10 Lesser Known Halloween TV Episodes

When I was a kid, I anticipated the Halloween specials that would air just like everyone else, but I also had a special affinity for Halloween episodes of my favorite shows.  While a number of recent shows have had beloved Spooky season themed eps, I thought I'd look back at a few lesser known ones from the spooky hallows of television history. 

From Dusk 'Til Dawn: The Series- Episode 3: I Could Review This For Ya' If You want Me To

I'm back again for another dose of Dusking Til Dawning, and this week the series really starts to come into its own. In the first two episodes, I both bemoaned the fact that it was adhering so closely to the film while skimping on the expanded story-line to flesh out the tale. With this week's episode, "Mistress", the series strikes out on its own, and it begins to build a world familiar to fans of Tarantino and Rodriguez's work while plying a mythos original to the series. Plus, this week we get a spin on the "I could do that for you" scene, a mess of freaky visions, and Jake Busey. 

From Dusk 'til Dawn: The Series 1 & 2: These Geckos Will Not Help YouSave 15%

When I heard that Robert Rodriguez was going to bring From Dusk 'till Dawn, the film he co-directed with Quentin Tarantino, to his new El Ray network as a series, I was skeptical. Now, after two episodes, which clock in at just under the running time of the original film, I feel cautiously skeptical. I still can't upgrade it to any level of optimism, but there are moments and performances that almost work in this expansion of the crime story/vampire tale.

The Other Andy: Murder in Coweta County (1983)

Hello again, and welcome back to another installment of The Other Andy. Today’s film might just show Andy as the farthest from the kind hearted Mayberry sheriff as I have seen, and the scary thing is that the character he plays was a real guy. Culled from the 1979 book Murder in Coweta County by Margaret Anne Barnes, which was based on real events, the TV movie shines a light on the very real problems of racism, corruption, and the good ol’ boy system that existed in Georgia in the late 1940s. This is a movie about the South in a period after slavery had been done away with and replaced with the servitude culture of sharecropping. It’s sad to say, but as a Southerner, the problems exhibited in the film have yet to gasp their last breath. While the sharecroppers are long gone, the culture of racial division and cronyism still persists to this day. Examining these problems in a warts and all kind of way, paired with great performances from Andy Griffith and his co-star, country legend, Johnny Cash, combine to make Murder in Coweta County not only a fascinating film, but also the best Made for TV movie I have ever seen. 

Dan Curtis' Dracula (1973) Jack Says, "Pick Up the Stake. Pick It Up."

While the modern era of slasher, lead by Jason Voorhees and Mikey Myers, ushered in an era of killers whose facial expressions meant nothing to the story, it began to matter very little who portrayed the killers in countless sequels. For the classic movie villains, casting was everything. Take for example the role of Frankenstein in the classic Universal films. Originally offered to Bela Lugosi, the role of the monster part had no sex appeal so he passed it to Karloff. It's just as hard to imagine Bela as The Monster as it is to think of Karloff as The Count. Over the years, many men have tackled the role of the most famous vampire from Gary Oldman and Frank Langella to Bela and, coming soon, Johnathan Rhys Myers in a television show about ol' Drac. All of these performances have several common threads that run through them. There is a primal, animalistic evil that runs through each, and every last on of them was dead sexy. Sure, they might not be Channing Tatum, but in their time, the most famous keepers of the cape and fangs made the women swoon. No matter what era he existed in, today's Vlad Tepes got as far as embodying the evil, animal qualities and left sexy out in the rain. I don't care how many one armed push-ups he could do or how tough he was because when you cast Jack Palance as Dracula the sucking sound you hear isn't entirely blood.

The Other Andy: Savages (1974)

When one thinks about Andy Griffith, there are qualities that naturally spring to mind, kindness, humor, and confidence to name a few. Last week, I talked about The Girl in the Empty Grave and the beginning of Andy’s middle period in which the ttelevision legend sought ways to shake off the mantle of Andy Taylor, Sheriff of Mayberry. Where Empty Grave saw him taking a more no nonsense approach to mystery solving (which would come in handy someday to Matlock), perhaps the most interesting roles he’s ever taken were the ones which went directly against type. The first such role that I ever caught was in Pray for the Wildcats where, opposite William Shatner playing a wimp, Griffith is a power mad drunkard with rape and even murder on the mind. I really thought the wild eyed Griffith of Pray would have topped my list of Evil Andys, but then I saw today’s film, Savages. Sporting a bristly moustache, a pair of giant size, wire rimmed old guy glasses, and a full on safari outfit, Griffith barely looks like himself, and as the merciless lawyer and hunter Horton Madac, he surely was looking to leave Aunt Bee and Opie a distant memory.

