HALLOWEEN HORROR-THON 2023: 13 TV TERRORS!

 


Those of you who are familiar with me from my old haunt Oh, The Horror! may recall our annual Halloween list, a tradition we observed starting with
our first year in existence. It started as a collaborative effort, with each of our contributors offering up their favorite All Hallows Eve titles, but, over time, it mostly turned into my personal platform, where I had a lot of fun being a fantasy programmer. Since I can’t imagine a theater will ever hand over the reins to me for an October marathon (though my line is most definitely open!), it was fun to piece together these lists, which became heavily curated and even slightly thematic from year to year (my personal favorite might be 2020’s Monster Mash). Unfortunately, last year’s list only exists in the form of an incomplete document — I just never got around to finishing it because October just flew by before I could find the time. As such, I’m back with a vengeance and bringing this tradition to Daily Grindhouse with a list of TV terrors to melt your mind for an all-day marathon.

 

#1: THEY LIVE (1988)

 

John Carpenter’s incendiary sci-fi-horror hybrid gets the day off to a rollicking start. It suggests that the apocalypse won’t be televised; rather, it’ll unfold right under our noses as our airwaves distract us with consumerist nonsense. Our overlords walk among us, undetected by nearly everyone except for a small group of freedom fighters who have uncovered the truth. It’s a film that grows more prescient with each passing year, particularly in the way it insists that our cultural demise will be the result of sheer submission to consumerism: we’ll simply be too entertained to care about the parasites draining our planet.

 

 

#2. POLTERGEIST (1982)

 

Arguably the first movie that comes to mind when considering TV horror, Tobe Hooper’s haunted house masterpiece conjures anxieties about what the airwaves may do to our children, all while doubling as a subversive critique of ‘80s suburbia and materialism. No matter how much you want to bury the past and paper over them with idyllic Americana, its ghosts refuse to be silenced — those corpses we’ve buried in our national garden will sprout as grotesque reminders of the horrors of corporate greed and negligence. And, for our purposes here, it’s an absolute ripper of a horror movie, full of delightfully orchestrated scares and a relentless sense of purpose and escalation. I can’t believe anyone ever watched the final freakout — which flings around rotting, maggot-infested corpses that explode from the ground — and ever tried to deny that Hooper was at the helm. 

 

#3. TERRORVISION (1986)

 

Charles Band and Ted Nicolaou pick up Hooper’s thread in the silliest way possible, but any worthwhile marathon should carve some time out for this kind of nonsense. Whatever sort of subtext may have been guiding the beginning of this horror-thon goes right out the window with this gory, goopy Empire Pictures joint. An alien mutant worms through satellite TV airwaves to terrorize a particularly gauche American family. High camp hijinks ensue, anchored by a pair of over-the-top performances by Gerrit Graham and Mary Woronov as the family’s oblivious parental units. Considering the medium’s popularity during the decade, it’s no surprise that this list will spend a lot of time in the 80s, and TERRORVISION might be the most 80s film of the bunch. Overflowing with big hair, big metal, big personalities, and big, zany effects courtesy of John Carl Buechler, it could almost be mistaken as a satire of the era’s excess if it weren’t so brazenly, proudly too much in its own right. 

#4. SHOCKER (1988)

 

Like Hooper and Carpenter, maestro Wes Craven couldn’t resist the horrific allure of television with this brazen attempt at recapturing the magic of Elm Street. Suffice it to say, Horace Pinker is no Freddy Krueger, but it’s not for Craven’s lack of trying. Like TERRORVISION before it, SHOCKER is wrapped up in 80s excess, to the point where it feels like you’re channel surfing between three different movies: a serial killer procedural, a high school drama, and a Looney Tunes splatstick horror movie once Pinker haunts the airwaves. Flashing some of the metaphysical flourishes Craven would deploy in the likes of NEW NIGHTMARE and SCREAM, SHOCKER is among the director’s most interesting work. On the surface, it feels like a zany lark, the work of a filmmaker embracing the popcorn horror of the era’s popular fare; dig a little deeper, though, and you’ll see a filmmaker already grappling with his legacy and exploring the relationship between media violence and actual violence. It’s not as fully formed as the theses Craven would craft later on, but it’s perfect for our purposes here. 

#5. GHOSTWATCH (1992)

 

We’re leaving the ‘80s behind (don’t worry — we’ll be back) and slipping into the ‘90s and beyond, when TV horror began embracing the aesthetic of the medium instead of merely exploiting its narrative potential. This Halloween night BBC broadcast infamously sent shockwaves across the country, as audiences were utterly convinced of the mockumentary’s authenticity. And for good reason: Stephen Volk and Lesley Manning go all in, embracing the cinema verite approach to create a singular — and not to mention ahead-of-its time — experience. Found footage wouldn’t become common vernacular until later in the decade, but much of what makes the likes of THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT and PARANORMAL ACTIVITY can be traced back to here: its oppressive sense of mood, the reliance on suggestion rather than explicit shocks, the unnerving authenticity of the horror. It’s a wonderful All Hallows Eve treat to complement all of the treats on this list. 

#6. NOROI: THE CURSE (2005)

 

13 years after GHOSTWATCH, Koji Shiraishi and Naoyuki Yokota spun their own haunted mockumentary yarn to an even more sinister effect. Where the BBC predecessor boasts some elements of playfulness, NOROI burrows down an unrelentingly grim rabbit hole as a paranormal researcher investigates a supernatural story that becomes more bizarre with every twist and turn. It’s ultimately less a coherent documentary and more a collection of loose ends, dangling threads, cold leads, and phantasmal suggestions trailing off into the ether of urban legends and ghost stories. For this marathon, it’s the genuinely unsettling comedown from the first leg’s sugar high, the movie that will most sear itself in your brain as the night rolls on. 

