Svengoolie’s November Schedule Is Here & It’s Scarier Than an Undead Turkey
There are five Saturdays in November — which means you get an extra, bonus fright from Svengoolie this month! And with one double feature, you’ll actually get six movies on MeTV‘s Svengoolie Classic Horror & Sci-Fi Movie in November. So yes, when we turn the clocks back, it will get dark at 5 pm; but you can fight off those early-winter blues with Frankenstein, Dracula, dinosaurs, two horror-Westerns, devil dolls, and, most frightening of all … the Brady Bunch.
All films will air on Saturday night at 8pm EST.
November 1: Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948)
Everett Collection
Lou Costello supposedly referred to the original script for this movie as “crap.” By 1948, he and Bud Abbott were at each other’s throats, and Universal monster movies were terribly out of fashion. But despite all of that, this film — which also features original Universal Monster stars Bela Lugosi and Lon Chaney Jr — ended up being among the studio’s biggest hits of the year, leading to a series of films in which the comedic duo wrangled with various famous monsters of film land.
November 8: The Valley of the Gwangi (1969)
Everett Collection
What’s a Gwangi? It’s a giant dinosaur, animated by Ray Harryhausen — and this film is the final time the stop-motion superstar worked with dinosaurs. Cowboys meet creatures when rodeo workers enter the Forbidden Valley … and I think we all know, the number one thing you should not do to any place called “the Forbidden Valley” is enter it. This valley happens to be filled dinosaurs that time forgot — and they’re hungry for cowpoke blood!
This film, conceived by Harryhausen’s mentor, Willis O’Brien, was first announced in 1941 (!), but wasn’t made until years after his death.
November 15: Dracula Has Risen from the Grave (1968)
Everett Collection
Christopher Lee played the legendary bloodsucker for the third time in this Hammer classic, in which a clergyman (played by Rupert Davis) accidentally brings Dracula back from the dead. Whoops! Though not necessarily considered the studio or Lee’s peak by fans, it made money at the box office — not that difficult a feat, consider its miniscule £175,000 production budget.
November 22: Curse of the Undead (1959)
Everett Collection
There are a million ways to die out West — but none of the settlers who rode those wagon trains through the mountains anticipated getting taken out by a vampire. However, that’s exactly what is happening to the buxom young ladies of an Old West town in this film, which supposedly started off as a joke screenplay idea spun up by husband-and-wife writing team Edward and Mildred Dein.
November 29: Devil Doll (1964) and A Very Brady Christmas (1988)
Everett Collection
First up: if you already didn’t like ventriloquist’s dummies, this movie isn’t going to help! Hypnotist/ magician The Great Vorelli has a very life-like dummy … in fact, it’s so life-like, it seems to be getting up and attempting to murder people on its own! The film is most notable for two totally opposite facts: one, that Bryant Haliday, the actor who plays the evil Vorelli, was responsible for bringing European art films by the likes of Ingmar Bergman and Federico Fellini to American audiences by founding the film distribution company Janus Films in 1956. And two, if you’re familiar with this film, it’s probably because you saw it on Mystery Science Theater 3000.
CBS via Getty Images
Then, second up: House of Svengoolie ask, what could be scarier than the Bradys, together again? This CBS made-for-TV movie — which isn’t available via streaming anywhere! — brought together the all-grown-up Bunch, who have some very adult problems, including marital difficulties and a secret NASCAR racing career. Throw in a building collapse, and you have yourself a holiday special!
Susan Olsen sat this one out, which may have been a mistake; Jennifer Runyon pitch-hit as Cindy Brady and the movie became CBS’s biggest hit of the season. It was so popular, in fact, that it led the network to green-light the odd 1990 dramedy The Bradys, which ran for exactly one month. The Bradys bombed so badly, the Bunch didn’t get another TV movie (with all new actors from the 1995 film version) until the 20002.
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