| JOHN CARPENTER'S HALLOWEEEN- HALLOWEEN MOVIES ON TV |
| United States Halloween on TV history Each year when October rolls around, HALLOWEEN fans look forward to one inevitability: HALLOWEEN movies on television. Since HALLOWEEN first graced the airwaves of NBC on October 30, 1981, the series has been shown on TV, in numerous incarnations, throughout the world time and again. When HALLOWEEN was being edited for television for its first appearance in 1981, a problem arose. "First they told us what had to go, which was everything, and I wrote them back, telling them this was ridiculous," Debra Hill said in a 1981 Fangoria interview. To take care of the problem, John Carpenter wrote and shot several minutes of new footage. There was an all new scene where Dr. Loomis confronts sanitarium officials in 1963. We then see Loomis talking to Michael in his cell. A scene was included after Michael's 1978 escape where Loomis finds the word "Sister" carved into his cell door (HALLOWEEN II had just been released, so the "sister" reference helped connect the sequel to the original). Finally, a scene was shot where Lynda comes over to Laurie's house and we witness more "girl talk." While these scenes definitely augment the film, there were pieces taken out. Of course, the nominal curse words included in the film had to go. A thinner matte with smaller eyeholes was included for the opening murder. A cut shot, consisting of only a few seconds, was included in the "pot sequence," - an additional shot of Michael driving the station wagon. Carpenter and Hill re-edited the whole sequence, so that Annie and Laurie could have just as easily been smoking a cigarette. They even replaced some of Annie's dialogue with a mundane un-alert voice.When HALLOWEEN II hit sets across the nation, a very different film was shown. Over 20 minutes of cut footage was placed into the movie. Although this extra footage is mostly comprised of cheesy conflicts between nurses, there were gems included such as an alternate ending where Jimmy is shown as a survivor, in the ambulance with Laurie. "We made it," Laurie cries as the ambulance takes her away. The usual splicing of bad language (such as replacing the dreaded "s" word with "sugar") and nudity also occurred - you can imagine what the censors did to Bud's rendition of "Amazing Grace." HALLOWEEN III rarely makes a television appearance. No new footage has even been documented as being included in a broadcast.It's important to realize that these content changes were included only when the films were usually sold to independent stations, which broadcasted "syndicated" movies - the ones which show "Movies at 8" Monday through Friday. Cable stations usually show the film in its uncut original form, sometimes edited for language and nudity only.With that in mind, it's easy to understand why HALLOWEEN 4 and 5 remained unchanged - they were never sold to independent stations. The only times these films have appeared on television were on pay cable networks (like HBO and Cinemax) and pay-per-view.This past fall, HALLOWEEN THE CURSE OF MICHAEL MYERS made its television debut. To the surprise of fans, several scenes from the original cut of the film, often called the producers' cut, made it onto the screen. While they were generally made up of small additions to existing scenes, this was quite exciting for fans who wanted to see cut footage from the film.The series has been cut and re-edited time and time again for television. . From the addition of a dissolve or a fade-out to the deletion of an entire scene - there's a different feel to a HALLOWEEN movie each time it makes an appearance. What does the future hold for HALLOWEEN on TV? Certainly HALLOWEEN H20 will show up on TV at some point in the future. Perhaps more different versions of the series will show up. One thing is for certain... HALLOWEEN will rule the airwaves for many Octobers yet to come. - Halloween Movies.com United Kingdom Halloween on TV history Halloween was first shown on UK TV in the mid 80's on the BBC.Since 1986 the BBC always show Halloween every other Halloween on BBC 1 or 2 and always with a one minute added on the chase with Laurie and Michael across the street, it was last shown on the BBC 2 in 1999 with a 35 mintute interview with John Carpenter called "The Night He Came Come- Halloween" the interview was taten place in John Carpenter's home in L.A, John talked about how Halloween came about and how he feels about Halloween now and talk about horror movies that was inspired by Halloween e.g Scream.Halloween has been shown on Channel 4's sky Film Channel 'FilmFour' many times in the last year also with a 1 hour and 10 mintute Documentary called "Scream and Scream Again", the Documentary includes a interview with John Carpenter and alot of information on Halloween and other horror movies. The BBC have shown many of the Halloween series, Halloween III was shown on the BBC for the first time in the a early 90's but over the years has never shown it again, Channel 5 have shown Halloween III nearly every Halloween since the Channel opened in 1997 but still showns the the film with the 1983 cuts.Halloween II has never been shown on terrestrial TV in the United Kingdom, it was last shown on the sky Channel Sci fi in 1998 because of the Halloween: H2O release at the time.Halloween 4- The Return of Michael Myers was shown for the first time on TV in November of last year (2000) on BBC 1 with Halloween 5 showing for the first time 4 months later in March 2001 on the BBC, However Halloween 5 was shown alot in 1998 through to 1999 on Sky Movie Max because of the release of Halloween: H2O.Halloween- The Curse of Michael Myers was frist shown in 1997 on the older sky channel "The Movie Channel" since then it hasn't been seen of any sky movie Channels since 1997.In Feburary 2000 the terrestrial Channel, Channel 5 showed the movie but with a large amount of cuts and was shown again resently.The Sky Movie Channel's Have shown Halloween: H2O on Sky MovieMax nearly every month untill two months ago when its stop playing, we expect Halloween: H2O will be show on terrestrial TV on Channel 4 sometime in 2002. *Halloween TV listings come from www.gist.com and www.mydigiguide.com |
| Halloween 4- Friday 9th August at 22:00 on Sci-Fi Halloween 4- Monday 12th August at 23:55 on Sci-Fi |
 |
|