Countdown to Halloween: Shock Show Update Fall 2017

As ever, I am on a constant search for more horror host thrills on television and cable. I am not going to get into a debate by my use of "horror host" here; "shock show," my favorite term to use (which you will see in the title to this piece), serves the same purpose. But even that probably doesn't apply to those examples where horror or science-fictional thrills aren't the focus. Perhaps I should just broaden the definition to "movie host shows," though that hasn't nearly the ring that "shock show" or "horror host" do.

Chiefly, the definition must include any example of the genre of TV matinee shows where an old movie is shown that features introductions by a host or hosts – most often playing characters outside of themselves – who do something a bit beyond just talking about the movie. This could include comedic monologues, skits, interviews (in character) with directors or actors, original films, etc. Not just "Here's the movie... see you when it's done!"

THOSE "NOT QUITE HORROR HOST" SHOWS

And yet, there are shows I watch regularly which fall just outside the above definition for me, even if not being quite the correct focus. TCM has a still fairly new, regular show on Sunday mornings called Noir Alley that I have not missed since it started months ago. You could say that it is just another normal TCM feature show – like The Essentials, or, just any evening airing of a film on TCM where it has a host introducing and closing the film. But the host of Noir Alley, Eddie Muller, seems as no-nonsense and tough as any detective in a noir film, and you get the sense that he would love to live that life, even if he is standing on a set on the TCM backlot. It helps that he really is an expert on his preferred genre, and writes his own novels and plays in the form. He is 100% real in his passion for his subject and is just being himself, but he still feels like a character put on for the cameras.

On the opposite end is TCM Underground, which is a horror host show without a horror host. Every Saturday night, TCM airs a primary film under this title that is usually within that range known as "psychotronic" – generally cult films, most often science fiction or horror, but can really be any genre as long as the primary component is that they are weird or out of the norm somehow. A second film, often closely related to the first, is shown next. The series started ages ago with Rob Zombie as the host, which seemed like a perfect pick but he was gone after a year. The show has remained host-less ever since and seems unlikely to ever get one, though I have long campaigned for the return of Joe Bob Briggs or someone similar to give late Saturday evenings a little more zip. Even without a host though, I still save many TCM Underground offerings on my DVR, if only for the novelty of seeing the gorier or dirtier examples on the normally squeaky clean TCM. (Seriously, it's kind of a thrill with me, the modern equivalent of sneaking a peak at nudity-laden cable TV when your parents are asleep.)

EMBRACING WHAT I HAVE ALREADY...

With Elvira no longer doing her duties regularly, Mystery Science Theater 3000 is clearly the prime example of this type of show in the modern era. Even if the movies are not always horror or science fiction-oriented, the horror host model popularized in the '50s and '60s by the likes of Vampira, Zacherley, and scores of mostly local yucksters dressed up in monster trappings was clearly an influence when MST3K hit the Minnesota airwaves in the late '80s. In terms of scope and comedic chops, MST3K has a clear leg up on its predecessors – especially now that the new series has started to attract familiar celebrity names to both its roster and guest list – but at its core, it was basically a bunch of goofy guys making jokes about "Z" grade films. Which is all you really need. (And no, Andrea, I have not forgotten the fine fellows at Rifftrax; I figured that show gets packaged in with the other MST3K spin-offs. All groovy with me...)

With Noir Alley, TCM Underground and the revived MST3K (which I helped revive in my own small way), you might think, "Oh, that's not enough for you?" No, I want real horror host thrills and terrible jokes -- ON THE AIR. I want the fun of turning on a basic cable or even public access channel and finding an ultra-low budget show with a guy in weird makeup trying to make me laugh while showing me a terrible print of an awful film. That's like the horror movie version of a peep show. It will rot your brain. And you will love it.

Thankfully, these days, I have dear ol' Svengoolie to hang out with on Saturday nights on MeTV. Rich Koz has played Sven (originally the Son of Svengoolie) since 1979, after the original Svengoolie, Jerry G. Bishop, gave Koz permission to continue the character. (Koz used to write and perform on the original show, Screaming Yellow Theater, which ran from 1970-1973.) After a break when Son of... ended in 1986, Svengoolie has been a Chicago institution since its return as 1994, and went national in 2011 when he was picked up by MeTV. 

