Thursday, October 29, 2020

Thursday Movie Picks: TV Edition- Horror

 

The last Halloween blog post and this is, of course, on tv shows that deal with horror. I can’t stand The Walking Dead, Fear the Walking Dead, Fear the fear of the Walking Dead etc.... I see that in my local mall or in the White House...talk about Horror. Anyhoo, Wandering Through The Shelves always chooses great themes and I do love all of them even when I struggle. I would love to re-watch all 3 that I have chosen and will do this one day...perhaps I will buy the DVDs which would be fun to own. Here are my 3.


1.  ALFRED HITCHCOCK PRESENTS-1955-1965

Who doesn’t love Hitchcock who is the Master of Suspense but could venture into the macabre. The original shows are the best to watch. Many great stars of the time and the future appear in this anthology series. One of my favourite episodes stars the great little brat, Billy Mumy( from Lost In Space) as a kid who finds his dad’s gun and goes around the town ready to shoot  people. It keeps you on the edge of your seat.

2. ONE STEP BEYO D -1959-1961

This is a great series that is overshadowed by the equally great Twilight Zone, but this is supposedly based on true events with many episodes featuring spirits that come back to haunt someone or save their loved one. There are some great ESP episodes about premonitions where one is about drowning only to  board the Titanic. In another episode many foreshadowed Lincoln's death even Lincoln himself (who had a dream about his death and that is fact. He told many that he dreamt he saw himself in a coffin in the White House). John Newland was the host and directed all the episodes which really helped this great series. The scariest episode, for me is about a man who stays in a home that is supposed to be haunted. Let’s just say he becomes a believer afterwards.

3.  KOLCHAK:THE KNIGHTSTALKER-1974-1975

I was 10 years old when I watched this and it scared the pants off of me. In fact, I still have not seen the one episode where there is some kind of monster in the sewers. It was too scary for me. Darren McGavin, known as the dad from A Christmas Story, plays Kolchak, a reporter who investigates the strange goings on in the city. His boss, played by the wonderful Simon Oakland , always suffers from this reporter who is funny and fearful of many things but still must find the truth. I must see these episodes again. 

So which 3 would you choose?

46 comments:

  1. Oh, those are three great choices, even including the mention of Twilight Zone. The only other show that comes to mind is The Outer Limits.
    Last night I watched a documentary on The Freedom Riders of 1961 in the southern states of America. Talk about a horror show. Southerners talked like it was 1861, not 1961.

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    1. Yes, the Outer Limits is a good one but one I did not see. That documentary sounds excellent and one I would like to see. Sadly, I think many still think it is 1861 even today.

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  2. Hi, Birgit!

    I have a special request, dear friend. Please make horror the theme of your posts each and every week of the year. Thank you! :)

    I watched all three of these TV series in their original run. For my 8th birthday I received an anthology book of short stories by Alfred Hitchcock. Already a fan of horror and the supernatural at that young age, I naturally gravitated to Hitch's anthology TV series. Notice Norman Lloyd in that show opener? A little more than a week from today, on Nov. 8, amazing Norman turns 106 years of age! I remember that Billy Mumy episode.

    I also watched Alcoa Presents: One Step Beyond. To me the best parts of every episode were the scholarly musings of host John Newland. I remember those eps you mentioned about The Titanic and Abe Lincoln.

    I loved Darren McGavin as the pushy, persistent reporter in Kolchak: The Night Stalker. That original 1972 movie, The Night Stalker, was the highest rated made-for-TV movie of its day and resulted in a follow-up movie in 1973 entitled The Night Strangler. I saw both films and watched every episode of the TV series that followed. The variety of super creepy monsters fascinated me, and sexy costar Carol Lynley was always a favorite of mine. Carol died a year ago at age 77.

    To your list I would add Boris Karloff's series Thriller (1960-62) and another series I watched regularly in 1961 entitled Way Out hosted by writer Roald Dahl.

    Happy H-ween, dear friend BB! (Come see me sometime.)

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    1. Happy All Saint’s Day! I miss Halloween because I did nothing last night when I had planned to make it really spooky but I knew, in the spring, that Halloween was not going to be.im glad you,like my choices and I wish I could get the DVD collections for them.

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  3. I know I say I'm a BIG tv fan, but I've never heard of the first two. However, I've actually seen Kolchak a couple of times on late night reruns. I thought it was very, very well done. And I always love your synopses.

    Happy Halloween, Birgit.

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    1. I’m glad you saw Kolchak at least. I’m so glad you enjoy what I write.

