follows the events in "Escape to Witch Mountain." The original kids (Kim Richards, Ike Eisenmann) were too old so they were replaced with Tracey Gold and Andy Freeman; Efrem Zimbalist Jr. took over the role of Aristotle Bolt (Ray Milland in the film) and perennial TV actor J.D. Cannon took over for Donald Pleasence as Deranian. The only person to reprise their role from the film was Eddie Albert who (thankfully) returned as Jason O'Day.

This time Tia and Tony escape from Witch Mountain following Uncle Bene (Noah Beery Jr.), who's on a quest to find his grandson. But poor Uncle Bene is too old to continue the search, so Tony and Tia go in his place. Soon they meet up with Jason and Winky and discover Mr. Bolt hasn't given up his search for the kids.

The idea was that this would be a weekly tv series. Yep, tune in for the adventures of Tony, Tia, Jason and Winky as they search for more space-crash survivors while dodging the nefarious Mr. Bolt and company. Obviously it didn't happen. Can't discern how it fared for its February 1982 outing, but the first rerun was one of the lowest-rated shows of the week...

...probably because it fails to capture the charm of the original. Aside from Albert (who slipped right back into his character), Gold (who's a likable Tia) and Zimbalist (who's not the menacing presence of Milland but is still effective), the performances aren't particularly noteworthy. Even less so are the special effects, which are minimal and on an '80s television budget (in other words: corny). And once again there's the same sort of story detours and plot devices from the original: levitation, kidnappings, fleeing via foot and RV, cute cat distracting villains and other assorted hijinks. It's also worth mentioning that director Robert Day is no John Hough -- it's a very visually bland. As '80s TV fare it's passable, but it doesn't stack up when compared to the two films before it and the two since.

A couple interesting things about the movie though. They made a big deal about how Zimbalist was playing a villain. Zimbalist thought it was such a big deal that he even grew a mustache... but he had to shave it...

Also worth noting, a "boy" barely seen in a flashback that's so hazy his face isn't discernable is Kirk Cameron. He and Gold would go on to play siblings in the long-running sitcom "Growing Pains." It would be another another decade before he'd go on to become a religious crackpot.

Personally, I think the film should have been an extra on the "Escape" disc but, alas, it was not included and there seem to be no plans for it to be officially released. It has, however, shown up online, and copies can frequently be found for sale on ioffer.