birthdays of several awesome friends, I love it because it tends to be a crisper, cooler time of year (although this year seems to be rebelling). It is also the time for carving scary pumpkins, reading scary stories and watching scary movies. Who doesn’t love getting the popcorn, lighting a few candles, turning out the lights and getting creeped out by some celluloid ghouls??Although HBPL Media does have a selection of horror/slasher type films like Nightmare on Elm Street and Scream, I have never been a huge fan of this type of horror film. I prefer creepies like these:
Night Gallery: After Rod Serling gave us the Twilight Zone, his next endeavor was Night Gallery.
True to Serling form, all these episodes are truly creepy. We have recently added the complete first and second season of this classic television show. Some of my favorite episodes are:THE CEMETERY A black sheep nephew (Roddy McDowall) murders his ailing uncle for the inheritance only to find some disturbing changes in the old man's painting of the family graveyard.
THE ESCAPE ROUTE A Nazi war criminal (Richard Kiley) finds refuge from his pursuers - and a fitting justice for his crimes - by wishing himself into a painting.
THE CATERPILLAR A bored colonial (Laurence Harvey) on a Malaysian plantation finds himself the victim of a gruesome assassination plot he had planned for someone else.
DELIVERIES IN THE REAR A ghastly shocker about a surgery instructor (Cornel Wilde)who is
unconcerned about the source of his cadavers.THE SINS OF THE FATHERS In 19th century Wales, a devastating famine forces a young boy (Richard Thomas) to play the part of a sin-eater at a dead man's wake.
Watching this series is like watching a who’s who of 60’s and 70’s TV: Vincent Price, Bill Bixby, Larry Hagman, Burgess Meredith, Agnes Moorehead, Raymond Massey, William Windom, Leslie Nielsen, Michele Lee, Patty Duke, Bob Crane, Jo Anne Worley and the names go on and on. If you never saw this show while it was on, you now have an excellent opportunity to scare yourself all the way through October!
Nightmare Before Christmas: What’s this? What’s this? This is a brilliant bit of stop-motion
animation that is a holiday classic in my household. Christmas has It’s a Wonderful Life, Halloween has Nightmare Before Christmas. Although Henry Sellick directed this marvelous film, the script came from the brain of Tim Burton. If the plot weren’t fun enough, every inch of the screen is packed with ghoulish delights that only become more evident with multiple screenings. Jack Skellington, the bony leader of Halloweentown discovers that other holidays exist when he stumbles upon Christmastown. Convinced that he could do Christmas better than they could, he takes over the holiday with scary, creepy (musical!)results.The Frighteners: Before Lord of the Rings, Peter Jackson directed this funny but frightening
film. I saw this when it first came out in 1996 and search it out every fall to revisit. Micheal J. Fox plays Frank Bannister who, after a car accident in which his wife, Debra, was killed and he was injured, develops psychic abilities allowing him to see, hear, and communicate with ghosts. Devastated by his wife’s death, he decides to leave his job as a successful architect to join forces with his new ghost friends to con people out of their money. The ghosts go into people’s homes and then they pay Frank to get rid of them. All is going well until a deceased mass murderer comes back from Hell to continue his killing spree and starts targeting people important to Frank.No matter what type of film gives you the willies, slasher horror, psychological horror, teen-age musicals…..it is the time of year to indulge in your darker cinematic side! Scare is in the air!!
