In the days before the Super Bowl being the biggest event there is, Superdome was an ABC Monday Night Movie that was used to promote Super Bowl XII. It’s also known as The Super Bowl Story and Countdown to the Super Bowl.

Directed by Jerry Jameson (Airport ’77, The Bat People), this is one of those disaster-style big cast movies, in which the Cougars — I guess the NFL wouldn’t let any of their teams be in the movie — are all in trouble. There are marital issues for Ken Howard, bad business decisions by Tom Selleck, as well as an assassin! And Michael Pataki!

Man, I love any movie that features Dick Butkus and Bubba Smith, much less David Janssen and Donna Mils. It’s not great, but you know, you could do worst. And you have.

You can get this from Kino Lorber.

It was a smart idea to take a story by Stephen King — “Chattery Teeth” — and Clive Barker — “The Body Politic” — and turn it into a portanteau. Oddly, the whole idea came about because of agents.

Creative Artists Agency met with Garris about writing the pilot script for a John McTiernan-directed horror series that would have the same actors every week and a storyteller named Aaron Quicksilver — played here by Christopher Lloyd — introduce each story.

After writing a pilot script based on “Chattery Teeth,” Garris pitched the series to Fox, who wanted a two-hour movie, which brought in the Barker story. McTiernan then left the project, with Garris taking over.

In the film King-penned tale — the home video flips the order — Quicksilver meets a hitchhiking couple who are newly married and tells them the story of a man who grabbed some poorly made novelty teeth at a gas station, teeth that somehow become alive and devoted to protecting his life. Then, a pickpocket learns the Barker story, all about a world in which our hands become their own people and rebel against the people they are attached to.

Matt Frewer being in both stories really helps. He’s the kind of actor who improves every role he touches. And Garris is able to turn this material into a gripping film; it helps that he was friends with both authors, as they had cameos in his film Sleepwalkers and Garris also directed the original The Stand, The Shining TV movie, Riding the Bullet Desparation and Bag of Bones.

This shot on video anthology film was chopped up and played in between shows on the Sci-Fi Network, when that was a thing before SyFy. So if one of these stories sounds familiar to you, that could be why.

Vincent Price plays the mailman and host of these stories, as a man opens a package and puts in the video tape that has all of these horrific little tales on them. From a fisherman getting his just desserts to bad directions, werecats chasing a larger man through the woods, alien crash landings, a bridge haunted by hobgoblins, magic crystals, frightening dreams and the horror of living in the city, this movie is all over the place yet not every frightening or well-made.

Writer/producer/director David Steensland only made this one and done film, but at least he had the sense to hire Price for a single day

Intervision put this out on a double DVD with Dark Harvest. It’s out of print, however.

Showtime was looking for Body Bags to be their Tales from the Crypt, yet the plug was pulled after just three episodes. That’s a shame because this show had some great talent behind it. I mean, John Carpenter hosting and directing along with Roc Hooper? Yeah, that’s what I’m talking about.

“The Gas Station” may as well be a side story to Halloween. When a young college student starts her first all-night shift at a gas station near Haddonfield, she learns of a breakout at the local mental hospital — hello Smith’s Grove — and is told she needs to stay inside because the door will lock her out and stay locked until the morning. After a series of strange visitors — George “Buck” Flower, Wes Craven, Peter Jason, David Naughton — and a scrawled demon drawing in the bathroom, she learns that the man who hired her — David Carradine — is the killer.

“Hair” has Stacey Keach dreaming of having a full head of hair and doing whatever it takes, even getting a transplant from an alien. Between Sheena Easton as his wife, David Warner as the doctor who makes it happen, Debbie Harry as his nurse and cameos by Kim Alexis, Greg Nicotero and Rock and Roll Fantasy star Attila in the only other movie he ever made.

Finally, “Eyes” has everyone from John Agar and Roger Corman to Charles Napier, Twiggy and Mark Hamill in the lead role of a pitcher who gets an eye transplant from a killer.

By the end, Carpenter’s coroner character reveals himself to be a zombie as Tobe Hooper and Tom Arnold start to cut over his chest cavity for an autopsy.

Man, Body Bags has a great score and seems loads of fun, way better than the junk that passes for horror anthology stuff today like Shudder’s abysmal Creepshow reboot. At least we have these three episodes, I guess.

You can watch this on Tubi.

This is the only film in the Halloweentown series not to feature Kimberly J. Brown as Marnie. Brown herself has claimed that not only was she available, but she wanted to finish out the series. Instead, series creator Sheri Singer would just state that Disney and Brown’s camp couldn’t come to terms and make a deal work. That said, Joey Zimmerman, Debbie Reynolds, Judith Hoag and Lucas Grabeel did all come back for the film. Sophie, who was played by Emily Roeske in the previous Halloweentown installments, is mentioned but does not appear. It was directed by David Jackson, who also made the Yasmine Bleeth-starring The Lake.