#7. [REC] (2007)

 

The midway point for our horror-thon is an injection of pure, frenzied energy. Yet another found footage freak-out touting itself as a genuine newscast, Jaume Balagueró and Paco Plaza’s riff on the undead sub-genre is a pure horror thrill ride. Once it gets its infected hooks into you, it doesn’t let up for 70 grueling minutes, making it an obvious heir to the likes of THE EVIL DEAD and DEMONS (or, more accurately, DEMONS 2, which could easily be part of this horror-thon). Consider it the goopy, gooey center of the horror-thon, a movie that simply indulges the part of your brain that simply craves a sugar rush—which is exactly what you need at this point anyway. 

 

#8. THE LAST BROADCAST (1998)

 

We start to rewind the tape on the back-stretch of the horror-thon, where echoes of the first leg linger on in the remaining entries. Like NOROI, this found footage predecessor investigates the stuff of local legend when a documentary crew is murdered during a search for the mythic Jersey Devil in the Pine Barrens of New Jersey. Similarly laconic in its slow burn approach, THE LAST BROADCAST digs beneath your skin with its convincing commitment to the bit as it sends you down a rabbit hole of public access television and IRC chat rooms. An unheralded gem that’s only just beginning to emerge from the shadow of THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT, Stefan Avalos and Lance Weiler’s mockumentary finds horror in both over-the-air broadcasts and the then-burgeoning digital frontier of the internet, making it as prescient as it is utterly unnerving.

#9. OUT THERE HALLOWEEN MEGA TAPE (2022)

 

If there’s an obvious successor to GHOSTWATCH, it’s THE WNUF HALLOWEEN SPECIAL, a cult favorite about a local news anchor investigating a supposedly haunted house on All Hallows Eve. You could most certainly slot it here, and it would be more than appropriate. However, I want to use this space to affirm my belief that Chris LaMartina’s follow-up from last year is every bit as great as its predecessor. At first glance, it seems like he’s trying to pull off the same trick: once again, the film is anchored by a main broadcast that’s surrounded by utterly convincing commercials for local businesses. However, LaMartina cleverly moves into the 90s here, perfectly harnessing the era’s fascination with daytime trash TV and UFO hysteria. Splitting its throwback thrills between a talk show episode and a perfect replica of a 90s investigative docu-drama about a UFO cult, it’s our horror-thon’s variety pack. 

#10. VIDEODROME (1983)

 

Another tale of a man losing himself to the oblivion of television, David Cronenberg’s exploration of media violence is obviously more serious-minded than Craven’s late-decade exploits. Still, it’s interesting that both genre masters found themselves at similar intersections throughout their careers, and VIDEODROME may be Cronenberg’s best film. Blending his signature body horror theatrics with a deeply unnerving, ominous sense of existential dread, it entangles us in a conspiratorial rabbit hole once again during our horror-thon.

 

 

#11. THE VIDEO DEAD (1987)

 

Let’s get silly one last time before the night is done. This time, it’s the undead instead of aliens emerging from the boob tube, but the result is largely the same: heaping helpings of low-rent gore and make-up effects, ludicrous dialogue, broad performances, and plenty of nonsense. Hailing from the offbeat independent path, it’s not quite on the level of the era’s homespun horrors, but it’s driven by the same huckster spirit that inspired so many people to rustle up a crew and production equipment to indulge in splatter effects. THE VIDEO DEAD offers two movies for the price of one: the fictional ZOMBIE BLOOD NIGHTMARE that comes alive and bleeds into reality, where its lumbering ghouls hack up their unsuspecting audience. No Halloween season is complete without a trip to a local backwoods haunt, where the low-budget charm compensates for the production values, and THE VIDEO DEAD perfectly captures the experience, right down to its reliance on chainsaws. 

 

#12. RING (1998)

 

Ghosts of a repressed past once again reach across the airwaves in Hideo Nakata’s somber, blood-chilling creepshow about a journalist investigating the mysterious deaths of teenagers in Japan. Dripping with gothic ambiance and loaded with nightmarish imagery, it makes for one last campfire tale as we move closer to dawn, though the spirits may not be any more disquieted by the sunrise. This is another slot where you could certainly sub in another take in the form of Gore Verbinski’s 2002 remake, but I suggest the original since Nakata’s film feels haunted itself in a way that its imitators don’t: simply put, it’s the purest, most unsettling transmission of this particular tale. 

#13. HALLOWEEN III: SEASON OF THE WITCH (1982)

 

Our horror-thon ends as it begins: with a John Carpenter production involving a conspiratorial plot uncovering something sinister lurking within the television. Ancient pagan witchcraft resurfaces in the 20th century, infecting the airwaves upon which it rides when a maniacal warlock masquerading as a novelty toy maker plots a trick on America’s children. While the premise sounds silly on paper, make no mistake: HALLOWEEN III is one of the most purely fucked-up horror movies released by a major studio in the 1980s, a total razor blade planted in a variety pack of increasingly silly slashers and outrageous splatter movies. A brutal takedown of gauche ’80s commercialism, it asks us to ponder just what we’re consuming as the TV flickers on. By the time Tom Atkin’s Dr. Challis screams over the phone to stop Silver Shamrock’s killer commercial, it’s a howl of utter desperation upon realizing the apocalypse will be televised. Also, let’s be honest: after a brain-scrambling 13-movie marathon, we’re probably just as desperately in need of turning off the signal. 

 

 

 

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