Today in Halloween: AMC has a little bit of Fear Fest left

You know, I’m a big fan of today’s AMC. What’s not to like? “The Walking Dead,” “Mad Men,” “Breaking Bad.”

But this time of year I miss the old AMC, the all-movie network that couldn’t really compete with Turner Classic Movies … except for the last couple of weeks of October, when AMC programmed virtually non-stop horror movies.

From the old Universal Monsters classics to Hammer horrors, AMC made me want to sit in front of my TV 24-7.

Well, a lot of the classics have fled elsewhere – I’m guessing TCM – and there’s a preponderance of “Friday the 13th” and “Halloween” movies during the final two weeks of October on AMC now.

But that’s okay. Cause you can never see John Carpenter’s classic “Halloween” too many times. And none of us have seen the offbeat “Halloween 3” often enough.

And yes, I’ll stop and check out a “Friday the 13th” movie, if only long enough to determine if it’s the one with Kevin Bacon.

There are a few schedules online for AMC’s lineup this year. True, too many of the timeslots are filled with inferior stuff.

But beginning with a “Walking Dead” marathon over the weekend leading up to the new season premiere at 9 p.m Sunday and great movies like “Slither” on tap, AMC will still give us some Fear Fest this year.

Today in Halloween: Collegeville costumes sign

During the month of October, you’ll find a few references to Collegeville and Ben Cooper Halloween costumes in this blog and many other spots on the Internet.

As much as I enjoy the wide array of Halloween costumes and decorations and makeup and … well, stuff in general that’s available today, none of it has the charm and nostalgia that most of us of a certain age feel for the two top Halloween costume makers for a half-century, Ben Cooper and Collegeville.

Here’s a sign, not unlike you’d find in a Woolworth or W.T. Grant or some other store, advertising Collegeville Halloween costumes.

Collegeville, operating out of Collegeville, PA, was maybe the lower-rent of the two companies. Ben Cooper costumes were officially licensed and featured characters from “Star Wars” and comics and TV shows.

Collegeville costumes were a little cheaper – still the standard rubber mask with a string, but a little more generic – but just as dear to our hearts.

Halloween wouldn’t have been the same without finding this sign at your neighborhood store, letting you know that the promise of finding the perfect costume for trick-or-treating was just down the aisle.

Wonder Woman done right

It’s puzzling how Wonder Woman has eluded film and TV makers.

Of course, we can’t be sure what Joss Whedon would have done with his Wonder Woman movie that got spiked, but we’ve seen DC Comics, Warner Bros. and other filmmakers stumble more than once in their attempts to do a live-action Wonder Woman.

I’ve always said the DC Comics animated universe treatment of Wonder Woman in the “Justice League” series could serve as a ready blueprint for how to make a serious, ass-kicking live-action version of the Amazon warrior princess and her world.

It looks like Rainfall Films has, in its two minute Wonder Woman short, opted for a “Man of Steel” treatment, which makes sense since that’s the way DC and Warner Bros. are headed. By adding Batman to the “Man of Steel” sequel, maybe they’re building to a movie featuring the DC trinity – those two plus Wonder Woman.

At any rate, the short film would serve nicely as a model for the big studio.

And you could do a lot worse than having Rileah Vanderbilt play the role in a full-length movie. She looks great in the short.

As more than a few people have said online: Okay. Go do this.

Today in Halloween: Cute lil Darth Vader

Who’s a cute Little Darth Vader? Who is? You are!

If you were the appropriate age to wear Ben Cooper Halloween costumes in 1980, and if you were a “Star Wars” fan, chances are good you wore this Darth Vader costume, offered by the company that year.

“The Empire Strikes Back” had come out that summer and Ben Cooper, the maker of half the nation’s Halloween costumes, had Darth Vader, just in time for you to tell the younger kid down the street who was dressed up like Luke Skywalker that you were his father.

Of course, the whole thing didn’t go off without a hitch.

Check out the spelling of Vader in the Cooper catalogue, here courtesy of plaidstallions.com.

Oh well. Not like it was the most popular movie series in history or anything.

Today in Halloween: Captain America goggles

I think I might have to break down and get these.

Readers of this blog might know that Captain America is, in some ways, my favorite superhero.

My earliest comic-book experiences revolved around a copy of Avengers 4, the milestone silver age comic in which Cap returns from the dead, given to me by a neighbor.

Cap’s costume in the big-screen movies often includes some kind of cowl/mask but often features just helmet and goggles.

You can get Iron Man or Spider-Man versions of these goggles, but really, they only make absolute sense for Cap to wear.

Or Halloween-night versions of Cap.

If I could only find a set big enough for my big Roysdon-sized noggin.

TV Catch-up: ‘The Blacklist’ and ‘Sleepy Hollow’

With a little more than a week to go before “The Walking Dead” returns and fills up another 60 minutes of my TV viewing time, I’m trying to catch up on a few hour-longs.

“Agents of SHIELD” hasn’t set the world on fire – just a figure of speech there – yet, but I’ll be watching every week. That’s a given, as is “The Walking Dead” when it returns a week from tomorrow.

And so far I’m really intrigued with and enjoying “Sleepy Hollow” and “The Blacklist.”

“The Blacklist” has its greatest asset in James Spader, 1980s teen movie star turned TV stalwart and creepiness personified.

“The Blacklist” owes a lot to “Silence of the Lambs,” “24” and lots of police procedural shows.

Spader, who will play robotic villain Ultron in “Avengers: Age of Ultron,” plays Raymond “Red” Reddington, a long-sought criminal mastermind who turns himself in to the FBI and offers to help the feds catch others on the “most wanted” list. But he insists on dealing only with Elizabeth Keen (Megan Boone), a first-time profiler.

