AMC’s annual FearFest celebration has been running all month, but this Saturday is dedicated to nothing but the adventures of Haddonfield, Illinois’s personal boogieman, Michael Myers, with the Halloween on Halloween Marathon. And as is often the case with AMC, they don’t run the movies in sequence, so it’s never a straight marathon, which never makes any sense, but…okay.
The trick-or-treat carnage begins at 6:00 a.m., (EST) with 1981’s Halloween II (because that’s naturally where you’d start, right?), followed by Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers and Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers. Then Rob Zombie’s 2009 remake of Halloween II arrives at noon, with Halloween III: Season of the Witch (no Michael, but still a good movie!) and Zombie’s 2007 Halloween remake closing out the afternoon.
(Hey, AMC, why are the Rob Zombie movies out of order and not linked? There’s only two of them, y’know!)
For the evening, your daylong wait is over as John Carpenter’s original (and still the best) Halloween arrives at 7:00 p.m., followed by a rerun of Halloween II and…a repeat of Carpenter’s Halloween? Okay…
And then taking you through the overnight hours, into the Day of the Dead, are reruns of Halloween 4 and 5. So it goes.
What, no Halloween H20: 20 Years Later? No Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers, or Halloween: Resurrection? Seriously, AMC, you need to get some, er, new blood in your Myers lineup.
The Freeform channel focuses on family friendly types of programming (well, it is a Disney channel, after all), so it’s no surprise that the annual kid-oriented 31 Nights of Halloween schedule has been stocked with perennial favorites like The Addams Family (starring Raul Julia, Angelica Huston, and Christina Ricci), Edward Scissorhands, Monsters Inc., and Hocus Pocus. This year it’s joined by the debut of the young adult witchcraft series Coven Academy.
Scattered among the old standards—which tends to endlessly repeat the Addams Family/Hocus Pocus/Scissorhands grouping—were the original Ghostbusters as well as Ghostbusters: Afterlife (a really good sequel) and Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire (a…not so great sequel), plus the three Sam Raimi–directed Spider-Man films, and Spider-Man: Homecoming. Oh, and one showing of The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad, the animated feature best known for its stellar adaptation of Washington Irving’s classic story “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.”
So what’s on the menu for Halloween?
The day kicks off at 8:30 am (EST) with Casper, the 1995 adaptation of the comic book character, starring the world’s Friendliest Ghost along with Christina Ricci and Bill Pullman. Keep an eye out for the cameo by Dan Aykroyd as Ghostbuster Ray Stantz. Is Ray’s appearance an official part of Ghostbusters lore? Fans are still debating that, thirty years later!
Following Casper are 2003’s The Haunted Mansion (starring Eddie Murphy); 1993’s Hocus Pocus (starring Bette Midler, Sarah Jessica Parker, and Kathy Najimy as the three witchy Sanderson Sisters); the 1993 animated musical Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas; a repeat of Casper…and then a repeat of Hocus Pocus.
The night closes out with the sisters’ return in 2022’s Hocus Pocus 2, and another Tim Burton animated feature, 2012’s Frankenweenie, to carry you into the Day of the Dead.
What, no The Craft? (Well, maybe Coven Academy fills that niche. Kinda.) And looking at the “31 Days” schedule, it would’ve made far more sense to have loaded the big day with the Tim Burton/Johnny Depp marathon that Freeform offered on October 16: Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, Edward Scissorhands, Dark Shadows, The Nightmare Before Christmas, and Sleepy Hollow. Now that’s a Halloween lineup!
Oh, well…
Tomorrow, we’ll take a look at the programming for AMC’s FearfFest. See you then!
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!
Halloween might be over, but the Spooky Season never completely goes away, if you’re a horror fan. And there’s no better evidence of that than today’s Netflix debut of Frankenstein, the latest creation of Academy Award–winning director Guillermo del Toro (The Shape of Water, Crimson Peak, Hellboy), who not only wrote the screenplay but designed Frankenstein’s Monster as well (with some inspiration from the late artist—and Swamp Thing cocreator—Bernie Wrightson’s acclaimed illustrated version from the 1980s of Mary Shelley’s novel).
