Editorials
Svengoolie is Still Keeping the Tradition of the Horror Host Alive After All These Years
If you’re a horror fan and you grew up in Chicago, the horror host known as Svengoolie is probably partly responsible for your love of the genre. I know he is for mine. I was born just outside Chicago and have lived here my entire life, and Svengoolie has been a fixture on local television for nearly all of it. He didn’t necessarily introduce me to horror, but over the years he has certainly played a number of roles in my relationship to it: he has been a teacher, a funny friend (albeit one whom I’ve never met), a comforting presence on a Saturday night. As far as being a Monster Kid is concerned, I can think of few figures who have meant more.
The tradition of the horror host – someone who would appear, usually in costume, at the beginning and end of a movie broadcast, often making corny jokes about whatever was being shown that week – dates back nearly to the earliest airings of horror movies on TV. The most famous of them all is still Elvira, but there are dozens of others who were beloved in their own local markets: there was Vampira and Zacherley and Ghoulardi (played by the father of writer/director Paul Thomas Anderson) and Count Gore Del Vol and Chilly Billy and on and on. Every city had their horror host. Svengoolie was ours. At a time when most of the other horror hosts have retired or been canceled or even passed away, Svengoolie is still going strong. He’s still our horror host in Chicago, and when his weekly series on MeTV went national back in 2011, he became the country’s horror host, too.
I didn’t grow up on the OG Svengoolie. He was before my time. Jerry Bishop originated the character and played him (with a Transylvanian accent and everything) on TV from its debut in 1970 until 1973, when the show was cancelled for six years until it was revived in 1979, with former staff writer-turned-host Rich Koz taking over as the Son of Svengoolie. This was the version of the show on which I grew up, tuning in every Saturday afternoon in the mid-‘80s to Chicago’s WFLD to watch the Son of Svengoolie hosting movies like Godzilla vs. the Smog Monster and Revenge of the Creature and War Gods of the Deep and the original Universal classics like Dracula and The Wolf Man. In the days before these movies were readily available on home video – or even before my family owned a VCR on which to play them – Son of Svengoolie introduced me to the films that would help shape me as a horror fan forever.
Son of Svengoolie was pulled off the air in 1986 when WFLD sold to Fox, but Rich Koz remained a fixture of Chicago TV and of my childhood, hosting kids’ shows like The Koz Zone and anchoring the local news for a time. He was always a part of my life in some way. When he put the makeup back on in 1994 and returned to TV as Svengoolie – having finally dropped the “Son of” moniker with the blessing of Jerry Bishop – it was a big deal for me. When I was a kid, watching monster movies on Svengoolie was considered cute by those around me, but by ’94 I was no longer at an age where watching monster movies and horror hosts was thought to be “cute.” That was ok. It left me with a choice: appear cool to my classmates, or continue to watch horror and be happy. It’s the choice that many a fan has faced at some point in his or her life, and the way we choose helps define who we are as a person. Svengoolie helped keep me on the path of being a devoted horror fan. But as the genre continues to dominate TV and clean up at the box office in 2018, loving horror is finally considered cool thanks to sites like this and people like Svengoolie, who has helped carry the torch for nearly 40 years.
The thing about Svengoolie is this: he’s so uncool that he’s cool. His jokes are incredibly corny. His set is sparse, his show cheaply produced in such a way that it’s not too far off from a public access production. There’s nothing edgy or hip about him, but because he has remained true to himself year after year – the show is the show is the show – he has circled back around to being hip again. He exists in a space that is free of irony. He has nothing but affection for these movies and doesn’t present them in a mocking way, even if he does make jokes about them. Plus, the show is hipster proof; they can’t make fun of anything about Svengoolie that the show isn’t already making fun of about themselves first. Svengoolie doesn’t care about being cool. He just wants to entertain us, to make us laugh, and to celebrate monster movies, reminding us lifelong fans why we love this stuff and introducing a new generation of would-be horror nerds to movies they’re discovering, as I did, through his show. I can’t think of anything cooler than that.
Lately I’ve been watching Svengoolie with my own son, and the opportunity to share with him something that meant so much to me when I was his age is one I don’t take for granted. It’s too soon to tell whether or not it’s helping turn him into a horror fan, but at the very least it affords me a chance to share my own love of the genre with him so that even if he never goes crazy for monster movies, at least he’ll know why his dad does. I’m not sure I could convince him to sit down and watch The Blob or 20 Million Miles from Earth with me if I just asked nicely, but when I frame it as “Hey, want to watch Svengoolie?” he gets on board. Maybe he’s just doing it to humor me. Or maybe, just maybe, there’s something about all of the hosting segments and jokes and rubber chicken throwing that makes the movies feel safer for him, so he’s more willing to watch. Whatever the case, Svengoolie is responsible for creating new Monster Kids week after week, year after year. For this reason alone, the show is a gift.
I don’t know how much longer we’re going to have Svengoolie to watch on Saturday nights. Rich Koz is just a few years shy of turning 70. He has been performing as Svengoolie for the better part of the last four decades. Sooner or later, he’s going to retire, and that realization makes me almost impossibly sad. He’s one of the last remaining horror hosts in the country, and currently has no clear successor as far as I know. That means when he goes, the tradition of the horror host and a television institution goes with him. And while Rich Koz deserves to retire whenever he sees fit, I’m not ready to say goodbye. I never will be. He’s been a part of my life for so long, I can’t imagine it without him. To be honest, I really don’t want to.
Please, Svengoolie, please never leave us. Young and old alike, Monster Kids everywhere need you.
Five decades ago, Stephen King published the story of a bullied girl with telekinetic powers and forever changed the world of horror.
Carrie follows a high school misfit who seeks revenge for a hideous prank by psychically destroying her senior prom. The name Carrie White has become synonymous with the concept of a formal dance thanks to a flawless adaptation from Brian De Palma. Now fifty years after the film’s release, Mike Flanagan is putting his own stamp on the troubling story.
Rather than a feature film, the writer/director will expand King’s relatively slim debut novel into an eight-episode miniseries for Amazon Prime set to premiere on October 7.
Flanagan is no stranger to the world of Stephen King. A long-time Constant Reader, he first made waves with his daring adaptation of Gerald’s Game (2017), a novel many fans considered un-filmable. His underrated Doctor Sleep merges the disparate plot of Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining with King’s original source material, and his 2024 genre-bending tearjerker The Life of Chuck faithfully executes one of the author’s most metaphysical novellas.
He’s currently mired in pre-production for an expansive adaptation of The Dark Tower series, keystone to King’s connected universe, and Warner Bros. recently announced that Flanagan will helm a new version of The Mist, King’s 1980 novella which sees a small Maine town overrun by otherworldly monsters.
Considering the vast array of the author’s previously unadapted material, an obvious question arises. Why reimagine Carrie in 2026? Noting the timeless nature of the content, Flanagan expressed his desire to bring the story of a bullied girl into modern times, mirroring his approach to Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House and Edgar Allan Poe’s The Fall of the House of Usher. He explained, “The only way to approach it was to build something new out of the ingredients of Carrie. Otherwise, there’s really no purpose in trying to retread ground that’s been so beautifully walked before.”
His miniseries will maintain the novel’s bloody bookends while delivering “big surprises” along the way.
A New Prom Night Nightmare
The roughly 60-second teaser introduces Summer H. Howell as Carrie White just before the moment of catastrophe. Standing in a prom dress, she smiles at her applauding classmates with an ominous crown perched upon her head. Moments later, Carrie unleashes a rage-filled scream into the night air while promgoers rush for the exit doors. But careful examination of this scene shows Carrie wearing a different, albeit dirty dress as she seems to telekinetically punish her peers.
In an exclusive first look with Entertainment Weekly, Flanagan explains that in his version of the story, “the events of that prom are going to be completely different.” An open trunk emitting a crimson glow does hint at the pig’s blood dumped on Carrie’s head, but it’s likely Flanagan’s formal dance will be a different kind of horror altogether. Despite these changes, the series may end with the widespread destruction outlined in the source material. Unlike any previous adaptations, King’s novel ends with the near-total destruction of Chamberlain, Maine. A flaming street in Flanagan’s trailer promises similar carnage no matter what prank sparks Carrie’s deadly revenge.
The Monstrous Addition of Social Media
On the opposite end of this fiery conclusion is an extreme act of bullying that brings together the story’s main cast. King’s novel begins as Carrie gets her first period while showering in the girls’ locker room. Completely unaware of the concept of menstruation, the sheltered girl thinks she’s bleeding to death. Her classmates respond with vitriolic rage. Led by ultra-mean girl Chris Hargensen (Alison Thornton), they mock the terrified teen while pelting her with tampons. Glimpses of this disturbing event reveal that Flanagan has excised the scene’s nudity while adding a seismic update. As Carrie sobs in the shower stall, Chris and her friends film the breakdown with their phones.
Other scenes note the presence of social media, bringing King’s fifty-year-old story into the digital age.
Flanagan’s adaptation promises to explore the destructive power of social media, an often invisible entity with a potential for harm rivaling Carrie’s own powers. While King’s tormented heroine suffers in front of a small group of girls, Flanagan’s version of the incident will likely become a viral video, potentially circling the globe on social media. Similar to Katt Shea’s criminally underrated The Rage: Carrie 2, which includes elements of revenge porn exploitation, Flanagan’s modern retelling will distinguish itself by exploring the nebulous cruelty of online bullying, a force ten times more powerful than the irl pranks King first envisioned.
