Tag Archives: horror movies

Halloween Movies 2022: MeTV

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Rerun channel MeTV—home to Star Trek, The A-Team, and The Andy Griffith Show, among other old-school series—doesn’t have Halloween programming, but they do celebrate the holiday in their own way, so here are the highlights of what they’re offering tomorrow (all times listed are Eastern Time):

9:00–10:00 a.m.: Bugs Bunny and Friends: It’s a special collection of “horror”-themed Loony Tunes cartoons, starring Bugs, Sylvester the Cat, Yosemite Sam, Witch Hazel, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and others: “Hyde and Go Tweet,” “A Witch’s Tangled Hare,” “Big Game Haunt,” “Shishkabugs,” “The Phantom Ship,” “The Haunted Mouse,” and “Hyde and Hare.” What, no Gossamer cartoons? Geez, MeTV, don’t you know by now that monsters make the most innnn-tuh-restin’ people?

6:00 p.m.: The Three Stooges: Moe, Larry, and Curly (and also Shemp) face off with the supernatural in the shorts “Idle Roomers,” “If a Body Meets a Body,” “Dopey Dicks,” “Spooks,” “Creeps,” and “Who Done It.” Eye pokes, face smacks, and gut punches abound—but it’s all in fun, kids.

8:00 p.m.: Svengoolie: Count Yorga, Vampire: The much-loved horror-movie host presents this 1970 fright flick starring Robert Quarry as the titular undead royal in a very loose adaptation/knockoff of Dracula, moving the action from 19th-century England to late 1960s Southern California. There’s no extra charge for all the corny jokes Sven will be inserting into the broadcast.

10:00 p.m.: Sventoonie’s Scary, Merry Halloween: Sventoonie, the Red Tuna of Terror—basically a puppet version of Svengoolie—hosts this holiday special in which, according to MeTV, he “is determined to give Halloween all the joy and traditions that Christmas has, including the cult classic Santa Claus Conquers the Martians.” Well, you do what you can with public domain material, right? 

11:00 p.m.: Star Trek: “The Doomsday Machine”: This Norman Spinrad–scripted Season 2 episode has nothing in common with the Spooky Season (that would be the episodes “Catspaw,” with its witchcraft overtones, and “Wolf in the Fold,” about Jack the Ripper), but it does have an unstoppable monster of sorts in the form of a giant machine that smashes planets and then eats them for fuel. It’s up to Captain Kirk (William Shatner) to figure out a way to stop it.

12:00 a.m.: Kolchak: The Night Stalker: “Mr. R.I.N.G.”: Reporter Carl Kolchak (Darren McGavin) tracks down a murderer that turns out to be a runaway android. It’s not one of the better episodes of this one-season horror series that inspired The X-Files, but McGavin is entertaining, and it features a guest appearance from Julie Adams, the female lead of the classic “Gillman” film, The Creature From the Black Lagoon. 

Tomorrow, we’ll take a look at IFC’s Halloween programming. Stay tuned!

Halloween Movies 2022: Turner Classic Movies

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For years, Turner Classic Movies (TCM) has offered a wealth of classic horror movies during its October-long celebration of the Spooky Season, and this year has been no different. Here’s what they’re running, all day long and into the night, on Halloween:

12:15 a.m.: Haxan (1922): This black-and-white silent film from Sweden (its title means The Witch) is a documentary-style examination on demonology, witchcraft, and superstition, with the sort of dramatized “reenactments” you’ll find in “reality shows” these days on the Travel Channel (aka Ghost Central) and the History Channel (aka the Alien Home Base).

4:00 a.m.: Eyes Without a Face (1959): Not the Billy Idol pop hit from 1984, but a French horror movie about a plastic surgeon determined to undo the damage his daughter suffered in a car crash, by any means necessary—even if that means targeting women whose faces he’ll use for possible skin transplants…

6:00 a.m.: The Bat (1959): Horror legend Vincent Price and Agnes Moorehead (Bewitched, The Twilight Zone) star in this murder mystery about a costumed killer known as The Bat, based on Mary Roberts Rhinehart’s 1908 novel The Circular Staircase.

9:00 a.m.: Horror Hotel (1960): Another horror legend, Christopher Lee (Count Dooku of Star Wars, as you younger viewers might know him), kicks off a TCM mini ChrisLee-athon (five movies in a row!) as he contends with witchcraft and Satan wosrshippers in a Massachusetts town.