I had seen clips of Sven online, of course – because I tend to seek such things out – but once he hit MeTV, I added him to my regular rotation. Naturally, the moldy puns that Koz employs by the dozens are right in my wheelhouse, as are most of his sound clips from radio shows and cartoons, and I am more than jealous of Koz as I watch because it appears he seems to love his job. It isn't all pretty – some of the original songs can be atrocious, especially when Koz has to sing just out of his range – but it is all rather endearing nonetheless. Pure monster antics... which might be the reason my cat seems to really like it when I play the show, too.

...BUT WHERE ELSE TO GO?

The internet seems to be a prime place to find a lot of local horror hosts in one place, such as on The Monster Channel website. I find having to catch specific hosts a little difficult with the website's schedule, which gives you the weekend's 3-day schedule but during the week you are on your own. Also, while I don't mind streaming video on sites like Netflix or Hulu, where you can stop, start, pause, and rewind as you please, streaming on The Monster Channel means starting the player and picking up whatever show wherever it might be in its airing. I tend to only put on The Monster Channel so I can play it in the background while I am writing. As a result, I don't pay as close attention to most shows or hosts as I should.

Cinematic Insomnia (one of the very best of the lot) on OSI 74's channel on Vimeo (sadly, I don't have Roku where I could watch the regular channel). Ms. Monster and Her Monster Melons on YouTube. (Is she doing shows anymore?) The occasional old Zacherley episode. You can find these and others online, but I still prefer watching such shows on television. I maintain there just has to be a place for these shows somewhere on a thousand-channel cable schedule, though maybe not in the places (such as Syfy) where one might think they would be a natural fit. I never give up looking though, and I will probably spend the rest of my days slowly flipping from channel to channel hoping in vain that that 3:00 a.m. showing of The Black Castle is accompanied by some strange horror host of whom I have never heard before.

LAMIA IS THE NAME-IA

Cut to last Friday morning, as I scanned the cable listings on my television and found a midnight showing of Man in the Attic, a 1953 remake of the story that Hitchcock filmed in his silent days as The Lodger. Man in the Attic features Jack Palance in the role of the suspected killer, and he is pretty damn good in it. I own the film on DVD already, so I didn't need to record it on my DVR, but I thought that perhaps I should check it out since it was airing on a channel called Retro TV. That's right... I was holding out hope there was horror host goodness to be had... and there was!

I have run across Lamia - aka actress Kristina Michelle – before on YouTube, but not on her regular horror host show, Horror Hotel Film Festival. She's pretty but not exactly my type, but I suppose she has a zillion guys stalking her constantly, dressed as she is in a revealing vampire costume, with just the right amount of cleavage and bare leg showing. Lamia, whom I assume is named after the Greek mythological figure (known for turning into a child-devouring demon), doesn't really go for the jokey, Elvira-style of entertaining that her obvious forbearer Elvira does. There is the occasional pun or interstitial in which she tries a little too hard to be sexy. Mostly, it seems Lamia likes to open her shows by telling us everything about the movie she can read off IMDb, and then reappears throughout the show to ask us how we are enjoying the show. Some pieces seem baked in, so that they can be reused from show to show; in fact, I saw the same clip at least twice during Man in the Attic, and twice more in the next evening's showing of Dementia 13. But each movie also had brief bits that corresponded directly to the movie at hand, and so it wasn't just a matter of her filming an opening and closing for each film only.

How this girl can speak that long with those fangs in her mouth is beyond me. I did not say "speak completely clearly" because it is quite noticeable she has to work hard to enunciate many of the words. Still, I admire her drive. I think that the long portion at the beginning where she reels off cast members and trivia would be better served being broken up into smaller bits throughout the show. (Svengoolie does this type of thing best, I feel.) I kept going, "Start the movie already!" during both films. I also wished that the print they used in the show was of a less shabby quality than the eyesore that I saw. But even if the opening drags a bit, Ms. Michelle seems to love playing Lamia, and I am not going to begrudge anyone from dressing as a sexy vampiress if that is their desire.

AND... BUT... ALSO... SOMETHING OFF BEAT...

After discovering that the seductive Lamia lurked within the copy of Man in the Attic on Saturday morning, I checked the listings for Retro TV for the rest of the weekend to see if they were showing other horror-oriented fare. That evening, they were airing House on Haunted Hill, the 1958 "B" classic starring Vincent Price and directed by gimmick-master William Castle. Never one to turn down some free Castle, I recorded it and the next morning, I cracked into it to discover yet another "movie host" show – not necessarily full "horror host" given the basic premise – Off Beat Cinema (from out of Buffalo, NY it seems).