The Other Andy: The Girl in the Empty Grave (1977)

It was only a little over a month ago that entertainment lost a real legend, Andy Griffith. Since then, I’ve found myself taking quite a few trips to Mayberry to catch up with a number of episodes of The Andy Griffith Show that I had missed, but my mind often drifted to The Other Andy, the one that isn’t as strong in the zeitgeist as the folksy character Andy Taylor. I’m talking about the actor Andy Griffith who made some really interesting, and, yes, campy, genre filled films both before and after his career as a TV lawman. After beginning his career as a singer and storyteller, Griffith found his way to the Broadway stage in No Time for Sergeants which quickly became a successful film property. This lead to his casting in Elia Kazan’s tale of fame gone awry, A Face in the Crowd, a film which is nearly universally regarded as a classic. It wasn’t too long after this heavy hitting film that the backdoor pilot for The Andy Griffith Show appeared as part of The Danny Kaye Show. The segment proved popular, and Griffith assumed the role which would define his career. Unless, that is, you run into one of those rabid Matlock people, and then I advise you to use all applicable caution

Mental Health Awareness Month: The Eleventh Commandment (1986)

Ronald Reagan once said that The Eleventh Commandment was, “Thou shalt not speak ill of any fellow Republican.”, but he got shot by a crazy person with a Jodi Foster fetish so what did he know. I say The Eleventh Commandment is, “Thou shalt not pass up a TV movie from the 80s.”, and, totally coincidentally, today’s film is a TV movie called The Eleventh Commandment. I don’t know what it is about Made-for-TV fare from the 70s and 80s that holds such an appeal to me, but it was a time when stars slummed it, often in groups, television could get away with a lot more wackiness in prime time, and the sub-Hollywood scripts take bizarre turns. Just look at Pray for the Wildcats or Secrets of a Married Man, and everyone knows the infamous weird of Bad Ronald. Today’s addition to Mental Health Awareness Month has some of the best of everything that a TV movie should have. It’s got an oddball celebrity star, a script straight out of freaky town, and a thick shellac of 80s cheese to glue it all together.

You Don't Know Shat !?!: Naked City: Portrait Of A Painter (1962)

It's the last week of You Don't Know Shat !?!, and that means it's also a very special day, the birthday of William Alan Shatner. Born in Montreal in 1931, The Shat has reached his 81st birthday and is  still growing strong. In the last year Shat has appeared on USA's Psych, his own sitcom (the failed Shit My Dad Says), and killed off his popular Priceline Negotiator making for the first time, I know of, that a commercial character died as part of their plot. I expect in years to come there will still be plenty of Shat to look forward to, and there's still so many of his films that I haven't got to go back and watch. In case you missed the other entries this month, go back and check out Shatner as a worried Dad in Broken Angel, a hepcat teacher in The Explosive Generation, and a cheating cad in Secrets of a Married Man, and of course, all the previous years' Shat-tastic goodness. For the last entry, I chose to look at an early Shatner TV role. William was already a veteran actor by the early Sixties, with ten years of experience under his belt, when he was cast as a troubled painter who just might have killed his wife. There's eight million stories in The Naked City. This is just Shatner's.

You Don't Know Shat !?! : Secrets of a Married Man (1984)

Over the last few weeks of the Shatner celebration, we've seen the Shat as a crusading father rescuing his daughter from gang life in Broken Angel and talking turkey about the birds and the bees is The Explosive Generation. This week finds Shatner on the other side of the ethical coin as a cad gone mad in Secrets of a Married Man. This made for TV film feels like prehistoric version of a Lifetime offering, but spun on it's head in a fever of Iron John induced melodrama. It becomes a tale of middle class male ennui where Shatner, playing for sympathy, comes up well short. Secrets of a Married Man  is a slice of of 80s yuppsterism that shows off just how flawed the free love generation became as they moved into the self centered, costumer driven decade. Plus, you get to see Captain Kirk picking up hookers on the corner.

You Don't Know Shat?!? :Broken Angel (1988)

Today March officially begins and with it brings a longstanding tradition here at The Lair, the celebrations of the works of William Shatner that I like to call " You Don't Know Shat!?!". This is a feature I've run for the last two years, and I've been eagerly awaiting March for it to swing around again. Shatner, while often belittled and denigrated, is really an acting treasure with roles that spans over 50 years and include iconic performances, side trips into other cultures and languages, documentaries, dramas, and comedies. Even saying all that barely begins to recognize the vastness of the body of work that Bill Shatner has amassed by 2012, the year of his 81st birthday. Today I' m going to start with one of his lesser known features. During the 70s and 80s, while Bill was running around as Kirk on the big screen and T.J. Hooker on the small one, he also made more than his fair share of made-for-TV films. In the past I've looked at Disaster on a Coastliner and Pray for the Wildcats, but today's film, Broken Angel, is a far cry from either of those action oriented movies. Instead it melded Shatner's over-the-top performance with a story that was equal parts Afterschool  Special and proto-Lifetime movie.

