This year, Halloween falls on Saturday, traditionally the least watched night on TV. Perhaps this is appropriate. In 2015, TV can be anything suitable for a holiday: shocking, terrifying, cloyingly sweet, overly commercial, and very, very rude. But one thing he still struggles with is fear. Don’t believe me? Take a moment to think: what was the last regular TV show that was really scary? I don’t mean bit by bit awful, like one of Leatherface’s victims. I mean a show that is scary from top to bottom, from start to finish. And I mean the show, except let’s say fathers.

This is not so much a criticism as a fact of life. Movies, with their limited screening time, are especially good for keeping the mood going. When you sit down to watch a horror movie, you are essentially agreeing to be on your toes for 90 to 120 minutes. Television, by its very nature, requires variety in tone and pitch. Viewers simply cannot be asked to hold their breath for eight, ten, or even 22 hours a season. Try it and they will die even before your show. Instead, television has traditionally had to play on the fringes of horror films, creating entire series from cuts and scraps that are usually underestimated by viewers. Fangoria crowd: slow, painful buildup; dispassionate, yeoman-like investigation; long, sad ending. (Or, as in the case of the flattering Fox scream queens, the idea that a mockery can cut deeper than a knife.) A scary movie is a twist on a haunted house. Scary TV Show is more of a haunted timeshare. There should be at least the occasional gimmicks towards amenities like comfort and humor because, let’s be honest, you’ll be there for a while.

If anyone was going to crack the horror television code, I would expect it to be a paid service like HBO or Netflix, with their unlimited makeup budgets and the freedom to target a micro-targeted audience with the precision of a serial killer. But the two most successful horror-movie-challenge series both hail from the infernal “Saw” of mainstream cable television. FX american horror storiesquiet killing ratings in its fifth iteration, television has probably come closest to the specificity and enduring madness of cinema. This is partly due to the creative casting of the show and the insatiable thirds to the extreme. But let’s be honest: the most noteworthy aspect ASF it’s not a bearded lady, it’s the length of each season. By limiting each cycle to 13 hours and one story, the show’s one dissonant note can sound like a symphony. no one is watching ASF as much as one commits to that.

AMS the walking Dead even more remarkable. Not only is this distant television most popular show Among the highly coveted 18- to 34-year-old demographic, he almost single-handedly refuted all the ideas outlined in my opening paragraph. Where most serialized dramas create a world and expand in it over time, adding characters, nuances and layers, the walking Dead has a guillotine where the engine of history should be. He has no interest in saving the world or curing a zombie outbreak. Instead, it sets base camp at a crushing moment when most dystopian films end, plunging into grief, violence, and loss. “All Fucked Up” is not a traditional starting point on television, but, again, the walking Dead not a traditional series. His remarkable prowess in areas often considered secondary – sound design, visual effects, editing and casting – has helped him to endure even when the plot veers decisively into a kind of sadistic nihilism. And, in a perverse way, a dull consistency the walking Dead – no matter what happens, every week someone gets bitten – that’s what saves it as a TV show. At that moment, constant, terrible suffering became as addictive as laughter.

This Sunday’s controversial episode actually reinforced the walking Deadconnection to other TVs. In the Jon Snow era, favorite shows have grown far beyond their time slots. The fandom is a full-contact sport that runs around the clock, seasons be damned. This showrunner is Scott M. Gimple should have qualified a major death – and thus an encroachment on his own dramatic narrative just minutes after it was launched – was further proof that the winking game no longer works in a world where everyone plays at such a high level. On the walking Dead, humans can just be huge buddies to zombie masses. But in fact, these characters are close people who are expected in our homes every week. The modern showrunner can and should scold them, but he must remember to respect them.

Despite this oversight, my main takeaway from Thank You was admiration. Though there are many nits left to choose from the walking DeadI’m deeply impressed by the show’s ability to take complex, fast-burning emotions like pain, stress, and desperation and compress them into the confines of a weekly series. The panicked, almost narcotic fugue state Nicholas fell into as he was surrounded by an incredible horde of zombies was contagious. I’m not saying I can understand the choice he made in that moment, but god, who could blame him? Over and over I find the scale of this season the walking Dead deeply unbalanced; death has long been everywhere, but rarely so monumental or seemingly inevitable. This ruthlessness is radical for television, and especially for Sunday night television, which has long been the warming heart of television week in the country. This is the rod that helped the walking Dead become the most terrifying television show in more than a literal sense; now it destroys the emotions, not just the insides.

