Halloween TV Marathons: AMC, Antenna TV, Showtime Beyond

Continuing our look at U.S. cable-TV station that will be celebrating Halloween this year, this time we shine the spotlight on a couple of basic-cable channels and a pay-TV one, all with something to offer.

amc_logoAMC—home of The Walking Dead and Fear the Walking Dead—spends All Hallows’ Eve celebrating the monstrous acts of unstoppable serial killer Michael Myers (aka The Shape) with an all-day Halloween marathon. John Carpenter’s chilling 1978 masterpiece Halloween starts the day at 9:00 a.m. (ET), with Jamie Lee Curtis’s Laurie Strode just trying to survive the night and Donald Pleasance trying to put a bullet between the eyes of her silent, murderous escaped patient. Then Curtis and Pleasance return for more Shape-bashing in 1981’s Halloween II (which is set immediately after the original). It’s followed by immediate encores of Halloween I and II.

AMC skips over the sole non-Michael entry in the franchise, 1982’s Halloween III: Season of the Witch, and picks up the narrative with Donald Pleasance back on the case in 1988’s Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers, to prevent Michael from killing Laurie’s daughter, Jamie (played by a young Danielle Harris). And in 1989’s Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers, Pleasance uses Jamie as bait(!) to trap Michael. (Hey, now who’s the bad guy—huh, Dr, Loomis?) The night ends with a second rerun of Halloween (three showings in one day!).

antenna_tv_logoAntenna TV—home to reruns of genre shows like The Addams Family, I Dream of Jeannie, Bewitched, and Sabrina the Teenage Witch—is running an all-day marathon of Alfred Hitchcock Presents episodes, starting at 3:00 a.m. (ET) and continuing right up to 11:00 p.m. A decade-long (1955–1965) anthology series in the vein of The Twilight Zone, AHP dealt with thriller and mystery stories rather than fantasy and science fiction, and every episode featured Hitchcock as on-screen host in dark-humored introductions (he even directed 18 of them). Probably its most famous episode is “Lamb to the Slaughter,” adapted from a story by Roald Dahl (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, The BFG), about a housewife who murders her husband with a frozen leg of lamb—but it’s not part of this marathon! What the hell, Antenna? Well, at least they’re running AHP’s adaptation of Ambrose Bierce’s classic short story, “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge,” so that’s something.

showtime-beyondShowtime Beyond—the horror- and fantasy-themed movie channel—kicks off Halloween on Sunday night, with the 11:00 p.m. (ET) showing of 2015’s The Funhouse Massacre, starring horror legend Robert (Freddy Krueger) Englund. It’s followed by 2014’s millennials vs. man-eating bear film Backcountry; 2015’s torture-porn tattoo-artist flick Anarchy Parlor; the 2004 wedding horror Zombie Honeymoon; the urban fantasy Walter; 2013’s Space Warriors, about a group of young space cadets rescuing astronauts; 2006’s magic-man The Illusionist, starring Edward Norton, Jessica Biel, and Paul Giamatti; 2015’s The Wicked Within, with Sienna Guillory (Jill Valentine of the Resident Evil movies) starring in a sort of Satan meets The Usual Suspects mash-up.

The 2014 malevolent-ghost story Jessabelle pops in afterward, followed by Blair Witch Project director Eduardo Sanchez’s 2008’s Chinese-ghost story, Seventh Moon; the 2015 monster-at-the-beach film Blood Sand; and an encore of The Illusionist. The evening’s programming consists of the 2014 hit It Follows; The Hills Have Eyes (either the Wes Craven original from 1977 or the Alexandre Aja 2006 remake—Beyond’s schedule doesn’t say); and the telekinetic-killer thriller Patrick (either the 1973 original or the 2013 remake). The night ends with an encore of The Wicked Within.

An okay lineup for these stations. But if you want to experience real horror, you can take a trip over to the Hallmark Channelwhich starts running its Countdown to Christmas 2016 movie marathon tonight.

Fifty-six days of overly schmaltzy Christmas movies—God help us all!