Frankenstein stars Oscar Isaac (Moon Knight, Star Wars) as Victor Frankenstein, Jacob Elordi (Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales) as the Creature, Mia Goth (MaXXXine), and Christoph Waltz (Inglorious Basterds, Django Unchained), and with del Toro assembling a cast like that, I know what you’re thinking: Is it worth chacking out?
Well, I had the opportunity to watch Frankenstein during its limited, one-week theatrical run in October (here in NY, it was at the Netflix-owned Paris Theater, in Midtown Manhattan), and I’d have to say…yes! The cast is fantastic, the characters engaging (no “Fire…bad!” one-note approach for the Creature, here he evolves into a thinking, eloquent being, just as Shelley intended), the makeup and effects are top notch, and the look and pace of the film show that del Toro is still at the top of his game.
So, if you’re a fan of the mad doctor’s Monster, or if you’re feeling Halloween withdrawal symptoms, head over to Netflix and give Frankenstein a watch. It’ll be a great way to pass the weekend!
Halloween creeps ever closer as we enter Frightful Weekend #3 of October, and if you’re a horror fan who couldn’t make it to New York Comic Con this week, here’s a sampling of what you can watch to help keep you occupied while you’re perhaps conventioneering at home (all times listed are on the East Coast):
AMC FearFeast kicks things into gear with a 3-day weekend of movie programming: Friday is a House of Horrors Marathon, starting at 9:00 a.m. with Virginia Madsen (Candyman) starring in 2009’s The Haunting in Connecticut, followed by a pair of Stephen King adaptations: director Stanley Kubrick’s 1980 cult classic The Shining (starring Jack Nicholson and Shelley Duval), and director Rob Reiner’s 1990 bone-shattering thriller Misery (starring James Caan and Kathy Bates, whose performance won her an Academy Award for Best Actress). The evening closes out with a trio of visits to the 2009 remake of The Last House on the Left, 2005’s remake of House of Wax, and the 2001 remake of Thirteen Ghosts. Be sure to bring a housewarming gift!
Saturday is a Final Destination Marathon, with FD2 starting at 4:00 p.m., followed by FD5, the original Final Destination, and wrapping up with FD3. Why show them out of order? I have no idea.
(Fun fact: Back in 2005, I wrote an original FD novel, for publisher Games Workshop’s Black Library imprint. Final Destination: Dead Man’s Hand had Death going on a rampage along the Las Vegas Strip after a group of unfortunates narrowly escape the doom of an elevator disaster. The book’s long out of print, but you can always track down a copy in the wild—or, if you’ve got some free time, you could listen to the Slash Trax Network’s unofficial unabridged audiobook readingof it!)
Ending the weekend is Slasher Sunday: At 6:45 a.m., it begins with Jordana Brewster (The Fast and the Furious) and R. Lee Ermey (The Frighteners) in the 2006 gorefest The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning, followed by Tony Todd as the hook-handed, lovelorn Candyman (1992); 1989’s Friday the 13th, Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan, in which the hockey-masked killer rampaging through New York City (well, mostly Vancouver, British Columbia); the 2003 remake of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (also starring R. Lee Ermey); the 2010 remake of A Nightmare on Elm Street; the original Halloween (1978), by writer/director John Carpenter; the original Friday the 13th; and finally Robert Englund’s iconic turn as Freddy Krueger in writer/director Wes Craven’s original A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984).
Max (formerly HBO Max) continues “No Sleep October” with the broadcast debut of writer/director Ti West’s hard-core thriller MaXXXine and its prequel X (both starring Mia Goth). And don’t forget ’Salem’s Lot (adapting the famous Stephen King vampire novel) and the thriller Caddo Lake, which both premiered earlier this month.