A Completely Reimagined White Family
In addition to modernizing these canon events, Flanagan hints at updates to Carrie’s oppressive upbringing at the hands of her mother, Margaret White (Samantha Sloyan). Dead before the novel begins, we never meet Carrie’s domineering father Ralph, known to carry a bible alongside his gun. Flanagan’s White household will be an altogether different beast. In his version of the story, Carrie and her mother have been hidden away in the unassuming home, forced out of hiding by Ralph’s unexpected death. Perhaps we will finally meet this elusive man whose shadow hangs over his wife and child. Considering the White family’s fundamentalist lifestyle, this reimagining hints at tradwife culture and a home ruled by staunch patriarchal control.
Whereas King’s Carrie has been tormented by her classmates since Kindergarten, Flanagan’s Carrie will be a wide-eyed newcomer to public school, eager to make friends and engage with her peers. We glimpse Carrie cozying up to Chris and the equally popular Sue Snell (Siena Agudong) as she navigates a new social scene. Of course, we know this kindness is part of an elaborate plot designed to lull Carrie into a false sense of camaraderie, setting up an atrocious act of public humiliation. These brief moments of feigned compassion put Sue’s own complicity into question. Will Flanagan’s version of the character find the courage to defend Carrie from vicious bullies or will she succumb to peer pressure and join in the mob mentality?
Perhaps the biggest deviation from King’s original text is the relationship between Carrie and her mother. King’s Margaret White is a horrifically abusive religious zealot whose worldview has been hardened by internalized misogyny. She shames Carrie for menstruating, locks her in a closet to “pray,” and regrets not killing her child in infancy. She’s also responsible for Carrie’s social ostracization. Known to berate her neighbors for their “sins,” Margaret forces her daughter to live by an extreme code of conduct and disallows any potential friends lest they corrupt the girl with their worldly ways.
Flanagan’s version of the character is perhaps just as much a victim as Carrie herself. Also trapped inside her home, his Margaret is overly vigilant, her own trauma manifesting as strict control. Describing a more sympathetic depiction of the iconic villain, Flanagan explains, “Our Margaret White is a woman who fiercely loves her daughter and wants to protect her from this world … [She] doesn’t know how to do that and thinks the way to protect her is to close her off; not punitively, but to create this private utopia.”
Despite this potential softening, Sloyan’s Margaret may still have a sharp edge. Though she has appeared in many Flanagan projects, from Hush (2016) to The Fall of the House of Usher (2023), she is best known for her role as the abhorrent Bev Keane in the poignant saga Midnight Mass (2021). Perhaps inspired by King’s Margaret White, Bev is pious and sadistic, willing to punish anyone who does not adhere to her warped approximation of Catholicism.
Flanagan specifically wrote Margaret with Sloyan in mind, likely remembering the actress’s eerie ability to create deceptive empathy and shift our allegiances on a dime.
Expanding Stephen King’s Telekinetic Universe
While most of King’s story deals with an unthinkable prom night in Chamberlain, Maine, large sections of the semi-epistolary novel see experts debating the nature of telekinesis. Do Carrie’s frightening abilities represent a new phase in human evolution or is the prom night carnage merely a fluke? King settles the debate with a shocking denouement in which a young mother recounts her infant daughter’s ability to dangle her crib toys in midair. We’re left to wonder if she will become another tormented girl who surprises the world with metaphysical strength.
Flanagan plans to build out this brief scene while amplifying themes of female empowerment. After introducing our main cast of characters, episode two will open with an unrelated story in which we meet another girl with the TK gene. Each subsequent chapter will expand this world, building out a roster of telekinetic young women. Considering King’s fondness for stories about powerful kids, often described as possessing “the shining,” Constant Readers will no doubt have their eyes peeled for various Easter Eggs nodding to the author’s vast catalogue.
Giving Carrie Her Own Voice
Perhaps the most striking distinction in Flanagan’s new trailer is the extent to which we hear Carrie’s voice. The sneak peek is fully narrated by the titular prom queen as she demands accountability. “I want to know why,” she explains while detailing Chris’ elaborate plan. Aside from the aforementioned coda, King’s book essentially ends with the aftermath of the prom night tragedy, leaving little time for Carrie to reflect. His shifting narrative does bring the reader into her fragile mind, though not before she’s been cowed by relentless cruelty. We watch Carrie sink into bloodthirsty revenge, but never hear a considered desire for justice or repair.
Flanagan’s original monologue allows Carrie to voice her pain and mourn the life she could have had. We’re also treated to a mug shot-style photo of Chris with a bruised and bandaged face, implying that the mean girl will have to answer for her senseless sadism.
Flanagan is known for filling his series adaptations with heartwrenching speeches that cut to the heart of his thematic intentions, and this teaser seems to follow suit. After years of fans, critics, and scholars analyzing Carrie’s pain, perhaps his modern retelling will offer the titular anti-hero a chance to finally speak for herself.
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