Category Archives: Horror Nostalgia

Horror Nostalgia

Celebrating the Most Nostalgic Halloween Episode of “Roseanne”- “BOO!”

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Halloween in the 80s ruled, there’s no question about that. It would be easy to say us “old timers” look at Halloweens’ past with beer-goggles, but I contest that those who actually experienced Halloween in the 80s as a kid, would tend to agree. From the school parades, to sacks of great candy from more than just a few houses giving out diabetic comas to eager kids on that night under the orange and yellow glow of a Halloween moon, people seemed to be more than willing to participate by today’s standards. And, lest us never forget, the glorious myriad of Halloween specials that were never in short supply on the boob tube. Syndicated shows often jumped on the holiday bandwagon, creating a special episode for the Halloween spirit, but nobody EVER did it better than ROSEANNE– and you can take that to the garage with a chainsaw.

Running for nine seasons and except for the first and last season, ROSEANNE didn’t miss a beat with those faithful Halloween episodes glorifying the holiday. While they’re all pretty damn great for their own reasons, the most nostalgic is the very first Halloween special, Season 2-Episode 7, “BOO!”.

There’s just so much to love about this particular special. You can practically smell the crisp Autumn morning air from the opening shot alone.

Seriously, the only thing that rivals this is the opening to HALLOWEEN 4.

This episode does nothing more than just reinforce my love for the holiday and stands as basically the ultimate guide on how to do Halloween right folks. And that would be including subtle things like Jackie’s chattering skull pin and orange cassette tape of “Sounds From the Haunted Mansion”.

As the episode goes, it’s Halloween and the Connors are in full-swing of the festivies with a prank war going on between Dan and Roseanne over which of the two are the undisputable “Master of Halloween”. All the while, the fam is gearing up for the night by transforming their residence at 714 Delaware St into… THE TUNNEL OF TERROR. Which is what everybody basically calls this episode anyway because it’s so damn unforgettable.

With little zombie ninja DJ answering the door to welcome the trick-or-treaters, Roseanne steps in and leads them through the living room into Dan with an ax protruding in his head. The room is decorated in all kinds of great stuff when you’re looking for it. One of my favorites is the skull blow mold on the wall by the door!

From there, we’re led into the kitchen, where Becky dressed as an armless Stewardess is cooking up something special for the little ghouls. I would imagine that is Darlene’s hand coming out of the pot since she isn’t seen anywhere else on the tour, but that is just me Sherlocking the shit out of everything until I get a migraine.

And everybody’s favorite jump scare in the tour!

The kids are led out into the laundry room for a hasty exit where the less spooky Crystal and her son Lonnie lead them to safety.

And since Darlene doesn’t visually make an appearance through the Tunnel of Terror, I would be doing a disservice to the world if we didn’t acknowledge her ode to Pinhead for the evening.

Oddly enough, some of my favorite decorations seen in the show don’t even make it into the grand tour! In the aftermath in the garage, Roseanne is shown committing a Halloween crime of throwing out some magnificent die-cuts. It was at that moment when Dan came in dressed as Jason with a chainsaw that I myself, decided Dan was the clear winner of the night. Regardless of how the episode ended with Roseanne scaring the shit out of her husband with telling him that her parents were coming to stay with them for a month. Sorry, but I just can’t overlook that sort of travesty.

Long gone are the days when people would put this kind of effort into kids for Halloween. Although I think folks like this still exist, I would put money on the fact it’s far and in between these days. It’s not something I see much of anymore in my personal experience over the past few years, and unless people start taking hints from these ROSEANNE Halloween extravaganzas’, I highly doubt it will change.

Regardless of your personal feelings on Roseanne in the present, she, and this episode in particular, taught us all that you’re never too old for Halloween. Growing up is stupid, and we all should be letting out that inner demon child residing in our souls that Halloween brings out of all of us. Just as with “It’s the Great Pumpkin, Garfield’s Halloween Adventure, or the standard John Carpenter’s Halloween, the “BOO!” episode is in steady rotation around here as it’s just not Halloween without at least two or three viewings of this nostalgic piece of 80s Halloween history.

That being said, get to streaming it on Peacock otherwise, as Roseanne would say, you might go straight to Hell! And remember, there’s no chocolate in Hell; erm, no chocolate with caramel at least.

