TCM Halloween 2019 Classic Horror Schedule

I have a confession to make. Do you know the traditional Halloween classic, Hocus Pocus? Of course you do. Everyone knows it. It's a Halloween staple.

I cannot stand that movie. I HATE IT. Everything about it. Bette Midler's absurd buck teeth and Kathy Najimy's ridiculous and annoying crooked smile. I LOATHE IT. From start to finish. It makes me want to scratch my eyes out any time it's on.

So when FreeForm announced their "31 Nights of Halloween" schedule, I just knew that bad things were coming.

And sure enough, as I glanced down the schedule, there it was. Literally every single night, ending with a damn marathon. Of Hocus Pocus. Why!? Why!? That movie SUCKS! Every year, they play that damn movie every single day. Can't get the rights to play ANYTHING else!?

And this is why FreeForm will not be played in October at THIS house...


But luckily for me and other fans of something a little more spooky and a little more classic, Turner Classic Movies comes to the rescue again!

They just announced their October Classic Horror schedule and it looks amazing! 31 days of solid, classic horror, cult and monster movies. AND NO HOCUS POCUS.

I could literally fill my DVR with their schedule. So many great titles to get you through the Halloween season!!

But what REALLY caught my attention this year (and it should catch yours, too), is an absolute stunner of a double feature on the morning of Saturday, October 19th. Get your DVRs ready!!

Back-to-back 70s blaxsploitation horror classics, starting at 2:30 am with Sugar Hill. The stunning Marki Bey seeks revenge on the mob for killin' her man, all with the help of a powerful voodoo priestess and her army of undead zombies. This movie is so damn good!! If you haven't seen this one yet, it needs to be at the top of your list!!

And after a sweet spoonful of Sugar Hill, make sure your DVR is set to record at 4:15 am when TCM follows it up with the baddest blood sucker around, Blacula! Deadlier than Dracula! William Marshall (and those amazing eyebrows and sideburns) eats up every scene he's in, playing Mamuwalde, the black vampire. So much class and he really plays the hell out of his character! "You, sir, must be ill."

As we continue down the schedule, there are classics being played every day, ending with a Halloween marathon of some of the biggest names in classic horror. I could seriously lock the doors, pop up a bucket of butter-slathered popcorn, lay on the couch and watch movies all day. If only I didn't have something else going on that day...

So check out the full schedule, fill up that DVR, and enjoy some creepy, classic horror as we roll through October.

Because this just ain't gonna cut it...

The Nightlight Cinema Presents "Four Nights of Fulci"

I'm pretty excited by Akron, Ohio independent theater The Nightlight Cinema's October movie lineup. Classic horror movies will be shown all month long, highlighted by a great selection of Italian splatter classics.

Starting tomorrow, The Nightlight, in conjunction with Weaver Media Productions and the Movie Freaks Podcast, will present "Four Nights of Fulci," showcasing Italian horror director Lucio Fulci's gory classics:

October 9 • The House By The Cemetery

Can anyone survive the demented marauding zombies in… THE HOUSE BY THE CEMETERY?

A New York professor moves out to the sticks to pick up the work of a colleague who got into a bit of a Shining situation when he murdered his mistress and then killed himself. Undeterred by his friend’s grotesque end, the good doctor packs up the wife and kid and moves into a dilapidated mansion that comes complete with a basement door that’s been nailed shut and a ghostly young girl that constantly tells everyone to get the hell out of there.

Brutal and borderline incomprehensible, even by the loose standards of Italian horror, The House by the Cemetery closes out director Lucio Fulci’s The Gates of Hell trilogy, the director’s loose collection of atmospheric apocalyptica (The other films are The Beyond and The City of The Living Dead). Set atop a wintry hill, constantly swept in fog, The House by the Cemetery passes along like a dream. Slick with rot, the particulars of its motives and story fade away in favor of atmosphere and imagery.

- Nitehawk Cinema

October 10 • Zombie 

We Are Going To Eat You!

This audaciously disgusting spectacle from the late master of gruesome horror, Lucio Fulci, was posited as a semi-sequel to George Romero’s Dawn of the Dead, which was released in Italy as Zombi.