Off Beat Cinema seems to specialize more in weird, cult cinema in general, though that will probably mean more horror and science fiction given what I have seen from the first two shows I've seen. The hosts are a trio of slang-spouting beatnik types named The Mysterious Zelda, Bird the Painter, and Theodore – Cinematic Theologian. (Well, I can get behind that last stance.) I don't really want to get into ragging on the hosts of these shows, because in many cases they are mostly doing these things on the fly and on the cheap, but... cue cards are not a bad idea. I thought there might be more of a cool vibe that existed between the hosts of such a show, but the feeling was more, for lack of a better term, "improv awkward". (You can append that phrase with the adjective of your choice...)

Still, I didn't entirely dislike my experience with the first show, even with the truly terrible (most likely public domain) print of House on Haunted Hill. (I had to skip from host segment to host segment because the film hurt my eyes too much.) In the second show the next evening, in which they aired Ed Wood's Bride of the Monster (which I watched today), the host segments were filmed live at a local comic convention, and had a little more pep to them. The dialogue is too close to modern speech and not strong enough on the beatnik vibe, though it is clear they are trying. (I do like the finger-snapping when they go into the movie or to commercial... reminds me of the beatniks from Happy Days.) It still might take me a while to warm up to Off Beat Cinema, but I am willing to give it a go. I would rather have the option to watch it than not. Keep kickin', cats...

FINALLY, A HARVEY THAT I CAN ACTUALLY LIKE**...

Then came Sunday evening, when I recorded the movie White Zombie, the 1932 Bela Lugosi classic. Once again, I didn't need to record it, but I had struck gold twice already on Retro TV. I was, of course, recording Bride of the Monster later in the evening (which would turn out to be the second Off Beat Cinema offering), but unlike the other shows, White Zombie was airing in prime time hours, so I didn't know what to expect. When I started the recording Monday afternoon, that is when I met Halloween Harvey for the first time.

Local horror hosts are fine, even when they mumble or forget their lines or trip over their tongues. But I admire true professionalism, even in a cheap horror host show. That is where Halloween Harvey comes in... With some clear thought put into tying the different segments together – it is the only one of the three main shows discussed here that tried to tell a story, however silly and trivial, between the chunks of movie – Harvey's Festival of Fear shows a confidence and zip that the other shows sorely lacked. Whether Harvey's almost screeching style of delivering hyper dialogue – he sounds quite like Curly from the Three Stooges – works for you is beside the point. It hit a sweet spot for me. As much as I was enjoying White Zombie again, I also couldn't wait to see the next bit with Harvey, if only to see if he could keep the rhythm going (which they almost did).

And so now, I have three new horror host shows, all producing episodes currently, that I can find easily in one spot each weekend on Retro TV. I noticed from their online schedule that the channel has another regular movie spot, Mondays through Fridays, for something called Retro Drive-In. I haven't checked to see if it is hosted yet, but judging from the movies promoted on their Facebook page the last couple of days – the Buster Keaton sound film (only OK), Speak Easily, and The Godson, the remake of Le Samourai – I am also not sure if the true drive-in aesthetic is being celebrated consistently or not.

Time will have to tell... like tomorrow night, Daddy-O...

RTJ


** You can ask me about the "Finally, a Harvey that I can actually like" title, but you won't get very far. Just accept that there is a Harvey in my past that I can't fucking stand. And Harvey, if you are reading this, rest assured it is you. I have only met one Harvey in my life (and, no, it was not Weinstein...)

This Week in Rixflix #13: June 2-8, 2017

Boy, did my movie count dip the week of June 2-8, and if I had not watched a slew of films those first four days (13 of the 18 films overall), it probably would have been even less. The reason? The buildup to the James Comey testimony, then the actual sessions, and the discussion in the aftermath ate up so much of my spare time on the weekdays that it was really hard to think about anything else.

This year has been so dominated by news about He-Who-Must-Be-Orange that it is no wonder that I have smothered my senses so intensely in movie after movie after movie. It's not the real reason that I watch so many films, but an outsider, knowing at the least of my political leanings, could only surmise that the continued presence of President Rage Toddler has me in such a deep depression that I can only find solace by immersing myself in film history. Well, he does not. He annoys the hell out of me every time I even think about his voice or face, but he has no effect on my film viewing habits. Except when there is the possibility of hearings that will hopefully lead to exposing his criminal ways once and for all on legal grounds – not just on social media, though he does a fine job of that himself – that will – hopefully – eventually get him and his graceless family expelled from the White House.