10:30 a.m.: The Curse of Frankenstein (1957): Christopher Lee returns to the screen, this time to star as the Monster in this Hammer Films adaptation of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. Costarring Peter Cushing (Grand Moff Tarkin of Star Wars, to you younger viewers) as the Monster’s creator, Victor Frankenstein.

1:30 p.m.: The Mummy (1959): Christopher Lee shambles from the tomb as the bandaged monster in Hammer Films’ answer to Universal Studios’ classic Mummy flicks atarring Boris Karloff. Costarring Peter Cushing as the archaeologist determined to send the Mummy back to the afterlife.

3:00 p.m.: The Devil’s Bride (1968): Christopher Lee investigates Satanic doings in 1920s London, in this adaptation by author/screenwriter Richard Matheson (I Am Legend, The Incredible Shrinking Man) of the 1934 Dennis Wheatley novel The Devil Rides Out.

4:45 p.m.: Dracula A.D. 1972 (1972): Christopher Lee’s immortal Dracula and Peter Cushing’s Van Helsing (the latest descendant) mix it up again in this seventh entry in Hammer’s Dracula series. Costarring Stephanie Beacham (Star Trek: The Next Generation), Christopher Neame (Lust for a Vampire), and Caroline Munro (Captain Kronos—Vampire Hunter)

6:30 p.m.: The Plague of the Zombies (1966): A 19th-century English village gets overrun by zombies in this Hammer production, starring Andre Morell (The Hound of the Baskervilles), Jacqueline Pearce (Doctor Who), and Diane Clare (The Hand of Night).

8:00 p.m.: The Bride of Frankenstein (1935): Holy AMC—running the sequel before the original? What is it with these programming guys? Boris Karloff stars as the misunderstood Monster who’s searching for love and companionship, with Elsa Lanchester as his intended bride (and as Mary Shelley, in the film’s prologue), and Colin Clive as their creator, Henry Frankenstein. Directed by James Whale. 

11:15 p.m.: Frankenstein (1931): The movie that made Boris Karloff a horror legend. In this Universal Studios’ adaptation of Mary Shelley’s novel, Henry Frankenstein (Colin Clive) meddles with forces beyond his control, piecing together parts of corpses to form a Monster that will come to be hated—and learn to hate in kind. Directed by James Whale. Costarring Edward Van Sloan and Dwight Frye—Professor Van Helsing and Renfield, respectively of Bela Lugosi’s Dracula, released that same year.

12:30 a.m.: The Invisible Man (1933): Director James Whale steps away from Frankenstein’s Monster for this adaptation of the H.G. Wells novel about a scientist (played by Claude Rains) who’s created an invisibility formula, experimented on himself with it, and is ultimately driven mad.

Tomorrow, we’ll take a look at MeTV’s Halloween-themed programming for this coming Saturday (they don’t have anything for Halloween itself). Stay tuned!

Halloween Movies 2022: Movies! TV Network

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Movies! has really gotten into Halloween this year, with Spooky Season–themed movie marathons running in October—a day of vampire films, a day of ghosts, a day of alien invaders, even a day of Vincent Price! Their Halloween schedule is sort of a blend of those topics, but every one is a classic. Okay, maybe not Earth vs. the Spider, but that has its charms, too…

Here’s what Movies! is offering for All Hallows’ Eve (all times listed are Eastern Time):

6:00 a.m.: Fiend Without a Face (1958): Marshall Thompson, Kim Parker, and Kynaston Reeves battle an atomic-powered invisible monster that likes to collect brains and spinal cords in order to create an army of similar horrors.

7:35 a.m.: Earth vs. the Spider (1958): Ed Kemmer and June Kenney try to save a town from a giant spider out to kill everyone. How’d it get so big? No one knows, but like the Fiend Without a Face, it’s probably nuclear related; irradiated monsters created by atomic bomb testings were all the rage in the 1950s (for example, Godzilla, Them!, Tarantula).

9:15 a.m.: The Blob (1958): Steve McQueen, Aneta Corseaut, and Earl Rowe have to deal with a big jelly monster from outer space that’s come to destroy their town—and eat everyone in its path! It practically oozes terror!