Tisa Farrow and a group of vacationing tourists travel to an island where they find a doctor (Richard Johnson) who is attempting to cure a condition that reanimates the dead. Things quickly get out of control as undead Spanish conquistadors crawl from their graves hungry for human flesh. The nauseatingly graphic set-pieces by Gianetto de Rossi include a close-up of a woman’s eye being pierced by a large shard of wood and a zombie fighting a Great White shark underwater. This relatively well-made shocker was enormously popular worldwide and led to the zombie-gore film becoming the dominant motif of 1980s Italian horror.

October 16 • City Of The Living Dead

[City of the Living Dead is a] surreal Italian gutmuncher from gore-maestro Lucio Fulci! A priest commits suicide and unwittingly opens the gateway to hell. The rotting dead rise from their graves to feed on the living in gruesome fashion, while a psychic and a journalist attempt to stop the rancid carnage. This is Lucio Fulci at his finest, so prepare yourself for zombie killing, head drilling, intestine spilling mayhem! Powered by Fabio Frizzi’s creepy soundtrack and top notch special effects.
 
- Hollywood Theatre

October 17 • The Beyond

A remote and cursed hotel, built over one of the seven gateways to Hell, becomes a yawning malevolent abyss that begins devouring both the bodies and the souls of all who enter in a graphic frenzy of gory crucifixions, chunkblowing chain-whippings, eyeball impalements, sulphuric acid meltdowns, flesh-eating tarantulas, throat-shredding demon dogs and ravenous bloodthirsty zombies. The Beyond is a towering achievement in hair-raising, mind-bending cinematic terror!

- Music Box Theatre


I have seen all of the films except The Beyond, but I definitely plan on attending as many of these showings as I can. This should be a ton of fun and should serve nicely to get us to Halloween! Hope to see you there! 

 

Thanks, Santa!

Christmas is over for another year, but Santa made his annual stop to the Cemetery and dropped off a slew of great presents for the Highbury crew. Apparently my name made the "good" list this year, even with all of the naughty things I have done...

Here's a few things that made it under my tree this year:



The Classic Horror Stories by H.P. Lovecraft

Loathsomeness waits and dreams in the deep, and decay spreads over the tottering cities of men. A time will come - but I must not and cannot think! 

The Call of Cthulhu, The Dunwich Horror, At the Mountains of Madness and more! Over 400 pages of Lovecraft's densely descriptive Victorian-styled short stories. I've already started with The Horror at Red Hook and can't wait to find the next free minute to curl up and dive in again!



Horror Classics Anniversary Edition DVD Box Set 

Get an instant library of some of the greatest horror classics ever to come out of Hollywood on twelve double-sided DVDs. Never has such a comprehensive collection of great classic horror films been assembled in one exciting package, all for an amazingly low price!

FIFTY MOVIES!!! TWELVE DISCS!!! Need I go through some of the titles contained in this set? Atom Age Vampire, The Bat, Bloodlust, The Brain That Wouldn't Die, Carnival of Souls, The Corpse Vanishes, Dementia 13, King of the Zombies, The Monster Walks, Night of the Living Dead, Revolt of the Zombies, The Screaming Skull, The Terror, White Zombie and more and more and more! Horror classics mixed in with B-movie schlock will give me hours and hours of viewing pleasure.



Hot Wire Foam Factory Crafters Deluxe 3-In-1 Kit

Get creative!! The Sculpting Tool is our most popular and versatile tool for freehand sculpting, carving and scroll cutting. Making realistic hills and mountains has never been easier. Cuts foam like a hot knife through butter. 

Plunge, Slice and Dice!! The Hot Knife is the foam cutting tool the world has been asking for. A combo hand held scroll saw and power drill that cuts foam with fast, clean surgical precision.

It's all in the details!! The Engraving Tool is perfect for engraving bricks, blocks, stones, words, and other shapes for detailed looking walls, abutments, portals, slats, cobblestone roads, signs and more.

Hills and Mountains? More like tombstones and mausoleums!! I can't wait to fire these tools up and start carving some Halloween foam prop goodness. With these tools, my tombstones are sure to have an all-new level of detail. 

All in all, a pretty good Christmas. Thanks, Santa!!!!!