Welcome to Primetime

When you think of the Halloween Season, what sorta imagery comes to mind? Falling leaves, cartoon ghosts, black and orange accents? What about the other sensations? Stale candy corn, a witch's cackle, squishy pumpkin guts? Depending on your ASL, not all of this stuff is always readily available to bring you cheer, and unless you're going to Target every day there isn't a lotta manmade atmosphere to rely on outside of your own personal space. But I'll bet there's one place we've all been to and continue to revisit to give us the creeps we crave: The Television. 

I couldn't possibly list all the nuances and hallmarks of home media that help define our holiday(s), but when I'm pressed to think back, most of my most cherished memories of Halloween are connected to the TV - especially scary movies. I honestly have trouble remembering too many new release Horror Films I've seen in an actual movie theater during the month of October -- certainly none of the "classics". Nearly all of the Greatest Hits of my mind involve sitting in front of the tube: John Carpenter's Halloween theme, David Naughton's werewolf transformation, Fathers Karras and Merrin's "Power of Christ" chant, all trace back to my first "edited for time and content" cable viewings on some October Saturday afternoon. 

But I'm not just talking about the terrifying moments we casually walked into during scheduled blocks of creature features. The videos we rented, the DVDs we bought, the movies we voluntarily streamed or downloaded, they've all filtered their way through the small screen and into our lives. Every Elm Street, Friday the 13th, Hellraiser, and Chainsaw Massacre premiered on a television for me, making it the most valuable tool we have to celebrate the season.  

I'd say it's more than that. I'm certainly not the first person to analogize the TV to the campfire, nor am I just impassively celebrating the invention that shows shows. When it comes to Halloween, the TV is the Christmas Tree. It's the fireworks. For all intents and purposes, it's the modern day jack o'lantern -- there are actually tons of videos and channels out there right now that feature a Yule log-type carved pumpkin. Something like that would never be my first choice, but for those of us who no longer subscribe to cable, there's certainly a comfort in letting your TV take the wheel for a while. 

To my understanding, there are still a handful of cable channels that attempt to keep up the morale -- Freeform's "31 Nights of Halloween" and AMC's "Fear Fest" are still going strong. When I was growing up, it seemed like every channel got into the spirit; stations like MTV and Nickelodeon would frame all of their programming with some spooky theme, PBS would unearth some old gothic costume dramas and foreign fairytales dubbed into English, and all the local channels would air all the scary movies they had lying around - it wouldn't be uncommon for Charles in Charge to segue right into The Fog at 2pm. 

Even during the primetime hours of TV the vibe used to carry over; a lotta sitcoms would use the holiday as a plot device, and there was always the chance a network would roll out a full-fledged Halloween Special - beyond Charlie Brown and Garfield, there were countless 30-90 minute narratives that commemorated the moment like a shooting star. With some luck, the premium channels like HBO and Cinemax would break away from their automated programming and play some seasonally appropriate film - sex and gore and all. 

Nowadays you can pull up any streaming service and for the entirety of October their "Horror/Sci Fi/Thriller" selection will be front & center with trending titles that everyone is exhaustedly familiar with. I'm not about to go off on one of my curmudgeon tangents about about the impotency of streaming (though if you're in a combative mood you can read my gripes here) - frankly with some further calibrations and innovations the technology could easily achieve the TV utopia for which I pine. 

Several years ago we brought our son to the Halloween Parade in the center of town. It's basically just an excuse for kids to galavant about the downtown area in their costumes in broad daylight several days before the actual Halloween holiday. The idea is that shop owners and firefighters and bank employees can stand in front of their establishments and hand out candy - in theory it's all heartwarmingly quaint, but in practice is was simultaneously disorganized and dull. But I digress. The point is that this event is walking distance from our home, and we somehow took that convenience as a cue to not bother turning off the television (something I wouldn't otherwise do). Apparently, before I'd left, I was watching Shudder's "live" stream, because when we got back we walked right into the middle of Witchboard from 1986. The equal parts surprise and familiarity of the random Horror Movie playing on my TV during an afternoon in October created a soothing environment that made me feel like a kid again. 

Today we have a lot more control over our choices (as well as a lot more screens in our homes from which to choose), but the point is that while some fun sized Almond Joys and an apple scented candle can put us in the mood without leaving our couch, it's our haunted TV sets that continue to provide the audio/visual kaleidoscope of the mad and macabre that will always put me in the spirit most. 

- Paul