11:00 a.m.: Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1941): Spencer Tracy stars as the two-sided monster, Lana Turner as the woman Jekyll loves, and Ingrid Bergman as a pretty barmaid who draws the lascivious eye of the beastial Hyde in this adaptation of the classic novella by Robert Louis Stevenson.

1:30 p.m.: House of Wax (1953): Horror legend Vincent Price is a renowned sculptor turned madman (hey, it happens) who now runs a wax museum. Phyllis Kirk (The Twilight Zone), Charles Bronson (Death Wish), and Carolyn Jones (the original Morticia of The Addams Family) costar in this lavish flick about an artist who uses his gifts for revenge—and murder! It was originally presented in 3-D, so don’t be surprised when objects are hurled toward you at certain points.

3:30 p.m.: The Haunting (1963): Based on the classic Shirley Jackson novel The Haunting of Hill House, Julie Harris (The Dark Half), Claire Bloom (Clash of the Titans), Richard Johnson (The Monster Club), and Russ Tamblyn (Twin Peaks) star in this frightfully entertaining story involving a paranormal investigation of a haunted house that goes horribly wrong. Directed by Robert Wise (The Day the Earth Stood Still, Star Trek: The Motion Picture).

5:55 p.m.: House of Dark Shadows (1970): Jonathan Frid, Joan Bennett, and Grayson Hall star in this adaptation of the then-popular gothic soap opera, directed by creator Dan Curtis (The Night Strangler, Trilogy of Terror). Frid is Barnabas Collins, a lovelorn vampire smitten with a woman who resembles his long-ago greatest love; Joan Bennett is a scientist who might find a way to restore his humanity—if only she wasn’t so jealous of Barnabas’s true love… (Fun fact: The movie was shot in Sleepy Hollow, New York—home to the Headless Horseman!)

8:00 p.m.: The Fog (1980): Adrienne Barbeau (Swamp Thing), Jamie Lee Curtis (Halloween Ends), her real-life mother Janet Leigh (Psycho), Hal Holbrook, John Houseman, and Tom Atkins (Halloween III: Season of the Witch) star in this film by director John Carpenter (Halloween, Christine) about a sleepy little West Coast town suddenly overrun by ghostly pirates—and not a Jack Sparrow to be seen!

10:00 p.m.: The Howling (1981): Dee Wallace Stone (Halloween), Patrick MacNee (The Avengers), Dennis Dugan (Happy Gilmore), and Robert Picardo (Star Trek: Voyager) star in this adaptation of the Gray Brandner novel, about a TV news reporter who, after being traumatized by an assault by a serial killer, travels with her husband to The Colony, a secluded resort, to rest. But the residents of The Colony and its surrounding area all share a terrifying secret, and it doesn’t take a full moon to bring out the beast in them… Directed by Joe Dante (Piranha, Gremlins) and featuring a screenplay by John Sayles (Alligator, Eight MenOut) and Terence Winkless, and amazing transformation effects by Rob Bottin (Game of Thrones).

12:30 a.m.: Black Christmas (1974): Olivia Hussey (Batman Beyond), Keir Dullea (2001: A Space Odyssey), Margot Kidder (Superman), and John Saxon (A Nightmare on Elm Street) star in this slasher by writer/director Bob Clark, about sorority sisters being stalked by a murderer during Christmastime.

Tomorrow, we’ll take a look at Turner Classic Movies’ programming. Stay tuned!

Halloween Movies 2022: AMC

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Like Freeform, AMC never really has a lot of variety when it comes to their annual Halloween playlist—in AMC’s case, if they’re not pushing one of their horror series (typically the zombie apocalypse The Walking Dead, now entering its final season), they’re running the Halloween franchise movies on a loop, usually out of order (as demonstrated below, with Halloween 6 kicking off the marathon for some reason) and with no sign of 1981’s Halloween II or 1982’s Michael Myers–less Halloween III: Season of the Witch.

(Keep in mind: As far as the makers of the most recent trilogy—Halloween (2018), Halloween Kills, and Halloween Ends—contend, none of the other movies in the franchise exist in their timeline, except for the original, 1978 Halloween. Confusing, eh?)

Anyway, here’s what AMC is offering for All Hallows’ Eve (all times listed are Eastern Time):

12:15 a.m.: The Walking Dead: An episode of the long-running TV series adapting the comic book series created by writer Robert Kirkman.

1:22 a.m.: Interview with the Vampire (2022): An episode of the new TV series adapting Anne Rice’s novel.