On Saturday night, just when most kids will be counting their candy at home, two spooky, quirky series will premiere, each aiming to keep the pumpkin lantern glowing until November. Although SundanceTV Returned back with season 2 – I loved the first one – it’s Starz Ash vs Evil Dead it is actually the more familiar of the pair. That’s because it picks up a baggy story that first began in 1978, when two frustrated midwestern dramatic jerks named Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell made a bloody short film called In the forest. From this passage, an iconic empire arose: a trilogy favorite filmsas well as many video games, comics and unlimited possibilities for cosplay. The only tie between it all: Raimi’s inimitable tongue-in-cheek aesthetic and Campbell’s performance as Ashley “Ash” Williams, a one-armed everyman with the ability to summon spirits. Necronomicon. When ghouls come to the call, Ash is usually ready to deal with them with a barrage of witticisms and shotgun blasts. No more mountain climbing on the big screen (the cinematic reboot flopped in 2013) and nothing else. spiderman dancing According to the choreographer, the two have taken their signature chainsaw to the only frontier they have left: the small screen.

That’s the problem Ash vs Evil Dead: This is good. Better, it’s fun in a goofy, contagious way that’s the complete opposite. the walking Deadpouty frown. You don’t have to be familiar with the franchise’s history or humor before jumping in. I’d say the opening montage of a 57-year-old Campbell trying to squeeze into his belt is a pretty good introduction, as it’s a scene in which a Michigan detective (Jill Marie Jones) is attacked by a neck-wringing poltergeist whose head ends up exploding with the strength and fluid velocity of one of Gallagher’s overripe melons. What’s good about Ash vs Evil Dead it’s not that he doesn’t take himself seriously – although, come on, that’s not the case at all. The fact is that he chooses the details very carefully. must take seriously. Thus, Campbell – still the Iberico de Bellota of a Category B radio amateur – pays as much attention to Ash’s Chaplin antics as he does to swaggering chainsaw swings. And Raimi, who directed the first hour and co-wrote or produced the other nine, lends seriousness and wit to every high-jumping demon. With severed limbs and Saturday dinner references, this isn’t your father’s horror show. It’s your crazy uncle. And thank God for that.

At the other end of the spectrum is Returned. If Ash vs Evil Dead it is a gushing artery of jubilant blood, the French series is rigor mortis. In the first season, the inhabitants of a remote mountain town were decimated when their deceased relatives were suddenly brought back to life, seemingly unharmed and frozen to the age they were at the time of death. So: A teenage girl is suddenly reunited with her barely-adolescent twin, a young mother is visited by a fiancé who committed suicide while she was pregnant, a bar owner who happily buried his murderous brother years ago must find a way to accept him. back to the world. its orbit. It’s a bold premise, of course, and a smaller show would have turned down the pressure to come up with answers. But beauty Returned there was the awkward way in which he asked his heavy questions, the way he let his impossible dream of a premise slowly and imperceptibly collapse into a sour nightmare.

In season 2 Returned remains as awkward and elliptical as ever. Few shows are as breathtakingly beautiful; its palace of ghostly gray tones and harsh metallic light is reminiscent of the work of the Impressionist T-1000. And the music, once again composed by Scottish noise poets Mogwai, is subtle and disruptive. The flood cleansed the city, and the dead established their society in the mountains. The imminent birth of Adele’s (Clotilde Esme’s) baby – she was impregnated last season by the very late Simon (Pierre Perrier) – is what drives the plot, but the truth is that the plot feels almost secondary in such an eerie landscape. Really, Returned not so much frightening as haunting. In such a show, it is the living who slowly shed their masks to reveal the scarred monsters lurking beneath them. The supernatural is really just a mirror of the frightening possibilities of human nature. It is this psychological dissection, rather than the more bloody and literal one in which television is historically excellent. That’s because when the movie ends, you can quickly exit the theater and return to the quiet safety of your home. The scariest shows are always on TV. from within house.

LONDON– The British Royal Family is turning the page into a new chapter on Saturday with the coronation of King Charles III, a spectacle that echoes the Middle Ages but with modern elements.

The pomp, showmanship and symbolism date back more than 1,000 years, but this king’s coronation will include new twists and turns in tradition and changes from the coronation of his mother, Queen Elizabeth II, 70 years ago.

Plans for the ceremony at Westminster Abbey call for a more low-key event than the previous one, although there will be international royals, heads of state and much of Charles’ family, and the monarch plans to wear the same vestments Elizabeth did.

Here’s what you need to know about the coronation:

WHY CORONATION IF CARL IS ALREADY KING?

Charles automatically ascended the throne when Elizabeth died on September 8, and two days later he was formally proclaimed British monarch in a televised ascension ceremony for the first time.

Charles said he was “deeply aware of this great inheritance and of the duties and heavy responsibilities of sovereignty which have now passed to me.”

Coronations are not required by law, and other European monarchies have done away with ceremonies.

But this deeply religious and regalia-laden event is a more formal confirmation of his role as head of state and titular head of the Church of England, and was meant to show that the power of the king comes from God.

During a service led by the church’s spiritual leader, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Charles will be anointed with oil, given the traditional symbols of the monarch, including the orb and scepter, and crowned with St Edward’s crown for the first time. time. Charles’ wife Camilla will be crowned queen consort.

WHAT WILL BE DIFFERENT FROM THE LAST CORONATION?

