Sundays, 8 p.m. / 10 Movies
Mario Cantone is not a name one usually associates with horror movies. But the actor, best known for his comic role in the Sex and the City franchise, is a major horror fan who enjoys not just the thrills and chills but also the (often unintentional) humor and campiness of the genre. Join him and TCM host Ben Mankiewicz all month for a lighthearted look at some of the best fright-fests of recent years.
The series begins with a pair of “Creature Features,” including Alfred Hitchcock’s nature-gone-wild hit The Birds (1963), in which a surprise visit by reckless playgirl Tippi Hedren to the small town of Bodega Bay, California, sets in motion deadly attacks against humans by their feathered “friends.” The classic has been imitated and referenced so often, you may feel you’ve already seen it, but don’t pass up this chance to catch the original. The same evening features another vicious villain, but of the flora variety, with the decidedly funnier Little Shop of Horrors (1986), the screen version of the hit Broadway musical, itself an adaptation of the Roger Corman comedy of 1960. Rick Moranis plays the nerdy florist forced to kill to feed his ever-growing carnivorous plant, and Ellen Greene recreates her stage role as his love interest.
Hitchcock comes up again in the closing Sunday of the series, “Slashers,” on Halloween with the mother of all hack-em-to-pieces flicks, Psycho (1960), a film that has been talked about, studied and subjected to sequels and remakes over and over in the decades since its release. The shower scene alone is enough of a cinematic landmark to have earned its own documentary, 78/52 (2017), the title referring to the number of camera set-ups and number of shots in the famous sequence. TCM pairs Hitchcock’s classic with a film by Brian De Palma, known for either homages or rip-offs, depending on your point of view, of the master of suspense. More of a reference to Antonioni’s Blow-Up (1966) than to any single Hitchcock movie, Blow Out (1981) is considered one of De Palma’s best and a high point in the career of John Travolta as a film audio technician who stumbles upon a murder while searching for the perfect horror movie scream.
“Creepy Kids” step in front of the lens with two films about murderous youngsters. In The Bad Seed (1956), adapted from a long-running Broadway play about an adopted child with homicidal tendencies. Nancy Kelly, Eileen Heckart and Patty McCormack received Academy Award nominations for recreating their stage roles, as did the cinematography by Harold Rosson (The Wizard of Oz, 1939; The Asphalt Jungle, 1950). Legendary schlockmeister Larry Cohen became independently wealthy with the phenomenal success of It’s Alive (1974), about a couple who give birth to a monstrous mutant baby who brutally slaughters several people. The movie features one of the last scores composed by master of musical suspense and frequent Hitchcock collaborator Bernard Herrmann.
Entire families are subject to terror in an evening devoted to “Family Hauntings.” Directed by Tobe Hooper of Texas Chainsaw Massacre fame, Poltergeist (1982) also bears the stamp of producer and co-writer Steven Spielberg. The story of an average family plagued by malevolent spirits in their suburban home was the highest-grossing horror film of the year and the eighth highest overall. Another family ends up in the wrong house in Burnt Offerings (1976), where they are overtaken by mysterious occurrences and strange, threatening changes in their own behavior, culminating in a moment no doubt inspired by Psycho. Oliver Reed and Karen Black (neither exactly the picture of All-American parents) play the couple, and screen great Bette Davis is the aunt.
Davis gets her own night in “Bette and Joan Horror,” also featuring her rival Joan Crawford. It seems a shame to reduce the long, illustrious careers of these two important Hollywood stars to the label “scream queens,” but that’s just what they became in their later years after the release of their runaway hit teaming in What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962). The story of two sisters, former screen stars of the 1930s, miserably bound together in old age by dark secrets and demented deeds, the film earned Davis her 11th and final Best Actress Oscar® nomination and sparked stories of a legendary feud between the two. It also revived their flagging careers, albeit in a subgenre pejoratively dubbed “hagsploitation.” A second attempt to trade on their contentious teaming failed when Crawford was replaced by Olivia de Havilland as Davis’ co-star in the horror movie Hush…Hush, Sweet Charlotte (1964). Instead, Crawford went on to star as a murderess recently released from an institution in William Castle’s Strait-Jacket (1964). Among other camp elements, the picture boasts the unforgettable spectacle of two identical Crawfords fighting with an axe on a bed.
