Tag Archive: Halloween 2017


Pug & Pig return in Halloween tale for kids

Filed under: Comics & Books, Fantasy Realms — Leave a comment
October 26, 2017

Author Sue Lowell Gallion and artist Joyce Wan first introduced kids to friends Pug & Pig in the 2016 picture book Pug Meets Pig.  Pug was a happy pup whose life was perfect until newcomer Pig moved in, but it wouldn’t be long before they realized they’d be inseparable friends.  In their next adventure, Pug & Pig decide to take on a Halloween adventure together, but it doesn’t quite go as planned.

In Pug & Pig: Trick-or-Treat, Pug and Pig get new Halloween costumes.  They’re about to venture out as skeletons and Pig couldn’t be happier.  But the costume is not right for Pug and he rips his costume apart and decides not to go along with Pig.  Can Pig help Pug figure out a solution?  Or will Pug be able to make sure both he and Pig still have fun on Halloween night?

Pug & Pig: Trick-or-Treat is a perfect story for little ones, sharing what it means to be friends, with adorable images of the unlikely pals, sure to get anyone into the holiday spirit.

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Do you want to see something really scary?

Filed under: Con Culture, Movies, Retro Fix — Leave a comment
October 8, 2017

That night I moved from the upstairs bedroom to the one beside mom and dad.  I had nightmares until I was in bootcamp.

So if you wanted to find out what the scariest movies were, how would you proceed?  Unless you’re a diehard horror movie fan, you can’t really come close to seeing them all.  And how do you get past general movie reviews to the actual movie watchers?  Isn’t that the best place to get to the truth?  Would you just come out and tell someone what really scares you?

About a month ago a question was posed to a group of general interest fanboys and fangirls on the Internet:  What movie traumatized you as a kid?  More than 12,500 people responded.  So what scares did they get while they were kids that stayed with them to this day?  The answers provided a great list of movie recommendations for Halloween, including more than 50 identified below with some of the responders’ reactions.  The results were cross-generational, with comments from people who were kids in the 1950s through well into the 1990s.  Some are movies watched in the theater, some at drive-ins, others from the living room on late night TV.  Sprinkled into the responses are movies that probably would scare only kids (Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Alice in Wonderland) but most responses were films Rated R or otherwise targeted at adults.  You’d think the list would include nearly everything we listed on this month’s schedule of movies appearing on TV (here at borg.com).  That wasn’t always the case.  And many might make you think nobody has ever paid attention to that Rated R advisory and that many parents took kids to movies way before they should have.  The actor who tops the list?  The versatile Bette Davis, who appeared in numerous horror films and two at the top of this list (I watched my best friend in junior high hide behind his hands watching the film The Watcher in the Woods starring Davis, so consider that one of my recommendations).  It should be no surprise many of the scares come from stories written by Stephen King.

So… to quote Dan Aykroyd talking to Albert Brooks at the beginning of the movie The Twilight Zone:

Do you want to see something really scary?

So what movies topped the list–the films that created actually nightmares for so many?  Several hundred people identified these three as the most traumatizing:  What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (“scared the shit out of me and we had to go home”), The Exorcist (“I don’t think my sister or I slept for a month”), and The Wizard of Oz (“the witch and the flying monkeys!”).  The next tier went to some movies you may not even remember or would think of:  The Hand (“I still don’t let my arm dangle or leg the edge of the bed at night”), The Day After (“to this day the visuals haunt me”), and Rosemary’s Baby (“my mother’s worst parenting decision was allowing me to watch it”).  Close behind were Trilogy of Terror (“that doll bothered me for years”), Arachnophobia (“I hate spiders as much as clowns”), Hush, Hush, Sweet Charlotte (“Mom told me not to look when Charlotte chops a guy’s head off with a hatchet, but it was too late”), and Child’s Play (lots of instances of older kids traumatizing their younger siblings after watching).