The coronation ceremony dates back to the medieval period and much of it remains unchanged.

Westminster Abbey has been the site of the ritual since the coronation of William the Conqueror in 1066.

The coronation of Queen Elizabeth II in June 1953 was broadcast live for the first time. The black and white broadcast attracted tens of millions of viewers in the UK and was later shown to a worldwide audience. In the era of streaming and social media, people will be able to watch Charles’s coronation live – and in vibrant reds, blues and golds – from almost anywhere on the planet and post their hot shots with a signature emoji created for the occasion.

Charles said he planned to reduce the monarchy. His coronation is expected to reflect this: the ceremony will be shorter than his mother’s three-hour extravaganza, and there will be no more than 2,800 guests in the hall – far fewer than the 8,000 people who gathered to see Elizabeth’s coronation.

Due to the change in the religious composition of the United Kingdom, Buddhist, Hindu, Jewish, Muslim and Sikh religious leaders will play their part at the coronation. This reflects Charles’s vow to be a “protector of the faith” rather than a “protector of the faith”.

The post-ceremony procession will also be significantly shorter than the 5-mile (8 km) route that Elizabeth and her husband, Prince Philip, took around London in 1953. Charles and Camilla plan to use a more modern set of horse-drawn wheels. for the 1.3-mile (2 km) route from Buckingham Palace to the abbey. After the coronation, they will step back in time and repeat the journey in the 260-year-old carriage, notorious for its rough ride, which has been used at every coronation since the time of William IV in 1831.

WHO’S ON THE GUEST LIST?

The event is expected to be attended by hundreds of heads of state and members of the royal family, ranging from Japan’s Crown Prince Akishino and his wife Kiko to Spain’s King Felipe VI and Queen Letizia.

The US will keep its streak of presidents never attending a British royal coronation, though First Lady Jill Biden is set to attend.

William, Prince of Wales and heir to the throne, is expected to kneel before his father and pledge his allegiance in what is known as the “Dedication of the Royal Blood”.

His younger brother, Prince Harry, the disgruntled Duke of Sussex, is not expected to take part in the service. His explosive memoir Spare, which became a bestseller earlier this year, contained unflattering statements about the royal family.

Three weeks ago, the question arose whether Harry and his wife Meghan would attend the coronation after allegations of racism and media manipulation against the royal family.

While Harry is there, the Duchess will stay at the couple’s home in Southern California with their two young children, Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet.

The coronation will take place just days before Harry’s first lawsuit against the British tabloid press goes to trial. The case may reveal more family secrets.

During a hearing in a similar case last week, Harry said in court documents that Buckingham Palace, with the Queen’s approval, had reached an agreement with Rupert Murdoch’s English newspapers to settle phone hacking charges without legal action. Harry said he was ordered by the palace staff to drop the lawsuit because his father wanted to curry favor with the press.

The family drama doesn’t end there. Charles’ brother, Prince Andrew, will also play no part in the ceremony. Andrew renounced royal duties and was stripped of his military ranks and patronage after his friendship with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein was exposed. Andrew settled a lawsuit with a woman who said she was forced to have sex with him when she was a teenager.

WHAT IS CORONATION?

With opinion polls showing that support for the monarchy has waned in recent years, this is a chance for Charles to find and demonstrate public support.

Crowds are expected to line the streets to greet the new king, and crowds will stand outside Buckingham Palace waiting for him to appear on the balcony after the procession.

While criticism of the Crown has been relatively muted in recent years out of respect for the Queen and her decades of service to the country, there is likely to be much more debate about whether Britain still needs this outdated institution or should it become a republic with an elected head of state. .

The leader of the anti-monarchist Republic group said he plans to gather more than 1,000 yellow-clad protesters chanting “Not my king” as a royal procession passes by.

However, for the vast majority it will be an opportunity to celebrate that they are British or to show their support for an organization that is admired by many people around the world.

The streets will be adorned with Allied flags, spectators will be dressed in red, white and blue, and warplanes will fly overhead, spewing puffs of smoke in the national colors. The pomp and solemnity of the ceremony itself is also a reminder of a time when Great Britain was the most powerful power in the world.

WHO PAYS FOR THE HOLIDAY?

The public pays the costs of the coronation. There is no official estimate of how much it could cost yet. According to some estimates, it could exceed £100 million ($125 million).

A spokesman for Buckingham Palace said on Tuesday that some estimates were “more fantastic than others” and that the true cost would be revealed at a later date.

The celebration comes at a time when the UK is facing a severe cost-of-living crisis that has left many struggling to heat their homes and set their tables with food this winter.

But many people profit from the hype.

Officials expect to see an increase in tourism, and there is no shortage of coronation-themed events and commemorative products that could result in additional sales taxes.

Fans looking to remember the historic event can find everything here, from fine china to souvenir coins and even Charles and Camille’s cardboard masks. Coronation cookies, chocolate and beer are likely to be quickly forgotten.

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Danica Kirka contributed to this report.