On Friday, Netflix presents Woman of the Hour, starring and directed by Anna Kendrick. In 1978, real-life serial killer Rodney Alcala was Bachelor #3 on the popular TV game show The Dating Game, and the “winner” picked by contestant Cheryl Bradshaw. She soon discovered just how bad a choice she made… It’s “based on a true story,” which means a number of liberties were taken with the true events of that encounter—specifically, in real life, Bradshaw canceled the date after meeting Alcala because he creeped her out, and that was the end of that. So, the movie is really a fictionalized what-if-they’d-gone-on-that-date scenario, but it should be suspenseful, anyway!
Also on Friday, the Hallmark Channel begins its annual Reign of Holiday Terror with its Countdown to Christmas (“Good Lord! Choke!” gasped horror fans everywhere): around-the-clock programming that starts bright and early at 6:00 a.m. But even horror fans have been found to enjoy the…er, cookie-cutter template of Hallmark’s Christmas movies—especially when they have horror connections!
Take, for example, Friday’s Let It Snow (2013), starring Candace Cameron Bure. It’s directed by the appropriately named Harvey Frost, whose credits include episodes of the 1980s’ Friday the 13th: The Series, the 1990s’ The New Addams Family, and Grimm. Or Saturday’s On the 12th Date of Christmas (2020), a comforting romance from Gary Yates, the director of Eye of the Beast (2007; starring James Van Der Beek and a monster octopus) and Maneater (2007; Gary Busey vs. a hungry tiger). A lot of Hallmark directors and writers have a literal skeleton lurking in their closets…if you look closely enough…
And it’s not just horror directors who offset their terror tales with family-friendly films. There are two Hallmark movies—One December Night and My Southern Family Christmas—starring none other than living legend Bruce Campbell, star of the Evil Dead franchise. And Michael Ironside—of V, Starship Troopers, and the recent Late Night with the Devil fame—plays a friendly old gent in Hallmark’s Pumpkin Everything.
In addition, I just discovered there’s a yuletide romance currently in preproduction called Christmas in Transylvania, set in Dracula’s Castle and no doubt planned for the 2025 bingeathon. So, yes, the horror connections are strong, even when it comes to Santa Claus.
Keep in mind, there’s also Letters to Satan Claus, which you can catch on streaming services like Hulu and SyFy. This 2020 horror movie, starring Karen Knox, parodies the Hallmark format with the tale of a TV anchorwoman returning to her hometown, only to learn that a typo-ridden letter she wrote as a young girl to “Satan Claus”—instead of Santa—might lead to a monstrous killing spree by the bad man himself.
Finally, The Movies! Channel’s expanded Friday Night Frights schedule goes toe-to-toe with the Hallmark Channel, unleashing 1958’s Earth vs. the Spider (no, it’s not a court case—although it could be!) at 6:00 a.m., followed by 1943’s The Leopard Man. And then it becomes all-vampire programming for the rest of the day!
First up is the teenaged vampire-girl of 1957’s Blood of Dracula, followed by Christopher Lee as the lord of vampires in 1958’s Horror of Dracula and 1969’s Dracula Has Risen from the Grave; Darren McGavin as reporter Carl Kolchak in 1972’s The Night Stalker; the 1974 adaptation of Dracula, starring Jack Palance, written by Richard Matheson, and directed by Night Stalker producer Dan Curtis; and Sylvia Krystal stalking 1980s Hollywood as Dracula’s Widow (1988; the directorial debut of Christopher Coppola—brother of Nicolas Cage, and nephew of legendary director Francis Ford Coppola). Then comes 1970’s House of Dark Shadows, a spin-off from Dark Shadows, the classic gothic TV soap opera created by Dan Curtis. 1971’s Lust for a Vampire, 1979’s Nosferatu the Vampyre—starring Klaus Kinski as the rat-faced Count Orloff—and the original Nosferatu (1922) round out the programming. (Perfect timing for those last two entries, because this Christmas brings the cinematic terror of writer/director Robert Eggers’s Nosferatu remake!)