Dozens were frightened by Ridley Scott’s original Alien, Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds (“I turn away when I know the dead guy scene is coming”), the original The Thing and John Carpenter’s The Thing (but no mention of the latest remake), Stephen King’s original It with Tim Curry (“I will never understand why my parents allowed me to watch that”), and a Universal monster classic: The Creature from the Black Lagoon.  Who knew this would make the list: Who Framed Roger Rabbit? (“Christopher Lloyd… Scariest children’s movie villain ever”), and many more mentions included A Nightmare on Elm Street (“Thinking someone could kill me in my dreams and never physically be there ruined my ability to sleep soundly”), Jim Henson’s The Dark Crystal (“Skeksis are creepy to this day”) and Labyrinth (“when the fireys sing their song and do their dance for Sarah”), Stephen King’s The Shining (“I am sure my scream carried for miles,” “stood out in the lobby most of the movie”) and Pet Sematary (“still can’t watch it”), Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho (“couldn’t take a shower without locking the bathroom door for years”), Sleeping Beauty (“my parents had to take me out of Sleeping Beauty I was so scared”), A Clockwork Orange (“will always haunt me”), E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (“I’m still not ok with it… I won’t watch it”), The Amityville Horror (“at least a month before I’d sleep without lights on”), Jaws (“I still won’t go in the water”), and Stephen King’s Salem’s Lot (“had to get behind the couch,” “could never have gaps in curtains or blinds for the next 20 years”).

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October on television–A month of Halloween scares awaits you on cable channels and Netflix

Filed under: Con Culture, Fantasy Realms, Movies, Retro Fix, Sci-Fi Café, TV — Leave a comment
October 3, 2017

Of course the big highlight of October will not be a film at all, but the premiere of the entire second season of Stranger Things on Netflix, coming October 27.  But Netflix is also finally adding the time travel/horror/coming of age Donnie Darko to its streaming service, coming October 11.  Lifetime will premiere its remake of Disney’s The Watcher in the Woods, starring Anjelica Huston, on October 21.  Fans of the classic Universal Monsters will get their fix this month from Turner Classic Movies (TCM) throughout the month.  And Freeform (formerly ABC Family) has the modern classics and “family” viewing horror films including animated and mainstream films like Monsters, Inc., Frankenweenie, The Addams Family, and Sleepy Hollow.  You’ll find a run of Boris Karloff movies today on TCM, a Stephen King marathon on AMC on October 14, and a Tim Burton marathon on Freeform on October 23.

AMC does not post its television schedule more than two weeks in advance, so you’ll need to check your local listings for the annual AMC FearFest, but we do know it runs from October 23-31, and usually features a marathon each day, so you can probably expect a day each of films from Halloween, Freddy and Jason, Chucky, and Leprechaun films.  This year’s FearFest includes the following horror films: Halloween (1978), Halloween 4, Halloween 5, Halloween 6, Halloween H2O, Halloween II (2009), A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010), Freddy vs. Jason, Friday the 13th Part IX: Jason Goes to Hell, Jason X, Wes Craven’s New Nightmare, Child’s Play, Curse of Chucky, Cult of Chucky, Annabelle, Thinner, Dreamcatcher, Dawn of the Dead (2004), Land of the Dead (2005), House of the Dead 1&2, House on Haunted Hill (1999), Return to House on Haunted Hill, House of Wax (2005), Hellbound: Hellraiser II, Army of Darkness, Van Helsing, Lake Placid, Slither, and the Leprechaun franchise (last year’s Fest included Leprechaun 1-4).  Syfy Channel and Spike listings are posted below through October 17–listings are not yet available beyond that.  Chiller–the year-round horror network, carries its standard slasher fare, plus some better modern horror classics this month.  Chiller’s listings are reported only about two weeks out, so listings below are through October 14.  Spike begins some good Halloween classics on October 13.  Syfy is hosting its 31 Days of Halloween event again this year.

Other Netflix films coming this month related to the horror genre include Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Ghost Patrol, 13 Demons, and Cult of Chucky, now available, Stephen King’s The Mist season one (October 24), and the bloody Quentin Tarentino Western The Hateful Eight (October 25).  TCM is highlighting horror on Tuesdays this month.  Freeform’s annual 13 Nights of Halloween kicks off October 19.  Starz Encore Suspense is another way to stream Halloween films this month.  Their inventory includes Pride & Prejudice and Zombies, Death Proof, Don’t Breathe, Rosemary’s Baby, The Funhouse, John Carpenter’s Prince of Darkness, and entries from Final Destination, Friday the 13th, Halloween, Children of the Corn, Hellraiser, I Know What You Did Last Summer, and The Grudge franchises–and horror and suspense films are part of the channel’s daily schedule here.

