New Respect for Old Genre

Horror films are no laughing matter to Clive Barker, who has written and directed such scary movies as "Hellraiser" and penned numerous spine-tingling novels like the current "Coldheart Canyon." So when American Movie Classics approached him to host its annual MonsterFest Halloween celebration, he agreed but only if he could treat the films in the festival with the respect they deserved.

"They came to me with a list of movies and I said if you are actually going to show these movies, then I'll do it," says Barker in a recent interview. "It was a very cool list. What I liked about it was that there were some obvious titles and some less obvious titles. It felt like a fun thing to do."

Barker notes that "very often when people who front [these movie festivals] have their tongues deeply in their cheeks. I don't like that. I told the AMC people the only way I'll really be comfortable doing this is if the introductions are respectful and informative. Obviously, it can't be a college lecture but it can, at least, be that we can talk to some degree about the movies. They mean something to the culture at large."

"MonsterFest 2001: You Don't Know Jack About ... MonsterFest," the fifth edition of the network's annual festival, kicks off tonight and continues through Halloween. Also featured will be Carmen Electra and Schmitty, the wisecracking host of the popular CD-ROM game "You Don't Know Jack," offering fun facts.

The first three nights of the festival are dedicated to Frankenstein, his Bride, the Mummy and the Wolf Man. Movies include "The Bride," "Frankenstein," "The Bride of Frankenstein," "The Mummy," "The Mummy's Hand," "The Mummy's Ghost," "The Wolf Man," "The Curse of the Werewolf" and "The Werewolf of London."

Halloween eve is "The Devil's Night," which features a new 90-minute documentary, "The Omen Legacy," and airings of "The Omen," "The Omen II: Damien" and "The Omen III: The Final Conflict."

Halloween features a 24-hour marathon of such Dracula movies as "Dracula," "Son of Dracula" and "Dracula's Daughter" and a "monster load" of trivia.

Barker finds it regrettable that contemporary audiences often laugh at these vintage horror films from the 1930s and '40s.

"Modern audiences, particularly young modern audiences, feel to some measure superior to horror movies in part because they have been taught to be," says Barker, who also produced "Gods and Monsters," the acclaimed 1998 film about James Whale, the openly gay director of "Frankenstein" and "Bride of Frankenstein."