It’s Frightful Weekend #2 of October, and if you’re a fan of horror movies in search of something to watch, here’s a sampling of what will be stalking your cable-TV screens:
AMC FearFeast has nothing scheduled for Friday, but dedicates Saturday to a Stephen King Marathon, starting at 6:45 a.m. (on the East Coast) with the rabid-dog thriller Cujo, followed by Graveyard Shift; the original Children of the Corn; the classic Sissy Spacek/Brian DePalma collaboration Carrie; the Kathy Bates/James Caan chiller Misery; the weight-loss terror of Thinner; the 2013 remake of Carrie; the Gary Busey–starring Silver Bullet, based on the illustrated novella Cycle of the Werewolf by King and master artist Bernie Wrightson; and John Carpenter’s haunted-car classic, Christine.
Sunday is a Fear the’80s Marathon: At 7:45 a.m., it begins with another Carpenter classic, The Thing (starring Kurt Russell), followed by the original Child’s Play; Friday the 13th, Part II; the Tobe Hooper–helmed Poltergeist; A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge; and the original Nightmare on Elm Street, all leading up to the broadcast of the latest episode of their zombie series The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon—The Book of Carol.
Max (formerly HBO Max) continues its “No Sleep October” Halloween celebration with the premiere of the thriller Carro Lake, produced by M. Night Shyamalan and starring Dylan O’Brien (Teen Wolf, The Maze Runner).
The Movies! Channel’s expanded Friday Night Frights schedule starts with Boris Karloff starring in 1958’s The Haunted Strangler, followed by 1940’s The Devil Bat (starring Bela Lugosi), Marla English as the monstrous She-Creature (1956), and Beverly Garland battling The Alligator People (1959). Then comes a four-piece full moon marathon: the lycanthropic-bikers weirdness of 1971’s Werewolves on Wheels; Peter Cushing playing “which of you is a real werewolf?” at a party in 1974’s The Beast Must Die; the 1996 thriller Bad Moon, and Angela Lansbury and David Warner starring in Neil Jordan’s critically acclaimed The Company of Wolves (1984). 1958’s The Fly (the original, starring David Heddison and Vincent Price), its 1959 sequel The Return of the Fly, and 1978’s rampaging monster Slithis round out the schedule
And Turner Classic Movies continues their Friday midnight-to-morning overnight schedule, with Poltergeist at 11:59 p.m., followed by The Haunting, director Robert Wise’s 1963 adaptation of Shirley Jackson’s novel The Haunting of Hill House; 1968’s Spirits of the Dead, and ending the night with 1962’s Carnival of Souls. Unfortunately, there are no horror movies on Saturday and only a couple minor-leaguers early Sunday morning Sunday.
Still, not a bad way to spend a horror weekend, right?
Out in movie theaters right now is Meg 2: The Trench, the follow-up to the surprisingly popular 2018 giant-shark movie in which action star Jason Statham (The Fast and the Furious and Expendables franchises) fought two megalodons; this time, he’s got a whole aquarium full of giant underwater monsters to battle!
You know who else has had an encounter with a megalodon? Our friend Bob Larkin, who’s spent a four-decade career painting all manner of colossal beasts from beneath the sea—as well as from outer space!—in a host of covers and movie posters for just about every publishing house and film studio.
Doc Savage, Dazzler, Star Wars, Star Trek, The Savage Sword of Conan the Barbarian, Piranha, Night of the Creeps, Humanoids from the Deep, and Godzilla are just some of the painted images you’re already familiar with, even if you didn’t know they were Larkin’s work. He’s been an inspiration to artists like Joe Jusko and Alex Ross. Around these parts, Bob was the cover artist of my Pan novels Blood Feud and Blood Reign.
Bob’s connection to The Meg is that he was a cover artist for one of the printings of The Trench, author Steve Alten’s follow-up novel to his 1997 bestseller Meg: A Novel of Deep Terror, and the basis for Statham’s Meg 2: The Trench—which means Bob got to paint a giant shark!
What you see here are the original painting and its final printed version. As to why the book has a reversed color scheme, Bob explained it this way to me:
“[The original painting] is what the art director and author wanted: an all-white shark with big teeth, in color. But then they decided to make the shark negative with the red eye; I couldn’t understand why. Scarier? They’re both scarier, to a degree. I did the painting in 1999 and didn’t sign it, like a lot of my rush covers.”
