Friday Night Frights: Don't Be Afraid of the Dark (1973)

Can you see them, Sally ... hiding in the shadows. They're alive, Sally. They want you to be one of them when the lights go out.


Welcome to tonight's episode of Friday Night Frights.

Tonight's feature is Don't Be Afraid of the Dark, an American made-for-television horror film by Lorimar Productions that was first telecast on ABC on Wednesday October 10, 1973.

It was directed by John Newland; the cast includes Kim Darby, John Hutton, Barbara Anderson, and William Demarest.

A young couple inherits an old mansion inhabited by small demon-like creatures who are determined to make the wife one of their own.

This movie has not been officially released on DVD.

Farrah Fawcett Sci-Fi

Happy Birthday to American actress Farrah Fawcett, who was born on this day in 1947.

She became a noted pop culture figure and sex symbol of the 1970s and into the 1980s, shaping the landscape of fashion and pop culture.

Her body of work includes a couple of science fiction films:


Logan's Run (1976), with Michael York. An idyllic sci-fi future has one major drawback: life must end at 30.

Here's the trailer:




Saturn 3 (1980), with Kirk Douglas and Harvey Keital. Two lovers stationed at a remote base in the asteroid fields of Saturn are intruded upon by a retentive technocrat from Earth and his charge: a malevolent 8-ft robot.

Here's the trailer:

Super Bowl Commercials in 3D

During the Super Bowl tomorrow you will be able to see two 3D commercials. DreamWorks' Monsters vs. Aliens and PepsiCo's SoBe Lifewater will be featured in 3D on Super Bowl Sunday.

Traditional red-blue 3D glasses will not work with these clips. The commercials are being broadcast using ColorCode 3-D's amber-violet encoding system. That means you'll have to go out to a retail outlet near you and look for the bin of free ColorCode 3-D glasses, probably stuck somewhere near the Pepsi/SoBe display.

The list of shops where you will be able to find the Super Bowl 3D glasses include: Safeway/Vons, K-Mart, Ralphs, Kroger, A&P, Frys, Supervalu, Food Lion, Pathmark, Coburn, Fairway, Fresh Brands, Hy Vee, Nash Finch, Dollar General and Winnie Dixie.

Target and Meijers will have the 3D glasses only on January 31st.

The 3D Monsters vs. Aliens ad will be broadcasted along with the SoBe 3D spot at the end of the second quarter of the Super Bowl.

You will also have the opportunity to re-use your 3D glasses for a special 3D episode of NBC's hit comedy "Chuck," airing Monday, February 2, 2009 (8-9pm ET.)

DreamWorks' Monsters vs. Aliens, the Company's first InTru 3D release, opens nationwide March 27, 2009. InTru 3D is Intel's new system to create 3D footage for 3D Movie Theaters.

For more information, see this article from Time.

Danger on the Stairs

Danger on the Stairs
Artist: Pierre Roy
French
1927 - 1928
oil on canvas
Museum of Modern Art, NY
Gift of Abby Aldrich Rockefeller

The Raven

On this day in 1845, "The Raven" by Edgar Allan Poe was published in the New York Evening Mirror.

You can read it online at The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Raven, with illustrations by Gustave Doré.




You can hear Garrison Keillor's (A Prairie Home Companion) rendition by clicking here (RealAudio).


Here's a reading by Vincent Price:



And one by Christopher Walkin:



This video showcases "The Raven", a tune from Tales of Mystery and Imagination, The Alan Parsons Project CD that covers the works of Edgar Allan Poe.



The Simpson's even paid tribute (audio clip):

Happy Birthday Elijah Wood!

American actor Elijah Wood was born on this day in 1981.

Known worldwide as the character Frodo Baggins in Peter Jackson's three Lord of the Rings movies, Wood also played the part of Casey Conner in the earlier horror film The Faculty (1998).






Here's the theatrical trailer:

The Day After

On this day in 1951 nuclear testing at the Nevada Test Site began with a one-kiloton bomb dropped on the Frenchman Flats.

In 1983 the Cold War was still going on. On November 20 of that year ABC televised this frightening story of the weeks leading up to and following a nuclear strike on the United States. The bulk of the activity centers around the town of Lawrence, Kansas.

The Day After was directed by Nicholas Meyer. The cast included Jason Robards, JoBeth Williams, Steve Guttenberg, John Cullum, John Lithgow, and Amy Madigan.

It scared the hell out of television viewers nationwide.

Here's a clip of the attack: