Editorials
Tricks and Treats: 5 Ghoulish Halloween Episodes from TV Horror Anthologies [Series of Frights]
It’s that time of year again when folks put out scary decorations and pumpkins, fill bowls with candy, and don costumes to blend in with the other ghosts and ghouls. Halloween is in the wind, and nothing quite gets this holiday’s observers in the festive mood better than watching horror.
Movies are the obvious route for experiencing horror at a safe distance, but the television side of the genre has also been a reliant as well as rich source of Halloween activity. And while anthologies can be sparing with tales set around October 31 — they don’t need a special occasion to get scary, after all — these select stories not only celebrate Halloween, they’re a reminder of its power over events and people.
Tales from the Darkside (1983-1988)
The Cutty Black Sow
With every new season of Tales from the Darkside, the series showed less and less straightforward frights. Possibly to save money, even after cutting corners by using limited sets and small casts, the stories were more fixated with internal dread manifesting under unusual circumstances. However, there were the occasional episodes with both external and tangible threats.
In the show’s last season, it spun one final yarn about Halloween. “The Cutty Black Sow” is based on the short story of the same name by Thomas F. Monteleone, which was then adapted by Darkside regular Michael McDowell (Beetlejuice, The Nightmare Before Christmas). For some odd reason, the episode was scheduled in May rather than October. Despite the specific setting, Halloween is one of those holidays that can be enjoyed year round.
In “The Cutty Black Sow”, an ailing great-grandmother (Paula Trueman) tells her great-grandson Jamie (Huckleberry Fox) to help keep her soul from ending up in the hands of the Cutty Black Sow once she dies. Jamie does his best to honor her last wish upon her passing, though his effort doesn’t go unpunished. He eventually learns the ancient demon was a lot closer than he’d originally thought.
The Cutty Black Sow indeed comes from existing folklore, but its roots are actually Welsh, not Scottish. Here the demon who collects souls on Halloween is given limited face time; most of the episode is focused on Jamie carrying out his great-grandmother’s last wish, which provokes a heap of paranoia on his part. Once the monster does appear, its presence is brief yet effective — despite the substandard costume. What makes the Sow’s big entrance so memorable is how it finally reveals itself. The episode never bothers to explain that bizarre ending.
Goosebumps (1995-1998)
Attack of the Jack-O-Lanterns
Plenty of fans agree “The Haunted Mask” set a high bar for Goosebumps; it’s an eerie coming-of-age tale about losing a part of yourself in order to gain something else. However, it wasn’t the only Halloween episode the series had to offer. “Attack of the Jack-O-Lanterns” doesn’t get talked about quite nearly as much as Carly Beth’s misadventures in trick-or-treating, but this offbeat exercise in trickery is more in tune with the rest of R. L. Stine‘s series of children’s books.
“Attack of the Jack-O-Lanterns” concerns two kids, Drew and Walker (Erica Luttrell, Aidan Desalaiz), who dread Halloween only because they fear whatever prank their bullies are planning. This year will be different only because Drew’s old friends Shane and Shana (Philip Eddoll, Andrea O’Roarke) are visiting, and they’re helping her devise a scary trick. The joke’s on all of them, though, because they later become entangled in an ongoing series of abductions in the area.
Stranger danger is afoot in this silly story punctuated by even sillier antagonists. The pumpkin-headed monsters are too goofy-looking to ever cause a real stir, but once their true intentions are revealed, “Attack of the Jack-O-Lanterns” ends up being one of the more gruesome Goosebumps episodes.
After directing movies such as Death Weekend and Killer Party, William Fruet went on to helm more than twenty episodes of Goosebumps. His take on “Attack of the Jack-O-Lanterns” shows his roots as a horror director, particularly in the nightmare sequence of the old people capturing children.
Perversions of Science (1997)
Panic
After finding success with Tales from the Crypt, HBO adapted other EC Comics series for a new anthology in 1997. Unfortunately, Perversions of Science only lasted one season before it was sentenced to the depths of TV obscurity. The show has yet to resurface on streaming platforms, and so far its only home-video release is a Japanese DVD set.
Based on the title, Perversions of Science sounds more erotic than it actually was. Its host, a CG fembot named Chrome (voiced by Maureen Teefy), would deliver sexual innuendo in her narrative introductions and exits, but the stories themselves were only occasionally about sex. Perhaps hesitant viewers had the wrong idea when they heard the title.
The episode “Panic” takes place at Halloween, and it stars a cast of familiar faces: Jason Smith, Jamie Kennedy, Laraine Newman, Harvey Korman, Edie McClurg and Chris Sarandon. And behind the wheel are director Tobe Hooper and screenwriter Andrew Kevin Walker (Se7en, Sleepy Hollow). Not too many people have seen this episode, but once they have, it’s hard to forget.
“Panic” is a campy adaptation of a Weird Science story by William Gaines. Sweetening the Halloween setting is the year this episode occurs in, and the real-life incident it references; two bona-fide aliens (Smith, Kennedy) get into a pickle when they’re spotted during the infamous 1938 radio broadcast of The War of the Worlds that sent droves of listeners into a, well, panic. Uninitiated Perversion viewers are constantly kept guessing, never knowing where this wacky episode is going to take them.
Fear Itself (2008)
The Spirit Box
Unlike most of the entries here, “The Spirit Box” begins at Halloween before shortly moving on. However, the holiday directly inspired its two main characters to play around with the supernatural. In their haste, these teens fail to consider what they might actually summon.
Anna Kendrick and Jessica Parker Kennedy play the two curious teenagers who whip up a spirit board using a takeout pizza box and a cellphone. The pair then stumbles upon a local mystery about a dead classmate; she asks them to help find her murderer. Their investigation eventually leads to a suspect at the school — a teacher (Mark Pellegrino) who may have been romantically involved with the victim.
Director Rob Schmidt (Wrong Turn) and screenwriter Joe Gangemi (Windchill) collaborated on this crafty tale of deception. The characters aren’t the only ones being misled here; the audience is duped as well. What seems like an unambiguous search for justice beyond the grave is something else entirely once the episode gets the setup and mystery out of the way.
All of Fear Itself is currently streaming on YouTube.
R. L. Stine’s The Haunting Hour: The Series (2010-2014)
Pumpkinhead / Return of the Pumpkinheads
While The Haunting Hour is named after R.L. Stine’s collection of short stories of the same name, early episodes come from another of the author’s anthology books, The Nightmare Hour. The TV adaptation of said book’s opening tale, “Pumpkinhead“, is a series high point, as far as atmosphere goes. This episode does a good job of bringing the the source material alive while also adding its own unique touches.
Like in the short story, “Pumpkinhead” takes place in a town where Halloween has been restricted by a curfew. This is due to the fact that several children went missing last year. Three siblings (Kacey Rohl, Liam James, Frankie Jonas) soon learn the cause of those other kids’ disappearances when they step foot into a shady farmer’s forbidden patch of pumpkins. This episode, like most others in The Haunting Hour, does not have a happy ending.
After the original episode ended on such a dark note, the sequel “Return of the Pumpkinheads” confirms one character survived their Halloween ordeal. The wicked pumpkin farmer has since moved on, but his cursed property is purchased by an unaware family. And once their parents succumb to the same evil as before, a brother and sister (Harrison MacDonald, Freya Tingley) fight to avoid a similar fate.
Aside from providing closure for the previous episode, “Return of the Pumpkinheads” doesn’t present anything new other than more victims for the titular monsters. These abrupt, hopeless and unsatisfactory conclusions can be draining, but the bright spots here are higher production values and more screen time for the fearsome Pumpkinheads.
More Halloween episodes from various horror anthology series can be found here and here.
Series of Frights is a recurring column that mainly focuses on horror in television. Specifically, it takes a closer look at five episodes or stories — each one adhering to an overall theme — from different anthology series or the occasional movie made for TV. With anthologies becoming popular again, especially on television, now is the perfect time to see what this timeless mode of storytelling has to offer.
In this day and age, the word “troll” is often used to describe various online nuisances. Yet as abundant and irksome as the modern troll can be, they aren’t usually as fearsome as their mythological counterparts. I’m not talking about the small and gentler versions that have become more common to see in media. No, there are much bigger and scarier trolls out there—and André Øvredal’s movie Troll Hunter is one of the best places to find them.
It doesn’t take long for Troll Hunter (or Trolljegeren) to dump the Blair Witch Project-esque setup and aim for something a lot fresher. The trajectory of the story is augmented by Otto Jespersen’s character Hans, the titular Troll Hunter. The second he comes barreling out of the deep, dark woods and shouts “troll” at the camera, this movie takes a turn into what feels like uncharted territory. Not only subject-wise, but also conceptually.