Impressive, right? But like I always like to say, it’s not just his painting skills that are impressive—Bob’s also an amazing pencil artist, as evidenced by the StarWarp Concepts art book that showcases his work. Cue the shameless plug!
The Bob Larkin Sketchbook is a collection of some of Bob’s incredible pencil drawings, and what you’ll discover when you see them—behind that eye-catching cover featuring Ms. Zwieback—is how wide-ranging his subjects are. Sci-fi, horror, Westerns, pulp adventure, crime fiction, movie merchandise, even wrestling stars—as we say on the book’s back cover, there really is little that he hasn’t painted.
The sketchbook also features three pieces created especially for it: the Pan-portrait cover art; a portrait of Patricia Savage, the fightin’ cousin of pulp fiction’s top-tier adventurer, Doc Savage, the Man of Bronze; and a two-page spread in which Doc faces off against another Golden Age crimefighter—The Shadow!
The Bob Larkin Sketchbook is available in print and digital formats. Visit its product page at StarWarp Concepts for ordering information.
Not interested in the classic (and some not so classic) horror films we’ve looked at this week for your Halloween viewing list? Not to worry! There are other places you can go to build your own spooky binge-a-thon (in other words, streaming services), so here are some suggestions for picking and choosing:
The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad (1949): It’s not Mr. Toad—whose story is a partial adaptation of Kenneth Grahame’s novel The Wind in the Willows—that horror fans are here for in this two-part Disney animated feature, but rather Ichabod Crane and his spine-chilling encounter witrh the Headless Horseman in this lively adaptation of Washington Irving’s “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,” featuring the voice of Bing Crosby, who not only narrates but performs the jazzy tune “The Headless Horseman.” (He was a big deal back in the day; ask your grandparents. Or your great-grandparents.) Streaming on Disney+.
Ash vs. Evil Dead (2015–2018): Here’s something for older viewers. This sequel to the Evil Dead trilogy of movies (The Evil Dead, Evil Dead 2: Dead by Dawn, Army of Darkness) finds often reluctant but always self-absorbed hero Ash Williams (Bruce Campbell) dragged back into a confrontation with the unholy Deadites that made his life a living hell thirty years ago. Sure, there’s plenty of gore on display, but at heart it’s a comedy-action show that just happens to feature a guy who straps on a chain saw to replace his missing right hand—that he himself cut off all those years ago, when it tried to kill him! All three seasons are streaming on Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, and Apple TV.
Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2021): It’s as close as the Marvel Cinematic Universe gets to a superhero horror film, but that’s no surprise when the director involved is Sam Raimi of the Evil Dead trilogy, Drag Me to Hell, and Darkman fame (as well as the early 2000s’ Spider-Man 1–3). Stephen Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) and new sidekick America Chavez (Xochitl Gomez) are chased across the multiverse by a Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen) turned bad, and she doesn’t care how many people she has to pulverize, turn into string cheese, or neck snap to get her way. And then there’s the ghoulish debut of Zombie Strange—not to mention a guest appearance by Ash vs. Evil Dead star Bruce Campbell! Streaming on Disney+.
It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown (1966): A Spooky Season classic. It’s Halloween, and while the majority of the Peanuts Gang go trick-or-treating (“I got a rock,” moans eternal sad sack Charlie Brown as he checks his haul), his best friend, Linus, goes to the pumpkin patch to await the arrival of the Great Pumpkin, Halloween’s answer to Santa Claus. But is the Great Pumpkin real, or just a figment of Linus’s overactive imagination? Written by Charles Schultz, directed by Bill Melendez, and starring the vocal talents of Peter Robbins, Christopher Shea, Sally Dryer, and Kathy Steinberg. Plus a fantastic score by jazz master Vince Guaraldi. Streaming on Apple TV+.
