How I Came to Love Horror FLicks
The video you see linked to the left is the intro to a TV show that started my love affair with horror movies. Chiller Theater aired on WPIX, channel 11, in the New York metro area on Saturday nights between 1971 and 1982, and I rarely missed an episode. Chiller showed horror movies; lots of the classically cheesy Hammer movies to little-known gems like Castle of Evil and The Snow Devils.
My grandfather, the only vaguely cool relative I had, would let me stay up late to see the show when I stayed at his house. Otherwise, I would watch under the covers on a portable black-and-white TV, staying up until 2 AM when needed. When I was a teenager, my friends and I would hang out, have a couple of ill-gotten beers or other intoxicating substances and watch the thing before going out. The show went off the air for good by the time I turned 16, but I think I caught at least 75% of all the episodes between 1974 and the end of its run. As much as most kids looked forward to Saturday morning cartoons, I anticipated my Saturday night horror movie. It was a high point of the week for me and an island of stability in an otherwise difficult life as an adolescent.
Chiller was really the seed from which my fascination with all things horror sprouted. That show was what ultimately led me to Edgar Allan Poe and H.P. Lovecraft. It told me about the Haunted Mansion at Long Branch, NJ and introduced me to the vampires, zombies and monsters that I still enjoy to this day. It was one of those things that went into making me who I am today, as oddball as that might be.
I don't know of any shows like Chiller Theater still on the air; they seem to have gone the way of the drive-in movie. The last time I recall seeing one was a local show that aired late at night when I lived in southeastern Pennsylvania in the early 90's. There wasn't one in San Francisco and there's none here in Tallahassee. Cable television has largely made them obsolete, I suppose. Instead of shows like Chiller, now there are VOD channels like FearNet. In my opinion, it's a pale substitute. It lacks the fun feel and atmosphere; it's too slick to have character, which the old local shows like Chiller Theater had by the truckload. Even the movies they show lack the kind of naive charm that old, cheap horror flicks had.
Thankfully, someone put together a list of every movie ever shown on Chiller Theater, itself a real treasure trove of memories (and ideas for renting DVDs from Netflix, too!) LL never had the fun of watching the show (it didn't air in Lebanon, just NYC), and while it's impossible to bring it back intact, at least we can still get some of the old movies and watch them late at night together.
My grandfather, the only vaguely cool relative I had, would let me stay up late to see the show when I stayed at his house. Otherwise, I would watch under the covers on a portable black-and-white TV, staying up until 2 AM when needed. When I was a teenager, my friends and I would hang out, have a couple of ill-gotten beers or other intoxicating substances and watch the thing before going out. The show went off the air for good by the time I turned 16, but I think I caught at least 75% of all the episodes between 1974 and the end of its run. As much as most kids looked forward to Saturday morning cartoons, I anticipated my Saturday night horror movie. It was a high point of the week for me and an island of stability in an otherwise difficult life as an adolescent.
Chiller was really the seed from which my fascination with all things horror sprouted. That show was what ultimately led me to Edgar Allan Poe and H.P. Lovecraft. It told me about the Haunted Mansion at Long Branch, NJ and introduced me to the vampires, zombies and monsters that I still enjoy to this day. It was one of those things that went into making me who I am today, as oddball as that might be.
I don't know of any shows like Chiller Theater still on the air; they seem to have gone the way of the drive-in movie. The last time I recall seeing one was a local show that aired late at night when I lived in southeastern Pennsylvania in the early 90's. There wasn't one in San Francisco and there's none here in Tallahassee. Cable television has largely made them obsolete, I suppose. Instead of shows like Chiller, now there are VOD channels like FearNet. In my opinion, it's a pale substitute. It lacks the fun feel and atmosphere; it's too slick to have character, which the old local shows like Chiller Theater had by the truckload. Even the movies they show lack the kind of naive charm that old, cheap horror flicks had.
Thankfully, someone put together a list of every movie ever shown on Chiller Theater, itself a real treasure trove of memories (and ideas for renting DVDs from Netflix, too!) LL never had the fun of watching the show (it didn't air in Lebanon, just NYC), and while it's impossible to bring it back intact, at least we can still get some of the old movies and watch them late at night together.
