I wrote this for Hero Collector in 2019, unsurprisingly for Halloween:
HALLOWEEN ON
SCREEN
When Buffy, Star Trek and more do Halloween
(Originally
written for Hero Collector, published 31 October 2019
Tonight’s
the night that ghosts and ghouls come out to play, and TV shows
embrace the occasion. David Black shines a light on things that go
bump in the night and the world of genre.
The Grave (1961)
Originally filmed as
part of the second season of Rod Serling’s anthology series, The
Grave was deemed a better fit for the Halloween period and was held
over until the third. It’s a tale of regret and retribution. Hired
gunman, Conny Miller rides into town to learn that his quarry, the
outlaw Pinto Sykes, has been killed and buried in the spectacularly
creepy cemetery nearby. Miller is disappointed and had hoped to kill
Sykes himself.
The talk in the town’s saloon is that Sykes
said if Miller “ever come anyways close to his grave, he'll reach
up and grab you”, and this quickly turns into a wager. Miller must
visit Sykes’ grave and stab it with a bowie knife borrowed from the
barman as proof. Miller stabs the grave and promptly falls out of
shot. Was he dragged under? Did he flee? We’ll never know. Serling
himself says “You take this with a grain of salt or a shovelful of
earth, as shadow or as substance. We leave it up to you. And, for any
further research, check under ‘g’ for ‘ghosts’, in The
Twilight Zone.”
Catspaw (1967)
The crew of the USS
Enterprise discover fog, a haunted castle with dungeons, a trio of
witches and a black cat all on a planet where they have no business
being. The crew encounter a pair of aliens from another galaxy with
seemingly limitless power to control matter and manipulate
thought.
They attempted to tap into the crew’s conscious
mind to learn more about them, but they missed and drew their imagery
form the subconscious instead. They weren’t trying to frighten the
Kirk and his crew, they genuinely believed that ghosts and witches
were the norm in their civilisation.
This episode was the
first filmed for Star Trek’s second season, but it was delayed so
that it could be broadcast at Halloween. Kirk even says, “If we
weren't missing two officers and a third one dead, I'd say someone
was playing an elaborate trick or treat on us”, as a nod to the
audience at home. Spock is unfamiliar with the concept of trick or
treat, causing the captain to add “You'd be a natural.”
The Boogieman (1990)
Sam Beckett leaps into
the body of writer, Joshua Rey, on October 31, 1964. As he, his
fiancée and a young Stephen King organise a ‘Spook House’ to
celebrate Halloween. In quick succession three people die, Al is of
no help to Sam and a goat that only Sam can see keeps appearing and
disappearing. It’s revealed that Al is not himself and Dean
Stockwell’s performance is truly terrifying.
Quantum Leap
fans are a superstitious lot. Many of them believe this episode is
cursed. There were many reports of VCRs failing to record this
episode and signal failures at local TV stations and cable companies
during broadcast. They claim it has caused power failures, car
breakdowns and job losses. It appears to be Quantum Leap’s Macbeth.
It’s not uncommon to see this episode referred to as 'The Halloween
Episode', 'Episode 3.5' or 'The Boogiem*n', rather than by its proper
title. Sometimes there are so many asterisks in 'The B**giem*n' that
it’s almost unintelligible. You have been warned.
The banter of the first few minutes gives way to a much darker story. On the face of it this is the story of a family living with a ghost that they’ve nicknamed Pipes. There’s a possibility that one of the daughters is faking it all, but the sheer wealth of evidence makes that obvious possibility seems less likely than the supernatural alternative. Along the way we learn of a baby farm, cats eating the body of a suicide victim and a playpark strewn with canine foetuses.
Nothing is ever definitive in Ghostwatch. You are never certain whether you’ve actually seen Pipes on screen. So much is achieved with so little actually happening on screen. It’s a triumph of the power of suggestion. The four celebrity presenters playing themselves really sell the reality of the film. Michael Parkinson says at one point, “we don’t want to give anyone sleepless nights”, but that’s exactly what did happen as swathes of the United Kingdom were convinced that Ghostwatch was the genuine article. Children, who probably should have been in bed, were diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, people called the number on screen in their droves and the BBC complaints department were kept very busy.