Morbius (2022): Yes, I know it got a lot of Internet hate, but this horror-antihero translation of the Marvel Comics “science vampire” to screen really isn’t as bad as they say—at least not until the completely unnecessary post-credits scene that so desperately (and badly) tries to tie it to the MCU Spider-Man franchise. Jared Leto (Suicide Squad) is Michael Morbius, a scientist battling a rare genetic disease with a special treatment he’s develoepd—one that involves using vampire bats. As you’d expect, the treatment has some unexpected—and unwanted—side effects… Costarring Matt Smith (Doctor Who, House of the Dragon). Streaming on Netflix.
Q, the Winged Serpent (1982): An oddball classic of 1980s horror filmmaking. There’s a giant winged lizard living in New York City—and his nest is right in the legendary Chrysler Building! Q is actually the Aztec god Quetzalcoatl, the deity worshipped by a modern-day cult that’s been sacrificing New Yorkers in his name. Can the NYPD shut down the cult andfind a way to kill a living god? Written and directed by Larry Cohen (It’s Alive), and starring Michael Moriarty (Law & Order), David Carrdine (Kill Bill, Vols. 1 & 2), Richard Roundtree (Shaft), and Candy Clark (Buffy the Vampire Slayer). Streaming on Shout Factory TV.
Silver Bullet (1985): If you can overlook the terrible monster effects in this adaptation of the Stephen King/Bernie Wrightson illustrated novella Cycle of the Werewolf, you’ll find an enjoyable thriller about a young boy who discovers there’s a lycanthropic killer on the loose in his town, and realizes he might be the only one to stop it—well, him and his sister and uncle, who not only come to believe him, but offer assistance for the big showdown. Adapted by Stephen King himself, directed by Dan Atlas (The Walking Dead), and starring Corey Haim (The Lost Boys), Gary Busey (Predator 2), Terry O’Quinn (Lost), Everett McGill (Dune), and Megan Follows (Reign). Streaming on Amazon Prime, Apple TV, Roku, and Google Play.
Trick ’r’ Treat (2007): What’s Halloween without a few tales of terror? This cult-classic anthology, written and directed by Michael Dougherty (Godzilla: King of the Monsters), stars Brian Cox (X-Men 2), Anna Paquin (X-Men), and Dylan Baker (Spider-Man 2–3), all celebrating Halloween in their own special ways, with candy, spooky surprises, and copious amounts of blood! And just wait until you meet that charming little boy, Sam—he’ll be verydisappointed if you don’t have any treats to hand out… Streaming on Amazon Prime.
Wendell & Wild (2022): The comedy team of Key & Peele—actor Keegan-Michael Key (The Predator) and award–winning director Jordan Peele (Get Out, Nope)—reunites for this brand-new stop-motion-animation flick from director Henry Selick (The Nightmare Before Christmas, Coraline) about two demon brothers. Costarring Angela Bassett (Black Panther: Wakanda Forever), Ving Rhames (Mission Impossible), and James Hong (Big Trouble in Little China).
Werewolf by Night (2022): The latest entry in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, this special, based on the comic series of the same name, not only introduces Jack Russell, the titular creature of the night, but also the Marvel screen debut of the shambling swamp monster known as The Man-Thing! Directed by Michael Giacchino (who also composed the music), and starring Gael Garcia Bernal, Laura Donnelly, and Harriet Sansom Harris. (Fun fact: Werewolf by Night the comic series was where Marvel’s latest live-action superhero, Moon Knight, made his first appearance—perhaps there’s a chance for a future encounter?) Streaming on Disney+.
Witch’s Night Out (1978): This weird little animated special from Canada involves a witch whose Halloween monster party is interrupted by angry neighbors who don’t want monsters living in their town. Things get worse when her magic wand is used by others to cause further tension, but in the end everyone learns to live in harmony. Written by John Leach and Isobel Jean Rankin, directed by Leach, and starring the vocal talents of Gilda Radner (Saturday Night Live) and Catherine O’Hara (Schitt’s Creek). Streaming on Shout Factory TV.
And thus we come to the end of this Halloween viewing series for 2022. I hope you enjoyed it, and that there’s something for you and your family to watch. Or perhaps you might want to create your own Halloween programming from your personal horror movie collection—you of course have one, don’t you?
