Happy Thanksgiving to all you Panatics across the USA—and outside the US, of course (although I’m pretty sure our particular November holiday is just another Thursday for you). It’s a day of celebration and getting together and things to be thankful for, and for monster fans like you and me, it’s also a day to prepare for another horror movie marathon on the Movies! TV Network, this time being held on Friday.
I’ve been checking out Movies! since it got added to Time Warner Cable’s selection of channels, and they’ve got a pretty decent library of films for different kinds of movie fans. But they really outdid themselves this past Halloween, with an all-day marathon of classic frights. Well, they’re following that up with a post-Thanksgiving monsterfest dubbed Beast Feast!
The day starts off with 1987’s The Monster Squad at 8:00 a.m. (ET), the much-loved story of a group of pre-teen monster fans who suddenly find their hometown under siege from the real Dracula, Wolf Man, Frankenstein’s Monster, Mummy, and Gill-Man (in other words, the Creature From the Black Lagoon).
The programming continues with the 1981 fantasy Dragonslayer, starring Peter MacNicol (Ghostbusters II); 1960’s The Lost World, an adaptation of the Sir Arthur Conan Doyle novel, with Michael Rennie (the original The Day the Earth Stood Still), Jill St. John (Diamonds Are Forever), Claude Rains (The Invisible Man), and David Hedison (TV’s Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea); and 1985’s Silver Bullet, the adaptation of the Stephen King and Bernie Wrightson illustrated novella Cycle of the Werewolf, with Gary Busey (Predator 2) matching wits with a particularly nasty lyncanthrope.
Those are followed by a triple feature starring the Big G, himself: 1992’s Godzilla and Mothra: The Battle for Earth; 1995’s Godzilla vs. Destroyah; and 2002’s Godzilla Against Mechagodzilla. And then wrapping up the marathon is 1983’s Cujo, another Stephen King adaptation, this one pitting Dee Wallace (The Howling) against a rabid St. Bernard.
Sounds like a fun day of monster watching. Give it a look while you’re recuperating from all that Thanksgiving turkey!
Today is Local Comic Shop Day, an annual appreciation “conceived and implemented by ComicsPRO comic book specialty retailers to call attention to locally owned independent comic book specialty stores, celebrating their unique and vital role in being the primary fire-starters of pop culture.” In other words, it’s a way of encouraging comic fans to visit their LCS and give them some business as the holiday season kicks into high gear. So get out there tomorrow and support your LCS!
Halloween might have come and gone yesterday, but for folks in Mexico, it was just the beginning of their three-day festival known around the world as Dia de los Muertos: the Day of the Dead!