This Week in Horror History | Night of the Living Dead, Near Dark & Halloween 6 - Sep 28-Oct 4

This week, the calendar crosses the line. September becomes October, and pumpkins finally stop looking like they showed up early. For the record, ours weren't early. Everybody else's were late. This week, a killer hides inside a Halloween attraction. Michael Myers brings a curse home. The dead surround a farmhouse. And Rod Serling makes an empty town terrifying. Then after the break, a vampire family takes us on a very bad road trip. Keep your group together, check the backseat, and do not mistake the screaming for customer satisfaction. Welcome back to This Week in Horror History, your weekly time machine through the creepiest anniversaries in film, TV, books, comics, and games.

I'm your host Henrique Couto, and tonight we're talking all about September 28th through October 4th. Coming up... Hellfest gives a murderer the perfect camouflage. Halloween the Curse of Michael Myers brings Tommy Doyle back to Haddonfield. Night of the Living Dead rewrites the zombie rulebook. And the Twilight Zone asks, where is everybody? Then for our deep cut spotlight, Near Dark trades Dracula's castle for an RV. The sleeping arrangements are the least of your problems. Trust me on that one. September 28th, 2018. Hellfest opens in theaters, and a masked killer finds the perfect place to murder somebody in public.

Natalie visits a traveling horror attraction packed with fog, mazes, performers, and paying customers who expect to be chased. She even witnesses a real killing, and initially assumes it's all part of the show. That's the nasty little hook here. Scream for help, and someone, maybe everybody, might applaud. Director Gregory Plotkin turns the park into a playground and a steel trap, while Tony Todd supplies the booming voice of the Barker. The killer, called The Other, doesn't need to hide. He just needs to look like he works there, which being a serial killer would actually assist you in.

And this film really was underrated. I thought it was a blast when I saw it in the theater. I enjoyed the hell out of it. And I think you would too, especially as Halloween is just about here. I mean, I don't know about you, but I consider Halloween proper October 1st through the 31st. And spooky season, well, whenever I'm awake and half the time when I'm asleep. But this one really does bring the vibes. And if you love going to haunts as much as I do and don't always have the time or the large group to take along, this film really does scratch that itch quite well.

At the box office, it did about $ 11 million domestically and $ 18. 3 million worldwide on a reported $ 5. 5 million budget, which is not... too shabby so if you want to give it a spin or a revisit for the first time it's available to stream free with ads on pluto tv and of course you can rent or buy it on amazon video apple tv or fandango at home so buy your ticket and maybe wear some plastic ponchos September 29th, 1995. Halloween, The Curse of Michael Myers, opens in U.S. theaters. Michael comes home, and this time, the homework kind of tags along.

Paul Rudd, credited as Paul Stephen Rudd here, plays the grown-up Tommy Doyle, the little boy Laurie babysat in 1978. Donald Pleasence returns for his final performance as the legendary Dr. Loomis. The sixth film piles cults, bloodlines, and the symbol of the thorn onto Haddonfield's familiar autumn menace. Apparently a white mask and a kitchen knife. It's just not enough. We need to get a whole family tree going. And why not? Troubled post-production left substantially different... theatrical and producer cuts whichever version you prefer those dead leaves dark porches and a lurking man in a white mask still do the heavy lifting and make it a fun time and if you've never seen the producer's cut of halloween the curse of michael myers or halloween 666 you need to it's it's totally different in so many ways it might kind of blow your mind I also think that this is a very underrated Halloween film.

Yeah, it has its problems, but it has so much 90s charm and nostalgia, for me at least. I love it. It makes me feel like it is Halloween time. So, believe me, I put it on right away. At the box office, it did about $ 15. 1 million domestically and $ 15. 8 million worldwide against a reported $ 5 million budget. modest numbers but not nothing I mean it's more than I've got on me and the arguments about the two cuts have kept the film in the zeitgeist of horror longer than maybe anyone including the makers could have imagined So if you're ready to get in that Halloween October mindset, and I imagine you are if you're subscribed here at Weekly Spooky, you can watch it on HBO Max with your subscription, or you can purchase it through Amazon Video, Apple TV, or Fandango at home.

October 2nd, 1968, following its Pittsburgh premiere the night before, Night of the Living Dead begins its local theatrical run. A farmhouse becomes ground zero for the modern zombie nightmare. Barbara escapes a cemetery attack and meets Ben, played by Dwayne Jones. Outside, the dead gather. Inside, the survivors argue about whether the basement is safer. The dead want dinner. The living want to win an argument. Guess which group has the clearer plan? George A. Romero's stark black and white images feel frighteningly immediate. The flesh-eating ghouls changed horror forever, but fear and isolationism and a failed cooperation are what give the film its lasting sting.