Horror Nostalgia

That One Time “Unsolved Mysteries” Performed An Exorcism On Air

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Remember that time Unsolved Mysteries filmed and aired a real-life exorcism? Join me, and let’s get weird with Robert Stack!

I don’t think I’m alone here when I claim there was nothing scarier on Prime-time TV than the glorious sounds and visuals of Unsolved Mysteries. Tuesday nights were always reserved for Robert Stack with me and my grandmother and it was around the age of 7 when I had first laid my peelers on the majestic stance of the Stack and felt such excitement along with being scared shitless. Upon each week’s new episode of thrills, murder, and the paranormal after a fresh viewing, I would feel a sense of paranoia thinking escaped murderers were lurking in my backyard bushes. But, that was the magic of Unsolved Mysteries, and watching it again with adult eyes thanks to the likes of FilmRise and other streaming apps, only validates it’s just as creepy now as it was over 30 years ago.

Each featured case was substantially creepy on its own, however, one, in particular, stood out to me in memory apart from the 1987 Kurt Sova segment that literally gave me nightmares for a week; And that was the time Unsolved Mysteries scratched the infamous re-enactments regarding a supposedly possessed 29-year-old woman only known to the world as “Kathie”. Running almost like a mini-documentary, the crew filmed an actual exorcism performed on the woman, who claims to have been taunted by demons since her teenage years.

Kathie- “MYAHHHH!! I HATE YOUR PRAYERSSS!!”

Exorcist- “Shut up, Devil!”

I can totally laugh at the absurdity of it now but back then when it aired that shit was wildly weird and slightly terrifying.

The episode that first aired on June 11th, 1999, had Unsolved Mysteries pairing up with HOPE, (Hartford Office of Paranormal Exploration), who were initially contacted by Kathie herself. After years of both medical and psychological treatments failing her, her last hope (ironically) for relief was the seven-member group of HOPE. With over 100 prior cases of exorcisms performed under the team that includes a social worker, a psychic, a registered nurse, and the director of Hartford Hospital in Connecticut, the group visited Kathie’s home and conducted an interview with the woman before a decision was made that would warrant an exorcism. During the group consultation with Kathie, she seemed to slip into one of her possessive spells and began to curl and cringe her hands along with jolting her head violently. After the very strange interview, the group seemed to believe Kathie’s story and felt an exorcism was the right way to go. And Unsolved Mysteries was there to film the very controversial ritual. 

Bless this damn program. Pun intended. 

According to the official Unsolved Mysteries fandom page, Kathie provided an update after filming that she did not require any further exorcisms and was able to find a job for the first time in several years.

I can only hope she’s a waitress somewhere, serving someone some pea soup right about now.

Horror Nostalgia

The Art Of Horror: Celebrating The Best Horror VHS Cover Art- Part II!

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Movie Box Art is an all-but-dead form of advertising for movies these days. A while back, I wrote up a piece on VHS Horror Cover Box Art and the films that had some of the most intriguing rental art boxes that served to pique our curiosity when strolling down the horror movie aisle at your local Mom And Pop Video Store on a Saturday afternoon. You went to rent Nightmare On Elm Street 4 and left with films like Cheerleader Camp and Frankenhooker. Case in point, the cover art was the main selling point for these movies back then along with word of mouth; and when mom or pop gave you the precious video rental card to go get what you wanted when you were old enough, that my friends, was goddamn better than a credit card itself. The freeing feeling of being able to rent whatever your little heart desired, well just not shit behind the curtain anyway, without an adult hovering over your back as you’re staring intensely at a copy of Class Of Nuke ‘Em High. Then walking like a gangster to the counter while grabbing a box of Sugar Daddies, a Cherry Coke, and presenting your rental punch card to the clerk. The only thing that made that moment even more glorious was if you were due for a free rental.

So let’s take another walk down the horror aisle of the corner video shop where some of the greatest horror movie cover art existed. That being said, there are way too many to put into one article, so I’ve decided to put together another piece championing VHS art with Parts 3 and 4 likely to come in the following weeks/months.

These are just some that really stood out to me at that age. Oh, and for the record and refresher from my last entry, I popped that solo video rental store cherry visit with Return of the Living Dead and The Blob.

What are some of your favorite VHS covers? Get crackin’ on those comments Nostalgic Nuggets and come back for parts 3 and 4 of wild and wonderous VHS Horror Box Art!