Just when we thought we were safe, it’s that time of year again when goblins, ghosts and ghouls are prowling the streets and hiding under beds. With COVID-19 in retreat, trick-and-treaters will be out again extorting their goodies, and TV is brewing up its spookiest gruel yet.
After 45 years it seems that the evil Michael Myers has finally met his match as “Halloween Ends” marks the final confrontation between Jamie Lee Curtis and her perpetual nemesis, streaming now on Peacock.
Those three woefully wicked witches of “Hocus Pocus” are back this year with “Hocus Pocus 2,” working their evil incantations and facing the ire of three high school students who must stop them in their invisible tracks. Starring Bette Midler, Kathy Najimy and Sarah Jessica Parker as the terrible trio, the movie streams on Disney+.
Those three wretched witches of “Hocus Pocus 2” meet some stiff competition from the “The Ghost Brothers” — Dalen Spratt, Juwan Mas and Marcus Harvey — as they investigate unearthly hot spots of legendary lore on the new season of “Ghost Brothers: Lights Out.” As though Hurricane Ian wasn’t bad enough, the intrepid trio will venture into the historically haunted Tampa Theatre via discovery+ on Oct. 28.
Of course “The Simpsons” leads the chorus again with their “Tree House or Horror: Not It,” haunting the airwaves on Fox Sunday. As a middle-school misfit, the young Homer confronts a supernatural clown who’s murdering children only to have the monster return in Homer’s later life. Also the now-classic Simpson’s annual "Treehouse of Horror” (we’re up to XXXIII) airs on Oct. 30, just before All Hallows’ Eve.
Mystery meister Svengoolie will be serving up chills as he presents the classic “Bride of Frankenstein” on Saturday via MEtv. This masterwork stars Elsa Lancaster, Boris Karloff and Colin Clive and proves that you don’t need eHarmony or Silver Singles to muster up a mate.
Svengoolie follows with an updated (1970) version of the Vampire legend “Count Yorba, Vampire,” starring Roger Perry and Michael Murphy, on Oct. 29.
And Turner Classic Movies is unearthing Universal’s classic monster flicks: “Bride of Frankenstein” at 8 p.m. (ET), “Son of Frankenstein,” at 9:30 p.m. (ET) and the original “Frankenstein,” at 11:30 p.m. (ET) on Halloween night.
Beginning Oct. 25 filmmaker Guillermo del Toro has conjured up an anthology of sorcery for Netflix that will launch with a special four-day double-episode. His “Cabinet of Curiosities,” will continue every Friday through Oct. 28. The creepy confection boasts a coven of such prestigious actors as Rupert Grint, F. Murray Abraham and Peter Weller.
If you really want to miss some sleep, Shudder is submitting this month the “101 Scariest Movie Moments of all Time” culled from the beginning of the crank-type nickelodeon to the wide screen of today. Brian de Palma’s classic “Carrie” will be featured on Wednesday with the Oct. 26 finale spotlighting the “Top 10 Spooky Movie Moments of all Time.” “They’re heeeeeere!”
For the grownups among us, Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk, are up to no good again with their next installment of FX’s “American Horror Story,” this time called “AHS:NYC” and premiering Wednesday on FX, streaming the next day on Hulu. The premiere offers the first two chapters of the 10-episode season, followed by two episodes each Wednesday. Not to worry, if you haven’t seen the earlier editions, you can binge them on Hulu.
We’ve all treasured our local urban legends from Bigfoot to Area 51 to the Boggy Creek Monster. But why do those legends persist? Eli Roth summons up that question with the premiere of “Urban Legend” arriving Oct. 28 on the Travel Channel and streaming on discovery+. This anthology series penetrates some of the classic urban legends which are based on word-of-mouth of sometimes reputable sources. Can they be true? Tune in to find out.
Paramount+ pounds the pulse with its collection of Halloween horrors. Streaming now is its original musical from Nickelodeon, “Monster High: the Movie,” featuring Miia Harris, Ceci Balagot and Nayah Damasen as the major monsters who fear there might be evil lurking somewhere in their classrooms.