2:26 a.m.: The Walking Dead: Another episode of the TV series.

9:00 a.m.: Halloween 6: The Curse of Michael Myers (1995): It’s the end of a film trilogy begun in Halloween 4–5, so naturally AMC runs it before the other two installments. Michael is on the warpath (isn’t he always, though?), intending to kill Laurie Strode’s daughter, Jamie Lloyd (J.C. Brandy). The final film appearance of Donald Pleasance (Halloween, Halloween 4–5, Escape From New York) as Michael’s gun-toting psychiatrist, Dr. Sam Loomis, as he passed away after H6 was shot.

11:00 a.m.: Halloween: Resurrection (2002): Another case of broadcasting idiocy, as this sequel to Halloween H20: 20 Years Later runs first. Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) and Michael have their “final” confrontation, but it’s not the end of the story as Michael shifts his attention from targeting high school kids to college girls. Costarring Busta Rhymes (The Rugrats Movie), Katee Sackhoff (The Mandalorian), and supermodel Tyra Banks.

1:00 p.m.: Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers (1988): Ten years after stalking Jamie Lee Curtis’s Laurie Strode on Halloween night (well, technically seven years, considering 1981’s Halloween II took place the same night) and a failed box office attempt with Halloween III to make the series an anthology rather than a repetitive one-note killing spree, Michael picks up where he left off, only this time he’s after Laurie’s young daughter, Jamie Lloyd (future scream queen Danielle Harris, in her film debut), and only his nemesis, Dr. Sam Loomis (Donald Pleasance, returning to the franchise) can stop him.

3:00 p.m.: Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers (1989): Michael’s back—of course—and he hasn’t given up on killing Jamie Lloyd. Tunnel vision matched with singlemindedness—that’s always been that boy’s problem…well, that and the homicidal rage. Donald Pleasance and Danielle Harris return, in a story to be continued in the previously broadcast Halloween 6.

5:00 p.m.: Halloween (1978): The John Carpenter–directed classic that started it all. Fifteen years after he stabbed his sister to death, Michael Myers breaks loose from the sanitarium in which he was locked away and goes on a killing spree on Halloween night in his hometown of Haddonfield, Illinois. Starring Jamie Lee Curtis as “final girl” Laurie Strode and Donald Pleasance as Dr. Sam Loomis. Is Michael really the boogeyman? He just might be…

7:00 p.m.: Halloween H20: 20 Years Later (1998): Director Steve Miner (Lake Placid, Friday the 13th Parts 2–3) sends Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) back to Haddonfield twenty years after her traumatic encounters with Michael, accompanied this time by LL Cool J (Deep Blue Sea), Michelle Williams (Venom), and Joseph Gordon-Levitt (The Dark Knight Rises). Guess who’s waiting for them…?

9:00 p.m.: Halloween: Resurrection (repeat broadcast, now in its proper sequence placement)

11:00 p.m.: Halloween (1978; repeat broadcast)

Tomorrow, we’ll take a look at Movies! TV Network’s programming. Stay tuned!

Halloween Movies 2022: Freeform

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Halloween is almost here! Sure, it might look like Christmas is almost upon us, what with stores already decorating their aisles for yuletide and the Spooky Season stuff relegated to the back shelves, but for the rest of us it’s still the time to celebrate all things macabre. So what better way than to watch horror movies?

Starting today, we’ll take a look at what some of the cable channels are offering for programming on that special day. We begin with Freeform…

There aren’t many surprises involved in Freeform’s annual “31 Nights of Halloween” programming schedule—it tends to be a handful of popular, not-very-scary, family-friendly movies that you’ve no doubt already seen, run over and over again and occasionally interspersed with episodes of The Simpsons’ Treehouse of Horror. The biggest shakeup this year came early in the month when they ran the very adult Get Out, Halloween (2018), A Quiet Place, Happy Death Day, and Happy Death Day 2U over two nights—and then quickly returned to the less stressful playlist.

So if you’re in the mood for “comfort food” spooky films, here’s what Freeform is offering for Halloween (all times listed are Eastern Time):

10:30 a.m.: Ghostbusters (1984): The original horror comedy starring Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Harold Ramis, Sigourney Weaver, Ernie Hudson, Rick Moranis, and Annie Potts. The GB crew deals with a New York City overrun with ghosts in anticipation of the arrival of the extradimensional goddess Zuul and her Destructor: the Staypuft Marshmallow Man!

