Much as I knew that, when I started featuring horror-themed television show for October, I would have to include at least one episode of Are You Afraid of The Dark?, I also knew that I simply had to include at least one episode of Goosebumps.
After all, R.L. Stine helped to introduce me to horror so I owe him a great deal.
The episode below — A Shocker On Shock Street — first aired on September 6th, 1997.
(AGCK! Apparently, the copyright police suspended the YouTube account that hosted this video! Sorry about that — Lisa)
Scott, Fred, and Steve may be teenage rebels but they’re rebels with a cause! And that cause, of course, is to conquer humanity and maybe find a girlfriend. And, of course, all three of them wear black leather jackets…
This is actually one of the sillier episodes of The Twilight Zone but I like it. I think any girl who has ever wondered if boys are from a different planet can appreciate this episode.
Black Leather Jackets was originally broadcast on January 31st, 1964. It was written by Earl Hamner, Jr. and directed by Joseph N. Newman.
When Flight 107 out of Buffalo, New York makes a perfect (if unannounced) landing, airport officials are shocked to discover that the airplane has no passengers, no luggage, and no pilots! It’s up to Grant Sheckley (Harold J. Stone) to solve the mystery but Sheckley has a secret of his own.
This episode of The Twilight Zone was written by Rod Serling and directed by Boris Sagal. It was originally broadcast on September 22nd, 1961.
When I first started searching YouTube for episodes to use in this feature, I came across quite a few episodes of an old black-and-white TV show called One Step Beyond. Running for three seasons (from 1959 to 1961), One Step Beyond was hosted by John Newland. Every week, Newland would tell the audience about some sort of possible paranormal phenomena. Then, a dramatization of a “real” event would be shown and occasionally, the show would end with Newland interviewing the real people whose story we had just watched.
To me, that all sounds like a lot of fun.
The 16th episode of One Step Beyond was called The Burning Girl and it dealt with a teenage girl who, whenever she got upset, could apparently cause fires to spontaneously erupt. It was written by Catherine Turney and directed by John Newland himself.
It was originally broadcast on May 5th, 1959 — presumably long before Stephen King even had the idea to write about a girl named Carrie.
When I first decided to devote some of October to featuring horror related TV shows, I knew that I’d have to include at least one episode of the classic Nickelodeon TV series Are You Afraid of the Dark? Back in the 90s, Are You Afraid of The Dark? was the best because it was a show about scary things but it was on Nickelodeon so you could watch it without having to worry about your mom coming in the room and making you change the channel.
The episode “Tale of Vampire Town” is about — you guessed it! — vampires. It was originally broadcast on April 24th, 1999 and it was notable for being one of the darker episodes of the series.
Down here in Dallas, channel 47 is the local Me-TV affiliate. Me-TV specializes in showing old TV shows from the 50s, 60s, and 70s. The network sells itself as a nostalgic refuge for people who are several decades older than me, a place where they can go to escape from Seth McFarlane producing sitcoms and Maury Povich conducting DNA tests.
But you know what?
I like Me-TV and I’m glad that it exists. It probably has something to do with me being a history nerd at heart. I love the chance to see what the world was once like. Add to that, some very good shows were produced in the 50s and 60s. Just because a lot of us weren’t there to experience them firsthand doesn’t mean that we can’t appreciate them in rerun syndication.
Case in point: Thriller.
Thriller aired for two seasons in the early 60s. It was an anthology series, in the tradition of The Twilight Zone. Whereas The Twilight Zone was hosted by Rod Serling, Thriller was hosted by horror icon Boris Karloff, who always introduced the macabre material with a bemused gleam in his eyes.
Parasite Mansion was the 30th episode of Thriller and it originally aired on April 25th, 1961. In this episode, Marcia (Pippa Scott) crashes her car outside of a dilapidated Southern mansion. When she awakens, she finds herself in the position of being the unwilling guest of the eccentric family that lives inside the mansion. I like this episode, largely because I can never resist Southern gothic atmosphere.
Incidentally, the family’s matriarch is played Jeannette Nolan and, if she sounds familiar, that’s probably because she was one of the many actresses to voice Mrs. Bates in Psycho.
Beyond Belief: Fact or Fiction aired off-and-on for about five years on the Fox network. A sign of just how randomly this show was scheduled can be found in the fact that season 3 started in 2000 while season 4 didn’t start until 2002. Reruns of the show currently air on the Chiller Network which is where I recently discovered it.
Hosted by Jonathan Frakes, each episode would present the viewers with five different stories. Each story would appear to defy logic and then, at the end of the episode, Frakes would reveal which of the stories were fact and which were fiction. The show was often incredibly silly and yet, it occasionally had an odd charm to it. A lot of this was due to Jonathan Frakes, who always seemed to be rather amused with it all.
Even more importantly, as bad as this show often was, it’s the perfect type of show to watch in October. It’s the television equivalent of a scary story being told around a campfire.
Episode 13 aired during the show’s 2nd season. Can you guess what’s fact and what’s fiction?
In The Grave, old west outlaw Pinto Sykes is gunned down by a group of townspeople and buried in a lonely grave. However, before Sykes dies, he swears that if the bounty hunter Miller (Lee Marvin) ever comes near his grave, he’ll reach out of the ground and grab him. Needless to say, it’s not long before Miller is challenged to put Sykes’s dying words to the test.
This episode of The Twilight Zone was written and directed by Montgomery Pittman. It originally aired on October 27th, 1961. Classic western fans will immediately recognize the majority of the cast.
In “The Masks,” a group of greedy relatives gather at the New Orleans home of Jason Foster (Robert Keith). Foster is on the verge of death and the relatives are eagerly waiting their chance to claim their inheritance. However, as Foster informs them, they will only get paid if they wear masks that are meant to reflect their inner natures…
This episode of the Twilight Zone first aired on March 20th, 1964. As written by Rod Serling and directed by Ida Lupino (making her the only woman to direct an episode of the original Twilight Zone), this episode is full of gothic Southern atmosphere and it’s a perfect addition for any Halloween viewing marathon.
In this poignantly haunting episode of the Twilight Zone, Gladys Cooper plays a lonely widow who starts to receive mysterious phone calls from a stranger.
This episode was written by Richard Matheson (and based on his short story Long Distance Call) and it was directed by Jacques Tourneur. Tourneur is probably best known for directing moody horror films like Cat People and Curse of the Demon and he brings a similar atmosphere to Night Call.
Through the Shattered Lens 