Here’s what to watch this season
While trick-or-treating may be curtailed this year, you won’t have to go far to have your timbers shivered this Halloween. Television is all set to do the job with scores of scary morsels in the bag.
Disney+ is the proud possessor of 30 of “The Simpsons”‘ “Treehouse of Horror” specials, which usually kicks off the season.
This year Fox has postponed “Treehouse of Horror XXXI” till Sunday (blame it on baseball). Not to worry, the 30 previous episodes will offer plenty of scary Simpsons shenanigans, and FXX continues to air all the complete series.
Dan Castellaneta, who voices the portly Homer, recalls how he found his unusual vocation.
“When I was in college I was very shy and intimidated by being in a dormitory with strangers and I don’t know how it got out — maybe it was sitting at a table and eating with one of the guys — but I did a voice. He goes, ‘Hey, that’s pretty good.’ And all of a sudden, I’ve got immediate friends. I remember sitting in the dormitory entertaining these guys. They’d shout out a request and I’d do most of them.”
Disney+ will be steaming all kinds of eerie movies, including “Hocus Pocus” with Bette Midler and Tim Burton’s classic “The Nightmare Before Christmas.”
Burton says he was always inspired by holiday seasons.
“Things like Christmas and Halloween and holidays give you a sense of place,” he says. “You can go to Thrifty’s, walk down the aisles, and see all sorts of stuff. It gives a sense of placement because it’s middle class ... generic. You go for any kind of visual things you can get. It’s like what else is there? There’s nothing else.”
Shudder is streaming “A Creepshow Animated Special” on Thursday featuring two chilling tales. One stars Kiefer Sutherland as a man lost on a deserted island.
From the guys who brought us “Shaun of the Dead” comes “Truth Seekers,” a horror film with a split personality about a team of hapless ghost hunters who uncover a conspiracy so dreadful it could end the world as we know it. Part-comedy, part-terror tale, the premiere is set to stream Friday on Amazon Prime.
TCM plans a 24-hour marathon on All Hallows’ Eve with a spectacular array of frightening flicks, including “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” with the versatile Spencer Tracy, “The Picture of Dorian Gray” (this 1945 version sports a featured part by Angela Lansbury), Lon Chaney Jr.’s now classic performance as “The Wolf Man,” and 1943’s “I Walked with a Zombie.”
Speaking of zombies, PBS will, of course, play it straight with a one-hour special Friday, “Exhumed: A History of Zombies.” Dr.
Emily Zarka, an expert on all things monster, will examine the popular cultural obsession and explain why we are so enamored by the moldy monstrosities.
The late Wes Craven, who brought us some of the definitive horror flicks like “A Nightmare on Elm Street,” “The Hills Have Eyes” and “Scream” thought terrifying tales served as escape valves.
“Societal nightmares function the way nightmares function within us,” he said. “Bizarre dreams lie outside rationality. Mind and body feel that need to be expressed — seeking images that come out in poetry, dreaming, etc.”
Ovation TV will air Episode 4 of “The Fall” starring Gillian Anderson as an intrepid police investigator hot on the heels of a sly serial killer on Halloween.
Jamie Dornan (fresh from his infinitely scarier role in “Fifty Shades of Grey”) plays the killer with such menace you’ll be tempted to call 911. You can catch Episodes 1-3 on demand or on the Ovation Now app.
“The Fall” begins at 7 p.m. Eastern followed by two miniseries based on books by that Dean of deviltry, Dean Koontz. “Intensity” begins at 8:30 p.m. Eastern, followed by “Sole Survivor.”
Koontz, who seems to have the magic elixir to making people quake in their boots, says he starts out like any “normal” writer.
“When I go in in the morning and sit down, I’m telling a story to ME. I don’t do outlines. I generally have a premise and the character. The premise may be just a few lines about what this is about. Then I have the character, and they drive the story. If that character comes alive very early and starts driving that story, they pretty quickly seize it, and I have no idea where it’s going. And it evolves. When a story’s really cooking it’s because of the character. And it’s real.”
Netflix is uprooting the evergreens with a new version of Daphne du Maurier’s unnerving “Rebecca.” This one stars Lily James (the ingenue of “Downton Abbey”) as the blushing bride who moves to her husband’s palatial estate only to find it haunted by the ghost of his late wife.