No, I just naturally watch film after film – I have done this for most of my life, and will continue to do so because for me it is simply a part of breathing. I wake up, I put on a movie, I watch a big chunk of it, maybe I will stop it to write for a while, grab some breakfast, watch another 40 minutes of the film, or maybe I finish watching it instead and then write... it really depends on where the day takes me. Not having regular work has made it even easier to immerse myself in these activities, but even when I did have a solid gig, I still managed to average 2-3 films a day. As I said, it's how I breathe...

[Note: the above was written today during the news of the Washington shooting at the baseball field. There is a lot of talk about how deeply divided we are today, and I have always agreed that bipartisanship is the only way to get things done for this country. However, the White House is going to use this opportunity to try to distract us and pave over the investigations going on currently involving Drumpf and his toadies. However much I want peace and harmony in this country and especially the world, I also want the Angry Orange permanently away from any shiny, candy-colored buttons in the War Room. This must be achieved lawfully and correctly, and without any violence, as the use of violence in our democratic process degrades us all.]

The Numbers:

This week's feature-length film count: 18; 12 first-time viewings and 6 repeats.
Highest rated feature-length film: The Bride of Frankenstein (1935) – 9/9
Lowest rated feature film: Shark Babes (2015) – 2/9
Average films per day in June so far: 2.37
Average films per day in 2017 so far: 3.0063
Consecutive days with at least 1 feature-length film seen: 177

The Reviews:

The New Land [aka Nybyggarna] (1972) Dir.: Jan Troell – A couple of years ago, I watched the first of two films by Jan Troell about Swedish immigrants in the United States trying desperately to survive as they traveled through a strange new world in the mid-19th century. That film was called The Emigrants, and it was a remarkably vivid portrayal of people who could lived hardscrabble lives that were likely quite similar to those of my own Swedish ancestors at the same time. That the location of the land where the main characters set up their farm in Minnesota is less than an hour by car today from the county where my father grew up just across the border and north a bit in Wisconsin drives the point home even harder. The follow-up film, The New Land, based like The Emigrants, on the same series of novels by Vilhelm Morberg, is like its predecessor in that it is intricately and lovingly detailed with period touches and also glacially paced. (Both films are well over three hours in running time, so the easily bored should endeavor to avoid this pair.) But slow going does not mean the films weren't completely spellbinding to me, if not a little off-putting at times in how the immigrants react to their new surroundings and its inhabitants. This film in particular has the main characters, played by Bergman regulars Max von Sydow and Liv Ullmann, learning to deal with the native Sioux in the area. The use of indigenous peoples in The New Land is certainly far different than most American portrayals on film, and it will prove most effective when the story contains elements of the Sioux Uprising of 1862, which leads to some of the more jarringly graphic imagery in the film. I am not sure that I would wish to take this journey on film again, though if I did, I would prefer to watch both films back to back. And maybe with some of my older relatives to dig into their memories of our ancestors' corresponding experiences. Fascinating films overall.  – TC4P Rating: 8/9

Yentl (1983) Dir.: Barbara Streisand – There has not been a moment since 1983 where I haven't been prone to suddenly singing in mock fashion the words "Papa can you hear me?" And yet, I have never actually seen Yentl, the film musical directed, produced and starring Barbara Streisand from which the song that carries that line is derived. I had tried to watch it on VHS and cable back in the day but always pulled out of it, and in recent years had recorded it on DVR a handful of times but never quite watched it. Now, I tell you this because your first thought is going to be "Well, yeah, you're a guy (and presumably straight)... why would you want to watch a Barbara Streisand film, especially where she sings?" Well, I grew up with Streisand played in our house, and one memorable evening, I watched a network TV showing of What's Up Doc?, her 1972 Peter Bogdanovich romantic comedy with Ryan O'Neal. The film became a favorite, I came to understand that she was a terrific comedienne and actress, and accepted her from that moment onward. Sure, her music is not my thing normally, but she has that incredible voice, which is featured prominently in Yentl, though I found the music to really be secondary to the story in the film. It's big and brash and lovingly filmed (the heart is quite apparent in the storytelling), but wondered if maybe the musical portion of it wasn't really necessary. Of course, if you take the music out of it, then there is really no reason for a then-40-year-old Streisand to be in the film playing a teenage girl posing as a boy, but if you take her out of it, then the movie doesn't get financed. (The production history is quite convoluted, and really, the more you know about it, the less it looks like a Streisand vanity project in casting herself.) The film is at a tad overlong, and my patience for it actually ran out late in the film, but still I stuck around. It's a pretty film, has some lovely moments, Mandy Patinkin really is a force of nature, and Streisand does just fine despite the whole age thing. And I have checked off another Oscar nominee.  – TC4P Rating: 7/9