Unlike its parent company, the AMC Network, IFC—the Independent Film Channel—has a bit more choice in its All Hallows’ Eve programming than a loop of Halloween franchise movies. Sure, IFC’s list is comprised of well-known, not-too-terrifying box office hits, but at least you’ve got a couple of big-time winners (Gremlins, Jaws) in the mix, as well as a talking man-eating plant that can really carry a tune!
7:45 a.m.: Lake Placid (1999): Witness Golden Girl Betty White in all her foul-mouthed, laugh-inducing glory in this tale of a giant crocodile running rampant in Maine, pursued by sheriff Bill Pullman (Independence Day), paleontologist Bridget Fonda (Single White Female), and big-game hunter Oliver Platt (Chicago Med). Written by David E. Kelley (Ally McBeal) and directed by Steve Miner (Halloween H20: 20 Years Later).
9:30 a.m.: Little Shop of Horrors (1986): The screen adaptation of the hit Broadway musical (itself based on the 1960 Roger Corman–produced movie that started it all) finds Rick Moranis (Ghostbusters) and Ellen Greene (The X-Files) trying to outsmart an evil talking extraterrestrial plant—Audrey II, voiced by music legend Levi Stubbs of the R&B group the Four Tops—hungry for blood…and world domination. Directed by Frank Oz—perhaps best known as the voice actor behind Ms. Piggy of The Muppets and Yoda of Star Wars fame—and featuring music and lyrics by the powerful composing duo of Howard Ashman and Alan Menken (Disney’s The Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast).
11:45 a.m.: Pet Sematary (1989): Based on the bestselling novel by Stephen King (aren’t they all?), Fred Gwynne (the original Herman Munster of The Munsters), Denise Crosby (Star Trek: The Next Generation), and Dale Midkiff (The Crow: Salvation) star in this adaptation directed by Mary Lambert (Mega Python vs. Gatoroid) with a screenplay by King himself. A family moves to a small Maine town and discovers a pet “sematary” (according to the misspelled sign on it) behind their house. It’s a special place where burying your deceased pet there usually means they come back to life—but not in a good way. As ol’ Herman ominously intones at one point: “Sometimes, dead is bettah…”
2:15 p.m.: Gremlins (1984): Directed by Joe Dante (The Howling, Piranha) and written by Chris Columbus (who later became a Harry Potter movie director), this tale of Christmas presents gone wrong proves that not everyone should be given an exotic pet as a gift—especially if you’re going to ignore the care-and-feeding instructions. Starring Zach Galligan (Waxwork), Phoebe Cates (Drop Dead Fred), and Hoyt Axton. Music by composing legend Jerry Goldsmith (Planet of the Apes, The Omen).
4:45 p.m.: Jaws 2 (1978): Not sure why the sequel runs first, but…okay. (Must be an AMC effect on the programming.) Roy Scheider and Lorraine Gary, stars of the original Jaws, return to deal with the chaos created by another shark that’s eating the residents and vacationing families of Amity Island. The other returning character, Murray Hamilton’s Amity mayor Larry Vaughn, remains just as dumb as a post when it comes to acknowledging shark attacks during tourist season as he was the first time, which means it’s up to Brody to handle this on his own.
7:30 p.m.: Jaws (1975): Steven Spielberg (Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Indiana Jones) directs Roy Scheider (Jaws 2, The Punisher), Robert Shaw (The Golden Voyage of Sinbad), Richard Dreyfuss (CE3K), Lorraine Gary (Jaws 2, Night Gallery), and Murray Hamilton in this mega-hit adaptation of the bestselling novel by Peter Benchley (who also cowrote the screenplay), about a town terrorized by a large, hungry, and surprisingly smart great white shark that apparently can’t be stopped from feeding on the locals and tourists. Featuring an amazing score by John Williams (of Star Wars, Harry Potter, and Indiana Jones fame). It’s the summer movie that made people afraid to go to the beach.
10:15 p.m.: Gremlins (repeat broadcast)
Tomorrow, we’ll take a look at movies you can stream to create your own Halloween viewing party. Stay tuned!
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!