This is a classic. If you've never seen Night of the Living Dead, I don't know what to tell you. It is a true classic, a film that many of us have seen many, many times. My good buddy Jeff Turner actually wrote the book Night of the Living Tapes, which is the entire history of Night of the Living Dead on home video, which is very fascinating. That's available on Amazon. If you like to read about movies, that is the book for you. But this is a classic. And I love that the makers, when they did their own theatrical run, they premiered it on October 1st and then let everybody in the local Pittsburgh area see it on October 2nd with plenty of time.

to catch it before halloween that just makes me smile because it means they were thinking about spooky season as they released what would become one of the most quintessential horror films of all time i mean if that's not kind of a beautiful not even irony i don't know beautiful poetry i don't know what is and if you've never seen the fully remastered version that criterion put out on blu-ray You really need to. And 4K, you need to check out that Night of the Living Dead version because it's like seeing the movie again for the first time, but not in a Titanic kind of way.

AFI cites a roughly $ 125, 000 production cost and an estimated $ 2. 5 million earned by late 1969. Later, that lifetime estimate would reach over $ 30 million and then way, way, way, way, way more. But there's really no way to track the amount of money Night of the Living Dead made because the copyright was in question for decades upon decades. So it was released by nearly everybody and their brother at some point or another, including the mafia and, you know, and really morally bankrupt people, which would be just normal film fans. distributors but so it's hard to know but it's probably the most profitable independent film of all time and it will probably never be defeated in that way if you're counting only sheer box office and sales and not the money paid to the filmmakers you can watch it if you've never seen it before but it's definitely a perfect way to start your October it's available free with ads on Tubi Pluto TV and the Roku channel it's pretty much free to watch anywhere free-to-watch movies are.

Of course, that restored edition on 4K and Blu-ray, I really recommend that. And then, of course, you can buy or rent multiple types of it on any service where you buy or rent movies. There's no reason to really even list them, honestly. Night of the Living Dead is ubiquitous, and that's what's made it so powerful, but also what was the double-edged sword for its makers. Now let's talk about something that primed an entire nation for spooky season. On October 2nd, 1959, The Twilight Zone premieres on CBS and Rod Serling gives television a new address for the impossible.

The first episode, called Where Is Everybody, stars Earl Holliman as a man who can't remember who he is or how he reached a completely deserted town. The diner is stocked, a jukebox plays, a telephone rings, everything suggests somebody was here a moment ago, but he can't find another person. It's the kind of peace and quiet that you want for about 30 seconds. Serling always was good at letting the ordinary become unbearable. The series would move between horror, science fiction, satire, and moral fable, often blending all of them together at once, and always ready to pull the rug out from under our assumptions.

Start here without looking up the ending. Trust me, I mean, Twilight Zone is all about the endings. But talk about something that not only makes me feel a spooky season vibe, but also deeply nostalgic. Between The Twilight Zone and Alfred Hitchcock Presents, nothing quite screams pure, unmitigated horror in the old school where it's mysterious and surprising. then the twilight zone. And if you've never, I don't know how you would never see it, but if you've never seen the twilight zone, it's not hard to find a it's available on paramount plus with your subscription or free with ads on to be.

So you can give yourself a little trip to the zone and not auto zone. This time. Tomorrow on weekly spooky. After a fire burns itself out, almost everything left behind tells you how it died. Charred wood, melted plastic, blackened walls, but after one recent blaze, a firefighter found something in the ashes that shouldn't have survived. A notebook, and inside, a lifetime of horror. In I'm a Firefighter and What I Found Creeped Me Out by Michael Kelso, we meet Joe, a boy raised far from town by a mother who keeps him isolated, uneducated, and terrified of the world beyond their shack.

There's one place she warns him especially never to go. The railroad tunnel. She says it took his father. She also says something evil lives there. Then, Joe discovers Halloween. Candy, costumes, porch lights, an entire world he was never meant to see. So one October night, he walks through that forbidden tunnel and experiences so much. And he never turns back. But no matter how far Joe runs... Mama keeps asking him to come home. So, follow the porch lights, stay off the railroad tracks, and if you hear Mother calling from inside a dark tunnel, keep moving. Don't miss it, right here tomorrow on Weekly Spooky.

Make sure you're subscribed. All right, quick breather. But when we come back, October 2nd, 1987 brings us near dark. One bite, one very unfriendly family, and a sunrise nobody can afford to sleep through. Well, we're back, and it's time for our deep-cut spotlight. October 2nd, 1987 brings us Near Dark, as it begins its limited U.S. release and drags the vampire movie out of the castle and onto the highway. Adrian Pasdar plays Caleb, a farm boy whose flirtation with May, played by Jenny Wright, ends with a bite. By sunrise, he's burning, and not the way you might expect if you spent a wild night in Maryland.

Baltimore, to be specific. Her traveling family hauls him into their RV. Lance Henriksen plays the patriarch Jesse, Jeanette Goldstein is Diamondback, Joshua John Miller is Homer, and Bill Paxton is Severin, who legendarily turns a roadside bar into the Worst last call you could ever imagine. And one of the most memorable sequences in the whole film. Henriksen, Goldstein, and Paxton had just appeared together in Aliens. This reunion is not improving anybody's chances of getting home safely, though. Catherine Bigelow never even uses the word vampire in the film, which makes it have a lot in common with Night of the Living Dead, which never used the term zombie in the film.

