Halloween is just four days away! And what better way to pass the time than watching horror movies? Starting today, we’ll take a look at what a few of the cable channels are offering for free programming on All Hallows’ Eve. Of course, this year Halloween falls on a Saturday, so trick-or-treaters and partygoers might have other plans for that day…
Nevertheless, we begin with the Movies! channel…
As it has for years now, Movies! really gets into Halloween, with Spooky Season–themed movie marathons running throughout October—a day of vampire films, a day of ghosts, a day of alien invaders, even a day of Vincent Price flicks—and this year’s Halloween schedule is a mix of vampires and werewolves, ghosts and demons. And Vincent Price, of course!
As for Halloween, the festivities kick off at 10:45 a.m. (Eastern time) with House of Wax, the Vincent Price classic. If you’re into men turned into monsters, like the horrors to be found in the recent #1 movie Clayface, then you may be interested in Price’s villainous turn as a sculptor whose waxen figures seem a bit too lifelike…
It’s followed by Hammer Films’ Dracula adaptation Horror of Dracula and Frankenstein adaptation The Curse of Frankenstein (1958 and 1957, respectively, and both starring Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing); the 1950s Steve McQueen–starring monster flick The Blob; the werewolf colony tale The Howling (1981), from director Joe Dante (Gremlins, Piranha): director Robert Wise (Star Trek: The Motion Picture) unleashing ghosts on Julie Harris and Claire Bloom in 1963’s The Haunting; The Exorcist author/creator William Peter Blatty writing and directing 1990’s The Exorcist III; and Paul Schrader, director of Taxi Driver and Cat People, summoning demons in 2005’s Dominion: Prequel to The Exorcist.
Programming ends in the early morning hours of November 1 (the Day of the Dead!) with the return of Vincent Price in a double feature: House on Haunted Hill (1959) and the vampire-apocalypse The Last Man on Earth (1964; based on the famous novella I Am Legend, by Richard Matheson).
Tomorrow, we’ll take a look at Freeform’s programming. Stay tuned!