Ectovember: House of Bones (2010): Ghost Hunters become the Ghost Hunted

More than a few times I've professed my love for ghost hunting shows here at the Lair. I have my favorites (Most Haunted), ones that make me chuckle (Ghost Adventures), and ones I can't stand (Ghost Lab). In between there's a plethora of other shows of varying degrees of mediocrity. So I've long looked for a horror movie that incorporated ghost hunting in an interesting way. While I've never gotten to see the crown jewel in this particular sub-genre,the 1991 BBC1 mockumentary Ghostwatch, I've sat through Haunting of Winchester Mansion and Death of a Ghost Hunter both of which I felt no compelling reason to write about. (I'm still holding out some hope for Grave Encounters (2011)) Today's ghost hunter flick is the first I've seen to both show the seedy underbelly of the paranormal show and give a satisfying, and often horrific, ride. The strangest thing is that it hails from the home of one of the premiere spiritualist shows, Ghost Hunters. That's right. You're about to be treated to something very scary, a SyFy movie I enjoy. House of Bones is thankfully not a horror/porn, a sequel to the Snoop Dogg flick, or a theme restaurant based on the Emily Deschanel. Instead, it's made for TV fare with a ton of potential, some decent scares, and, dare I say, a whole lot of spirit(s).

Corin Nemec (Mansquito, Parker Lewis Can't Lose) appears as Quentin French, the prissy, small ponytailed host of the paranormal show Sinister Sites. With the ratings beginning to fade, the network is demanding that the host get his hands dirty and actually join the ghost hunting team on an investigation. Meanwhile, in New Orleans (Really nearby Crowley, La. The one exterior city shot could have literally been anywhere.), the team is busy setting up for an investigation in the Wicker House, a home notorious for numerous murders and disappearances over the years. Despite the home's sordid past, lead investigators Tom (Ricky Wayne) and Greg (Marcus Lyle Brown) are non-believers more than willing to set up a shot or create evidence. In addition to the host joining the team, new addition Heather Burton (Charisma Carpenter), a psychic, and production assistant Bub (Kyle Clements) soon find that the house is indeed haunted. In Bub's case, he finds out the hard way. With actual evidence being captured, Tom gleefully disregards the team's safety in order to make exciting television, and soon they all find that the house itself is a presence and it will not let them leave.

Perhaps the most surprising thing about this SyFy original is that they would air it in the first place. The entire premise of the film relies on the conceit that ghost hunting shows are bunk, full of actors scaring themselves, and actively engaged in fakery. With Ghost Hunters still pulling in a sizable viewership, it took a certain amount of balls to air a film that basically says the fans are stupid. The second most surprising thing is that the film is actually pretty good. While House of Bones initially relies on jumpy video cuts to create tension, director Jeffery Scott Lando lets those fade into the background and actually manages to come up with quite a few creepy visuals.Writer Anthony C. Ferrante has clearly watched a ton of the shows and gets his stuff right, and I do have to say his style is improved since the underwhelming Boo (2005). That's not to say that the film is not full of useless expository passages, inane dialog, and broad characterizations. After all, you can take the movie off of SyFy, but you can't take the SyFy out of the movie. What a cast and crew can do is make the best out of a fumbling script, and with House of Bones, they've done just that.

There were actually three things that drew me into watching House of Bones, the ghost hunting angle, the "New Orleans" setting, and Charisma Carpenter. While I am no huge fan of Buffy and Angel, I am quite the fan of Ms. Carpenter. Far and away, she's the best portion of this film, but her psychic character is totally underused. (The character is also roundly ignored. When a psychic spits up blood and tells me a house is possessed by malevolent spirits, well, I can guarantee there would be a Bugg size hole in the door pronto.) Ricky Wayne, who has recently landed roles in Real Steel, the Charlie's Angels tv series, and Burn Notice, impresses as the lead investigator. His character arc is the most dynamic, and Wayne pulls it off nicely. Marcus Lyle Brown is likable enough and the same can be said of Kyle Clements and Collin Galyean, who played the team tech guy, but neither became fleshed out characters. Top billed Corin Nemec is really not in more than 15 minutes of the film, and that is being entirely generous. As a group, the cast rises above the script, but not far, perhaps a Chris Angel street magic rise, but no further.

Looking at the film from a ghost believer's point of view, the characters come to believe that the house contains both intelligent (as in they will respond with some intelligence) and residual spirits (who appear or act without an awareness of our timeline). The most interesting concept is that the house itself is not only possessed, but it had been constructed as a means of storing and amplifying psychic energies. The same has been said of Winchester Mansion (which the aforementioned film borrowed a name, but not an actual setting from) built by Elsa Winchester to both protect herself from ghosts as well as focus their energy for Ouija and other means of communication. Again, someone knew their stuff. Sadly the things that bothered me most in the entire film were when the characters went to the basement, a place that would not exist in below sea level New Orleans, and when the spirit drives a cop car away. The first scene is just a personal pet peeve, but the second was so silly it almost took me entirely out of the film.

No matter what your feeling on ghosts or shows concerning them, I highly recommend no one go into this movie without knowing from whence it came. As far as SyFy films go, this is far and away one of the best I've ever seen. As a regular film, it rates below average which is the rating I'm going to give it. Even so, I had a great time watching it, and while much of that has to do with the cast, I can't underestimate some of the macabre creepiness that House of Bones manages to achieve. With another writer taking a pass over the script, a little bit more money in the budget, and perhaps a couple minor casting changes, House of Bones could have been a solid, quality entry into the supernatural genre. As it stands, House of Bones built something good upon a shaky foundation, and when your network can't even afford a proper amount of letters in their name, that's pretty damn impressive.