For fantastical and made-up subject matter in cinema, found footage is a fast way to add a guise of believability. After all, what we accept to be the most crucial aspect of documentaries—the truth—rubs off on pseudo-documentaries, despite our understanding of the pretense involved. That is what Øvredal delivered with Troll Hunter: a movie so convincing that some viewers wondered if trolls really do exist. So, had this been straightforwardly made, it likely wouldn’t have been as effective. Conventional narratives would be more inclined to treat something like trolls as flat out unreal, and never try to convince the audience to think otherwise.
Hans petrifies the three-headed Tusseladd troll.
The viewers, like the characters trailing Hans, are quickly thrown into the deeper end of that extraordinary story. They have to process all this new information while staying on the go. So, although there is no significant amount of meandering, narratively or physically, there is still a good amount of atmosphere, not to mention tension building. It’s never anything frightful, but then again, Troll Hunter isn’t your standard offering of horror; it’s more on the low end of the dark fantasy spectrum. We aren’t ever spirited away to a faraway world—we stay in rather familiar surroundings, as well as dip into those less so. The outcome is a movie where you’re constantly more in awe than in terror.
As fantasy fiction might do, Troll Hunter prefers not to deal with incredulity. There is no time to waste on doubt, as interviewer Thomas (Glenn Erland Tosterud), soundperson Johanna (Johanna Mørck), and cameraman Kalle (Tomas Alf Larsen) all follow Hans around, recording whatever this character is willing to reveal about his bizarre job. Of course, the Troll Hunter himself is not an open book; in that respect, the diegetic documentary fails to fully capture and unpack the more interesting of its two subjects. Yes, all those giant, monstrous trolls are indeed incredible, but understandably, your mind wanders to their pursuer. What kind of person signs up for this gig and then chooses to stick with it for so long?
Reviews have called out Troll Hunter for its lack of character development. In regard to Thomas and his fellow documentarians, that criticism is valid, but bear in mind, they aren’t the focus of the story, either. Meanwhile, Hans is a well-crafted character. At least better than first realized. Before he was introduced, Hans had already grown tired of the troll grind. Fed up with that low compensation for his services, resentful of the bureaucracy, and wanting to expose his employer on a large scale, Hans’ discontent is glaring.
Then there are those finer details about the Troll Hunter, such as that indifference to both the natural splendor of his everyday surroundings and the affections of an obviously smitten colleague, that also suggest some level of despondency. So it is fair to say this movie doesn’t feature any sizable growth for its characters; however, the namesake isn’t underwritten. No doubt, putting a real-life character like Otto Jespersen in that role is partly why Hans is so fascinating—maybe even relatable.
Otto Jespersen as Hans the Troll Hunter.
There is always a small risk whenever using the term “mockumentary” to describe a found-footage movie, as the word could imply humor where there is none. In the case of Troll Hunter, the term’s usage is appropriate. Some folks have claimed the English-dubbed version has the more comedic tone, however, the Norwegian cut isn’t exactly humorless. Apart from the trolls’ absurd appearances, this is a movie where the characters nearly choke on the monsters’ farts, and Christians are like walking targets. Hans’ complete apathy towards everything is another cause of laughter. Overall, the comedy is intentionally dry and inconsistent. Unfunny, though? Absolutely not.
In a movie where endemic creatures are maltreated, as well as disavowed from living freely and peacefully, it’s hard not to notice the ecological message buried beneath the story. In addition to that is the unmistakable political satire. There is this whole business about intrusive and unsightly power lines—like trolls, they’re big blemishes on the land—that leads to what is perhaps the movie’s funniest moment. The scene in question is that one where certain electric lines, the ones secretly being used to keep the trolls at bay, go in a loop and don’t actually send power to any residents. Yet the monitors of said lines don’t find this at all weird. So it stands to reason that Øvredal was having a go at those who accept the government’s doings without question.
Looking past the fact that trolls aren’t actually real, this movie is an enlightening source of information. And not just for international audiences; Norwegians, too, get schooled about their homeland’s own mythology. It’s also evident from everything on screen that Øvredal and his crew were enthusiastic about the topic. The creature designs are the most indicative of that zeal; those imaginative yet myth-accurate manifestations are equally amusing and grotesque. One second you’re laughing at their phallic noses, the next you’re white-knuckling during a hairy sequence. Most surprisingly is how well the trolls’ visual effects hold up after fifteen years. It’s not all spotless, but on the whole, they remain impressive.
Vouching for a mockumentary about trolls isn’t easy, but those who do come around and give it a shot will more than likely be grateful for the recommendation. For Troll Hunter is a real find in that vast and varied genre we call “found footage“.
A bridge troll reaches up for food and finds Hans decked out in armor.
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