1:00 p.m.: The Haunted Mansion (2003): Eddie Murphy, Marsha Thomason, Terence Stamp, Wallace Shawn, and Jennifer Tilly star in this adaptation of the spooky Disney ride.

3:00 p.m.: Beetlejuice (1988): Tim Burton directs Michael Keaton, Geena Davis, Alec Baldwin, and Winona Ryder in the tale of a recently deceased couple who simply want to spend eternity haunting their home, only to be forced to call in a disgusting “bio-exorcist” named Beetlejuice to scare away the new family moving in. And that’s when everything goes horribly wrong…

5:00 p.m.: Maleficent (2014): Angelina Jolie stars in this live-action reinterpretation of the Disney animated classic Sleeping Beauty, with Jolie’s fairy queen Maleficent not so much evil as in the original, but simply misunderstood. Hey, like the saying goes, every villain is the hero of their own story!

7:00 p.m.: Hotel Transylvania (2012): Adam Sandler is Dracula! Steve Buscemi is the Wolfman! Kevin James is Frankenstein’s Monster! Selena Gomez is Dracula’s daughter! And they all get together at…Dracula’s vacation resort? 

9:00 p.m.: Hocus Pocus (1993): With Hocus Pocus 2 now on Disney+, here’s the opportunity for folks not paying for a streaming service to catch up on the spooky comedy that stars Bette Midler, Sarah Jessica Parker, and Kathy Najimy as the Sanderson Sisters, a trio of evil witches seeking immortality.

12:00 a.m.: The Simpsons’ Treehouse of Horror episodes (Freeform doesn’t list what’s playing)

Tomorrow, we’ll take a look at AMC’s programming. Stay tuned!

Halloween Movies 2022: What’s Your Monster Movie?

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According to this popular meme, mine would be Curse of the Disco Zombies, which sounds right, given I spent part of my youth reading horror comics in the 1970s, at the height of disco. No doubt it stars Jaaaahhhhn! Revolta, shambling his way through the cemeteries of Brooklyn while boogeying with Karloff Lynn Gore-y to the tunes of the Bees?Geez!. “Stayin’ Alive” takes on a whole new meaning when your dance partner is a zombie!

It’s a timely question, because in preparation for Halloween this year, we’ll be taking a look at what some of the cable-TV stations will be offering in terms of spooky programming on All Hallows’ Eve. And don’t worry—if you need a break from all the blood and monsters, you can always swing over to the Hallmark channels, which are already knee-deep in their Countdown to Christmas movie marathons.

Celebrating Christmas in October?! That’s terrifying!

So, getting back to the subject…what is your monster movie?

Horror Street: Nosferatu

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Welcome back to Horror Street, my ongoing journey in search of awesome yet spooky graffiti art on the streets and little-traveled corners of New York City!

This time around, we have an appearance by the nefarious vampire lord Count Graf Orlock, star of the classic 1922 German silent movie Nosferatu. I came across this mural in September 2021 along the border that connects the neighborhoods of Brooklyn’s East Williamsburg and Queens’s Ridgewood. No idea who the artist is, unfortunately.

Still, there’s no better time for the count to make his Horror Street debut than now, because 2022 is Nosferatu’s 100th anniversary!

Directed by F.W. Murnau and starring Max Schreck as the rat-faced, corpselike Count Graf Orlock, Nosferatu was an unauthorized adaptation of Bram Stoker’s novel Dracula, with character names changed and plot points slightly adjusted, in an attempt to avoid a copyright lawsuit—a ploy that ultimately failed when the Stoker Estate and its attorneys came calling; worse yet, they insisted as part of the settlement that every copy of the film be destroyed! 

Some prints survived, of course, and a very good thing that was, because Nosferatu is one of the greatest horror movies ever made, made memorable by the combination of iconic imagery from Murnau and cinematographer Fritz Arno Wagner, and Schreck’s fearsome portrayal of the monster. If you’ve never seen it, or haven’t watched it in some time, do yourself a favor and give Nosferatu a look.

So, happy 100th Anniversary to F.W. Murnau and Max Schreck and all the cast and crew of Nosferatu—you made an exceptional horror film that’s still thrilling fans to this day. Congratulations!