Bugg Rating

Mad Monsters, Fat Alberts, and General Grinchiness: Classic Halloween Specials I'd Missed

Back when I was a kid, and even through the late 80's, every holiday season meant a few new Halloween specials nestled in between classic offerings like It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown. While I tried to catch as many growing up as I could, there were quite a few I never got around to seeing. One was a glaring omission on my part, the Rankin-Bass Halloween special, Mad Monster Party. 

At least I thought it was a glaring omission. Without nostalgia to blind my judgement, I found the animation amazing, the script (penned in part by Mad Magazine's Harvey Kurtzman) was fairly droll, and the voice actors, especially Phyllis Diller and Boris Karloff very entertaining, but as a whole the film was a bloated mess. Clocking in at an hour and half (double the time of Rudolf), Mad Monster Party feels like Rankin/Bass' foray into Ray Harryhausen territory. Ultimately I enjoyed the flick, but felt like a judicious  editing hand could have made it a really punchy fun special. (Note: This was released in the spring and technically not a Halloween special, so sue me.)

Next up comes a special I didn't even know about until yesterday. In the intervening years between How the Grinch Stole Christmas and Halloween is Grinch Night, the green grumps heart hasn't shrunk back to original small size, but might only retain half of the size Christmas magic bestowed upon it. Because the Grinch is back again, this time to scare the Whos in Whoville presumably because it's fall.

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This one is a real head scratcher. What exactly was the Grinch's plan?  Why do Whos have to use the euphemism so badly? And why can't they just use the bathroom? Why does the special have to have one of the most depressing songs ever in which the Grinch's dog regrets his life of slavery? Why is the Grinch's paraphernalia van full of psychedelia? The last one I suppose answers itself.

Hey Hey Hey. I had one more special I watched, the heartwarming Fat Albert Halloween Special. Bill Cosby manages to push in lessons about judging others, minding one's parents, eating only wrapped candy, and how it's not cool to go around scaring people, all without being preachy. Ok, too preachy.

Both Mad Monster Party and Fat Albert are streaming for Netflix customers, and I'll be back tomorrow with more cinematic thrills and chills. 

Home For Rent (Occupants Included): Bedlam and American Horror Story Move Haunting Into Primetime

Right now, the housing market is terrible. With loans hard to get and sellers unable to unload properties, it's no surprise that people would be desperate for somewhere to live. Yet there is a line between being desperate and not doing due diligence. I'm not talking about getting the building inspectors out or making sure all the utilities are in working order. Nor am I thinking about checking school districts or the local amenities that the surrounding area has to offer. I'm talking about bringing in a medium or two, going down to the library to make sure your house isn't built on top of a burial ground or ancient ruins of a long forgotten religion's sacred home, and, if all else fails, calling around to local plumbers and tight t-shirt shops looking for a ghost hunter. Unfortunately for the cast of characters in Bedlam, BBC America's haunted offering (originally aired earlier this year in the UK), and American Horror Story, airing on the FX network, they didn't do all the checking they should have before they signed their lease.

Both of these shows share a similar theme, a group of folks move into a new place and slowly begin to realize their new digs are haunted. The interesting thing to me is how they compare as visions of paranormal activity from opposite sides of the pond. Bedlam centers itself around the modern, young, hip looking set of residents of Bedlam Heights, a new luxury apartment complex shoved into what used to be a mental institution. While Jed (Theo James) can see the spirits, the other inhabitants are menaced mainly by a few passing visions and the frequent sound of dripping water (usually coming from a laptop stuck on a picture of a river under a bridge.) American Horror Story throws it's cast, an average American family bruised by infidelity, into a creepy looking mansion where the previous inhabitants killed themselves in a murder-suicide scenario. Where Bedlam relied on subtle imagery and sound, American Horror Story went straight for the jugular subjecting each of it's characters to taxing visual and mental horror. 

As a fan of ghost hunting shows from both the US and UK, I can see how social attitudes about the paranormal and haunting play into both shows. Watching British ghost shows such as Most Haunted , very rarely are EVP (Electronic Voice Phenomenon) or other audio communication attempted, something standard in shows like Ghost Adventures or Ghost Hunters in the States. Instead, paranormal activity is treated with more of a nod to the Victorian spiritualist movement with a focus on table tilting, communication through mediums, and intelligent responses through knocks or Ouija boards. Meanwhile, American ghost hunters like Zak Bagins seem more interested in fighting (or having sex with) a ghost than perusing a means of communication. When they do go down that avenue, they are intent for a spirit to talk, touch, or appear. Where British paranormal researchers seem content with exploring the unknown and unseen, Americans require proof. If we can't see it, hear it, or touch it, then it must not be real. This is even reflected somewhat in survey results. A 2009 CBS poll puts belief in ghosts among Americans at 58% while a 2010 British poll by Choice.com puts their percentage at 73%. 

