Horror movies will fill small screen
It was late one night in Philadelphia when actress Betsy Palmer went to pick up a few things at the market. She was pushing the cart through the store when suddenly, from behind her, she began to hear an ominous sound – a child’s voice breathing the refrain “ch-ch-ch hah-hah-hah.”
“I turned around,” Palmer says, “and he said, ‘I knew it was you!’ “
The boy repeating the classic “Friday the 13th” sound effect is one of many to recognize Palmer from her role as killer Jason Voorhees’ equally insane mother, Pamela.
“Kids across the street call out ‘killer mommy,’ and I look at them and wave,” says Palmer, remembering other encounters with fans of the classic original 1980 horror fest. “It’s wild.”
Fans of a good scare looking to gorge on tales of Jason, Norman Bates, the Blair Witch or real-life ghosts can indulge themselves this Halloween as AMC, Turner Classic Movies, FX, the Sci-Fi Channel and other networks provide heavy dosages of holiday-ready fright.
Back-to-back showings of the full-screen (6 p.m.) and DVD-enhanced (8 p.m.) versions of “Friday the 13th” kick off the first night of AMC’s “Monsterfest,” its ninth annual Halloween movie festival, on Sunday.
The nine-day, 24-hour horror marathon promises 200 hours of scares, from movies including “Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein,” (11:30 a.m. Sunday,) “Arachnophobia,” (2 p.m. Sunday), “Tremors” (4 p.m. Sunday) and “An American Werewolf in London” (10 p.m. Wednesday.)
At 10 p.m. Friday, the network also will premiere a new episode of its series “Movies That Shook The World,” which takes a look at the cultural impact of 1973’s pea soup-spewing classic “The Exorcist.”
“This is a film that had people running from the theaters and vomiting in the hallways,” series executive producer Randy Barbato says. “I think if we look at ‘The Exorcist’ today, it’s hard for us to even remember the kind of impact it had 30 years ago. No. 1, it was a horror film unlike any other that preceded it. It kind of struck a chord and terrified people in a way that films don’t do today. It introduced a level of horror that I think we’re kind of numb to in the 21st century.”
“Carrie,” based on Stephen King’s novel about a gawky teen with telekinetic capabilities, airs Tuesday at 1:30 p.m. on AMC. Also airing that day is “The Fly” – the 1958 original, not the 1986 Geena Davis remake – at 7, 9 and 11 p.m. on the Fox Movie Channel. (You can catch the remake on Friday at 8 p.m. on Bravo.)
“Hellraiser,” Clive Barker’s 1987 film about the perils of unlocking the gates of hell, airs Thursday at 8 p.m. and midnight on AMC. A&E unveils “The Secret Life of Vampires,” about folks dressing up as vampires, on Friday at 8 p.m.
Next Saturday, Bravo airs “100 Scariest Movie Moments” at 7 p.m., offering tidbits on such films as “Psycho,” “Poltergeist,” “Jurassic Park” and “Scream.”
And what would Halloween be without “The Shining,” Stanley Kubrick’s tale of a hotel that drives the patriarch (Jack Nicholson) insane? It airs at 8 p.m. and midnight next Saturday on A&E.
ABC offers the Peanuts Halloween tradition “It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown” on Tuesday at 8 p.m., as Linus awaits the arrival of the benevolent jack-o’-lantern. CBS jumps into the mix with a new film, “Vampire Bats,” airing at 9 p.m. Oct. 30, featuring Lucy Lawless tackling bats in New Orleans.
For fright fans requiring a more stylized scare, Turner Classic Movies is showing a weeklong tribute to iconic director Alfred Hitchcock beginning Monday. Films including “Psycho” (8:30 p.m. Monday), “North by Northwest” (5 p.m. next Saturday), “Rear Window” (6:30 p.m. Oct. 30) and “The Birds” (7:30 p.m. Oct. 30) will be presented on themed nights, with commentary in between the programming featuring Patricia Hitchcock, the director’s daughter.
Tippi Hedren, star of “Marnie” (12:30 a.m. Tuesday), and Jeff Kraft and Aaron Leventhal, authors of the book “Footsteps in the Fog: Alfred Hitchcock’s San Francisco” (Santa Monica Press, $24.95), also will appear.
A collection of creepy cult classics is airing on The Independent Film Channel (IFC). Movies include 2000’s “Ginger Snaps” (5 p.m. today), about two death-obsessed teenage sisters, and 2001’s “The Wendigo” (7 p.m. Oct. 31), a take on the legend of the mysterious, man-eating creature living in the woods.
FX is showing a marathon of the gross-out series “Fear Factor” (2 to 6 p.m. next Saturday) and a scary movie marathon from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. on Oct. 30 that includes “The Blair Witch Project” at 1 p.m.
The real-life ghosts that may or may not populate Savannah, Ga., are the focus of a new episode of the Sci-Fi Channel series “Ghost Hunters.” Among the “hot spots” investigated during the special (11 p.m. Oct. 31) is the cemetery familiar to fans of the novel and film “Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil.”
Starting at 8 p.m. each night this week beginning Monday, the History Channel delves into some of our culture’s most mystifying secrets. The week culminates Saturday night with a showing of “The Haunted History of Halloween” and a “History’s Mysteries” episode on legendary monsters.