The Evil Touch: Heart to Heart (Early Stallone)

For a greedy wastrel, a perfectly good serial killer should never go to waste. He believes his rich, disapproving aunt should be the so-called “Monster’s” next victim, even if he must kill her himself. Where did this sinister scenario come from? The mind of Sylvester Stallone, who wrote the teleplay under the oddball pen-name of Q. Moonblood several years before the release of Rocky. The upcoming re-release of Stallone’s first starring-role in Robert Allen Schnitzer’s Rebel offers an opportune time to revisit his first IMDb writing credit, the “Heart to Heart” episode of the American-produced Australian anthology series, The Evil Touch, hosted by Anthony Quayle.

Nephew Richard is lazy, entitled, and mean-spirited, so his wealthy guardian Aunt has finally decided to write him out of her will. However, it will take a few days for her lawyer to return from his ill-timed business trip, which leaves ample time for Richard to kill her.

Since the Monster has been amassing a horrendous body-count across the countryside, the ne-er do well nephew assumes if he copies the killer’s M.O., her murder will automatically be attributed to the serial killer. He just needs to make nice with his Aunt, so he can lure her somewhere isolated. However, there are a few variables to his plan that he cannot control, but experienced genre viewers might anticipate.

Nevertheless, Stallone, a.k.a. Moonblood, gives his big twist an amusing additional half-twist. Consequently, “Heart to Heart” is surprisingly satisfying, in a suitably macabre way. Regrettably, episodes of The Evil Touch are currently only available as inferior-quality YouTube uploads. Yet, the slightly blurry video adds a hallucinatory effect that makes each episode feel like a feverish dream.

Regardless, Quayle was an entertaining host, especially considering his habit of “chiming in” with mid-episode commentary. Experienced character thesp Mildred Natwick (whose credits included Hitchcock’s The Trouble with Harry) is perfectly cast as Richard’s Aunt. As soon as we see her, the audience knows what she’s all about—but she still helps spring Stallone’s surprise quite deftly.

Stallone has largely avoided the horror genre, unless you count Detox or Death Race 2000 which sometimes give off horror vibes. Yet, his first and only attempt at writing for horror-flavored anthology television was surprisingly effective. This is a cool little episode that deserves to be restored and made available for professional-grade streaming. Highly recommended for fans of dark suspense anthologies, the “Heart to Heart” episode of The Evil Touch is out there on the internet.