HALLOWEEN HORROR MOVIES

MIDNIGHT  HOUR

It's Halloween night, and the local teenagers have unwittingly unleashed an ancient curse that will turn their quiet New England town upside down! A group of uninvited guests -- ghosts, ghouls, vampires and angry zombies -- leave the graveyard to join in the Halloween celebration! Now, the spirited teens have only a few hours until midnight to reverse the curse, and save the town from ghastly visitors. The result is a hilarious blend of humor and horror.

The Midnight Hour is an enjoyable cross between Night of the Living Dead and An American Werewolf (Video Movie Guide), a treat filled with tricks and entertainment for the whole family!

The Midnight Hour aired on ABC on November 1, 1985










HOCUS POCUS

Hocus Pocus started life as a script for a special original movie for the Disney Channel, to be produced by one of the smaller studios owned by The Walt Disney Company. The script, however, caught the eye of Walt Disney Studios, who decided that the film was strong enough to carry well-known names and to attract a cinema audience. The idea to cast Bette Midler was partly inspired by Midler's Golden Globe-nominated performance in a milestone motion picture for The Walt Disney Company on its Touchstone Pictures line, Down and Out in Beverly Hills. Midler, who plays the central antagonist of the film, is quoted as saying that "Hocus Pocus was the most fun I'd had in my career up to that point^{[citation needed]}."

The film is set in Salem, Massachusetts, but most of it was filmed on sound stages in Los Angeles studios. However, most exteriors were filmed in Salem andMarblehead, Massachusetts during two weeks of filming with principal cast.

IDLE HANDS

Teenage burnouts and post-modern slasher films are both raked over the satiric coals in the blood-soaked comedy Idle Hands. Anton (Devon Sawa) is a cheerful but exceedingly non-ambitious 17-year-old stoner who lives to stay buzzed, watch TV, and moon over Molly (Jessica Alba), the beautiful girl who lives next door. However, it turns out that the old cliché about idle hands being the devil's playground has a kernel of truth after all; there's a demonic beast living in his house that has alreadydecapitated Anton's mom and dad (though it takes him a while to notice), and now the Dark Lord Himself has taken possession of Anton's right hand. Before he's entirely aware of what's happening, Anton's demon hand has killed his two best friends, Mick (Seth Green) and Pnub (Elden Henson), though both come back as zombies to keep Anton company.

 Can Randy (Jack Noseworthy), local metalhead and expert on all things Satanic, figure out what the Evil One has planned next for Anton's digits? Will traveling demon slayer Debi (Vivica A. Fox) vanquish the possessed in time? And most important, will Anton get to go to the big dance with Molly before his hand starts causing trouble again? Director Rodman Flender certainly knows the genres he parodies here; he cut his teeth in horror working for exploitation legend Roger Corman and directed the film Bloody Mutilators as well as episodes of the TV series Tales From The Crypt, while more recently he immersed himself in teenage culture directing episodes of the TV series Party of Five and Dawson's Creek. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi


HALLOWEEN

It was "The Night HE Came Home," warned the posters for John Carpenter's career-making horror smash. In Haddonfield, IL, on Halloween night 1963, six-year-old Michael Myers inexplicably slaughters his teenage sister

 His psychiatrist Dr. Loomis (Donald Pleasence) can't penetrate Michael's psyche after years of institutionalization, but he knows that, when Myers escapes before Halloween in 1978

 there is going to be hell to pay in Haddonfield. While Loomis heads to Haddonfield to alert police, Myers spots bookish teenager Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) and follows her, constantly appearing and vanishing as Laurie and her looser friends Lynda (P.J. Soles) and Annie (Nancy Loomis)

 make their Halloween plans. By nightfall, the responsible Laurie is doing her own and Annie's babysitting jobs, while Annie and Lynda frolic in the parent-free house across the street. But Annie and Lynda are not answering the phone, and suspicious Laurie heads across the street to the darkened house to see what is going on.... ~ Lucia Bozzola, Rovi