Best Halloween Ever

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The best Halloween I ever had was way back one time when my beloved holiday fell on a Saturday. On Friday October 30th of that year, I had finished my job as a delivery driver for a flower shop, where I had started working that summer. Earlier in October, I was offered a new position at my former employer GLD, who had laid me off in the beginning of the year. I accepted the offer, because I didn’t want to go through another lay off, which would have been my fate in the winter if I had stayed at the flower shop. I was to begin work at my “new” old job on Monday the 2nd. So from Friday night for the rest of the weekend, what other commitments did this horror nut have, but to watch movies and par-tee? 

What commenced was an incredible two-day lineup of scary movies on TV. Understand that this tale takes place long before streaming became a thing. In those days, we could “curate” our own film festivals with VHS tapes. But no, everything served up this weekend was all scheduled television programming for the southern Ontario and western New York markets. Even back then, you would have been hard pressed to find a lot of these titles on home video.

On the Friday night, our beloved Cat’s Pajamas from WGRZ TV-2 in Buffalo kicked off the weekend with a triple bill of Vincent Price’s plentiful Edgar Allan Poe adaptations. At 1:30 AM, Price was a one-man show in the 1971 TV-movie An Evening of Edgar Allan Poe. Mike’s Subs would still have been open, so you could’ve called in an order for a late-night snack, before 1962’s Tales of Terror unreeled at 2:40 AM.

This was one of Price’s numerous Poe-inspired collaborations with the great Roger Corman. While perhaps not as well known as others in their canon, I’ve always enjoyed this anthology of three Poe adaptations (co-starring Basil Rathbone and Peter Lorre), especially the excellent “Morella” sequence, which ought to convince anyone that Price was much more than a ham actor. It would be more accurate to say that he lent a tongue-in-cheek approach to horror films when the often broad, larger-than-life material had called for it.

Hopefully you had the coffee on, because at 4:25 AM, WGRZ featured the best of all the Poe adaptations (and for my money, Corman’s masterpiece), the stunning Masque of the Red Death, with Price marvellously evil as Prince Prospero. Not even the usual “Channel 2 static”, nor their well-loved purplish print could mar the stunning colour cinematography by Nicolas Roeg. (This film was also a vital “Ingmar Bergman Adjacent” viewing for that year, as I was discovering the Swedish master’s films that year, and thereby seeing his influence in many other films.)

Okay. To be fair, I was in dreamland when Masque aired, but I had taped it, and then watched it in the morning. After the movie ended, I took care of the day’s only non-Halloween-related business. Cliff Dumas, the colourful on-air talent on what was then 820 CHAM, a Hamilton AM country radio station, was making a personal appearance at the mall, selling copies of his new book, Doomer Humor (curiously, it had the American spelling of humor, instead of the Canadians, with a “u”), full of the same kind of jokes and stories he would tell on the air, which was his appeal for many fans in that listening area. My mother was a fan, but was working at the store that afternoon, so I’d promised to pick up one. “Doomer” personalized his inscription for her in the first page.

After that, and then replenishing the beer stock, the mission was to hightail it back for the unbelievable lineup offered that afternoon by WNED, Buffalo’s PBS affiliate. I had the house to myself for the rest of the day, to watch horror movies and then feed the trick or treaters.

The first film, at 1 PM, on WNED’s lineup was the 1933 classic, Mystery of the Wax Museum, with Canada’s own Fay Wray, from the same year she had made King Kong! I had seen this film previously on Movie for a Sunday Afternoon back in Grade 9, coincidentally right when we were actually studying 1930s history in class (where Fay Wray and King Kong had a mention). For whatever reason, I didn’t like the movie then, but upon this afternoon’s revisit, it became (and remains) a mini-favourite. It is also noteworthy for being produced in the two-strip colour process. Sometimes the film was shown in black-and-white, but the two-strip version was shown that afternoon, adding to its dreamy atmosphere. Unpopular opinion, but I prefer it to the Vincent Price 3D remake, House of Wax.

At 2:15 PM, was Island of Lost Souls. H.G. Wells’s novel The Island of Dr. Moreau has been adapted to the screen several times, but never as well as this 1932 version, which remains one of the most terrifying films ever made, especially for its great atmosphere (love those misty foreground shots). Not even Dawn of the Dead has watered down the potency of this film’s most grisly scenes (as much as pre-Code horror could get away with). Adding to that is a marvellously evil Charles Laughton as the mad Doctor Moreau who crossbreeds humans with animals, and a substantial role for Bela Lugosi as one of his experiments (“Vat is the law? Are we not men?”), and lots of kink with Kathleen Hughes as a Panther Woman who’s all hot and bothered for our hero Richard Arlen.

TV Guide had listed the 3:30 movie as 1962’s Tower of London, another Vincent Price-Roger Corman collaboration that is not a Poe adaptation, but often considered in the same breath for its historical setting. Instead, they showed the 1939 Tower of London, which is more of a historical drama than a horror film, but because it stars Basil Rathbone and Boris Karloff (plus Vincent Price in a supporting role), it has much appeal for horror fans.