No capes, no castle, just an outlaw family that treats daylight as a death sentence and expects Caleb to earn his place by killing. Bigelow had the actors practice timed blackout drills together, learning to seal a room against sunlight. That practical teamwork helps to sell the idea that these people have survived together for years. Released the same year as The Lost Boys, Near Dark offers a dustier and meaner kind of vampire cool that I think was overshadowed by The Lost Boys, which is, rightfully so, a massive hit film. But Near Dark deserves all the love it's gotten after its release.

It's a fun film. It's a grotesque film. It's a loving film. It's a lot of things, and at the box office it did about $ 3. 4 million domestically against a reported $ 5 million or $ 6 million budget. It did not perform well in the theaters, but it became an absolute cult essential on home video and cable, and you need to give it a watch if you never have before, especially if you love vampire films and vampire lore, but unfortunately... It's not available to stream anywhere currently, so you'll have to look for a DVD or Blu-ray, and they are out there, but they can be kind of hard to chase down.

It's one of the big insults that came about once people realized how great this film is. It's hard to get a hold of. I have a Blu-ray copy that I bought years and years ago that is so out of print now. So if you do find a DVD or Blu-ray, do make sure that the region is compatible with with where you live, or that you have a region-free player if you're a super nerd like me. Now let's light a candle for some horror birthdays that we're celebrating. Starting on September 28th, 1968, when Naomi Watts was born.

The Ring, The Ring 2, Funny Games, and Mulholland Drive. Come on, she spent a remarkable amount of screen time realizing that things are Much worse than she initially thought, and that look of horror helps add weight to the entire film and helps bring the audience along for the fear, so a very happy birthday, Naomi Watts. On September 30th, 1964, Monica Bellucci is born. Bram Stoker's Dracula, Brotherhood of the Wolf, and the Brothers Grimm, she always brings elegance, danger, and Excellent reasons not to follow a beautiful stranger into a dark alleyway, no matter how beautiful she may be.

A very happy birthday, Monica Bellucci. Born on October 3rd, 1973, is Nev Campbell. Sidney Prescott in Scream, Bonnie in The Craft, two films that are unmistakable as massive elements of horror history. Her birthday salute is to survival instincts and knowing when to hang up the phone. Happy birthday, Nev Campbell. And finally, born on October 4th, 1967, is Liev Shriver. Caught and weary in the first three screen films and the original Red Herring of a series so full of red herrings you'd think they were canning them and selling them. But he brings charm, suspicion, and a man who really ought to stop enjoying all the attention he's getting considering the reason for it.

He's been in a lot of great films, he is a great actor, and his time in horror was well spent. So happy birthday, Liev Schreiber. For our then and now, from the Twilight Zone's empty town to Romero's farmhouse, near Dark's Highway and Hellfest's haunted attraction, The trick keeps changing while the fear stays familiar. The place you understand suddenly stops protecting you. One generation worries nobody is coming to help. Another worries the witnesses will assume it's entertainment. Different decades, same terrible moment, when you realize the rules you trusted will not save you. For October's first week, I say queue up a horror comedy about arriving in town dressed exactly like the warning everyone gave you.

September 30th, 1988, Elvira, Mistress of the Dark, opens in U.S. theaters, giving Cassandra Peterson's horror host a feature-length stage. An inheritance sends Elvira to Falwell, Massachusetts, where she receives an old house, a poodle, and what appears to be a cookbook. Falwell treats fun like an ordinance violation. Her clothes alarm the adults, her jokes delight the teenagers, and of course Uncle Vincent is much too interested in that book. Its recipes are spells. Elvira's real magic, though, is refusing to apologize for herself. She is funny, generous, capable, and wonderfully inconvenient for every busybody in the town, and there's no shortage of them.

This is just a fun time. I think the Elvira films are a bit underrated. I really think this one, though, gets a good amount of attention, but Elvira's Haunted Hill's That's a similar concept, except she's in Old World Transylvania, so you get a whole other plethora of great jokes. You can never go wrong with Elvira, especially not during the holidays. You can watch it right now on Prime Video or free with ads on Tubi and Pluto TV, so make sure you give it a spin this Halloween season. And if your significant other feels bothered, remind them you're doing it for the plot.

That My Spookies is your trip through September 28th through October 4th. In Horror History, tomorrow, Wednesday, there's a fresh horror story waiting for you right here on Weekly Spooky. And on Thursday, October 1st, we have our first of many bonus stories. Just for the Halloween season, you can expect something extra special, some kind of bonus on Thursdays and Fridays, and maybe even on... Tuesdays here and there so make sure you're subscribed on your favorite podcasting app because we have so much to share with you to keep that spooky vibe going even if you work 12 hours a day we'll bring you content to keep you engaged in that Halloween spirit and of course I'll see you back here next Tuesday with more horror history so until then remember our days are numbered because that's how we tell them apart see you next week