Reddington leads Keen and her fellow agents through their paces in the pilot as they chase a terrorist and associate of Reddington with mass casualties in mind.

Random observations about the pilot:

A couple of moments surprised me, including one in which Keen takes out her frustrations on Reddington’s carotid artery.

Spader spouts his lines with relish. He’s good fun.

He does looks odd in his rose-colored aviators and old-fashioned hat.

In the opening scene, when Reddington shows up at FBI HQ and surrenders, a guard confirms his ID and hits an alarm. So that means every guard in the place knows to pull his gun on Reddington, just because he’s kneeling with hands behind his head?

A kidnapping scene on a bridge is implausible as hell but pretty fun.

As for “Sleepy Hollow,” I’ve really enjoyed the couple of episodes I’ve seen so far. The show is fairly smart and has some nice creepy moments not only with its “monster of the week” to be fought by Ichabod Crane and company but with its only-barely-glimpsed “Big Bad.” Thanks to snippets of “Sympathy for the Devil,” we can guess who this horned fellow is.

I like the cast – thank goodness they’ve brought Clancy Brown back; I’ll take all the flashbacks and dream sequences I can get of this guy – and I like the style.

I just hope the show doesn’t pull a “Lost” or “X-Files” and lose its way along its multi-year, multi-monster, multi-secrets path.

Today in Halloween: The ‘Buffy’ dummy

Is it just me, or does this Today in Halloween look like something from one of the best ever episodes of “Buffy the Vampire Slayer?”

Maybe it’s just me, but I swear this ventriloquist dummy mask I spotted tonight in a Halloween store is very suggestive of the ventriloquist dummy masks worn by the henchman of the dancin’ demon in “Once More with Feeling,” the musical episode of “Buffy.”

Okay, maybe it is just me.

Anyway, looking up details of this very special “Buffy” episode reminded me of things I’d forgotten.

Did you remember that it aired Nov. 6, 2001, less than two months after the Sept. 11 attacks? I didn’t.

Today in Halloween: Michael Myers in the shadows

As Count Floyd would say, “Oooo, that’s scary.”

There’s something about a lone figure in the distance, in the darkness, that prompts chills.

That’s never been more true than when Michael Myers is lurking in “Halloween.”

I’m of the opinion that John Carpenter’s 1978 classic horror film “Halloween” is one of the best fright flicks ever.

A big part of that was Carpenter’s “less is more” approach to showing Michael Myers. The killer was forever slowly fading into sight from a dark doorway or standing motionless across a street or down a sidewalk or in a backyard.

Or, even worse … approaching slowly from that distance.

Goosebumps.

Today in Halloween: Family Circus, is that you?

I happened upon this tonight and thought I would post it even though I don’t know the story behind it yet.

But hey: Halloween.

Regular readers of this blog know there’s some fascination out there for Bil Keane’s Family Circus newspaper comic panel. A lot of people come to the blog looking for Billy – or is it Jeffy? – and his circuitous route through town, always marked by a twisting dotted line.

So I found this intriguing. I can’t find much in the way of explanations that make me believe that Keane’s panel was called Family-Go-Round before it was Family Circus.

So I’m wondering if this wasn’t some weird aberration. It happens.

Anyway, here, purportedly from 1960, is Bil Keane’s take on trick-or-treating.

‘Agents of SHIELD’ gives us a Furious cameo

Well, that didn’t take long.

Speculation in the weeks leading up to last week’s debut of the Marvel/Disney/ABC series “Agents of SHIELD” centered on when the weekly series would introduce (1) characters from Marvel Comics and/or (2) characters from the big-screen Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Cobie Smulders played Agent Maria Hill last week, and there was lotsa “Avengers” talk.

But tonight’s episode, “0-8-4,” brought in the big gun.

Samuel L. Jackson reprised his role as SHIELD director Nick Fury in a brief scene at the end of the episode. Fury gets kinda loud and strident as he scolds Agent Phil Coulson (Clark Gregg) for causing pretty substantial damage to “The Bus,” the high-tech SHIELD jet that Coulson’s team is using in the series.

Jackson turned his trademark Fury portrayal up to, well, maybe 11. It’s kind of hard to imagine that he would be quite that angry at a guy who, just a few months earlier, was pretty much killed by Loki in the SHIELD helicarrier.

Or maybe he wants Coulson to feel like everything is back to status quo.

I’m waiting – patiently, really – for “Agents of SHIELD” to hit its groove. I’ve enjoyed both episodes so far. I like the plots just fine, I like the characters and portrayals and I like the snappy writing.

It’s not really compelling TV yet – and that’s unfortunate in a day when so much episodic TV is really damn compelling – but I’m hoping it will get there.

Remember, “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” didn’t really click until “Prophecy Girl,” the final episode of the first season. And “Star Trek: The Next Generation” took what, two or three seasons to really take off?

Tonight’s episode, in which Coulson’s team heads for South America to recover an 0-8-4 – an unknown object, possibly of extra-terrestrial origin – reminded me for some reason of an episode of “Alias,” J.J. Abrams’ series about globe-trotting spy Sydney Bristow. Maybe SHIELD will send Coulson in pursuit of a Rambaldi device.

Coulson’s character got an old flame and the team learned, after some rough moments, how to work together.

Best moments:

I could understand Fitz and Simmons a wee bit better this week.

Gregg’s cool under fire demeanor as Coulson.

How they got rid of the 0-8-4 at the end. Cosmic.

The moment of uncertainty at the end regarding Skye’s split loyalties between SHIELD and Rising Tide.