Halloween Coundtown: 'Monsterfest!'
"Monsterfest!"
Turner Classic Movies
Begins 4:45 a.m. Thursday, Oct. 30
Ah, sweet October. While most of the people we know love Christmas, it’s Halloweentime that gets this writer’s cauldron bubbling. I mean, come on — what other time of the year can you scare the living heck out of small children who aren’t blood-related to you without getting a free night’s stay in the Ironbar Hotel? Other than the free candy, the best thing about October is all the great, stuff on television. One of the networks that we adore in this regard is Turner Classic Movies. Though they’ve scaled back their annual Monsterfest! programming drastically in recent years, they’ve still got a solid 48 hours of classic horror lined up this Halloween. While previous years have seen TCM go for the tried and true stuff like the original “Dracula” and “Frankenstein,” this year they’re shaking it up a bit, with more controversial and cult horror fare. It all kicks off with a trip to monster-haunted Antarctica in1951’s “The Thing From Another World” (which was the basis for director John Carpenter’s 1982 remake “The Thing”). From there, it’s a two day schlock-o-rama, with back-to-back showings of1950s and ’60s drive-in classics like “Two Thousand Maniacs!” “The Beast with Five Fingers,” “Mr. Sardonicus,” “Blood Feast,” “Die, Monster, Die!” and “Torture Garden,” as well as older films like the Bela Lugosi vehicle “White Zombie,” and director Todd Browning’s 1932 cult classic “Freaks” — a film so shocking that it was banned in Great Britain until the 1960s. Grab yourself a big bowl of candy corn and settle in for some scares. For a full schedule and show times, visit Turner Classic Movies at www.tcm.com.
—David Koon
Turner Classic Movies
Begins 4:45 a.m. Thursday, Oct. 30
Ah, sweet October. While most of the people we know love Christmas, it’s Halloweentime that gets this writer’s cauldron bubbling. I mean, come on — what other time of the year can you scare the living heck out of small children who aren’t blood-related to you without getting a free night’s stay in the Ironbar Hotel? Other than the free candy, the best thing about October is all the great, stuff on television. One of the networks that we adore in this regard is Turner Classic Movies. Though they’ve scaled back their annual Monsterfest! programming drastically in recent years, they’ve still got a solid 48 hours of classic horror lined up this Halloween. While previous years have seen TCM go for the tried and true stuff like the original “Dracula” and “Frankenstein,” this year they’re shaking it up a bit, with more controversial and cult horror fare. It all kicks off with a trip to monster-haunted Antarctica in1951’s “The Thing From Another World” (which was the basis for director John Carpenter’s 1982 remake “The Thing”). From there, it’s a two day schlock-o-rama, with back-to-back showings of1950s and ’60s drive-in classics like “Two Thousand Maniacs!” “The Beast with Five Fingers,” “Mr. Sardonicus,” “Blood Feast,” “Die, Monster, Die!” and “Torture Garden,” as well as older films like the Bela Lugosi vehicle “White Zombie,” and director Todd Browning’s 1932 cult classic “Freaks” — a film so shocking that it was banned in Great Britain until the 1960s. Grab yourself a big bowl of candy corn and settle in for some scares. For a full schedule and show times, visit Turner Classic Movies at www.tcm.com.
—David Koon