Be sure to check out my previous Horror Street entries. And stay tuned for further installments of Horror Street—there’s plenty of macabre graffiti art to be found on the streets of New York, if you look in the right creepy places! 

Too Old to Be a Horror Fan?

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i-frankenstein“Frankenstein?!” asked the cashier at Walmart this past weekend, holding up the DVD of I, Frankenstein I’d just purchased.

“And Dracula,” I said, pointing to the copy of Dracula Untold that was next on the checkout conveyor belt.

“Dracula…” He laughed. “What are you, a teenager?”

Huh. Well, considering I’m…well, pretty well past my teenaged years, the answer would be no—but on the other hand, is there such a thing as being too old for horror? I wouldn’t have thought so, or else you wouldn’t have people like George Romero, who was still creating zombie movies in his seventies until the day he died, or Guillermo del Toro, who won two Academy Awards this year—Best Director and Best Picture—for the human-loves-monster-fishman story The Shape of Water.

dracula-untoldOutgrowing horror? Is that even a thing?

I mean, I can somewhat see the cashier’s point of view. Over the years I’ve talked to people who are surprised I still read comics, let alone write them, because they gave them up when they were young—they “outgrew” them. (They usually have two clichéd responses: “They still publish those things?” and “I used to read Archie comics—when I was a kid.”) The same thing with people who can’t imagine other adults still collecting toys. Funny they never find it strange to be a grown-up collecting sports memorabilia…

Anyway, the real reason I bought the two movies was because they were in the clearance bins in the back of the store: I, Frankenstein for $3.74, Dracula Untold for $5.00—low enough prices to get me to add them to my collection. True, neither of them was a blockbuster, but I, Frankenstein was created by actor Kevin Grevioux, who co-created the Underworld franchise starring Kate Beckinsale (he was also the right-hand man to Michael Sheen’s werewolf leader in the first entry), and Dracula Untold had been meant to function as Universal Studios’ revival of their monster-filled shared universe.

Okay, it’s true that Dracula Untold got tossed aside as the relaunch point in favor of Universal’s Mummy reboot starring Tom Cruise (which also tanked at the box office), as Dracula had tossed aside the Benicio del Toro–starring remake of The Wolfman that came out in 2010, and Wolfman had knocked over 2004’s franchise attempt, the Hugh Jackman vehicle Van Helsing. And although Aaron Eckhart’s a handsome guy and I liked his work in The Dark Knight and Battle: Los Angeles, I, Frankenstein simply lacks the visual attraction of a Kate Beckinsale in a latex catsuit. But they’re enjoyable-enough films and make for a good double feature.

Yo-FrankensteinThere’s also the fact I grin like an idiot whenever I remember that the Spanish-language title for the Eckhart film is Yo, Frankenstein.

Still, I don’t think enjoying monster movies is any reason for somebody to look down their nose at horror buffs, or fans of anything, really. I mean, I proofread manga and Japanese light novels for a major publisher and they’re not my thing at all—but then I’m not the audience for it, I’m just the guy making sure the English translation is spelled correctly. Do I look down my nose at the otaku? No—but I sure do scratch my head sometimes over the storylines they’re reading…  😉

So…too old for horror? Never!

A Movie Treat for Monster Fans

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frankenstein-edisonIf you’re a fan of classic monsters like Dracula, the Wolfman, and Frankenstein’s Monster, then you’re probably aware that 2018 is the 200th anniversary of Mary Shelley’s iconic novel Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus, first unleashed on the public in January 1818.

With that in mind, the timing couldn’t be better for the U.S. Library of Congress to make available a restored print of world-famous inventor Thomas Edison’s 1910 silent-movie adaptation—the first time Frankenstein’s Monster stalked the silver screen!

Frankenstein was a self-described “liberal adaptation of Mrs. Shelley’s famous story” by writer/director J. Searle Dawley that was produced by Edison and starred Augustus Phillips as Frankenstein (no first name of Victor given; he even signs a love letter “Frankenstein”!); Mary Fuller as his bride-to-be Elizabeth; and Charles Ogle as the monster. It runs just over 13 minutes but packs in a lot of melodrama—and scenery chewing—in that short time. (Well, overacting was a staple of silent movies.)

It’s also surprisingly gruesome in one scene. Although Frankenstein doesn’t dig up graves and sew corpses together but instead uses chemical magic to “grow” his monster in cauldron-like pot—one of those liberties taken by Dawley in his screenplay—the transformation of the creature from smoking chemical vapors to full-size horror involves a stage when it bubbles up into a gore-covered skeleton whose twitchy right hand seems to be grasping for the audience—I’m sure it scared the crap out of moviegoers back in the day!

