I hope October has you excited to watch some horror films! If not, maybe I can at least bring you a little bit of nostalgia for today’s Macabre Monday.
Each week, I share a recommendation for some kind of horror for you to check out, whether movies, TV, or something else. Just like with Sci-Friday, Macabre Monday has now grown into a larger community of folks making recommendations. If you’re looking for something to watch, this crew has you covered.
is a bit of an emcee for this event. Check out his Note for more info on what the festivities entail.Today, let’s mix equal parts of nostalgia and horror. I want to show you three TV shows that sort of scared the crap out of me when I was a kid, although I loved the shows all the same. If you’re looking for horror TV shows I recommend regardless of when they were produced, I wrote about that last week.
Without further ado, let’s take a quick trip down Macabre Memory Lane.
Werewolf
Growing up in the late 70s and early 80s meant you got to watch three main TV channels, unless you had cable TV. Sure, there was PBS, but that was mostly geared toward younger kids during the day, and adults in the evening, at least when I was a kid. That meant slim pickings from among NBC, ABC, and CBS.
Then, Fox came on the air, and everything changed for 11 year old me. By the time 1987 had arrived, Fox had experimented with several new formats for TV shows like 21 Jump Street, Married With Children, and The Tracy Ullman Show (from whence the Simpsons came).
Among that mix was a serialized horror called Werewolf.
This show followed a “college student” (quotation marks because dude is about 30) named Eric Cord, who finds himself cursed with lycanthropy after his roommate bites him and reveals he's a werewolf. After killing his roommate in self-defense, Eric embarks on a quest to find and eliminate the original werewolf in his bloodline, which is the only way he can lift the curse.
The werewolf transformation scenes blew my 11 year old mind. Instead of nightmares, though, these scenes fueled my imagination instead. I had seen a few werewolf transformation scenes by now, but the way Skorzeny (a main villain) transformed by pulling his human skin back from his mouth! Whoa.
Maybe I was just barely old enough to be more intrigued than scared, or maybe the effects and budget lent themselves to disbelief, but whatever the combination, this show inspired me to create a role-playing game around the show (naturally, we called this game “Werewolf”).
Friday the 13th the Series
This show had nothing to do with the classic horror movie series by the same name, and that’s probably a good thing. No offense intended if you’re nostalgic about Jason, but if you’re not, you probably see how terrible the movies were just as clearly as I do.
The show was a different matter, though.
Two cousins named Micki and Ryan inherit an antique store from their mysterious Uncle Lewis, who seems to have made a deal with the devil. They soon discover that the antiques are cursed and grant their owners supernatural abilities, often with a malevolent twist (Monkey’s Paw, anyone?).
Of course, lots of the antiques have been sold, and so each episode generally features a different cursed object and its impact on the owner, providing a mix of horror and moral lessons.
This show was creepy, and it was really fun. The showrunners put a lot of love into each episode.
Amazing Stories
Technically, Amazing Stories isn’t a horror show as such, but there were certainly creepy elements. Like The Twilight Zone, this show didn’t just try to scare you—it tried to make you think. You can probably see the tone the producers were going for with this show in this promo for season 1 in 1985:
Steven Spielberg was on top of the world in 1985, but his recent work wasn’t just the family-friendly films you might think of today. Spielberg had just come off of a run that included Jaws, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, ET, and Raiders of the Lost Ark. I would suggest that all of those projects had extremely well-done scary elements.
Unlike my previous two entries, which follow the stars of the show around from episode to episode, Amazing Stories is an anthology show, just like Tales from the Crypt. The tone of each episode always has that weird Spielberg sense of wonder, with many of the shows leaning in toward the scarier elements.
I think the show is worth considering mainly because the production values are just so high, especially for something on network television in the mid-80s. If you have a taste for nostalgia, but want something a little better made, Amazing Stories is for you.
And, There You Have It
Last week, I called attention to more modern horror shows, so this week, it was time to hearken back once again to my youth. I visited my folks this week, and there’s no doubt all that nostalgia was on my mind. These three shows were easy for me to conjure up in my mind’s eye.
These shows had a profound impact on me, from creating my own role-playing game that we actually played, to stoking my imagination with innovative stories and cutting-edge effects (for the time). Simply put, I wouldn’t be the same person today if I had not been introduced to them.
What are some horror (or horror-adjacent) TV shows you remember watching as a kid? If you were alive during the 80s, do you recall any of these shows? Should Amazing Stories be included here, or am I stretching a bit?
Let me know by commenting, and let’s enjoy the rest of this horror-watching season together!
I'm gonna check out Fringe!
Once again, you outdo yourself! I have not seen any of these, but I aim to change that. Werewolves looks interesting and I had no idea that Friday the 13th had a series!