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  4. Kolchak! Good choice.
    I'll go with HBO's Tales from the Crypt.

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    1. I have never seen a full episode of Tales because I hated that ghoul. One day I staye with it and the episode I watched was good.

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  5. My mom was into Alfred Hitchcock Presents while I was much more into The Twilight Zone. Don't think I've heard of your other picks.

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  6. LOVE Alfred Hitchcock Presents! So many good episodes but I think my favorite is the Barbara Bel Geddes one called Lamb to the Slaughter which has a great twist at the end.

    I loved Kolchak too, Darren McGavin was such perfect casting and the stories were well put together. Too bad it didn't last long but it was before its time.

    One Step Beyond was okay but never a favorite. Like all those anthologies at the time it had a great guest cast list.

    I misread the theme and thought it was TV holiday horror which made it much more difficult but I now have a theme within the theme. Frankly though only my first pick is worth seeing.

    Home for the Holidays (1972)-Wealthy autocratic Benjamin Morgan (Walter Brennan), frail and seriously ill, insists his four daughters-Alex (Eleanor Parker), Freddie (Jessica Walter), Jo (Jill Haworth) and Chris (Sally Field) (he had wanted boys)-come home for Christmas to his enormous but isolated mansion. Estranged over their shared belief that Benjamin drove their mother to suicide they reluctantly return to be informed by their father that he suspects his second wife, Elizabeth (Julie Harris) is now trying to kill him. Shortly afterwards the girls learn that their stepmother was accused of killing her first husband and they begin to fall prey to a killer dressed in a yellow rain slicker!

    What would normally be a rather standard, though well directed, scare flick is elevated by the fact that the cast is ridiculously overqualified for this sort of endeavor-Sally Field (2 Oscars), Walter Brennan (3 Oscars), Julie Harris (5 Tonys and 2 Oscar nominations), Eleanor Parker (3 Oscar nominations) and TV stalwart Jessica Walter (a handful of Emmy nominations and a win)!

    A Vacation in Hell (1979)-When their excursion boat sinks four women including Marcia Brady (Maureen McCormick) and Agent 99 (Barbara Feldon) and a man (Michael Brandon) who have been holidaying at an exotic vacation resort must fight for survival after they become lost in a remote jungle while being stalked by a murderous native tribe. Terrible Movie of the Week incredibly was directed by the same guy who helmed Roots!

    The Midnight Hour (1985)-In the New England town of Pitchfork Cove a group of rather stupid teens (though the actors playing them are at minimum in their mid to late 20’s) pinch some costumes and artifacts from the local museum on Halloween and chant in the graveyard calling forth all manner of ghosts, zombies and other ghouls who they spend the rest of the movie running away from like the idiots they are.

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    1. I. Glad you like 2 of my picks. I hold One Step Beyond higher than you do because I love the fact that it is supposed be based on true events. I actually love your theme within a theme. I haven’t seen any of these choices but would love the see your first pick. Wow, I guess Maureen did this show while Eve Plumb was a teenage stripper or Runaway. Ahh the last movie sounds so typical of crappy teen horror. Remember, the heroine runs down the middle of the road, in high heels crying and then falling. The killer is always slow and has some limp with a snail being able to outrun him but, nope...it doesn’t happen.

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  7. Hi BB - it's great you let us see these reviews ... as well as the added bonuses from your avid readers ... stay safe - Hilary

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    1. Thanks and I hope you will continue to enjoy this.

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  8. I think you sold me on Kolchak. I've never seen any of these.

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    1. I hope you see it one day. I think it was ahead of its time. Nowadays it would be on HBO or Netflix sadly.

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  9. Hitchcock is hilarious on that show. We used to watch it all the time, until we saw the episode "The Jar," that scared the crap out of my brother.

    Darren McGavin was in one of my favorite shows, "Riverboat," that also starred Burt Reynolds (for the first few shows) and Noah Beery (in the second and final season). He plays a character who wins a riverboat in a poker game and goes into business transporting people and goods down the Mississippi and I think the Ohio Rivers. Nothing scary about it, of course, but just thought I'd mention it.

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    1. I have to look up The Jar but I probably have seen that episode. I never saw Riverboat but heard about it and knew Burt Reynolds was in it.

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  10. I remember Kolchak basically because it starred McGavin who I loved.

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  11. Alfred Hitchcock is so good, he's always scared me. But what a classic, worthy of your number one spot.
    Cheers, Birgit.