Joyride (1977) Dir.: Joseph Ruben – I sometimes wonder if people who actually live in New York and L.A. get upset these days when so many productions are filmed in Vancouver, even when the shows and films sometimes take place in N.Y.C. and L.A. Do they gripe about the minutiae as much as people in other places? Ah, studio filming... Me, I grew up in Alaska, and have had to deal most of my life with things being not quite right in the details when productions filmed elsewhere are supposed to take place in Anchorage, Fairbanks, Nome, Barrow, or some other (often fictional) Alaskan town. While trying to track down a different film from 1977 a couple of weeks back, a search on YouTube gave me a list of other productions from that year, some of which I had never heard before. One of those titles was named Joyride. Seeing that the film had Robert Carradine, Desi Arnaz Jr., and a young Melanie Griffith in it, a quick look at IMDb revealed that the film is supposed to be about three teenagers taking a literal joyride on the lam as they head up to Alaska. Count me in, if only to see if they actually get anywhere near my home state. Nope... I should have just assumed it was so. Joyride was instead shot in Washington, much like Northern Exposure and many other things with supposedly Alaskan locales. I was expecting typical teen prank antics and low grade sleaze, but the film was far grittier than I expected, with some surprisingly dark turns hidden inside. The watch, however, was lessened by the low quality version that I had found. Still, there was enough that I found of interest that I came away knowing I would like to track down a decent copy in the future. So, did anything in the film seem like the actual Alaska at any point? Only fleetingly, but I figured it was probably accidental, though I am not going to hold it against the film. You do what you can with what you've got...  – TC4P Rating: 6/9

The Spy Who Loved Me (1977) Dir.: Lewis Gilbert and For Your Eyes Only (1981) Dir.: John Glen – Roger Moore died recently, and while he has never quite been my favorite Bond (I was too influenced by the Connery films early on), Moore had been a constant presence in my life beyond Bond. I grew up watching Moore on two different series: Maverick, where he filled in for a season as Beau, the smooth English cousin of the Maverick brothers after James Garner left the series in 1960, and as The Saint, Simon Templar, on repeats of his 1962-1969 British series. By the time I was twelve, Moore was already established as the new James Bond, having appeared in Live and Let Die and The Man with the Golden Gun by that point. As I did with the Bond films with Sean Connery, I grew up seeing the films on the occasional Sunday night on ABC, where they were all regularly shown in the '70s. But it wasn't until 1977's The Spy Who Loved Me that I saw a Bond film in the theatre. With my parents' going through their divorce and me at the age where I was incessantly annoying about everything, but going to see movies was becoming most special of all to me (once more, we did not have a movie theatre in our small Alaskan town and had to drive to "big city" Anchorage to see them), my mom left my still too young little brothers with my dad and took me to see Bond on our own. It was showing in a double feature with Won Ton Ton, the Dog Who Saved Hollywood (more on that at another time), and we sat in the front row with a Ziploc bag of popcorn that we popped and buttered at home, Doritos that my mom sneaked inside of her bag, and a can of spray cheese in a can to load up the Doritos. It was magnificent!

Moore's death a few weeks ago coincided with the 40th anniversary celebration of the release of The Spy Who Loved Me, which served as arguably the high water mark for his series of seven Bond films at the time (I prefer Golden Gun overall now). I knew it was the anniversary, but hadn't really considered that I might have the chance to see it again on the big screen. Surprise! While we were at the AMC Dine-In Theatres getting ready to watch Wonder Woman on the day it opened, there was a special event advertisement for a double feature showing of Spy and For Your Eyes Only, but the first date (May 31) had past, but the second was in two days (June 4). I didn't really think about it that moment, but by that evening, I had determined that I was going to get to that double feature rain or shine. It meant going by myself since Jen worked, but nothing would stop me. That Sunday, I found myself in Orange, settling in for an afternoon double at the AMC at the Block, and had a terrific experience with the dozen or so other people in the theatre. 