Definitely cable channels and Netflix will have plenty for every taste and all ages this month, and this is before all the channels have published their end of month schedules.  So start with today, browse the selections and set your DVR now.  All times listed below are Central Time.

Tuesday, October 3
1:00A  Island of Lost Souls (1932) TCM – Charles Laughton, Bela Legosi
2:30  The Black Cat (1934) TCM – Boris Karloff, Bela Legosi (Edgar Allan Poe adaptation)
3:45  The Invisible Man (1933) TCM – Claude Rains
10:00  The Creature from the Black Lagoon – Starz Suspense
11:00  The Hollow – Syfy
12:00P  Pulp Fiction – AMC
1:00  Hollow Man 2 – Syfy
3:00  Hollow Man – Syfy
4:00  Old 37 – Chiller
5:30  Exorcism of Emily Rose – Syfy
6:00  All Cheerleaders Die – Chiller
7:00  Frankenstein (1931) TCM – Boris Karloff
8:00  Apartment 143 – Chiller
8:30  Bride of Frankenstein (1935) TCM – Boris Karloff, Elsa Lanchester
9:00  Drag Me to Hell – Syfy
10:00  The Mummy (1932) TCM – Boris Karloff
10:00  Old 37 – Chiller
11:00  The Mothman Prophesies – Syfy
11:30  The Wolfman (1941) TCM – Lon Chaney, Jr.

Wednesday, October 4
12:00A  All Cheerleaders Die – Chiller
1:30  Scream of the Banshee – Syfy
2:00  Apartment 143 – Chiller
5:30  Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein – Syfy
8:00  The Mothman Prophesies – Syfy
10:30  Dead Still – Syfy
12:30  The Exorcism of Emily Rose – Syfy
3:00P  Drag Me to Hell – Syfy
4:00  Fender Bender – Chiller
5:00  Resident Evil: Afterlife – Syfy
6:00  The Texas Chainsaw Massacre – El Rey
6:00  The Boy – Chiller
7:00  Insidious: Chapter 3 – Syfy
8:00  Wrath – Chiller
10:00  Fender Bender – Chiller
11:00  Dead Still – Syfy

Thursday, October 5
12:00A  The Boy – Chiller
1:00  Ghost Storm – Syfy
2:00  Wrath – Chiller
3:30  Silence of the Lambs – El Rey
6:00  Bram Stoker’s Dracula – Syfy
8:30  Holes – AMC
9:00  Ghost Storm – Syfy
11:00  Silent Hill – Syfy
11:30P  Total Recall – AMC
1:30  Resident Evil: Afterlife – Syfy
3:30  Insidious: Chapter 3 – Syfy
4:00  ATM – Chiller
5:30  Blade Runner – Syfy
6:00  Indigenous – Chiller
8:00  John Dies at the End – Chiller
10:00  Blade Runner – Syfy
10:00 ATM – Chiller

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John Carpenter returns to his classic movie themes in new Anthology album

Filed under: Fantasy Realms, Movies, Retro Fix, Sci-Fi Café — Leave a comment
August 23, 2017

Back in February 2015 we reviewed here at borg.com director, composer, and writer John Carpenter’s first solo album, John Carpenter’s Lost Themes.  His new music evoked the feel of his earlier compositions for more than a dozen of his films–a programmatic treat for the ears that had us imagining what characters and scenes were appearing on some magical, invisible screen.  A year later we previewed Carpenter’s second solo album here, Lost Themes II, featuring even more chase themes, pulsating rampages, ethereal motifs, dark places, sustained tension, and electronic vibrations of time and space.

Carpenter is back again, this time revisiting the themes he created, and others he is newly covering, all from his many popular films.  Look for thirteen familiar Carpenter films represented on his new album, Anthology: Movie Themes 1974-1998.  As with his prior solo albums, his son Cody and godson Daniel Davies worked on the new recordings with the director.

Look for the album in CD, digital, and vinyl.  Carpenter plans to offer variant editions in seven-inch vinyl format, with movie-influenced colors like “The Fog Over Antonio Bay,” and “Christine Red.”  Here is a preview of the album, the first track from “In the Mouth of Madness”:

These are the tracks: Continue reading →

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