Halloween TV Marathons 2016: Chiller TV and Syfy

The day of spooks and monsters, tricks and treats, and horror movie marathons on television is almost upon us, so I thought now would be the perfect time to see what some of the cable-TV networks—at least those in the United States—are offering viewers for Halloween. We’ll start with a look at what’s on the schedule for two of the most well-known genre-related stations on October 31st…

chiller-logoChiller TV gets its Halloween programming under way this year on Sunday (October 30), with a 9:00 p.m. (ET) showing of 1986’s Poltergeist II: The Other Side, starring Craig T. Nelson, JoBeth Williams, and Heather O’Rourke. Poltergeist III from 1988 follows, with O’Rourke’s Carol Anne moving the ghostly action to Chicago. Rising from the film crypt after it are 1988’s Pumpkinhead, with genre master Lance Henriksen, and 1993’s Pumpkinhead II: Blood Wings, followed by 1990’s Flatliners, starring Kiefer Sutherland, Julia Roberts, and Kevin Bacon (and which is getting a 2017 sequel with Sutherland, Ellen Page, and Nina Dobrev of The Vampire Diaries). Bacon returns in 1999’s Stir of Echoes, with Rob Lowe picking up the spirit-seeing mantle in 2007’s Stir of Echoes 2: The Homecoming.

Then in the afternoon the movies get shifted around for a string of reruns that carry us into the evening: Pumpkinhead, Pumpkinhead II: Blood Wings, Poltergeist II: The Other Side, and Poltergeist III. Halloween wraps up with the broadcast of 1999’s “found footage” trendsetter The Blair Witch Project, with Heather Donahue, Michael C. Williams, and Joshua Leonard; and 2000’s Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2, starring Jeffrey Donovan (Burn Notice) and Kim Director (Gotham).

A disappointing lineup, wouldn’t you say? With all the movies at Chiller’s disposal you’d expect them to put together something more exciting for their most important holiday of the year. No Hellraiser or Evil Dead? No Tremors? No Halloween?! Not even an appearance from Chiller’s own productions, Steve Niles’ Remains, The Monkey’s Paw (with Stephen Lang of the recent thriller Don’t Breathe), or Brian Keene’s Ghoul? Definitely a missed opportunity.

syfy-logoOver at Chiller’s sister network, The Syfy Channel—home to such TV series as Channel Zero, Van Helsing, Z Nation, and The Magicians, as well as those goofy Sharknado movies—things are a little more interesting. It, too, has its Halloween programming carry over from Sunday night, with the 11:00 p.m. (ET) showing of the 2011 home-invasion horror You’re Next. It’s followed by 2013’s Grave Halloween, set in Japan’s notorious “suicide forest” (the same setting of the recent film The Forest), and an encore of You’re Next. Then comes a trio of episodes from Rod Serling’s classic Twilight Zone series: “The Man in the Bottle,” “Nervous Man in a $4 Room,” and “A Thing About Machines.” Then it’s encores of—yep, you guessed it—Grave Halloween and You’re Next.

The heart of the marathon starts at 10:30 a.m. (ET), with the 2012 Joss Whedon–produced The Cabin in the Woods, with Chris (Thor) Hemsworth; 2003’s hillbilly-cannibals flick Wrong Turn, with Eliza Dushku and Jeremy Sisto; 2012’s creepy home-movies monster Sinister, with Ethan Hawke; 2003’s Jeepers Creepers 2, starring Ray Wise (and yes, there’s a Jeepers Creepers 3 in development); the other popular home-invasion film, 2008’s The Strangers, with Scott Speedman and Liv Tyler; and 2009’s walking-dead comedy Zombieland, starring Jesse Eisenberg and Woody Harrelson. The night wraps up with a repeat showing of The Cabin in the Woods.

Set your DVRs now!

Queens’oween 2015, Day 2

It’s Day 2 of Queens’oween, a celebration I made up just the other day as a countdown to Halloween, which arrives this coming Saturday. The difference here from other online countdowns is that this one puts the spotlight on Halloween-celebrating locations in Pan’s home borough of Queens, NY! Here’s today’s offering! Watch out for those ghosts!

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Welcome to Queens’oween 2015!

Halloween is this Saturday, so that means it’s time for Queens’oween, a celebration I just made up for that time of the year when All Hallows’ Eve comes to Pan’s home borough of Queens, NY! How do I celebrate it? By posting photos I’ve taken of homes that have gone all-out in showing off their holiday…spirit (heh). And what better way to kick it off than with a shot of a makeshift graveyard, in the historic district called Sunnyside Gardens?

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And how about this festive setup, from an apartment building in neighboring Sunnyside proper?

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Excellent decorating, fiends and nay-boars! And there are more to come!