This time 'round it's all about made-for-TV horror movies.
I think I'm turning into an old person who lives only to talk about the past. It's as if I spend all my days at the horror version of a VFW Post or something, reminiscing about that time Johnny got his leg blown off and I reattached it with only spit, leaves, and moxie...only there seems to be a serious lack of pancake breakfasts at this Post.Mayhaps next week I'll make an attempt to write about something that These Kids Today can really relate to, like Crystal Pepsi or rock-n-roll. Or Rob Zombie movies! No one ever talks about Rob Zombie movies. Or torture porn! That would be awfully topical, don't you think?
Holy crap I love Salem's Lot.
23 comments:
I remember loving *The Midnight Hour* as a kid. I loved it so much I tried writing a short story based on it for english class.
I don't remember much about it. LeVar Burton is in it... and people turn into monsters... or something. But as a kid IT RULED!
Another great AMC post, Stacie!
Hey Stacie,
I loved the post on AMC too and I love all your posts. Will you marry me?...did I type that out loud?!?!
Salem's lot rocked! I recall watching it with my folks and sisters and when Mr. Barlow showed up in the priest's kitchen, I thought my mom and sisters were going to crap their pants!!!
Another one I remember seeing as a kid was The World Beyond (aka The Mud Monster). Here's a link to more information: http://home.earthlink.net/~usondermann/mud.html
I remember this TV show/pilot really shaking me up. I watched it with my grandparents at their house while they were watching me and my sisters (ma & pa were probably out getting lucky). I guess they thought it was ok for an 8 year old to get less sleep for a couple of days.
Although it wasn't a TV movie, it was still scary enough to stay in my memory even after all the drugs.
XOXOXOX
JEB
God, there were so many of these things, and more often than not, they were great. A Cold Night's Death (with Robert Culp and Eli Wallach) is a personal favorite, and then there's The Dead Don't Die, How Awful About Allan, Gargoyles, and that one with Ray Milland that was about Satanists only it was set in the old West, so it was sort of a Satanic Western. Whatever it was called, it was awesome.
So many great made-for-TV horror movies, so few currently available.
"Salem's Lot" takes the cake for sure. For some reason "Amazing Stories" (although a TV show, not a made for TV movie I know) always pushes all the right nostalgia buttons for me.
Yet another fine AMC post, Stacie. If you keep this up I may have to re-think my TCM vs. AMC feelings.
I loved "Don't be afraid Of The Dark". Just reading about it after all these years still freaks me out. I can still hear the those little prune-faced gremlins whispering, "Sally... Sally... We want you... We want you..." We had the same kind of red-brick-closed-up furnace that I could never look at the same way again. Between that movie and seeing "The Blob" during Steve McQueen week on the 4:30 Movie, I spent my childhood staying as close as I could the center of every room. I used to love lying on the floor reading with my feet getting toasty warm pressed up against the heating duct vent. Never again after the scene where it oozes out of the vent in the projectionist's booth. I wore a lot of wool socks after that. What is it with horror movies and central heating anyway?
I know what they were trying to do, but everytime I see that vampire from 'Salem's Lot, I just get the giggles.
Those teeth are so ridiculous.
that one with Ray Milland that was about Satanists only it was set in the old West, so it was sort of a Satanic Western. Whatever it was called, it was awesome.
Was that Black Noon with Roy Thinnes? And all those bird masks? Another downer of an ending, too. Man, the gloves were really off in the Seventies.
I LOVED Salem's Lot back in the day. I was 9 when I watched it and it gave me nightmares. I was such a wuss. I wonder how they got Count Orlock to play Mr Barlow? Yeah...I was that weird 9 year old who knew who Count Orlock was.
I still cannot believe that Dark Night of the Scarecrow was a made for TV movie. Considering the dreck that was produced for TV back in the 80s, it was just too damn good.
Great post on AMC!