While both of them engender a very different attitude toward the non-corporeal, I found both of them entertaining though I like what I can hear, touch and see so American Ghost Story gets a slight edge. Bedlam used its pilot to do a heck of a lot of setup. With five new characters to introduce, their relationships, and back-story to be fit in, there was precious time for thrills and chills. There were a few spectral appearances, some Paranormal Activity style freaky standing, and of course the drip-drip-drip. I do like how it sets up psychic Jed to unravel the mystery of a different spirit every week, but I wonder how long it will be sustainable. With Season 2 in development already for the BBC, I suppose they think it has legs. Legs that float about 6 to eight inches above the floor, but legs nevertheless. 

American Horror Story throws both its characters and its viewers right into the thick of it. Before the credits rolled, there was already a creepy kid, two deaths, and all the set-up you need. Patriarch Ben (Dylan McDermott), his wife Vivian (Connie Britton), and their daughter Violet (Taissa Farmiga) move into their new haunted home with the specter of Ben's affair and Vivian's miscarriage still lingering over them. Ben, a psychiatrist, sets up his practice which includes creepy patient (Evan Peters), a teen with Columbine dreams (and a Twisted Nerve soundtrack) and designs on his shrink's daughter while Vivian settles into her new home including hiring maid Moira (a cataract-ed Frances Conroy in her eyes/ and sexpot Alex Breckenridge in her husband's). They encounter the eerie neighbors, and soon enough the house starts affecting everyone. Ben begins to sleepwalk and have an attraction to fire, Vivian has sex with a man in a rubber suit she believes to be her husband, and Violet starts to think her new beau (Peters) might be more than meets the eye. Packed with effects and visuals, American Horror Story wants to make an impression, and on this viewer it did. It remains to be seen if it can keep up the same kind of pace and intensity throughout the whole season. 

American Horror Story seems just that. The family involved, minus the spooky stuff, could be any family that lives up and down the block in any neighborhood. Bedlam on the other hand reflects the more disorganized  un-regimented life of a group of youths. AHS fits the formula of an American show, a long format drama driven by characters, and Bedlam seems like its story will propelled forward though an ongoing story-line augmented by a "monster of the week" in the Dr. Who vein. Both shows are good enough to garner your attention, but it remains to be seen if either can maintain a premise for a whole season, and American Horror Story seems built to resolve in the time frame of one season. Perhaps then it would move onto another tale as a season long anthology. Where horror has had success in the past was in the anthology vein (Night Gallery, Tales from the Darkside, Freddy's Nightmares), the occasional series (Dark Shadows, Kolchak, True Blood) makes it way through. It will be interesting to see where these two series go and what they scare up. 

The Midnight Hour (1985): That's When The Halloween Love Comes Tumblin' Down

The '80's were the last decade where one could regularly expect any holiday season to be accompanied with a new round of special presentations from the TV networks. Some of them would end up being favorites, at least for a few years, and then they'd be dropped in favor of new specials. Others were one and done. If you missed it the year it aired, then you were out of luck. No DVR or VCR was going to save you, and streaming was something one did when catching tadpoles. So it's no surprise that almost thirty years after it originally aired, I'm finally getting to see one that I missed when I was eight years old. In 1985, theaters received one of the greatest additions to the horror/comedy genre ever, Dan O'Bannon's The Return of the Living Dead starring horror luminaries such as Linnea Quidley, Clu Gulager, and Thom Mathews. Not to be outdone by it's big screen rival, television wanted to get in on that sweet sweet horror comedy dollar, and they had their own set of names to throw at it. Hence, the 1985's ABC movie of the week The Midnight Hour features a stacked cast including LeVar Burton, Wolfman Jack, and Invasion of the Body Snatcher's Kevin McCarthy among others. It's a Halloween classic that has been forgotten, and I hope I can do my little part to bring it back.

It's Halloween in the small town of Pitchford Cove, and the whole town seems to be readying itself for a happy celebration..For one group of friends (Peter DeLuise, Shari Belafonte, DeeDee Pfeiffer, LeVar Burton,and Lee Montgomery), that means stealing their costumes from the local witchcraft museum. In the process, they also unleash an ancient curse on the town letting loose zombies, witches, vampires, and all the beasts of  hell. Unfortunately, with Halloween in full gear, no one notices that the big costume party is being crashed by real monsters, and that long dead witch Lucretia (Jonelle Allen) has returned for revenge against the town who burnt her at the stake. The fate of the town soon falls into the hands of Phil (Montgomery), a descendant of the witch-hunter who previously battle Lucretia and Sandy Matthews, a spectral cheerleader who's come back to fall in love, and if they don't stop it before midnight, the curse becomes permanent.

With the cast I've listed plus Dick Van Patten, Kurtwood Smith, Cindy Morgan, Mark Blankfield, and Macaulay Culkin all appearing, The Midnight Hour the kind of flick you sit back, put on, and play a spirited game of "who is that and what was he in?" with your fellow viewers. While quite a few of the actors might be considered second tier, genre fans will delight in the extensive cast. They will also delight in a story that borrows a bit from Return of the Living Dead, seems prescient of The Monster Squad coming two years later, and entertains for a solid ninety minutes. The characters are engaging and funny. The monsters look great as designed by Steve LaPorte, then working with Rick Baker Studios, and the music, ranging from Wilson Pickett's titular song and  "Little Red Riding Hood" by Sam the Sham to"Mama Told Me Not To Come" by Three Dog Night and "How Soon Is Now" by the Smiths, is well placed. However, I do suspect that licensing the tunes now may well be what keeps The Midnight Hour off the mass market and on the grey market.