The streamer will also be cribbing from the scary movie library with “Night of the Living Dead,” “Prophecy,” “Dementia 13” and “Attack of the Giant Leeches” on board for the holiday.
Hulu proffers some toxic potion with a new take on the Clive Barker’s classic pinhead “Hellraiser.” A young woman discovers a Pandora’s box and, as usual, stupidly opens it. And for those who like horror flicks that harken back to the classics, Disney+ is dishing up “Werewolf by Night,” where a group of monster hunters eventually find their prey to their peril.
Dean Cain will be counting down the "13 Scariest Movies of all Time" via the CW on Halloween night, and that demon doll, "Chucky," is wreaking havoc on the SyFy and USA channels again. This time he's seeking revenge on those who thwarted his devil deeds from last time. Oh, no, could this be the end of Chucky?
And Apple TV+ is presenting the evergreen "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown" free for non-subscribers Oct. 28 through 31.
TV series traces roots
The proliferation of shows about our heritage like “Who Do You Think You Are?” and the boringly omnipresent, “Finding Your Roots,” prove that everybody longs to know where they came from. BYUtv is offering a new twist on that need. “How I Got Here” lends young adults the rare chance to accompany their immigrant parents to their original homeland. This 10-day excursion helps the children (and the viewers) see what sacrifices and struggles their parents endured to seek freedom in America.
The participants were chosen via ads on social media, newsletters, immigration support groups and college clubs. They were chosen by their eagerness to seek out their origins.
On Sunday Shannon Murtagh accompanies her dad to his motherland in Zimbabwe, Vivian Sasova and her mom, Simona, visit Slovakia on Oct. 30 and others follow to homelands as divergent as Chile, Israel and Ghana.
'Mystery' still unsolved
People love mystery shows because there’s usually a resolution to the crime. But what if there isn’t? That’s the question that’s been answered ever since Robert Stack hosted the enduring, “Unsolved Mysteries” back in 1988 and continued for 12 seasons before the series was canceled.
Then a version ran on Lifetime for a period and finally Dennis Farina took over hosting duties in 2008. You can view the Stack version on YouTube, Hulu and Prime Video. And Farina’s is streaming on YouTube and Prime. But Netflix is entering its third season of new episodes this week with a litany of intriguing mysteries that are yet to be solved.
Featuring reenactments of authentic cases, the series follows the death of a volleyball athlete found dead on a railroad track, two Navajo rangers who observe inexplicable phenomena on the reservation and a 20-year-old college student who simply vanishes after a party.
What’s so interesting about these cases is that they are still not solved — a puzzle that keeps on challenging even the viewer.
Actress sails back to TV
Katee Sackhoff, who was so good as the police officer in “Longmire,” and in “Battlestar Galactica,” is starring in one of Hallmark’s first Christmas movies, “Christmas Sail,” arriving Sunday.
Sackhoff plays a single mother who returns to her hometown when her father falls ill. What she finds is that not much changed except for her childhood friend (played by Patrick Sabongui) who’s not the guy she remembers.
Sackhoff tells me she suffered through four different failed series before she finally landed on a hit.
“I have no idea how I got the courage to try acting,” she says. “I think I grew up surrounded by men and boys and so I think my father kind of raised me like he raised my brother to not have boundaries for yourself. He always taught me I could have whatever I wanted. I think I was raised differently from my other girlfriends. I have a sister who’s older, and she was already gone. I have just one brother. I think I was just a drama queen when I was little.”
As a youngster, Sackhoff was a competitive swimmer. That’s all she thought about, she says. “My life revolved around swimming. I woke up in the morning, went swimming before school, went to school, swam after school, came home and watched swimming videos on TV and critiqued myself, then went to bed and started over again. I did that for years. My weekends were spent at meets and traveling for swimming.”
But at 15 she dislocated her knee and could no longer swim. “When that happened, I lost all my friends. Because my friends were swimmers and the only time I saw them was swimming, because we didn’t go to the same schools or anything.
“So I started all over again. I think to have that kind of disappointment at such a young age is, I guess, where I got the thick skin because it was kind of — I had an end of a career at 15.”
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