For your October Viewing Pleasure

Halloween is upon us and three of my favorite channels are celebrating the month by showing a ton of great horror!  It's a month to sit on your ass and be scared!

Over at AMC they are showing a wide variety of films, including The Shining, plus October 16th brings us the premiere of The Walking Dead.  I have never quite forgiven AMC for introducing commercials into the mix, but their great original programming by far makes up for it. 

IFC is playing some great films this month, including one of my favorites, The Changeling.  They are also playing more edgy fare such as Hostel and Teeth.  If you can make your way through the endless Malcolm in the Middle reruns (really) you can even catch The Dead Set on Halloween.

This awesome British production introduces Zombies to reality television.  Two great tastes that taste great together.  Seriously, this is a good series.  If you haven't seen it, DVR it! 
Finally, we come to my favorite channel, the Granddaddy of commercial free classic programming,

TCM! Not only are they playing "The Horrors of Stephen King" all month (it began last night!) they also are having this dude as a guest programmer...

Check out John Carpenter on October 5th.  He will be discussing and showing such classics as....

TCM is also having a Val Lewton marathon.  It was through these channels that I discovered my love of Classic Horror, and they are part of the reason that October is my favorite month!  Click the links above for full schedules!!

Dead Set

So the IFC website does NOT make it easy to find anything you are looking for.  Thank goodness for "Entertainment Weekly" or I would have totally forgotten about Dead Set, the British series that will be playing on IFC October  25th-29th at Midnight.  It is like a little appetizer for The Walking Dead.  Here is the website to save you a bit of frustration: http://www.ifc.com/dead-set/

Dead Set Trailer - 4DVD - Watch more funny videos here

Penny Dreadful

Penny Dreadful was part of the 2006 "8 Films to Die For" Film Fest and it is the second film I have seen from this fest, from 2006 or any year.  Not because I have anything against these collections, in fact, I think they are pretty cool.  I can just never drag my ass to the theatre and by the time they arrive on DVD I have completely forgotten about them.  So when Penny Dreadful showed up on IFC I taped it, figuring, with a name like Penny Dreadful it can't be that bad.

I was wrong.  It was bad.  It took me two days to watch it.  The concept is interesting, and an original take on the "babe lost in the woods being menaced by a creep" storyline.  Penny, played by Rachel Miner, is a young woman who has an intense phobia of cars.  As a child she lost her mother in a horrific car accident, where it seems she was the only survivor.  In an attempt to get over her phobia and live a normal life, Penny hires Mimi Rogers.  Rogers plays a Therapist who believes that the only way to overcome your fears is to face them head-on.  She is also kind of an idiot because instead of watching the road, she spends her time lecturing Penny and hits a hitchhiker. 

This hitchhiker, like most hitchhikers, is a murderous psycho.  I think the hitchhiker is supposed to be a guy, but "he" is played by a woman, Liz Davies.  Or maybe it is supposed to be a woman, I really didn't care at this point.  Penny ends up alone, literally trapped in the car, terrorized by the hitchhiker.  And this is where I checked out. I couldn't get behind Penny.  She just annoyed me.  For the most part the hitchhiker remains an unseen entity, a figure that we glimpse running past the car or hear making menacing noises in the woods.  Once we really get a good look at he/she, the illusion of a terrifying threat is gone.  The hitchhiker is just a crazy nut job, and I seriously doubt someone so loony could have orchestrated this night of terror.  The finale seems tacked on, and unfortunately sets us up for a sequel.  No thank you filmmakers.