The best performances come from Burton, Belafonte. and Mongomery. While DeLuise plays essentially the same character he did on 21 Jump Street, Burton is a far cry from either his Roots, Star Trek, or Reading Rainbow self, and I liked seeing LeVar get to cut loose and have a little fun. Belafonte, who would go on to star in the short lived '90's supernaturally themed show Gravedale High, has the most part because she has to both turn into a vampire and do a dance number at the end. Strangely enough, she makes both seem natural in the context of the film. Lee Montgomery, having already starred in Ben, Burnt Offerings, and Night Shadows, had the most background in horror of any of the cast. It really showed in his portrayal of Phil. While he was the nerdy outsider even in his group of friends, Montgomery never allowed Phil to become a complete sad sack thus making him a worthwhile hero to root for in the end. I'd also like to take a moment to mention the man in the big chair. Director Jack Bender has mostly stayed in the realm of TV throughout his career, but he brought horror to the big screen later in his career with Child's Play 3 and went on to direct episodes of Alias, The Sopranos, and Lost.

If you're like me and haven't seen The Midnight Hour, I can't recommend enough adding this to your Halloween season viewing list. Being a child of the '80's, it still projects the feeling of that era. In my mind, i can remember when the strange houses on the street were the ones without Halloween decorations out. I can remember the fall days of October when the air was filled with the smell of burning leaves and the crispness of the air left  everyone's cheeks red and shiny. The days when no one was too cool to wear a costume and churches gave out candy instead of hosting Hell Houses. Often Halloween is now relegated to being an also-ran holiday, one with a dubious nature, but movies are magical that way. The Midnight Hour made me want to hit the street and start ringing doorbells. Who knows? That might even be me at yours right now!

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Halloween Top 13: The Devil Made Me Do It

Bugg Rating

The Boo-b Tube: What's Scary Bad & Terrifyingly Good on TV This Fall

While I normally just wax poetic about movies around here, I do watch a fair amount of TV, and with the new fall season of shows starting. I thought that I would talk a bit about what I was liking and what I could leave behind. Hopefully you folks will find this interesting because there's several shows coming down the pipeline that I want to talk about. Some of them, BBC America's Bedlam and FX's American Ghost Story will surely fit neatly into the horror/cult milieu that I normally cover. I can hardly say the same about this week's selections, but there are quite a number of interesting connections to the world of genre film along the way. Plus, is there a bigger cult out there than television viewers? I think not.

Monday: So far Monday night is one of the slower evenings when it comes to TV with only The Playboy Club capturing my interest. I admit to tuning in to see All The Boys Love Mandy Lane's Amber Heard dressed in a bunny costume, but she's actually the weakest link on the show. Setting  a show in the 60's is a tricky thing. Mad Men have it down, and there's another show on the fall lineup doing it right. While Playboy Club hits the setting, and most of the fashion, Heard's character acts and looks too modern while her co-star Eddy Cibian seems like he's doing a Don Draper impression. Though I've watched two weeks now, and I plan on continuing to watch, The Playboy Club is very much like the place itself, a pretty illusion with little substance. By the way, the real star here is actress Laura Benanti. I hate that I don't get to see her fill out that Bunny outfit anymore, but I love how she fills out her mean girl role as the Bunny mother. 

Might Also Watch: How I Met Your Mother (I'm still a season or two behind.), Dancing with the Stars (Once before Ricki Lake gets kicked off. I make no apologies. She's cute.)

Not Watching: Hawaii 5-0 (I know Dan-O, and you, sir, are no Dan-O.), Two and a Half Men (Never watched it before, Ashton is not changing that.), Gossip Girl (Because despite reports I'm neither a seventeen year old girl or gay.)

Tuesday:  Sarah Michelle Gellar, she's a horror icon thanks to her seven years as vampire slayer Buffy Sommers, and now she's come back to TV with the new CW show Ringer. First off, it is in no way related to the similarly named Johnny Knoxville movie, but it is kind of retarded in it's own way. Gellar plays Bridget, a hooker on the run from testifying for the FBI, who goes to visit her socialite sister Siobhan. When her sister kills herself (not really), Bridget takes over the high life, but finds it's full of as many problems as her old life. The producers stated that they drew inspiration from Blood Simple and old Hollywood Noir, and it shows to an extent. The problem is that those are movies and they exist in a finite space. This story over 90 minutes might be great, but over an estimated 500 minutes may be a stretch. Fans of Gellar will probably enjoy the show, and guys will appreciate that she dresses alternately like Buffy (Bridget) and Cruel Intentions  (Siobhan.) My only question is how one sister got a normal name and the other sounds like a character on Star Trek. 

Might Also Watch : I have the whole night open to only kind of enjoy Ringer.