Ghostwatch is nothing short of a masterpiece.
Ghost In The Machine (1993)
It’s strange that for
all the supernatural-themed episodes that The X-Files gave us, the
only one that takes place at Halloween is the techno-thriller Ghost
In The Machine and as such the ghost in question is technological
rather than paranormal. The end results, however are much the
same.
While the offices of the FBI are brimming with Halloween
candy, a computer that regulates systems within a corporate building
achieves sentiency and turns to murder. The artificial intelligence
kills two people and makes attempts on the lives of Mulder and
Scully. Ultimately, a computer virus programmed by the machine’s
creator proves to be its undoing.
Knights Of Shadows (1993)
The deep submergence
vehicle discovers the sunken wreck of the R.M.S. King George on the
sea floor. The ship has been missing for 105 years, yet the lights
are still on and there are improbably huge air pockets. Braving
nitrogen narcosis, the seaQuest crew board the ship. They encounter
bleeding doors with flaming handles, more skeletons than the ship’s
manifest can account for and one of the crew becomes possessed.
The
supernatural elements are not nearly as interesting as the more
mundane ones. One of the 21st-century sailors takes comfort in naval
superstitions. As soon as the ghost ship is sighted, he is spitting
on the deck for good luck and pouring salt on the threshold to ward
off evil spirits. All in all Knights of Shadows seems like quite a
daft ghost story, but the question it poses is: is any of it real, or
is it all some sort of bends-related shared hallucination?
Halloween (1997)
Contrary to what you
might expect, Halloween is apparently the one night of the year that
vampires avoid. The Scooby Gang make plans to enjoy themselves on
what Buffy defines as “come as you aren’t night.” However, this
being Sunnydale the streets still aren’t safe. A costumier
moonlighting as a warlock casts a spell that makes everyone become
whatever it is that they are dressed up as. He calls it “the very
embodiment of be careful what you wish for.”
The spell turns
Buffy, Xander and Willow into a helpless fainting 18th-century lady,
a marine and an insubstantial ghost respectively. They are out trick
or treating with a group of children, some of whom change into little
monsters. Willow is the only one who retains her memory and she
spends the night trying to keep her friends both together and
alive.
Defying convention, Big Bad Spike is stalking the
streets looking for a neutered Buffy and an easy kill. Just as he is
about to end her, Giles breaks the spell and everyone reverts to
normal, including the slayer who kicks Spike’s arse.
The Curse of Frank Black (1997)
Frank Black tries to enjoy
Halloween. He goes trick or treating door to door with his daughter
but tastefully shot black-and-white flashbacks to his past keep
interrupting him. The first flashback sees a trick or treating Black
as a child confidently informing a World War II veteran named Crocell
that ghosts don’t exist. Another flashback, from a few years later
has Crocell committing suicide and Black’s gift for seeing things
from the killer’s perspective is born.
He is subconsciously
and repeatedly led to the Bible verse: “why should it be thought
incredible by you that God raises the dead?” He encounters the
ghost of Crocell, presumably shaking his youthful assertions on the
subject, who attempts to persuade Black to give up on the Millennium
Group.
Broadcast on Halloween night itself, the episode
features many of the more benign features of Halloween, but all are
twisted into something more sinister. It begins with the most graphic
pumpkin carving ever filmed. When Black discovers teenagers telling
ghost stories about him in the basement of his old house, he sneaks
up on them in the dark and his sudden appearance scares the bejeesus
out of them. He then throws eggs at his own home in a move that makes
him seem unhinged. The episode takes a minimalist approach to its
scares. There is barely any music and far less dialogue than usual.
Lance Henriksen’s performance is much scarier than any of the
ghosts or demons on offer here. Halloween is sometimes scarier for
those that aren’t observing it.
