31 Days of Horror Day 27 Horror Hosts

Last year for 31 days of Horror I reviewed a documentary about American horror hosts.

American Scary a documentary about Horror Hosts

The first horror host I saw was Sgt Graves.He was a zombie of a Confederate Army soldier. He was on the air for at least 5 years. Airing at 10:30pm Saturday nights. He would show two films. Most of the time I could manage to stay awake for the first film. But would have to record the second one. I can find no info on him on the internet. Even talking to people from the area that are my age,only one of them remembers Sgt Graves. If you are reading this and remember him please leave a comment at the bottom.

The next Horror host I saw,has to be the most famous of the modern era. Elvira,it was Halloween night. I got home around 9pm from trick or treating. While I was sitting on the floor going through all my candy,my father saw that on WPMI Channel 15 Night of the living dead was showing. I had never seen it. So he said I could stay up past my bedtime to watch it. I think I was 7 or maybe 8 at the time. We flipped the channel and I got to see Elvira for the first time. During this time she had her syndicated show Elvira's Movie Macabre. I do not think what I saw that night was part of movie macabre. But she was showing the colorized version of the original NotlD. And I sat on the floor,not moving,not talking,totally engrossed in the film. After the end of the film,Elvira came back on and said she was going to show the Vincent Price classic House on Haunted Hill next. My dad was nice enough to let me stay up to watch it also. So I got to stay up to 1am and watch another great horror film. After this I didn't see Elvira again until the "Elvira Mistress of the dark" movie came out.

Thankfully when she revived Movie Macabre my local CW network picked it up. At first it was airing at 10:30pm Saturday nights. But after a month or so she got moved to midnight. Then to 1am. Using my set top DVD recorder I recorded all but 2 of the episodes. The only thing that sucked about the new Movie Macabre was she only showed Public domain films. Since the original show,the tv rights to lots of the types of films she would show had gone sky high. Sadly after one season Movie Macabre was cancelled. Elvira is back on HULU now. She is showing mostly Full Moon Studio films. But they are free. Plus I hear she is showing NotLD again. I might have to watch that one again.

Right after Thanksgiving 1990 cable tv finally made it's way to the super rural community I lived in. Instead of offering HBO or Cinemax like every other cable company,Rural Cablevision only offered Showtime and TMC. Being the movie nut I am I offered to pay the monthly fee for both. The first weekend we had cable I was flipping channels and saw Job Bob Briggs for the first time. Joe Bob got his start reviewing the films he saw at various Texas drive ins in a newspaper. Then sometime in the 80s TMC offered him a weekly show. Each Saturday he would show a film. I made it a point every weekend to either watch the show or record it. The only of these recordings I still have is when every weeknight at 10pm on Showtime Joe Bob would show a different Emanuelle movie.

I guess not many people saw this show,because when I mention Joe Bob to most people they talk about his TNT show Monstervision. Which I never cared for. Mostly because since it aired on TNT all the films were edited for content. Earlier this year I got a dvd that is a Joe Bob's Drive in theater episode where he shows the Night of the Living Dead remake. And before and after the film he has most of the cast of the original on the show for a Q&A segment.

Once I got online in the mid 90s I started looking up stuff on horror hosts. By the early 2000s I had found a horror host website. But it had no info on Sgt Graves. And no one I talked to remembered there every being a horror host in MS. And until March of 2010 I thought MS had never had a horror host. I went to Coastcon. Saw in the programming guide that Saturday at 3pm they were screening Night of the Living Dead. I figured what the hell I will go watch it before going out to eat with some friends. I get there and find out it is an episode of what I think is the only horror host in MS history.

Margali hosted a show on a station out of Jackosn MS for a good number of years. The episode with NotlD never aired. She was already at Coastcon that year to help judge the costume contest. And for the first time ever her NotLD episode was shown. After the screening I got to meet and talk to Margali. She was really nice. And she told me she still had all her episodes. "Newt if you are willing to pay for postage I will make you copies of all my episodes." I gave her my email address and asked her to email me once she got the copies made. With my plan being to pay her postage and a bit more for them. I guess she forgot cause I never heard back from her. But at least now I know that Mississippi had it's own horror host. And it was fairly recent.

The horror host website Margali told me about had a huge section on Count Gore De Vol. He is based in the Washington DC area. And was the first horror host to go over to the internet. Almost every week he has up an new episode, Sometimes it is a movie,with most movies he divides them into 3 or 4 parts. Or it is a short film. But even when the films are total shit ,the Count's host segments are entertaining.

Count Gore De Vol's website

Back in March one of the torrent sites I visit got a new uploader. He was uploading episodes of Svengoulie off MeTV. Sven has been around for since 1979. And is the second actor to play Sven. He seems to have a deal to show lots of Universal horror films. Since March I have gotten ahold of over 20 episodes of his show from the MeTV airings. Each episode besides giving us some back history on the film,he reads the mail. Then in the final segment answers the door of his crypt. Tells some bad jokes and each show ends with him going to his casket as people off the screen throw rubber chickens at him. Just the other night I watched Sven's airing of Abbot and Costello meet Jekyl and Hyde. Then 2 days ago I watched Murders in the Rue Morgue episode.

I hope everyone enjoyed me blathering on about Horror hosts.