For Better or Werts : TV Worth Watching

HALLOWEEN HAUNTS: 'Phantom of the Paradise,' 'Young Frankenstein'

Fright flicks and creepy comedy are all over the tube for Halloween. No Roseanne celebrations, unfortunately -- her Halloweens were always so frightfully fun -- but lots of other ghoulish goodies. Young Frankenstein. Phantom of the Paradise. The Munsters. And more.

Turner Classic Movies is already unreeling its 48 Hours of Horror marathon, running Thursday and Friday with vintage tales from the 1930s to 1970. Thursday's treats lean toward mid-century low-budgeters from William Castle and Roger Corman, and foreign-made frights. Friday's toppers include Val Lewton's 1942 original Cat People (Friday at 7:30 a.m. ET), Tod Browning's long-banned sideshow chiller Freaks (Friday at 9 a.m. ET), and the Underground double feature of Herschell Gordon Lewis' Blood Feast and Two Thousand Maniacs! (Friday night at 2:30 and 3:45 a.m. ET).

AMC's round-the-clock Fearfest continues toward its Friday conclusion with recent titles like Keanu Reeves' Constantine (Thursday at 8 p.m., Friday at 5:30 p.m. ET) and library classics like Jamie Lee Curtis' Halloween (Friday at 9:30 a.m. ET).

Young Frankenstein, the fine Mel Brooks-Gene Wilder horror lampoon, gets appropriately classic treatment from Fox Movie Channel. First there's the half-hour retrospective It's Alive: Creating a Monster Classic (Thursday at 10 p.m., Friday at noon and 5:30 p.m. ET), then the 1974 blockbuster itself (Thursday at 10:30 p.m., Friday at 12:30 and 6 p.m. ET).

The Munsters runs non-stop on WGN from 4 p.m. to midnight ET, with '70s fright-fiend rocker Alice Cooper hosting the '60s sitcom marathon.

E! contributes a showbiz cheesefest: Doomed to Die? 13 Most Shocking Hollywood Curses (Friday at 8 p.m. ET), outlining the curses, jinxes and misfortunes related to Superman, The Exorcist, James Dean and other tinseltown names.

Dee Snider's Dead Art (Friday 8 p.m.-1 a.m. ET, Gallery HD) tours world cemeteries filled with classic art, architecture and famous names. (Full episodes also stream online here.)

History Channel's Primal Fear (Friday at 10 p.m. ET) explores our instinctual responses to such common fears as being buried alive or attacked by monsters. (More Halloween history here.)

And the best for last:

Brian DePalma's delirious Phantom of the Paradise is Fox Movie Channel's Fox Legacy classic of the week (Friday night at 8, 10 and midnight ET). This 1974 gem is an astonishingly ambitious mix of Faust, The Picture of Dorian Gray, The Phantom of the Opera and rock music burlesque, chronicling a composer's descent after phantom paradise williams.jpg making a deal with a rock mogul for immortality. Paul Williams -- yes, the '70s popster who wrote Carpenters songs -- not only plays the villainous mogul with slimy relish, but also composed the song score that smartly sends up death doowop, surf music, glam rock and other genres. Keep your eyes (and ears) open. The music/movie/literary references come fast and furious.

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Diane Werts has been glued to the tube since she can remember, growing up in a household where the TV came on first thing in the morning and stayed on till bedtime and beyond. She worked for the USA Film Festival, then for The Dallas Morning News writing about everything from Shakespeare to macrame art to rock music (and has the hearing loss to prove it). She moved to New York's Newsday to edit their glossy TV magazine, then returned to writing about television, specializing in its stranger permutations. She's a past president of the Television Critics Association.

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