Fear Itself (1999)
“Creatures of the
night shy away from Halloween, they find it all much too crass” says
Giles and he’s wrong again. Take one mystical symbol and add a few
drops of werewolf blood and suddenly a college frat party has
accidentally summoned a fear demon.
Buffy and her friends
attend the party in costume. Buffy as Little Red Riding Hood, Xander
as James Bond and Willow as Joan of Arc, but the real contenders for
the best costume prizes go to Oz for his God namebadge sticker, Anya
for her bunny outfit and Giles in a massive sombrero.
This
time, however, everything but the costumes change. The plastic
skeletons, rubber bats and the peeled grapes posing as eyeballs are
all replaced by the genuine article. The partygoer’s fears
themselves become real: Buffy ends up alone with only monsters for
company, as a result of feeling ignored Xander’s friends are unable
to see or hear him, Willow worries that her spells will be too much
for her to handle and Oz fears losing control of the werewolf within
and hurting his girlfriend.
Ultimately, the demon is
despatched very easily and this causes the immediate effects to
subside. What’s really scary about 'Fear Itself' is that while the
episode seems fairly trivial, the fears displayed by the characters
here will have ramifications for them for the rest of the series.
The Honking (2000)
The Planet Express Crew
attend the funeral of Bender’s uncle and the reading of his will.
They are forced to spend a night in the family’s castle. This being
Futurama there are robot ghosts that try to lure Bender to his death.
They fail, but Bender is run over by a were-car and becomes a
were-car when a virus was transferred through its “demonic
headlights”. Bender is doomed to transform into a murderous
automobile at midnight and will reportedly eventually kill his best
friend. Fry is offended when Bender attempts to run Leela over
instead and then flattered when he finds himself sat inside Bender
being choked by the seatbelt.
The only way to free him is to
kill the original were-car, which will “beam out the virus's
uninstall program, thus ridding you of the curse.” The crew
discover that the original were-car is an evil car named Project
Satan, built from components of cars owned by Adolf Hitler, Charles
Manson, Ed Begley Jr and Michael Knight. Project Satan is
accidentally destroyed and so Bender returns to normal, whilst Fry
was in the passenger seat. Somehow, he is unharmed.
As is
becoming commonplace on this list, The Honking was produced for
Futurama’s second season, but instead opened season three during
Halloween week. The concept is obviously bonkers and each development
in the plot sees it get stranger and stranger, but the oddest thing
about it is that within the context of the episode and the world that
Futurama presents us with, all of the events contained here seem
fairly plausible.
All The Way (2001)
This year the Scooby
Gang takes Halloween far less seriously. This time only Xander, Giles
and Anya dress up (as a pirate, a wizard and one of Charlie’s
Angels respectively). Willow goes on a big rant about wiccan
stereotypes, until a tiny child dressed as a witch asks for something
and she immediately about faces to “let's go fill your tummy up
with sugary nibblets.” Halloween is really only presented as
commercial opportunity and Giles’ Magic Shop is heaving with
shoppers keen to prove it.
All The Way sets up an obvious
candidate for a villain in Mr Kaltenrach, the weird toy designer with
a fondness for big sharp knives, before wrongfooting us and making
him the victim. This is a coming-of-age story for Buffy’s sister
Dawn. She kisses her first boy and she slays her first vampire on the
same night. Unluckily for her they are both one and the same person.
Buffy can’t decide whether she’s more disappointed that Dawn was
kissing a vampire or that was kissing someone she’s just met.
Ghosts (2002)
“Ghosts. You may know them as ghouls or demons or spirits or spirims or spictrims.”
So begins Look Around You’s module on Ghosts broadcast on October 31, 2002. It’s a relief to see the scientific establishment finally taking ghosts seriously. Where else would we see an experiment conducted under strict laboratory conditions that would conclusively prove that a summoned ghost could drink a glass of orange squash? Elsewhere in the module we learn that ghosts can’t whistle and that ectoplasm takes like pig’s milk. We also visit the Haunted Laboratory and learn that ghosts make terrible lab assistants. All in less than ten minutes.
