TV
Elvira Makes Her Horror Host Return with Shudder’s “Elvira’s 40th Anniversary, Very Scary, Very Special Special” [Video]
Shudder proves it’s not messing around with their “61 Days of Halloween” lineup by bringing back the Halloween queen of camp, Elvira!
This year marks the 40th anniversary for the horror host, icon, and Mistress of the Dark, and AMC Networks’ premium streamer is celebrating with a one-night movie marathon event, Elvira’s 40th Anniversary, Very Scary, Very Special Special.
Watch a special tease for the event from Elvira herself, below.
The special debuts on Saturday, September 25 at 8 pm ET in the US and Canada via the Shudder TV feed within the Shudder app and will also be released on demand to all Shudder platforms (US, Canada, UK, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand) and AMC+ beginning September 27. Similar to the cult classic, late-night television series Elvira’s Movie Macabre, which debuted in 1981, Elvira will lend her own blend of witty commentary to a horror movie lineup that includes Elvira: Mistress of the Dark, House on Haunted Hill, The City of the Dead and Messiah of Evil.
“It’s always tough turning 40, but what better way to mark the occasion than a one-night stand with Shudder, the spookiest of streamers? It’s going to be the ultimate Hallow-anniversa-ween bash, and you don’t want to miss it,” Elvira said in a statement.
Shudder GM Craig Engler added, “Elvira is a legend who’s been lighting up our screens and delighting fans for 40 years, and we’re honored to celebrate the ‘Queen of Halloween’s’ fantastic career milestone with her new ‘very special’ special, the perfect treat for Shudder members this Halloween season.”
What can fans expect from this special Halloween bash? The lineup for the marathon includes:
Elvira, Mistress Of The Dark (1988)
Upon arriving in a small town where she has inherited a rundown mansion, a famous horror hostess battles an evil uncle, and townspeople who want her burned at the stake.
House On Haunted Hill (1959)
William Castle’s gimmick-laden horror thriller is a fairground funhouse come to life. Vincent Price stars as a suave eccentric millionaire married to a beautiful and greedy gold digger. Together they are hosting a party in a sinister haunted house. Five guests are invited to spend the night and each will get $10,000–but only if they survive until morning. The doors are locked at midnight. Will you make it out alive?
The City Of The Dead (1960)
In this atmospheric classic, a professor (horror icon Christopher Lee) sends a student to Whitewood, Massachusetts, the site of 17th-century witch burnings. Once there, she learns the satanic secrets that live on.
Messiah Of Evil (1973)
A young woman goes searching for her missing artist father. Her journey takes her to a strange Californian seaside town governed by a mysterious undead cult. William Huyck & Gloria Katz’s hypnotic, unsettling independent horror is a must-see gem.
Best known to horror fans for playing Rupert Giles in 121 episodes of “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” actor Anthony Head (aka Anthony Stewart Head) has passed away at 72 years old.
Daughters Emily and Daisy Head said in a statement to the BBC that their father “passed away peacefully of complications due to pneumonia, surrounded by his family.”
Their statement continues, “It has been, and forever will be, an honour and a privilege to be his daughters, and to have witnessed firsthand the impact both he and his work have had on so many. We know how dearly he will be missed by friends, colleagues, and fans of the shows he was in — he loved his job very much, and he always considered himself incredibly lucky, to have been able to work alongside such exceptionally talented people, in such wonderful productions, across a career that spanned several decades.”
Anthony Head more recently played Rupert Mannion in 18 episodes of “Ted Lasso,” with the English actor’s film and television credits dating back to 1978. On the horror front, Anthony Head starred in Darren Bousman’s Repo! The Genetic Opera, as well as 2011’s Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance, Let the Wrong One In, “Warehouse 13,” and “The Canterville Ghost.”
Also of note here in the world of horror, Anthony Head once played Dr. Frank-N-Furter in a London stage production of The Rocky Horror Picture Show back in the 1990s.
Outside the horror world, Anthony Head’s film and television credits well exceed 100 different productions and include “Highlander,” “NYPD Blue,” “Silent Witness,” “Doctor Who,” And Starring Pancho Villa as Himself, “Little Britain,” The Magic Door, “Sensitive Skin,” Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, “Free Agents,” The Iron Lady, Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters, “You, Me & Them,” “Dominion,” A Street Cat Named Bob, and Batman: Gotham by Gaslight.
“Buffy” actor James Marsters writes on Instagram, “There’s a hole in the World. Anthony Head has passed on from us. He was an unflaggingly kind and steady presence on the set of Buffy, and the best actor in the cast. He was the best of us. I was lucky to have known, and learned from him. He left the world a better place for his presence. Thank you Tony for all you gave.”
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