Do yourself a favor and check it out!

Scream Factory Turns This Week Into 5 Nights of Fear

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NightbreedposterHorror movie alert! Starting tonight and running through Friday is 5 Nights of Fear, a monsteriffic event from home-entertainment company Shout! Factory to celebrate the fifth anniversary of its Scream Factory imprint. The movies they’ll be showing during the week are:

Monday, June 12: Nightbreed: The Director’s Cut: Writer/director/author Clive Barker’s 1990 follow-up to his big-screen directorial debut Hellraiser never reached the pop-culture status of Pinhead’s cinematic adventures, but it still has its fans. Starring Craig Sheffer, Anne Bobby, and David Cronenberg (acting this time instead of directing), it’s the tale of Aaron Boone, a man who discovers he’s one of the Nightbreed—a race of monsters who’ve hidden their existence from humanity. But the real monster is Aaron’s psychotherapist, who’s a serial killer in his spare time.

bad_moon_xlgTuesday, June 13: Bad Moon: This often-overlooked werewolf film from 1996—based on the novel Thor by Wayne Smith (Thor being the dog in the story)—stars Michael Paré (Streets of Fire) as Ted, the creepy brother of single-mom Mariel Hemingway (Star 80), who’s trying to make ends meet while raising her son. Unfortunately, Ted has a habit of unleashing his murderous inner beast when the moon is full, and the only one who can stop Tedwolf from making a meal of his sister and nephew is Thor, the family German shepherd. Yes, a non-talking dog is the protagonist of this not-for-kids flick that culminates in Ted going full monster, with the best-looking practical-effects werewolf suit I’ve seen since the original Howling.

Wednesday, June 14: The Exorcist III: Author William Peter Blatty didn’t just start the exorcism craze with his 1971 novel The Exorcist (which he then adapted for director William Friedkin’s memorable 1973 film), he also took the director’s reins for this 1990 adaptation of his 1983 sequel novel, Legion. Acting legend George C. Scott (Patton, The Changeling) is Lieutenant Kinderman (played first in The Exorcist by Lee J. Cobb, who died in 1976), who’s investigating a series of gruesome murders that mirror the style of a serial murderer dubbed the Gemini Killer—problem is, Gemini has been dead for seventeen years. The trail of clues leads Kinderman to a psychiatric hospital, and an encounter with another character from the original Exorcist—one everyone thought was dead…

exorcist3Thursday, June 15: Hellhole: This 1985 thriller is one of those exploitative “inmates running the asylum” type of psychiatric institution horror tales. After her mother is murdered by a serial killer named Silk (Ray Sharkey), a traumatized and amnesiac Susan (Judy Landers, a regular of 1980s TV shows) is committed to an institution run by an evilly crazy doctor who likes to perform chemical lobotomies on his patients—and he’s got his sights set on the new girl. And then to make matters worse Silk shows up, looking for Susan…

Friday, June 16: Rabid: Wrapping up the week is this 1977 take on the zombie-epidemic genre by writer/director David Cronenberg (The Fly, The Dead Zone, Videodrome). Rose (played by adult film star Marilyn Chambers) is seriously injured in a traffic accident and undergoes experimental reconstructive surgery, with an unexpected result: it leaves her with an appetite for flesh and blood, and her victims turn into ravenous zombies. It’s as gory and body horror–oriented as you’d expect from a Cronenberg film, so be prepared to look away if you’re not into that kind of stuff!

Of course, the reason for these selections is that all five films are available on DVD and BluRay from Scream Factory, so if you like them enough to want to own them after you’re done watching, they’re not that had to track down. Additionally, Shout! Factory TV has a slew of horror movies you can stream for free right now, including the George Romero/Dario Argento collaboration Two Evil Eyes; Larry Cohen’s Q, The Winged Serpent (one of my favorites, about a monster living in NYC’s Chrysler Building); and episodes of Mystery Science Theater 3000 and Elvira’s Movie Macabre.

5 Nights of Fear starts each night at 10 p.m. ET/7 p.m. PT on Shout! Factory TV and Pluto TV Channel 512. For more information, visit the Shout! Factory TV website.