Not Watching: Any NCIS (I need my show names to be words.), The Biggest Loser (Because no one should be watching this.), Glee (see also Gossip Girl), Man Up! (Shows need to be words, but not be punctuated or lame.), and Body of Proof (My biggest letdown from last season. I love Dana Delany, but that show is Bones without a personality)

Wednesday: Let me say before I go any further that Up All Night is not only the best show that I've seen this season, it easily had one of the best pilot episodes I've ever seen. Will Arnette (Arrested Development) and Christina Applegate (Samantha Who?, Married with Children) not only make a believable couple, they they have chemistry, they're funny, and they seem real. Being in my mid-thirties, I've known quite a few people who've had their first kid, and Up All Night seems to hit pretty close. I have to also give a shout out to Maya Rudolf (SNL, Bridesmaids) as Applegate's Oprah-esque boss. With Micheal Scott off the tube, the small screen needed a new self centered boob and Rudolf has given us one. My favorite part so far, when the new parents admonish themselves for cursing around their kid , but can't help saying how ."f**king beautiful" the kid is. 

On the other hand there were two more pilots I had more difficulty liking. I really wanted to like Free Agents with Hank Azaria (The Simpsons) and Kathryn Hahn (Crossing Jordan). I love both of these actors (and I have a major, major crush on Hahn), but the character's never connected and the show just left me feeling like I had an uncomfortable window into these two people's lives. Not in an Office kind of way either. More like a creep. 

Speaking of creeps, there's plenty of them in the Hamptons. Revenge is the second series with events taking place in the favorite holiday spot of the rich and douchey (Ringer's events also kick off there.). Emily Thorne (Emily VanCamp) has come to the Hamptons to get the titular revenge on a family she blames for the death of her allegedly ponzi scheming dad.  The problem is (and this is with only one episode viewed so far) that so far the show hasn't made me want her to get revenge. If the whole season is going to be geared around this gal sticking it to the bad guys, I need to be rooting for her up front, but instead I was bored and a bit bewildered. 

Might Watch: Law & Order: SVU  (Mariska is still there, but I'll miss Chris.), H8R (Bucking my vowels rule, I'm interested to see this show about celebs confronting their online haters.), America's Top Model: All Stars (On repeats, later. Come on. Don't be a h8r.)

Not Watching: Survivor: South Pacific (Sadly not about a group of folks subjected to an ongoing 30 day stage production of the Rogers and Hammerstein classic.), The X Factor (I was surprised to find this was a talent show and not about the original X-Men reforming as mutants for hire.) , I Hate My Teenage Daughter (Do I Need to Explain?),  Modern Family (The Best thing on TV I have no interest in.)

Thursday: There are so many good programs on Thursday. Community, Parks and Rec, The Office, and Bones all appear on that night. So it makes it all the more unlikely that the couple of shaky pilots I watched will capture my attention. I really wanted Charlie's Angels to be good, but it just wasn't. I've enjoyed many episodes or VIP more. I would have rather watched any episode of SheSpies. So I'm going to give it one more week to move beyond the pilot before I write it off. On the other hand, there's nothing worse than when TV takes a good comic and puts them on a terribly show tenuously tied to their material. While Whitney Cummings wouldn't make my top 10 comics working right now, she's a damn sight better than the unwatchable Whitney made her look. 

Might Watch: Person of Interest (I missed the premiere, but I'm still a titular reference.), 

Wont Watch: Prime Suspect (Real tagline: "Cop. An Attitude." My tagline: "Viewer. Not Interested"), The Secret Circle (It's about witches, but in a Twilight way so I think I'll pass.) 

Friday: Night is alright for fightin', but I haven't seen anything new on it yet. 

Might Watch: Grimm (Mark will watch.)

Won't Watch: Anything else Friday night. 

Saturday: I'm usually watching movies, and so must the rest of the country because not much comes on. 

Sunday: While Up All Night  is the best pilot I've seen this year, the second best actually has a pilot.  I went into this TV season expecting to really like The Playboy Club and be confused by the existence of Pam Am. After watching the premiere episode of the '60's era flying drama, I was really intrigued. Sure, it was a bit disjointed hopping around from Christina Ricci's beatnik Maggie being whisked off to be a special flight's purser ( a term I'm still not sure the definition of), a spy story, a runaway bride, an affair gone bad, and a flashback to rescuing Bay of Pigs prisoners to boot. There was no amount of things going on in the pilot, but it really drew me into the world. While I hope future episodes take a slightly more singular focus, I was still exceedingly impressed with the acting, visual style, and scripting. Pan Am  is a retro show that could actually delve into the same waters as Mad Men. 

Might Watch: Once Upon a Time (Ginifer Goodwin is Snow White, I'm in.), Allen Gregory (an animated show on Fox not by Seth McFarlane, I'll try it.) 

Won't Watch : Football (Cause it's lame.)

Well that about wrap it up for now. Let me know what you think folks. Would you like me to keep on blathering occasionally about the small screen? I promise more review and lots of surprises are coming in October as well. Until next time everyone, don't you go changin' (the channel unless what you're watching is terrible... or football, seriously it needs to go on for 3+ hours?) 