The 5 PM showing of The Horror of It All was not the 1964 Pat Boone horror-comedy as listed in TV Guide. Rather, it was the 1983 documentary of the same name, narrated by Jose Ferrer, featuring interviews with genre favourites like Curtis Harrington and John Carradine. This surprise airing was especially valuable for all the great clips of 1930s horror films that I still hadn’t yet been able to see. The classic Universal films seldom played on TV in my area, nor were they stocked in local video stores. It was still some time before I was able to view many of them, but until then The Horror of It All was a tantalizing primer of what would be in store.

WNED would continue its “horror-thon” into the wee hours, but after suppertime, I had switched over to WIVB Channel 4 (Buffalo’s CBS affiliate), for their Halloween 3D festival. I still had some 3D glasses left over from the much-publicized Global TV airing of Gorilla at Large from a few summers past (more on that in a future post), so I was able to properly enjoy the presentation. The program kicked off at 8 o’clock with the Three Stooges 3D short, Spooks, which is basically an excuse for a gorilla to throw a lot of things at the camera. But the effects are great jump scares, especially after a few beers. I had taped this, and would later show it to people with similar results, after they had a couple of Molson Goldens. At 8:30, they had a rare screening of Vincent Price’s other 3D film, The Mad Magician (1954). Another unpopular opinion, I preferred this to the more celebrated House of Wax. To be fair, I’ve not seen either film in decades, and must revisit them soon.

This was all going on while the doorbell was being rung by hungry neighbourhood ghosts and goblins. At each ring, I’d put on my wolf man mask, play some spooky organ music on my synthesizer, and shell out some candy. After all that activity, I still had some stamina to stay up late. 

For the insomniacs on Halloween, The Cat’s Pajamas presented perhaps the sleaziest double bill in their viewing history. At 1:30 AM, it was the infamous 1971 monster mash, Dracula Vs. Frankenstein, with Lon Chaney Jr., and J. Carrol Naish well past their glory days. WGRZ got a lot of mileage out of their reddish print. (I have a conviction that in the 1980s, southern Ontario viewers could have watched Dracula Vs. Frankenstein about once a month, as it was a staple not only on WGRZ, but Jim Cook’s horror show on WJET, and even in CFTO’s late-night schedule.) 

At 3:15 AM, they followed it with the also infamous Blood and Lace (1971), this time featuring Gloria Grahame past her glory days. While viewing Blood and Lace, I learned that pretty much “anything goes” for Halloween movies. Both of these films have a little glow for me, if because they were seen on that special night. Even if the prints were edited for television, their fascinatingly lurid appeal remained.

And these were just the titles that I watched. But there was much more to choose from. On Friday night, City TV showed Fright Night, The Howling and 1983’s Brainstorm (interesting choice!). On Saturday afternoon, WGRZ also showed the 1980 TV version of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow at the same time the WNED horror marathon had aired. At 7 PM you could also “roll in the hay” with Young Frankenstein on Channel 2, if you weren’t pre-occupied with WNED or the 3D fest. WKBW (Channel 7 ABC from Buffalo) showed the well-remembered TV movie, The Midnight Hour at 8 PM, followed by Fright Night at 11:30 (though assuredly not as intact as City would’ve showed it the previous night). City TV had another of their Rapid Release Premiers, with a 10:30 airing of Witchboard (which I had seen theatrically eight months earlier), followed by their oft-played classic, Legend of Hell House (1973).

Oh yes. While I was pre-occupied with the 3D movies and trick-or-treaters, WNED continued with the 1977 Louis Jourdan version of Dracula at 8 PM, followed by two Hammer films: their underrated 1962 adaptation of The Phantom of the Opera with Herbert Lom at 10:30 PM, and a midnight showing of Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee in their splendid 1959 version of The Hound of the Baskervilles. Channel 4 continued their 3D festival with an 11:30 PM airing of Gorilla at Large (which I had already seen twice on TV).

I don’t want to sound like the “stereotypical old guy shaking his fist at clouds” by saying that we were living in a golden age and never knew it, but… try even duplicating this lineup in streaming. Even though at that time, the videocassette was becoming more prevalent in homes, and there were already several specialty channels, network television still filled their schedules with enough movies that you could curate your own kind of festival based upon the dozens of films being offered on a weekend. It’s great that we have an endless supply of films at our fingertips (provided that we know what to look for), but streaming doesn’t have everything. There is an invaluable thrill of discovery with all that we have available now. We had that same thrill in those days too, but it was coupled with the extra thrill of anticipation. You had to wait for this stuff to come on. And thereby in some ways I think we appreciated it more, as we didn’t take it for granted. There is also an intimacy of sharing with strangers an image that is being broadcast at that very moment. This Halloween weekend offered plenty thrills: those of discovery and the more visceral kind.