Tuesday, October 16, 2012

Tricks and Treats

Ah, Halloween. One of my most favorite times of the year. What's not like about a holiday that centers around two of my favorite things? One being candy (duh) and the second being scary movies. I love a good fright, and we here at TV Sluts are dedicated to finding the best spooky television for you to enjoy throughout October. The embedded links below will take you to the relevant networks Halloween themed schedule or webpage.

Are you seated comfortably? Then we'll begin.

Many channels are running special Halloween themed broadcasts during this month, but let's start with the obvious: American Horror Story: Asylum is premiering over on FX tomorrow (Wednesday) night at 10:00. If you missed the first season, no worries. Each season is telling a different story of terror so you can jump right in to the newest offering without any prior knowledge. But be warned: this show is definitely scary and not for the faint of heart. You might want to keep your Pillow of Fear (PoF) handy for any cowering that needs to take place.

If your tastes run more to the classic black and white, Turner Classic Movies (TCM) has you covered with its month-long salute to classic movie monsters. Each Wednesday, the channel is showing horror favorites from Hollywood's Golden Age, culminating in a Halloween-night showing of Frankenstein and The Wolf Man. You can find the schedule here.

But what about the kiddies? We can't leave them out of the fun. So if you have some munchkins in your household or you just can't handle the real scares, try ABC Family's 13 Nights of Halloween with more family-friendly fare such as a Tim Burton movie marathon, Practical Magic, and my personal favorite of their offerings, Hocus Pocus. Apparently their original series Pretty Little Liars is also known for it's Halloween episodes, but you'll have to take their word for it. I haven't been able to fit it into my schedule yet.

LOVE.

 Sometimes you want a good old fashioned slasher flick. You know the drill--teenagers who engage in sex, drugs, and whatever rock and roll the filmmakers could get the rights to are picked off one by one by increasingly supernatural circumstances. Naughty behavior is punished with a knife in the gut, and only the virgins survive. If you need a Jason or Mike Meyers fix, head over to American Movie Classics (AMC) for showings of the Friday the 13th series and Halloween, among other tales of terror such as Jeepers Creepers (which if you haven't seen is worth your time for it's super creepy ending).

Not to be left out of the fun is SyFy--which frankly is putting forth kind of a weak effort by billing it's normal prime time programming (like one of my favorite shows, Face Off) as Halloween fare. But their October schedule also includes movies like a vampire film marathon and the Pumpkinhead movies, so it's worth checking out to see if anything strikes your fancy. And if you live in New York City, they are sponsoring a ton of live events throughout the month that sound fun.

And for those who have BBC America, you can catch some of their more supernatural themed shows this month like Hex (see Michael Fassbender before he was famous, but alas not naked) and Bedlam. They are also showing "ghoulish" movies on Sundays. AND you can take in some of the X-Files creepiest episodes on Halloween itself.

And of course, we can't forget perennial favorites such as It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, The Simpsons Treehouse of Horror (which unfortunately already aired on October 7), and other special Halloween-themed episodes of your favorite shows. But for that you'll need to check your local listings.

What? I don't have time to sit here and look up everything for you. There's horror movies to watch and candy to eat!

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