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    1. He is great and loved to intimidate but some knew how to handle him. He made a comedy with Carole Lombard. She heard he compared actors to cattle so the next day when he came to the set, there were only cows there.

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  12. Never saw Kolchak but watched the other two including the reruns in syndication. Another was Outer Limits which I used to enjoy. And of course Twilight Zone.

    Arlee Bird
    Tossing It Out

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    1. I didn’t see The Outer Limits which I know was a big one around the same time as the great Twilight Zone and One Step Beyond.

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  13. I've heard of all of them. Sometime in the '90s I saw some Kolchak reruns, but it was one of those things that I only caught a couple and was curious for more. I'll have to see if that's streaming. They did a Hitchcock remake at some point, and I saw those. Not the original, though.

    I actually have three I'd pick. Evil. It was on CBS last season, has been renewed (whenever we get new shows), and is on Netflix now. It's about a priest in training who is investigating instances of evil with a team of skeptics. Worth it.

    Then I think I'd pick Legacies. Also still on. It's a spin-off of The Originals which is a spin-off of The Vampire Diaries. At its center is a witch-werewolf-vampire. She's the hero.

    Okay, it looks like I only have two. I'm sure a third will occur to me later.

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    1. I never watched Evil because it just sounded so bleak but maybe I will. I have heard of the other one too but it never appealed to me.

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  14. I enjoy your picks, Birgit, even when I haven't seen them. You write such good synopses. I remember some episodes of Hitch's series, which kind of surprises me, because I was only six years old when it went off the air. I'm amazed that my mother let me watch that show. I also liked Kolchak. It was scary, though. Your second pick is the only one I haven't seen so I'll choose a replacement: Duel (1971). It stars Dennis Weaver, and it was Spielberg's first professional job as a director. I don't know if it qualifies as horror, but it does to me because it terrified me. Dennis Weaver plays a salesman who has to drive through a remote area. For some reason he ticks off a truck driver, who then taunts him with frightening attacks on the road. We never see the face of the truck driver. It was a feature-length film, but I think it was a TV movie. I certainly remember watching it on TV because it was so tense and scary. Thanks for visiting me at my blog so often, Birgit.

    Love,
    Janie

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    1. Duel is an excellent movie directed by the young Steven Spielberg. This is a very tense film that was quite scary and still is. I’m so glad you like my synopsis.

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  15. Just like last week, I haven't seen these, except some Alfred Hitchcock films, more his suspense ones. Hope you have a great Halloween Birgit! Hugs-Erika

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    1. Hitchcock used his tv crew to film Psycho because he was not given the usual budget so he went on a shoestring to make this film.

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  16. Beyond--That is really eerie about Lincoln isn't it?
    Take special care and have a pain free weekend.

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    1. Pain is slightly better which is great. That was an eerie episode and the true story is freaky.

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  17. Never even heard of #2. Kolchak was a good one, watched it years ago though. Vaguely recall it.

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    1. One Step Beyond I s one that is overlooked now but I really like it even though I don’t think it’s as good as The Twilight Zone.

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  18. Hitchcock... that might be a fun one to explore with our daughter.

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  19. Kolchak: The Night Stalker and The Twilight Zone are the first two that came to my mind. And then, also, Night Gallery.

    And that pretty much exhausts my knowledge of TV Horror.

    ~ D-FensDogG
    (aka STMcC)

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  20. I haven't seen any of your picks but I'm interested in seeing Alfred Hitchcock Presents.

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  21. Hitchcock is one of those Hollywood characters who speaks with purpose and we listen... we're supposed too I figure. Hes got the gun and it sounded real enough.

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  22. I watched a lot of Twilight Zone- but these all look great to me. Love the spooky/creepy feel! :)
    ~Jess

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  23. I used to enjoy the Movie of the Week. Now I am hooked on Spanish series binge watching on Netflix. Am watching six seasons of Cable Girls now. Watched all the Velvet seasons and loved them, too.

    Thank you for visiting my blog. The Grand Canyon is so amazing. You would love it!

    Thank you for all the work you do creating your excellent blog!

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  24. Hitchcock definitely was the master of suspense.
    Hope today is a good day for you and that you are pain free.

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  25. Hitchcock is a legend indeed! The 3 horror picks for me would be - the Haunting of the Hill House, Case 69 and Bhool Bhulaiya. At a point of time, horror was my favourite genre, not so anymore.

    Lovely blog you've got out here, good to have come across it!

    Have a good week ahead!

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  26. I've never seen any of them, though I have heard of the first. I hope Netflix puts the Hitchcock series in their library some day along with more of his movies.

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