Halloween Day Marathon Featuring HALLOWEEN 2-5
Daily Mini-fests & Prime Time Movies Salute Monsters, Past & Present
JERICHO, NY, June 6, 2002 – AMC will once again be the ultimate television destination for monster movies and themed original programming with the network's sixth annual Halloween event, Monsterfest 2002. The October 25 – 31 festival will be highlighted by the premieres of AMC's first animated show, "Monsters Wanted," (working title) and Backstory: HALLOWEEN, a new episode of the weekly series that follows a popular movie on its journey from script to screen. The 7-day, 154-hour-long festival will feature more than 50 films, starring all of the monsters who matter. The film line-up spans seven decades — from the Universal Studios classics that gave birth to the screen legacies of Frankenstein, Dracula, the Wolf Man and the Mummy — to more modern movies like FRIGHT NIGHT, THE BRIDE, PREDATOR 2 and HALLOWEEN 2 – 5.
"Monsters Wanted," (working title) is a stop-motion animation comedy that premieres during MonsterFest 2002 on Friday, October 25 at 10:30 PM.
The show will be executive produced by Mark Hamill (Star Wars) and Foam Noir and will feature celebrity voice-overs. The characters are being brought to life by Carl Paolino and Paul J. Mason, the puppet creators for MTV's hugely successful "Celebrity Deathmatch."
AMC's weekly series about popular movies will premiere Backstory: HALLOWEEN on October 26 at 2 PM. This latest installment of AMC's weekly original series about popular movies will profile HALLOWEEN, the 1978 film that created one of the longest-running horror franchises in movie history. Through exclusive interviews and never-before-seen footage, the
one-hour show will detail how this low-budget movie launched the careers of actress Jamie Lee Curtis and director John Carpenter.
HALLOWEEN ON HALLOWEEN: AMC marks Halloween Day with a marathon of the horror movie juggernaut that continues to scare up audiences and box office receipts worldwide. The marathon begins with Backstory: HALLOWEEN at 1 PM and is followed by HALLOWEEN II (1981) at 2 PM and 10 PM. In this sequel, madman Michael Myers is once again hot on the trail of Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) on another deadly Halloween night. Next is HALLOWEEN III: SEASON OF THE WITCH (1983) at 4 PM and 12:30 AM; HALLOWEEN 4: THE RETURN OF MICHAEL MYERS (1988) at 6 PM and 2:30 AM; and HALLOWEEN 5: THE REVENGE OF MICHAEL MYERS (1989) at 8 PM and 4:30 AM.
MonsterFest 2002 will chart the cinematic careers of every Hollywood monster who matters, past and present. Fans of Dracula are advised to set their alarm clocks for October 29 at 12:30 AM when AMC features a 20-hour marathon of vampire movies that span the decades, beginning with FRIGHT NIGHT (1985), in which a teenage boy enlists his favorite TV horror show host to kill a real-life vampire. AMC's Dracula salute will range from the original DRACULA (1931) starring Bela Lugosi to kitschy variations like PLAYGIRLS AND THE VAMPIRE (1962). On October 28 at 12:30 AM, Universal Studios' genre-defining FRANKENSTEIN (1931) with Boris Karloff begins a 20-hour salute, which culminates with a 5:30 PM airing of THE BRIDE (1985), a remake of THE BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN, co-starring Sting and FLASHDANCE star Jennifer Beals. MonsterFest 2002 will also feature mini-festivals dedicated to Godzilla, the Creature From the Black Lagoon, the Wolf Man, the Mummy and more.
More recent popular horror favorites of the 1980s and 1990s are also included in MonsterFest 2002. PREDATOR 2 (1990) finds an A-list cast, led by Danny Glover, out to kill a murderous group of spacemen who are stalking modern day LA. The film begins AMC's week-long Halloween festival on Friday, October 25 at 8 PM. Voodoo is at the center of THE SERPENT AND THE RAINBOW (1988), airing October 27 at 10:30 PM. Bill Pullman and Paul Winfield are among the cast in this Wes Craven offering about an anthropologist who takes a chilling detour amongst the magic and zombies in Haiti.
AMC is a premiere 24-hour movie network dedicated to the world of American film. With one of the finest, most comprehensive libraries of popular films, and a diverse blend of original series, documentaries and interstitials, AMC offers an elegant and contemporary entertainment destination. AMC is a fully distributed network reaching over 83,000,000 U.S. homes (as of May 2002) and ranking #16 in size among all 55 networks.
Since its launch in 1984, AMC has been dedicated to deepening the movie experience for its viewers, featuring film-loving celebrity hosts and an increasingly visible, critically acclaimed slate of original programming. AMC has more than doubled its original programming over the past three years and garnered many of the industry's highest honors, including seven Emmy awards.
AMC is owned and managed by Rainbow Media Holdings, Inc., a leader in news, sports and entertainment programming. A subsidiary of Cablevision Systems Corporation (NYSE: CVC) and NBC, Rainbow manages American Movie Classics, WE: Women's Entertainment, Bravo, The Independent Film Channel, MuchMusic USA, Rainbow Sports Networks, News 12 Networks, MetroChannels and Mag Rack as well as the Rainbow Advertising Sales Corporation and Rainbow Network Communications. In addition, Rainbow is a fifty-percent partner in Fox Sports Net. AMC is one of the assets included in the Rainbow Media Group tracking stock (NYSE: RMG), a series of Cablevision common stock. MGM (NYSE: MGM) owns a 20% stake in four of Rainbow's national networks – AMC, Bravo, IFC, and WE: Women's Entertainment.