{"id":298287,"date":"2026-10-02T11:06:10","date_gmt":"2026-10-02T11:06:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/298287\/"},"modified":"2026-10-02T11:06:10","modified_gmt":"2026-10-02T11:06:10","slug":"philadelphia-tv-listings-of-horror-films-keeps-halloween-analog","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/298287\/","title":{"rendered":"Philadelphia TV listings of horror films keeps Halloween analog"},"content":{"rendered":"

From Philly and the Pa. suburbs to South Jersey and Delaware, what would you like WHYY News to cover? Let us know!<\/a>\n<\/p>\n

As spooky season opens for 2026, horror can be found in many forms. Philadelphia artist James Heimer is guiding people to the sometimes cheap and tawdry variety on television.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cHorror movies are thought of as junk culture, but I think the craft of stuntmen in a rubber suit, tramping through miniatures, stop motion animation, it\u2019s art,\u201d he said.\n<\/p>\n

To celebrate that art, Heimer has relaunched his annual October newsletter called The Matinee Idle.<\/a> It lists horror and science fiction movies broadcast on Philadelphia regional TV. The weekly snail-mail folio only exists during the four weeks of October and only lists movies that can be seen for free on terrestrial broadcast, i.e. antenna television.\n <\/p>\n

\"JamesJames Heimer started the Matinee Idle five years ago for a small group of subscribers. The publication lists only movies available on broadcast television and is mailed to subscribers. (Emma Lee\/WHYY)<\/p>\n

As someone who has joined the roughly 22 million Americans<\/a> who have cut cable and watch over-the-air broadcasts, Heimer is not interested in streaming or cable TV horror.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cI haven\u2019t had cable in five years and I\u2019m perfectly content with what I\u2019ve got,\u201d he said.\n<\/p>\n

Heimer is an editorial artist who has illustrated for The New York Times, NPR, Philadelphia\u2019s Grid Magazine, Harvard Magazine and the Portland Monthly. He also teaches illustration at Arcadia University.\n<\/p>\n

The Matinee Idle occasionally breaks its own rules by listing movies that are streamed online, but Heimer makes sure there are no paywalls for viewing them or that the movies can be accessed for free through the Free Library of Philadelphia.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is as culturally significant as anything in any museum, but these things are not held in the public trust. They\u2019re owned by media conglomerates,\u201d he said. \u201cThis is my way of showing people how to access these things for free because I do think they\u2019re culturally significant.\u201d
\n\"JamesJames Heimer is disguised as himself in a mask he created for Halloween. The printmaker and illustrator is pictured in his home studio in Philadelphia, where he is putting together the final run of Matinee Idle, a yearly series of newsletters reviewing horror films available on broadcast television. (Emma Lee\/WHYY)\n<\/p>\n

Little Shop of Horrors<\/p>\n

Some of the films listed in The Matinee Idle have titles that sound like costume ideas: \u201cThe Crawling Eye,\u201d \u201cTwins of Evil,\u201d \u201cFiend without a Face,\u201d \u201cAlligator People\u201d and \u201cThe Green Slime.\u201d It also lists seasonal favorites such as \u201cHalloween\u201d \u2014 AMC is kicking off October with a marathon of the first five films \u2014 \u201cNight of the Living Dead\u201d and \u201cAn American Werewolf in London.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

Heimer composes the newsletter from a corner of his Mt. Airy bedroom. It\u2019s filled with original art and brief encapsulations of selected films, typically snarky one-liners. The movies listed start broadcasting at dawn. For instance, you can catch \u201cThe Bad Seed\u201d at 6 a.m. Sunday, Oct. 4. That\u2019s if you wouldn\u2019t rather watch \u201cFreddy\u2019s Dead: The Final Nightmare,\u201d which airs\u00a0 at 6:15 a.m.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cMurderous child or child murdered?\u201d Heimer wrote. \u201cYou have some choices this morning.\u201d
\n\"TheAn upcoming issue of The Matinee Idle is illustrated by James Heimer\u2019s daughter, Lena Heimer, 11. (Emma Lee\/WHYY)\n<\/p>\n

The films continue into the dead of night and before dawn. David Cronenberg\u2019s \u201cRabid,\u201d about reconstructive surgery gone horribly wrong, is showing at 4 a.m. on Oct. 10.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cHad David Cronenberg continued on this trajectory he might have become a kind of revisionist George Romero,\u201d Heimer wrote, comparing Cronenberg, known for movies like \u201cThe Fly\u201d and \u201cScanners,\u201d to Romero, the late filmmaker behind \u201cNight of the Living Dead\u201d and \u201cDawn of the Dead.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m glad he didn\u2019t,\u201d he added.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cI write reviews from memory,\u201d he said. \u201cSome of these movies I haven\u2019t seen in 10 or 15 years. Sometimes I get things wrong and people call me out for it, but I think it\u2019s more interesting that way.\u201d\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"From Philly and the Pa. suburbs to South Jersey and Delaware, what would you like WHYY News to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":298288,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[732,69,71,70,2596],"class_list":["post-298287","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-halloween","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-headlines","tag-philadelphia-news","tag-television"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/298287","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=298287"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/298287\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/298288"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=298287"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=298287"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=298287"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}