And Altogether Ookey

It’s the iconic image of Poltergeist: a child transfixed in front of a small television, the screen flickering blue, the parents asleep in bed. She presses her hand against the static and rasps, “They’re here.”

Even the medium of television is pretty freaky.

Cinema can be scary, sure. But movies are communal. When you shriek, a hundred other people shriek with you. 
But watching TV, alone, in your house, in the dark, is altogether different. Nobody’s there to save you. TV’s intimate, personal. You’re vulnerable.

You may remember, maybe from childhood nightmares, the Cryptkeeper’s tales, the floating voice-stealing ghouls of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, The X Files abductions, the horrific poetic justice of The Twilight Zone, the horrific poetic injustice of The Outer Limits, or the blood-curdling ghost pirates of the Garfield Halloween special.

These shows are worth a whole new horde of nightmares:

Fringe
Call it an X Files ripoff or an X Files homage or an X Files spawn. But the spirit — the creepy, crawly ghastly spirit — of the most iconic sci-fi series lives on in the universe (universes, rather) of Fringe. In some way, each horrific Fringe opens like an episode of House, except instead of coughing up blood, the poor sap ends up coughing up a 4-foot-long slug that immediately darts away.

Ghost Lab, Ghost Trackers, Ghost Hunters, Ghost Hunters: International, Paranormal State, Most Haunted
Just as vampires dominate the “steamy brooding drama” genre, and zombies dominate the “gory comedy” genre, ghosts are the go-to horror icon of the Spookumentary.

Each time, a troupe sets out searching the supernatural, and each time, they find plenty of evidence: Shaky camera work. Blurry night vision. Screechy musical cues. Bathroom mildew.

Everything in these shows — the editing, the musical cues, the reaction shots, the panic — comes with an exclamation mark. There’s at a rap at the window! Heavy breathing! Creaking! Skittering! A door closes of its own accord!

And — did you hear? — this is the very window factory, that, 33 years ago, four children were brutally defenestrated … on a night just like this one.

Supernatural
Think of this as The Dukes of Hazzard meets Vampire Slayers. Sam and Dean Winchester, two good ol’ Southern brothers, cruise around in a ’67 Impala, stopping on occasion to gun down demons and give raspy monologues. Ghosts, ghouls and gore are all leading up to a showdown with Lucifer H. Devil himself. And not the kind with a fiddle.

Dr. Who
Generally, Dr. Who is a cheery zoom-zing-bang space romp, with a happy-go-lucky British-accented genius zapping ’50s eras robots with his “sonic screwdriver.”

But travel through the universe in a spinning time-traveling police box long enough, and you’re bound to see some pretty creepy stuff. Like mutated children with gas-mask heads perpetually chanting, “Are you my mummy?” Or soul-sucking angel statues that only move when you turn away, or blink. Or a swarm of microscopic carnivores, disguised as shadows — stay in the light! — and leave only a pile of stripped-clean bones. Or Catherine Tate.

Want more “skelevision” (bad puns are a requisite part of Halloween)?

Try Ghost Whisperer (Jennifer Love Hewitt solves ghost’s personal problems); Dollhouse (worldwide robo-call mind-wipes anyone who answers the phone to kill anyone who didn’t answer the phone); Heroes (super-powered serial killer slices open heads with his telekinetic mind, gobbling the snack within); or Glenn Beck (crazed self-styled prophet proclaims apocalyptic visions of a country driven to disaster by a white-hating socialist).

When the tension is inevitably broken by the commercials, you’ve never been so happy to see Doritos. You can breathe again. Until the night, of course, when the dreams start gain.