Buggin' On Shorts: William Castle's Game Show -The Plot Thickens (1963)

While William Castle, the King of Gimmicks, is best known for his movies like 13 Ghosts, Straight Jacket, and The Tingler, he also dabbled in television. He directed many episodes of the '50's TV show The Men of Annapolis, produced the supernatural anthology series Circle of Fear in the early '70's, and he even created a game show. That's right you heard me right, a William Castle gameshow! Like most of his projects, The Plot Thickens is a high concept affair. A panel consisting of a real detective, an average contestant, a guest celebrity and Groucho Marx watch a ten minute mystery film, put the suspects from the film to question, and determine the perpetrator of the crime. If the detective and a contestant both get it right you win $500, but if the actors stump the gumshoe and a contestant gets it right, they win a cool thousand bucks.

Unfortunately, Castle's game show didn't make it to the air and only this pilot episode remains. It's too bad because it's a pretty entertaining show. Plus if you watch closely you'll see that the mystery in this episode was penned by Psycho scribe Robert Bloch and it featured James Callahan (Grandpa William Powell of Charles in Charge) as the assistant Arthur, Arthur Batanides (Officer Kirkland in Police Academy 4 through 6) as the fake Swami, Jack Linkletter (Host of Hootnanny) as the host (or D.A. as they call him), Jan Sterling (High School Confidential, The Human Jungle) as the celebrity guest, and Warrene Ott (The Phantom Planet, Undertaker and his Pals) as the bailiff in a cat costume.

This thing is as rare as it comes, and it wasn't even on YouTube until I put it up there. So check out Mr. Castle's The Plot Thickens and wish that we had shows like this to enjoy now instead of Minute to Win It or Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader?


And come back tomorrow for the first Guest Post this month for Hitch on the Hump where the indomitable, vivacious Ms. Christine of Paracinema is going to have a real treat for us all! 

This show is the rarest of the rare, but I split it up into four bite size pieces and got it up on YouTube. Check it out now just in case it gets yanked.

Hitch on the Hump: Mr. Alfred Hitchcock Live and In Person!

Hey folks. As I'm still a bit pressed for time in the holiday rush, I wanted to post something for Hitch on the Hump today so I thought I would scout around and see if I could find videos of any of Hitch's personal appearances on Television over the years. YouTube was a treasure trove of videos of all kinds, and I want to share three that I really enjoyed with you folks today. First off, here's Alfred on a 1954 episode of 'What's My Line?'. For the younguns out there, 'What's My Line?' was a game show wherein a three person blindfolded panel asks questions of someone in order to determine their profession, or in this case, their identity. When I first saw this I thought, "Well, that should be easy. As soon as he opens his mouth they will all know." Then it occurred to me in 1954 everyone didn't know what Hitchcock sounded like, and Alfred made allowances himself speaking in a rather broadly terrible French accent.

Next up I found this clip from the Dick Cavett show in 1970. I've seen this whole interview before, but this is an incredible slice right here. It starts off with Hitchcock talking about the MacGuffin before he moves on to discuss the merits of laxative commercials, the avian stars of The Birds, violence on television, nudity in the cinema, and finally the infamous "Actors are cattle." comment. 

Here's a clip from the 1963 television documentary series in which Hitchcock talks about how minor changes in a film can give it a whole new meaning. It's a wonderful clip, and Hitchcock casting himself as a "dirty old man" surely delighted the often ribald director to no end. It's also interesting to note that Hitchcock's responses and host Fletcher Markle's questions were filmed separately, the very issue Hitch discusses in this clip. 

I hope you enjoyed this roundup of Hitchcock clips, and I'll be back next week with a proper review. Plus next month I have two guest posts from a couple of wonderful folks who are set to blow you away. So I'll see you next week for that, and y'all join me back here tomorrow for the monthly Deadly Doll's Pick!

Christmas 'Hitch on the Hump' Shorts: Santa and the 10th Avenue Kid (1955)

First things first, this will the be first Hitch on the Hump post about something that the Master of Suspense was not directly involved in making. Last week, I talked a little about the Christmas episode of his eponymous television show that Hitch directed. This one he did not, but this strange teleplay by Marion Cockrell comes across today like a prehistoric version of Bad Santa. Cockrell penned eleven episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents along with a handful of the Adam West Batman series, and here she was paired with journeyman TV director Don Weis. So you might wonder where Hitch is this week, well I think Alma has him helping with preparations for Christmas Dinner. Next week Hitch on the Hump will return full length and fully Hitch, but until then enjoy this episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents. 

Christmas 'Hitch on the Hump' Shorts: Back for Christmas(1956)

I'm going to pretty much let this classic episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents speak for itself, but the story, based on a John Collier story first published in 1939, speaks volumes. I encourage everyone to check out the episode and then read this article from the Senses of Cinema blog written by Hitchcock author Ken Mogg. He digs way deeper into the TV show in this article than anyone I've ever seen. Christmas isn't the main theme of the show as much as a plot point, but it is one of the only Holiday-ish offerings from the Master of Suspense. Well there's this Bodega Bay ornament....

Anyway, enjoy the episode and I'll see you back here next Hitch on the Hump for one more Christmas surprise.