A big thing for me was that these were two of the five Bond films that feature sharks in them (and Spy also has Richard Kiel as the metal-mouthed assassin "Jaws," who quite literally bites a shark to death in the film), but halfway through Spy, while Moore and the gorgeous Barbara Bach are wandering around the Egyptian pyramids, the projector totally stopped, and my fellow patrons and I found ourselves cloaked in darkness for almost 15 minutes. Part of the time, we discussed the film lightly – everyone was greatly enjoying seeing these films on a big screen again – but of course, a couple of us, myself included, ran out to talk to the management, and finally got someone to check on the problem. After the second film was over, the manager was standing by the side as we were exiting and handed each of us a free entry pass for another film, telling us that they didn't know what happened except that the projection system just completely shut down. I will take a free movie ticket any day, and since we saw the whole of the film regardless, no harm, no foul. I got two Bonds, I got Jaws, and most especially, I got tiger sharks. I also saw Alien: Covenant again right before the Bond flicks. That's a full, grand day at the movies for me. – "Spy" TC4P Rating: 7/9; "Eyes" TC4P Rating: 6/9

The Bride of Frankenstein (1935) Dir.: James Whale – No review here, just some quick editorializing and plugging. My love for the Universal Monsters films goes back ages to my very youth, when I saw most of the original films in my early teen years (with a few exceptions, like the later Mummy films featuring Kharis). I have also owned many of the films on VHS, all of them on DVD, and jumped a good portion of them up to Blu-ray a few years ago. That they are a constant presence in my life is to never be doubted. So, why is it that I still watch them on television every time that they cross my path? I don't mean just on Turner Classic Movies, where a handful of Frankensteins may show up from time to time, and not necessarily just in October when they usually hold special events for horror films. I refer to when something like The Bride of Frankenstein – arguably the most accomplished, giddiest and purest example of the Universal monster film – pops up on MeTV on the Svengoolie show on Saturday nights. 

Well, the answer is that I rarely skip out on watching ol' Sven even if I have seen all of the films he shows dozens of times outside the show. It is no surprise that I have a great fondness for horror host shows (especially if at least mildly professionally executed) and while I did not grow up with Svengoolie as a regular showcase like many others in different parts of the country did, I certainly wish to take advantage of him now, especially since Elvira's latest series only played for a short period and we have to wait a bit for the next MST3K season. (Yes, it has mostly sci-fi trappings, but I still count it in the same vein; they do show a lot of movies with monsters in them.) Me, I don't mind the commercials (if you DVR it, even better, but I like to watch it live) and the 12-yea-old in me still enjoys the intentionally lame jokes and interruptions. I am just happy knowing that someone is still putting Dracula, Godzilla, Frankenstein, and the rest of the gang on TV so that newer generations can discover and enjoy these films for themselves like I did as a kid. And when Rich Koz stops doing the show (he is now 65), hopefully someone else will come along to take up the cause. The monsters must live on!   – TC4P Rating: 9/9

Hidden Underground (in Plain Sight)

I have owned a copy of The Hidden, Jack Sholder's sci-fi action classic (yes, I said it), since it first came out on VHS not long after its theatrical release in 1987. Watched that tape dozens of times, leading to a need to replace it eventually, and then I did an upgrade to the film when it came out on DVD years ago.

As much as I have seen The Hidden though, and even though I still own a copy, I feel that when a channel like Turner Classic Movies decides to show such a film on their TCM Underground slot late on Saturday nights, that I should do my part to support their decision to air it. So, even though I own The Hidden, I recorded it last night (they paired it with director Mike Hodges' 1974 take on Michael Crichton's novel, The Terminal Man) and watched it this afternoon, to give its showing whatever minute smidgen of ratings percentage that I can to tell TCM that I love it when they show films like this.

It's for the same reason that I watch the Universal classics on Svengoolie’s show as frequently as possible, even if he does chop the films up with commercial breaks. It's why I have followed Elvira through her various show incarnations over the last 35 years. Or the same reason I threw in my small support for MST3K's eventual return this year. And every once in a while, I will even scout the public access channels and find locals who have produced their own variations on horror host shows. Most are terrible What can I say? I have a lifelong fondness for sci-fi, horror, and exploitation films, and I especially love when airtime is committed to showcasing them on television (and now online).

Sadly, TCM Underground has not been hosted for quite some time. Rob Zombie was the original host, but that apparently went over like a lead balloon, and so TCM just shows a couple of genre films back to back with a neat lead-in sequence. The natural fit for TCM Underground would be somebody like Joe Bob Briggs, though I doubt they have any plans to bring a host back to the show. But, as long as TCM takes a small break every weekend from its normal fare (believe me, I watch an awful lot of that as well) and shows films like The Hidden, I will be there. Even if I do own the film already...

RTJ