TVSquad

It's the season for scary movies - bad scary movies, good scary movies, campy scary movies, any kind of scary movie. And depending on what cable company you subscribe to, there are plenty of free offerings right now on demand.

FearNet is the obvious go-to place for freebies, although it has its detractors hanging around this blog. One of the best choices available now is Return of the Living Dead III. Unless you're a hardcore horror geek, you may not know this one. And the plot -- a young couple near a military base are torn apart when she becomes one of the living dead -- may not sound exciting. But the first zombie onscreen is convincingly freaky, and the surprise ending is actually kind of a surprise.

FearNet also has Severed Ties, in which a severed arm comes back to life as a reptilian killing machine. And who doesn't like a good Garrett Morris/Oliver Reed team-up? And there are a couple of bigger movies, like Brian DePalma's Body Double and Rob Zombie's House of 1000 Corpses, and Sleepaway Camp II and III, featuring Pamela Springsteen (Bruce's sister).

The male nerd interest quotient just shot way up for Legend of the Seeker.

Actress Jolene Blalock (Vulcan T'Pol in Star Trek: Enterprise) is joining the cast of the New Zealand-based, Disney produced fantasy series as a recurring villain. According to a Disney press release, Blalock begins filming this week as "a mysterious Sister of the Dark who possesses very powerful magic."

It'll help you a lot to understand this next but if you're a fan of the show, but Blalock will not only threaten heroic Richard (Craig Horner) and "his quest to defeat evil forces," but her real goal is to destroy the lovely female lead, Kahlan (Bridget Regan).

One question I've had with the Disney acquisition of Marvel is how the House of the Mouse is going to deal with certain un-P.C. franchises. The one which came to mind was the comic series Marvel Zombies, which deals with an alternate Earth in which all superheroes were turned into flesh-eating undead and consumed the rest of the world's populace.

While I don't think I"ll be getting my answer anytime soon (perhaps the zombies will simply get locked in the Disney vault), some animator decided to redo the introductions to the 1960's Marvel Comics television cartoons in the zombie style. The original cartoons were essentially stop-motion comics of the original Lee/Kirby works. It's rather impressive how accurately the animator duplicates and parodies the original intros.

These videos can either be taken with humor or disgust as Zombie Captain America decapitates several soldiers and the heads of Norse Gods are thrown around. I leave it to you to judge for yourself. The videos are after the jump.

[via Topless Robot]

Disneyland hosted its own Disney Convention, called D23, in the style of Comic Con this past weekend. The name comes from the year Walt Disney moved to Hollywood and the event was held at the Anaheim Convention Center across the street from Disneyland . Among other announcements was that of a new Muppet movie called The Cheapest Muppet Movie Ever Made (hopefully it's a working title). There was also a live performance by Miley Cyrus, whom Disney owns the soul of.

Admittedly, it's a pretty good idea which caters to the real Disney enthusiasts out there (having met a few, I know they certainly exist). Disney is one of the few companies that is large enough to have its own version of Comic Con. While the convention had announcements for most of its franchises, I noted the absence of any mention of the recently-acquired Marvel Comics.

On the other hand, the company already has a Disney convention open all year round. It's called Disneyland (or Disneyworld for the East Coast). What do you think of this development?

While this news doesn't only affect television, it does affect the industry enough to warrant a mention since both companies have historically had a television presence. Disney has purchased Marvel Entertainment for about $4 billion.

So does this mean we'll be seeing Spider-Mickey cartoons in the near future? Beats me. There are certainly benefits to Disney's acquisition. Marvel is predominately known as a comic book company and that market has been shrinking. However, the visibility of its characters has been growing due to the myriad of Marvel movies out there.

I'm sure words like 'synergy' and 'downsizing' are going to be used when describing this situation in the future. Will there be layoffs at Marvel? Should editor-in-chief Joe Quesada fear for his job?

My biggest concern is content interference on the part of Disney and the "toning down" of the more adult storylines and characters at Marvel in an effort to maintain the corporate image of its new parent. One can only hope that Disney lets Marvel be Marvel.

If Disney was still not sure what their next super-series was going to be once Hannah Montana goes to bed after next season, they know now. The Wizards of Waverly Place movie just nailed down the highest cable ratings of the year. This in a summer full of ratings records on cable. Only High School Musical 2 has bested it on Disney, and we know what a phenomenon that franchise became.

Even more outstanding, the movie stands a decent chance of being the highest rated show on television this past week, including the broadcast networks. Tuesday's America's Got Talent, the summer leader, had 11.2 million viewers per the overnight ratings. Wizards of Waverly Place got 11.4 million.

Maybe it's time to combine the viewership numbers for cable shows and the broadcast networks. I think the cable channels have proven they can compete with select shows, so why not show it? While there are comprehensive, albeit flawed, ratings numbers from Nielsen for the broadcast networks, the consumer gets far less information about cable ratings. It's all television, right?

The video below features a group of gay dudes in speedos dancing on the beach to Miley Cyrus' "Party in the USA." And Disney loves it.



Seriously. In a surprising move, Disney, who owns Miley's music (as well as her soul), has allowed the video to become a hit on YouTube, and Disney employees have reportedly been e-mailing it to each other all week. It even got the seal of approval from Rich Ross, the president of Disney Channels Worldwide. Mr. Ross recently placed a phone call to the maker of the video, Esquire marketing exec Dave Fudge, just to tell him he "loved it."

