Editorials
Your Guide To Horror On The Small Screen This October
I don’t know about you but even if I own all of the movies they show on TV during October I still get pissed if I miss out on something. So I decided to make a working list we can all use in conjunction with DVR. Again, this is a WORKING list because the networks haven’t all come out with their full schedules yet. I picked the main networks to cover but if I am missing anything share it in the comments for everyone to see! Happy October!
AMC FEARFEST (Not A Full Schedule Yet)
7:00am – Eight Legged Freaks
9:30am – Lake Placid
11:30am – Cujo
1:30pm – I Know What You Did Last Summer
4:00pm – Thirteen Ghosts
6:00pm – A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010)
8:00pm – Ghost Ship
10:00pm – Scream
7:00am – Scream 3
9:30am – Ghost Ship
11:30am – Firestarter
2:00pm – The Omen (1976)
4:30pm – Damien: Omen II
7:00pm – Omen III: The Final Conflict
11:30pm – Hide and Seek
6:00am – Christine
8:00am – Friday the 13th (2009)
10:00am – A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010)
12:00pm – Child’s Play 2
2:00pm – Child’ Play 3
4:00pm – Bride of Chucky
6:00pm – Seed of Chucky
8:00pm – Child’s Play 2
10:00pm – Child’s Play 3
Disney Channel Monstertober (For the little fans)
ABC FAMILY (For the whole family!)
TCM (Great old fashioned horror movies)
SyFy (In case you get desperate)
Oct 2:
1:30 pm – Night Of The Demons
3:30 pm – Halloween II (2009)
6:00 pm – Freddy Vs. Jason
Oct 3:
12:00 pm – The Bleeding
2:00 pm – My Bloody Valentine
4:00 pm – Wrong Turn 5: Bloodlines
6:00 pm – Resident Evil: Extinction
Oct 4:
2:30 pm – Hellboy
5:00 pm – Resident Evil: Extinction
7:00 pm – The Reaping
11:00pm – Hellboy
Oct 5:
9:00 am – The Cursed
11:00 am – Stephen King’s Rose Red – Part 1
1:00 pm – Stephen King’s Rose Red – Part 2
3:00 pm – Stephen King’s Rose Red – Part 3
5:00 pm – The Reaping
9:00 pm – Shutter
Oct 6:
9:00am – Stephen King’s Rose Red – Part 1
11:00am – Stephen King’s Rose Red – Part 2
1:00pm – Stephen King’s Rose Red – Part 3
3:00pm – Psychosis
7:00pm – Shutter
11:00pm – My Soul To Take
Oct 7:
8:00am – My Soul To Take
Oct 9:
6:00pm – The Uninvited
Oct 10:
4:00pm – The Uninvited
6:00pm – Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974)
Oct 11:
2:05am – Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974)
2:30pm – Chernobyl Diaries
4:30pm – Halloween II (2009)
7:00pm – Freddy Vs. Jason
9:00pm – Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003 remake)
11:00pm – Hostel: Part II
Oct 12:
1:00am – Chernobyl Diaries
3:00am – The Bleeding
10:30am – Night of the Demons
12:00pm – Halloween II (2009)
3:00pm – Hostel: Part II
5:00pm – Freddy Vs. Jason
7:00pm – Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003 remake)
9:00pm – The Fog
Oct 13:
1:00am – The Haunting in Connecticut
3:00am – Dead Like Me
11:00am – Dracula 2000
5:00pm – The Haunting in Connecticut
7:00pm – The Fog
9:00pm – The Wolfman
11:00pm – Freddy Vs. Jason
Oct 14:
10:00am – Freddy Vs. Jason
Oct 15:
2:00am – Hybrid
Oct 16:
5:30pm – Hellboy
Oct 17:
4:10am – War Wolves
9:30am – Dracula 2000
11:30am – Wes Craven Presents: Dracula II: Ascension
1:30pm – Hellboy
6:00pm – Drive Angry
Oct 18:
1:30am – Dracula 2000
3:30am – Wes Craven Presents: Dracula II: Ascension
9:00am – Stephen King’s Rose Red – Part 1
11:00am – Stephen King’s Rose Red – Part 2
1:00pm – Stephen King’s Rose Red – Part 3
3:00pm – The Reaping
5:00pm – The Fog
11:00pm – The Fog
Oct 19:
10:00am – The Uninvited
12:00pm – The Reaping
2:00pm – Let Me In
4:30pm – Cirque Du Freak: The Vampire’s Assistant