And remember “in the end you too will
die and become a ghost. It may be in 50 years, it may be tomorrow. It
may even be today.” Write that down.
Life of the Party (2003)
The Buffyverse
continues its biannual Halloween tradition. Angel Investigations has
taken over the running of evil extra-dimensional law firm Wolfram &
Hart. Morale among the evil employees is at a very low ebb. To combat
this, Lorne throws a Halloween party.
In order to be more
efficient at work Lorne has his sleep removed, without it his
empathic powers start influencing the behaviour of others. He tells
Angel and Eve to get a room and they have sex repeatedly. When Lorne
tells Fred and Wesley they should be drunker, suddenly they are
without having imbibed any more alcohol. After he tells Spike to be
more upbeat, he is. He tells Gunn to stake out his territory and he
finds himself peeing on everything in the office.
It also
manifests itself as a massive lumbering monstrous parody of Lorne
which kills a number of partygoers and goes after Angel. Fred returns
Lorne’s sleep to him and the monster dissipates just as it is about
to kill Angel.
This time the only costume is a demon called
Devlin dressing as a “human bean” with an argyle sweater and a
mask made of human skin stretched over his own face. Halloween is a
different experience for adults.
Halloween Special (2010)
“The problem with Halloween these days is that
people treat it like Christmas,” Nurse Kenchington complains as she
pushes drawing pins into muffins ready for any unsuspecting trick or
treaters that might visit. Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith
constructed Psychoville’s ‘Halloween’ like a portmanteau film.
It’s made up of several vignettes inked by a framing story
concerning a TV researcher exploring Ravenhill Hospital as a possible
location for Dale Winton's Overnight Ghost Hunt. His guide is a young
man still traumatised by his own childhood memories of the
institution.
The two swap scary tales featuring familiar
characters from Psychoville’s first season: the haunting of Mr
Jelly by a pair of trick or treaters, a practice which he does not
condone: “all this trick or treat, penny for the guy, Cancer
Research. I don’t do any of it. Go and beg somewhere else.” In
another, Joy Aston struggles to clean up after her Halloween
decoration and the cracks in her marriage are revealed by her
inability to comprehend her husband’s elaborate recycling regime.
The third sees the blind Mr Lomax get a new pair of eyes, but he sees
their former owner’s murder and finds himself involved in a web of
intrigue. In the final story, two people who know too much about
serial killers than is probably healthy find themselves in a car with
a monster who acts like one.
These sequences are told with a
hefty dose of unreliable narration, this permits the stories to be
turned up-to-eleven. They can flagrantly ignore established
continuity and be equally disregarded by subsequent episodes. It also
means they can prove fatal for the series’ protagonists. The core
of Psychoville’s Halloween is that it is a night with no
consequences.
Dead Line (2018)
Sticking with Pemberton and Shearsmith, Inside No 9 gives us a live Halloween special, but “by the way, it can’t actually be on Halloween night!” It’s a tale of a found mobile phone and a mystery that begins to unfold, but before long ghosts play havoc with the filming and broadcast of the episode. Sound issues and transmission breakdown cause the intended story to be abandoned and the behind-the-scenes drama begins to unfold.
The ghosts take charge and fill the screen with CCTV,
elements filmed by the cast and found footage apparently chosen by
the ghosts themselves. They reveal that Granada studios is built on a
mass grave and that they want to be left alone. To that end they
torched the studio in 1984, attempted to kill Bobby Davro in 1992 and
successfully murder the cast of Inside No 9, not even the continuity
announcer escapes unscathed, with the assisted suicide of Stephanie
Cole being particularly shocking.
“Let us be.”
- - -
A confession: when I first watched the Inside No 9 Halloween special, Dead Line, on its initial broadcast and the live episode reached the transmission breakdown I was completely fooled and changed channel. I realised my mistake later while the programme was still being broadcast, but having missed a huge chunk of it, I had to catch up later on the iPlayer, cursing my attention span and feeling as though I had missed out on a real televisual event.
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