Actually the late UPN tried to resurrect the 70's scary tv movie just a few years ago - there were about 4 or 5 of them. The ones I remember were "MONSTER", with M. Emmet Walsh and directed by ST VOYAGER's Robert Duncan McNeill which was a tongue-in-cheek throwback to 50's monster movies, and PRIMAL... [something or other], with Ron Perleman trying to rescue some people from Killer Apes.
Nice tries, but you can't go home again.
I wish they'd release A COLD NIGHT'S DEATH and DON'T BE AFRAID OF THE DARK someday.
Well done as always, Stacie. Soon you will be programming AMC 2:The Bloodening. Or, as we'll call it, the Stacie Channel.
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times...
I cut my teeth on those things, and man... that's not a good thing. But it is.
Reminds me that I have a box of those ol' things laying around on dusty VHS that I need to dive back into.
For some reason, I'm jonesin' to get back to Five Desperate Women, Cruise Into Terror and Satan's Triangle...
Was that Black Noon with Roy Thinnes? And all those bird masks? Another downer of an ending, too. Man, the gloves were really off in the Seventies.
It was Black Noon. And it was great. Pretty much anything with bird masks or Ray Milland is okay in my book. And Black Noon has both, along with Thinnes, which makes it nearly perfect.
Salem's Lot is definitely the ULTIMATE made for TV movie, and you're absolutely correct in stating that it still holds up today. In fact my little sister (who is now 34 years old) is still scarred for life because of this film... to this day she admits that she cannot lay in bed at night facing a window if the curtains are open for fear of seeing a kid float by.
Thank you once again for validating a point I've made for years: Salem's Lot, the original, is a damn fine piece of work. Mike Ryerson in the rocking chair... oh, how that messed me up as a wee lad. I still can't see a rocker without thinking of that scene.
I was thrilled to find the uncut miniseries for a paltry five dollars at my local Safeway this Halloween, and damned if David Soul (and his blonde mane) don't deliver.
Not a horror movie really but one worth seeking out is Sole Survivor (1970), about a crew of American GIs waiting for rescue in their downed plane in Africa. Okay, the cat is let out of the bag early on... they're dead and it's actually 30 years later... but then it gets really trippy and not a little sad.
Loved the AMC post. They sure don't make TV movies like they used to. My favorite TV movie is definitely "Bad Ronald". It still freaks me out.
It's great to see someone mention Cold Night's Death here in the comments, I sometimes feel like I'm the only person in the world who even remembers it. I have a crappy bootleg vhs copy of it so an upgrade would be spectacular someday. No one has mentioned The Bermuda Depths yet, that's another great one.
hey thanks for the mention of SOLE SURVIVOR - that brings back great memories.
Just found this and thought I'd share:
"The following is a list of television horror/thriller films made between the Golden Age period of 1969-1983 and the actual dates they premiered."
http://www.terrortrap.com/television/televisionterror.htm
Have to admit I'm flabbergasted.
You really had to have been there. Between 1968 and 1977 (when STAR WARS gave the world the warm fuzzies), nearly every made-for-TV horror movie had an in-your-face downbeat ending championing the triumph of Evil and lamenting the inefficacy of Reason or Goodness or God. And whole families would watch them together and share the lesson That You Can't Win!
Holy crap I love Salem's Lot too! I'm old and I waited from like 1980-something until a few years ago to get the whole uncut version on DVD. I had that crap VHS two hour edited version that was so disjointed that I couldn't even follow it and I read the book about twenty bazillion times. Which reminds me to tell how I got the book. A friend of mine brought the book to work and said, "Here. Take this. I read it last night and finished it about 2 am and had to sit up until sunrise before I could lay down and go to sleep. I don't want the damn thing in my house tonight." In it's day, it was the scariest thing I'd ever seen, and it was on TV!
Stacie,
Salem's Lot was the first Stephen King book I read (days after the second part aired on that eventful Saturday in 1979). It was only the second "adult" book I read (after Jaws that is). I'm going to be writing a "Gone to Bed" post on it at my blog very soon as I have seen it about 3-4 hundred times. Perhaps you might be entertained by my musings on this great made for TV movie.
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