6:30pm – Birth
9:00pm – Lost Souls
11:00pm – The Revenant
Oct 20:
1:30am – Lost Souls
3:30am – The Uninvited
12:00pm – Birth
2:30pm – The Revenant
5:00pm – Hostel: Part II
7:00pm – Saw VII
9:00pm – Starve
11:0pm – Hellboy
Oct 22:
2:00am – My Bloody Valentine
Oct 23:
1:00am – Pulse
3:00am – Psychosis
8:00am – Pulse
10:00am – Haunting in Connecticut
12:00pm – Stephen King’s Rose Red – Part 1
2:00pm – Stephen King’s Rose Red – Part 2
4:00pm – Stephen King’s Rose Red – Part 3
6:00pm – Lost Souls
Oct 24:
12:10am – Lost Souls
2:10am – Haunting in Connecticut
4:10am – Wrong Turn 5: Bloodlines
9:30am – Wrong Turn 5: Bloodlines
11:30am – The Dead
Oct 25:
3:05am – Dead Season
9:00am – Dead Season
3:00pm – Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974)
5:00pm – Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003)
7:00pm – Battle of the Damned
9:00pm – Resident Evil: Extinction
11:00pm – Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003)
Oct 26:
1:00am – Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974)
10:30am – 30 Days of Night
1:00pm – 30 Days of Night: Dark Days
3:00pm – Battle of the Damned
5:00pm – The Reaping
7:00pm – Resident Evil: Extinction
9:00pm – The Happening
11:00pm – The Fog
Oct 27:
1:00am – 30 Days of Night
3:30am – 30 Days of Night: Dark Days
11:0am – The Cursed
3:00pm – The Reaping
5:00pm – The Fog
7:00pm – The Happening
9:00pm – The Crazies
11:00pm – Lost Souls
Oct 28:
1:00am – The Cursed
Oct 29:
2:00am – Wrong Turn 5: Bloodlines
Oct 30:
4:00pm – Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974)
6:00pm – Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003 remake)
Oct 31:
12:10am – Saw VII
2:10am – Hostel: Part II
11:00am – 30 Days of Night
1:30pm – Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974)
3:30pm – Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003 remake)
5:30pm – Halloween II (2009)
1:05am – Halloween II (2009)
3:35am – 30 Days of Night
Editorials
‘A Haunted House’ and the Death of the Horror Spoof Movie
Due to a complex series of anthropological mishaps, the Wayans Brothers are a huge deal in Brazil. Around these parts, White Chicks is considered a national treasure by a lot of people, so it stands to reason that Brazilian audiences would continue to accompany the Wayans’ comedic output long after North America had stopped taking them seriously as comedic titans.
This is the only reason why I originally watched Michael Tiddes and Marlon Wayans’ 2013 horror spoof A Haunted House – appropriately known as “Paranormal Inactivity” in South America – despite having abandoned this kind of movie shortly after the excellent Scary Movie 3. However, to my complete and utter amazement, I found myself mostly enjoying this unhinged parody of Found Footage films almost as much as the iconic spoofs that spear-headed the genre during the 2000s. And with Paramount having recently announced a reboot of the Scary Movie franchise, I think this is the perfect time to revisit the divisive humor of A Haunted House and maybe figure out why this kind of film hasn’t been popular in a long time.
Before we had memes and internet personalities to make fun of movie tropes for free on the internet, parody movies had been entertaining audiences with meta-humor since the very dawn of cinema. And since the genre attracted large audiences without the need for a serious budget, it made sense for studios to encourage parodies of their own productions – which is precisely what happened with Miramax when they commissioned a parody of the Scream franchise, the original Scary Movie.
