Monday, October 12, 2009

AMC Announces FEARFEST '09 Schedule!


It's finally up!
AMC TV has finally posted their Fear Fest (or is it "FearFest" with no space?) lineup for 2009.  Lots of usual suspects but some interesting twists on old favorites.
 
I've been a fan of Fear Fest on AMC since it was called Monster Fest back in the day.  Look at me.  Old Man AllHallowSteve.  Get off my lawn.
ANYWAY, I can remember filling up tape after tape (that's VHS my friends) of whatever year had all the Universal monster movies and Halloween franchise films complete with mad-scientist-lab bumpers.
Those were good times.

Then they changed it to "Fear Fest" and the monster films gave way to scary films... I guess hence the name.  Read that last sentence and picture Tom Bodett saying it.  It'll be much more charming.  

First of all a lot of classic horror films are hitting the big 3-0 as in 30th Anniversary this year.  Which ones?
How about a little xenophobic tale called Alien.  30!
How about a little haunted house movie called The Amityville Horror.  30!
How about one of the first horror movie parodies called Young Frankenstein.  Thirty-FIVE!  Ha.  Tricked ya.
Side note: I can't believe those movies are 30 and over.  I'm getting old...

The site HERE gives a quick summary as follows:
- 4 Alien movies.
- 3 Halloween movies.
- 2 House on Haunted Hill movies.
- 1 Digitally Restored Night of the Living Dead

So let's break it down and see what we're really getting this year.


Halloween movies:   The first (EXCELLENT), the 4th and the 5th. 
Though I'm not really a fan of 4, I acknowledge it's significance by it being "The Return of Michael Myers."  It's also got Dr. Loomis and some pretty good cinematography.  The mask looks crappy though.  I know... I'm a Myers mask snob.
5, though... oof... that's when things started going downhill in my opinion.

House on Haunted Hill movies:
I sorta like the remake of House on Haunted Hill... 'til the digital black stuff shows up. 
Return to House on Haunted Hill is pretty forgetful.  Seriously, I've seen it twice (once in last year's Fear Fest) and can't remember a thing about it. 


Alien movies:
As I mentioned it's the 30th Anniversary of Alien.  That's exciting.  I haven't seen that movie in awhile and look forward to revisiting it.
Aliens reinvented the wheel and is also a classic.  "They mostly come at night... mostly."  Great stuff.
It would be great if they ran the Director's cut of Aliens with the Vulcan gun scenes, etc.  Guess I'll just pop in my DVD...
Alien 3 is something I saw in theater and didn't like it.  It's grown on me a bit over the years, perhaps due to the fact that I have a creative crush on David Fincher. 
Alien Ressurection... also saw it in the theater but this one didn't grow on me.  Especially that basketball scene... seems silly.  It's been a long time, though, so maybe I'll check it out again.



I'm not exactly sure what the Digitally Restored Night of the Living Dead is.  I hope that just means it's been cleaned up and not the 30th Anniversary edition of the film that I've heard about with newly shot scenes inserted in 1968 original. 

Classics:
The Shining
The Fly
The Amityville Horror




The Rest:
Return of the Living Dead - One of my all time favorites and I return to it every year regardless of whether or not it's on cable.


The Frighteners - Peter Jackson, Michael J. Fox, Jeffrey Combs, Dee Wallace, John Astin and a giant Grim Reaper!  I always think I love this movie, then I watch it again and I'm always left wanting... I don't know... more.  It's missing something.  A fun thing to have on while you do something else. 


Films I haven't seen and therefore may check out:

Jack the Ripper
The Brain Eaters
Exorcist The Beginning (I really want to do a double feature of both versions of this movie.  Just to see how different the two Directors made it...).
Raising Cain - I remember the cover of the video box back in the day, but never saw this.  I like the Lithgow, though.
The Innocents
Frankenstein Meets the Space Monster
Blood of Dracula
The She Creature
And Now the Screaming Starts - Never seen this.  Why does the screaming start?  And why so formally?  Hopefully my questions will be answered.



I'm most excited about The Beast Must Die.
I can't believe this is on the schedule, albeit at 4am. 
This movie is a "so bad it's good" film that I recommend you check out with a bunch of friends for a fun viewing. 
Don't read anything on it if you haven't seen it.  
Just get ready for your "werewolf break."
Set your TiVos...



No matter what my opinions are of the lineup I'm always excited to have constant scary movies playing when I turn the TV on in late October.  Sure I've got a lot of these films at home on disc, and sure some of them could be deemed "crap filler" but like hearing your favorite song on the radio, there's just something about the serendipity of stumbling on a movie playing that makes it that much more endearing.  And for the films that are garbage, it allows me to check out those films for free, freeing up my Netflix queue and/or my wallet.

I find it interesting that they're only running the original John Carpenter's Halloween on the 27th at 6pm and on the 31st at noon.
I approve of their choice of running Night of the Living Dead from 6pm 'til midnight on Halloween eve.  I think it's a good "show closer" and it'll allow people to come and go as they please on Halloween and tag back in later.   


Full schedule is below or go the Fear Fest page HERE.


Go set your DVRs, or make time to plunk down in front of the set the last week of October. 
I'll see you there.


Friday the 23rd


Saturday 24th


Sunday the 25th
Monday the 26th
Tuesday the 27th
 Wednesday the 28th


Thursday the 29th
Friday the 30th

Saturday the 31st


Carved by AllHallowSteve at 11:42 AM
Labels: , , , , ,

1 comment:

Jay Clarke said...

Big fan of Halloween 4, likely because it was the first one I saw in the theatre.

Props for giving HouseOHH some love, that movie gets shit on unjustly I think. Luckily, I saw the ReturnTHOHH on Blu-ray which has the Choose Your Own Adventure feature. It gives it a much higher level of appeal.

I love The Frighteners. It's such a great transition between Jackson's low-budget horror to big-budget fantasy.

Ugh... Raising Cain. Have fun with that one :o

October 26, 2009 at 1:02 PM

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)
Related Posts with Thumbnails