A long-awaited merger between two cable channels has been finalized...uh, finally.

A&E Networks aquired Lifetime as part of a deal between Hearst, Disney and NBC Universal. The deal makes Lifetime a sub-company in the A&E empire.

The deal puts Disney and Hearst in the front row seats of both networks with NBC in a distant third. This means that NBC can sell its holdings in Lifetime to the other two parties within the next 15 years.

There doesn't seem to be any serious announcement or confirmations of a name or brand change under their new owners. Lifetime will still be called Lifetime.

Disney Family Movies, the new video on demand subscription service offering animated and live action titles from the studios' voluminous vaults, will offer a free trial Sept. 3-7 for viewers to get a feel of The Magic Kingdom's latest offering.

Subscribers to the service get access to a rotating selection of Disney's classic and contemporary films and animated shorts. Obviously, the on demand lineup is put together with the emphasis on family friendly. Each title in the selection menu remains in rotation for about a month, with new movies added weekly.

While this looks like a great thing for parents looking to have a steady inventory of safe video babysitters, the only concern is how this service might gut the programming on Disney's other cable entities -- or how it might affect the availability of DVDs.

Everyone is always up in arms about the Nielsen ratings, saying they don't accurately represent the shows that a lot of people like or aren't measured correctly or simply don't matter in this age of DVRs, iTunes, network web sites, and DVDs.

Now it looks like the networks are giving a thought to providing an alternative. CBS, NBC, Disney, News Corp, Discovery, Time Warner, and Viacom are getting together and hope to have some sort of plan on what the "consortium" will do by the end of September. A VP at Starcom MediaVest, one of the companies involved, says that they don't necessarily want to replace Nielsen but there's no reason why another company can't "come in and do both [TV measurement and digital measurement]"

[via TV Tattle]

It's an extraordinary thing when the 16 year-old star of a show on the Disney Channel can pole-dance on national TV, but that's what happened last night on FOX. People aren't happy about it.

Personally, I think if Cyrus wants to dance around a stripper's pole (yeah, "dancer's pole" - uh huh) or wants to date an entire football team or meet sailors down at the dock, fine, I guess that's her right.

I just don't think she should do it on a show called The Teen Choice Awards.

In a move that should bring some veteran dragon slayers out of their parents' basements long enough to turn on the TV, Legend of the Seeker is headed back for a second season.

According to producing partners Disney and ABC, the syndicated fantasy adventure show will return this fall. A descendant of the Hercules and Xena food family, Seeker tells the story of a woodsman whose life "gets turned upside down after discovering that he has a profound destiny to fulfill as the Seeker."

It's a burdensome duty that thrusts him into an unfamiliar world of magic, sorcery, evil and heaving wenches. The Seeker fights to protect innocent lives by confronting dangerous and evil forces because that's generally what heroes do in these sword and sorcery tales.

The folks at our sister site Cinematical are working hard to give you news and reviews of the best -- and worst -- the silver screen has to offer. Here are some of their musings on the latest blockbusters, indies, and everything in between:

• Duck Soup is my favorite Marx Brothers Film. Cinematical shares their favorite scene from the movie: where Groucho Marx, as Rufus T. Firefly insults everyone. Check it out; it's classic.
• Did you know that back in 1983, Disney attempted to do their own version of Where The Wild Things Are? It's classic Disney animation and Cinematical has a clip of it here.
• The most explosive summer movie ever: TerminEmpireTrekAliensFormers. Summer will never be the same again.
• I'm going to see Harry Potter tonight, so in honor of its release, we have Cinematical Seven: Elisabeth's favorite Harry Potter moments.
• I really should re-read the HP books before I go and see the movies, but I don't, so this article on how Half-Blood Prince changes the book for the better was quite helpful for me.

The same classic Disney cartoons that made up a television classic, The Wonderful World of Disney, are heading to DVD in six separate editions.

Even before the days of cable, Wonderful World ran on all three major networks at one time or another, racking up records as one of the longest running shows in TV history. While also featuring live action material, most episodes included short form animations that were once tacked onto Disney animated features in previous decades.

If not for that weekly television exposure, these older cartoons could have disappeared into vaults. Apart from Pixar, studios don't offer you animated short subjects before the opening credits roll.

Now, Disney made the smart move in using a comprehensive DVD line to keep these classic nursery rhymes and fables fresh in kids' minds.

The folks at our sister site Cinematical are working hard to give you news and reviews of the best -- and worst -- the silver screen has to offer. Here are some of their musings on the latest blockbusters, indies, and everything in between:

• Chuck's Zachary Levi is in a movie! He plays Ray, a half-Pakistani/half-white actor trying to make it in Hollywood and dating Life's Sarah Shahi. It's a TV bonanza! Check out the trailers for Shades of Ray over on Cinematical.
• I knew that The Dark Knight director Christopher Nolan collaborated with his brother on the script for Memento, but it's his other brother who is wanted for kidnapping and murder. Get the details on Cinematical.
• With the economy in the crapper, nobody really gives a crap about the environment at the moment, but you can still do some good. If you buy a ticket to Earth on its opening weekend, Disney will plant a tree in your name.
• I really want I Love You, Man to be good. Read Cinematical's review to see if it's worth seeing this weekend.
• ...Or if Bromances aren't your thing, you can check out Julia Roberts' return to the big screen in Duplicity--but check out Cinematical's review first.