The unprecedented success of the spoof (especially overseas) led to a series of sequels, spin-offs and rip-offs that came along throughout the 2000s. While some of these were still quite funny (I have a soft spot for 2008’s Superhero Movie), they ended up flooding the market much like the Guitar Hero games that plagued video game stores during that same timeframe.
Of course, that didn’t stop Tiddes and Marlon Wayans from wanting to make another spoof meant to lampoon a sub-genre that had been mostly overlooked by the Scary Movie series – namely the second wave of Found Footage films inspired by Paranormal Activity. Wayans actually had an easier time than usual funding the picture due to the project’s Found Footage presentation, with the format allowing for a lower budget without compromising box office appeal.
In the finished film, we’re presented with supposedly real footage recovered from the home of Malcom Johnson (Wayans). The recordings themselves depict a series of unexplainable events that begin to plague his home when Kisha Davis (Essence Atkins) decides to move in, with the couple slowly realizing that the difficulties of a shared life are no match for demonic shenanigans.
In practice, this means that viewers are subjected to a series of familiar scares subverted by wacky hijinks, with the flick featuring everything from a humorous recreation of the iconic fan-camera from Paranormal Activity 3 to bizarre dance numbers replacing Katy’s late-night trances from Oren Peli’s original movie.
Your enjoyment of these antics will obviously depend on how accepting you are of Wayans’ patented brand of crass comedy. From advanced potty humor to some exaggerated racial commentary – including a clever moment where Malcom actually attempts to move out of the titular haunted house because he’s not white enough to deal with the haunting – it’s not all that surprising that the flick wound up with a 10% rating on Rotten Tomatoes despite making a killing at the box office.
However, while this isn’t my preferred kind of humor, I think the inherent limitations of Found Footage ended up curtailing the usual excesses present in this kind of parody, with the filmmakers being forced to focus on character-based comedy and a smaller scale story. This is why I mostly appreciate the love-hate rapport between Kisha and Malcom even if it wouldn’t translate to a healthy relationship in real life.
Of course, the jokes themselves can also be pretty entertaining on their own, with cartoony gags like the ghost getting high with the protagonists (complete with smoke-filled invisible lungs) and a series of silly The Exorcist homages towards the end of the movie. The major issue here is that these legitimately funny and genre-specific jokes are often accompanied by repetitive attempts at low-brow humor that you could find in any other cheap comedy.
Not only are some of these painfully drawn out “jokes” incredibly unfunny, but they can also be remarkably offensive in some cases. There are some pretty insensitive allusions to sexual assault here, as well as a collection of secondary characters defined by negative racial stereotypes (even though I chuckled heartily when the Latina maid was revealed to have been faking her poor English the entire time).
Cinephiles often claim that increasingly sloppy writing led to audiences giving up on spoof movies, but the fact is that many of the more beloved examples of the genre contain some of the same issues as later films like A Haunted House – it’s just that we as an audience have (mostly) grown up and are now demanding more from our comedy. However, this isn’t the case everywhere, as – much like the Elves from Lord of the Rings – spoof movies never really died, they simply diminished.
A Haunted House made so much money that they immediately started working on a second one that released the following year (to even worse reviews), and the same team would later collaborate once again on yet another spoof, 50 Shades of Black. This kind of film clearly still exists and still makes a lot of money (especially here in Brazil), they just don’t have the same cultural impact that they used to in a pre-social-media-humor world.
At the end of the day, A Haunted House is no comedic masterpiece, failing to live up to the laugh-out-loud thrills of films like Scary Movie 3, but it’s also not the trainwreck that most critics made it out to be back in 2013. Comedy is extremely subjective, and while the raunchy humor behind this flick definitely isn’t for everyone, I still think that this satirical romp is mostly harmless fun that might entertain Found Footage fans that don’t take themselves too seriously.
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