A 2023 horror story: TCM's October schedule (an essay, no music)

So, what good is there to say about TCM's 2022 Halloween lineup?  Well, not a great deal.  And, judging from the comments on this page, I'm not alone in my disappointment.

Instead of writing a long rant (oops--I did, anyway), I'll try to cut to the heart of what's primarily wrong with TCM's Halloween program: The choices are either fine Halloween material whose impact has been blunted because the films are on regular rotation (Baby Jane, Spider Baby, House on Haunted Hill, The Haunting), straight science fiction that doesn't cut it in the horror department (Forbidden Planet, Them!, 2001, Westworld, etc.).  (Out of that list, 2001 is the biggest mystery.)  And... films simply too poor for any outlet, let only TCM, to waste valuable airspace on: (It, The Swarm, The Hypnotic Eye, It Lives Again, Two on a Guillotine, Eye of the Devil).

Oh, and in regard to sci-fi/horror, there is no shortage of fine choices: The First Man Into Space, The Quatermass Xperiment, The Manster (for its camp value), Terror From the Year 2000 (ditto), Invasion of the Body Snatchers (the original, please), Fiend Without a Face...

And there are the titles which are perfectly fine choices, but which I don't personally dig (and so it's just my problem): House of Dark Shadows (that pointlessly bloody big screen version of Dark Shadows which vastly altered the soap's Barnabas storyline), Don't Look Now (I prefer not to), Poltergeist (a movie which has barely anything to do with poltergeists), Exorcist II (Really??).

And there are iffy choices, such as Plan 9 From Outer Space.  Classic camp, and it has a tiny bit of Bela Lugosi footage, and it does involve a graveyard, but which really counts as prime sci-fi camp.  Hard to complain about any showing of this Z classic, but given TCM's vast and diverse library of films, it could have done way better in the so-bad-it's-good-or-just-delightfully-terrible department: The Brainiac, Assignment Terror, The Manster, any Al Adamson, Jerry Warren, or Larry Buchanan horror title (TCM must have that stuff on hand), or even Billy the Kid vs. Dracula.  Plan 9 is kind of a cliched choice in that regard.

And maybe that's the problem--TCM is hewing to cliche.  It's taking the safest path.  TCM has adopted the opposite of a daring strategy.  Result: A big missed opportunity.  I also wonder if the station/channel is trying to play to multiple age groups, which is a classic invitation to disaster.  I may be (and probably am) wrong, but suppose TCM, on one hand, is playing to horror fans of my generation--people who grew up watching Saturday afternoon and evening schlock horror hosts.  If so, then TCM has hardly served up a decent helping up Saturday-horror-host schlock (save for maybe Plan 9 and the Aztec Mummy title), but it has served up the kind of first-rate flicks beloved by that demographic, from the Boris Karloff Frankenstein (not a personal favorite, given how little it relates to the classic novel), The Invisible Man, Curse of the Demon (best horror movie of the 1950s, and for some unknown reason, not shown in TCM's master list!!), some fine Hammer flicks, and (if they didn't show it so often) the marvelous, "cult" Carnival of Souls.  Missing in action, for reasons I can't fathom, is the all-time classic horror anthology, Dead of Night (1945), without which I'm convinced The Twilight Zone would never have been.  As far as I know, Night did not originate the tradition of presenting horror in the context of the everyday (the chief secret of Twilight Zone and Outer Limits), but it's certainly the template for any and every horror gem of its type that followed.  (Remember that The Outer Limtis is classified, for good reason, as "gothic" sci-fi.)  No film has ever done a better job of presenting all-out horror within the confines of real life, and Curse/Night of the Demon wouldn't have happened without it.  By the way, I mentioned Carnival, that zero-budget masterpiece (all the more amazing for having been done on a shoestring), and it was only when I recently rewatched the mind-blowing final moments of Night that I notice how much Carnival's ending borrows from the earlier film.  This takes nothing away from Carnival--I mean, plenty of movies freely swipe from other works (think The Third Man and He Walked by Night, or The Terminator and The Outer Limits ep "Solider," written by Harlan Ellison).  Common practice in the big leagues, so no point in picking on a shot-for-nothing classic.

And... why no Mario Bava?  Seriously.  Not even Black Sabbath?  (Yes, the group copped its name from same.)  The Italian horror maestro Bava is revered by Martin Scorsese, among other famous directors, and his films are the favorites of my generation of spook film fans, so... what gives?

TCM's 2022 October schedule smacks of 1) playing it safe and 2) trying to please several audiences in a single swoop.  Which ultimately reads as indifference.  I mean, many thanks for the Val Lewton classics and some later Chris Lee Dracula flicks I hadn't seen (and which were surprisingly good), but I just have to ask TCM what it was thinking.  If 2022's October schedule was part of a strategy, and not simply lazy or poorly informed programming, I hope that TCM realizes the folly of its scheme and goes back to honoring Halloween come 2023.  Unless TCM simply can't take horror seriously, in which case, just go back to the usual ten Katherine Hepburn movies in a row.

So, that was the rant I promised not to write.  Now, if I can figure out how to make a YouTube playlist, I'll make one for my Halloween YT 78 rpm posts.  However, someone just noted that he'd tried to make a playlist but that YT is no longer allowing them (??).

Lee