Marnie decides that instead of college that she’ll attend Witch University in Halloweentown on a full scholarship. But when she starts classes, she learns that all they do is study Shakespeare and the history of magic. She makes a new friend — Aneese the Genie — while reconnecting with Ethan and running afoul of the Sinister Sisters, the daughters of Silas Sinister.

The reason why magic is no longer taught? It’s all Marnie’s fault. Witch University was originally established exclusively for warlocks and witches to learn how to use magic. But Marnie destroyed the portal between the worlds, most of the magical children went to college in the mortal realm.

There’s also the matter of a locked box in the dungeon of the school that only Marnie can open, with a sinister group called the Dominion working to force her to break open its seal. Once open, it allows the Sinister Sisters to control Halloweentown. As you can imagine, everything works out — this is a Disney Channel movie, not the usual Filmirage gorefests we watch around here and even sets up future tales.

Due to the recasting, most fans of this series kind of wish this movie never existed.

I watch a lot of Disney Channel movies late at night, so perhaps I can be forgiven when I mix them up. Or maybe it’s because this is the first of several films where some motherless or fatherless kids move to or visit a new town where a relative was involved in the supernatural and must deal with it themselves. Seeing as how there’s no Debbie Reynolds or Mr. Boogedy in this, I would assume that we’re watching The Scream Team, but you can also think that maybe this is Beetlejuice.

At least this has the talents of Eric Idle, Tommy Davidson and Kathy Najimy as the ghosts who help those in the afterlife cross over. They even have a waiting room just like the aforementioned Tim Burton classic.

This is also an early role for Kat Dennings, who plays Claire Carlyle, who is joined by her brother Ian in learning exactly why their grandfather can’t move on from this plane of existence.

This was a pilot for a series, but this episode is pretty much all you get. If you like this type of supernatural fun that’s safe for kids, trust me, there’s so much more on DIsney+.

Another Halloweentown, another jump two years into the future. Marnie (Kimberly J. Brown) prepares for a new school year as she works to build the relationship between the world of magic and our normal dimension. To do so, she proposes bringing a group of Halloweentown students to her mortal high school. The big worry? There have been signs of the Knights of the Iron Dagger, a fanatical order that wants to destroy all things magic.

However, the Halloweentown High Council agrees to the plan after Marniebets all the Cromwell magic that her plan will work. If she can’t show why this was a good idea by Halloween, her entire family will lose their magical abilities. Luckily, she has the support of her grandmother Aggie (Debbie Reynolds).

It turns out that there are both humans and magical beings that don’t want our worlds to cohabitate. Things were better when they were status quo, which Marnie and her family are rallying against. These are big things to consider within the context of a Disney Channel movie, but here we are.

Mark A.Z. Dippé worked on the special effects for The Abyss and Terminator 2 before becoming a director. He’s made plenty of straight to video Garfield movies, but is best known for directing Spawn.

Disney live action fans will either be pleased — or dismayed as it’s a modern remix — to hear “Let’s Get Together” from The Parent Trap in this movie.

While this was originally going to be a series, this is the first Disney Channel original movie to get a sequel. It has a great pedigree, as it was directed by Kenneth Johnson, who created The Bionic Woman and V*.

Stardate 2049: Zenon Kar is a 13-year-old girl who has been in so much trouble on a space station that her parents send her to Earth, where she has trouble fitting in with the kids that have no idea what pop culture is, all while discovering a conspiracy to upload a computer virus top the space station, crash it to Earth and collect the insurance money.

Hey — Stuart Pankin! Not only Bob Charles, the anchor of HBOs Not Necessarily the News and Earl Sinclair on Dinosaurs, Stuart shows up in all manner of movies, a dependable character actor that I love. He’s Commander Edward Plank, the boss of the big space station.

They made two more of these movies about the plucky space girl — and Disney+ has them — so if this is your jam, get on it.

*He also directed Short Circuit 2 and Steel, but we don’t talk of those movies.

Mary Lambert once directed music videos — Janet Jackson’s “Control” and five videos for Madonna including “Borderline,” “Like a Virgin,” “Material Girl,” “La Isla Bonita” and “Like a Prayer” — before making Pet Sematary. And yes, she went on to make a Disney Channel movie, as well as Mega Python vs. Gatoroid.

It’s been two years since we last saw Marnie (Kimberly J. Brown), who has spent the time learning magic from her grandmother Aggie (Debbie Reynolds) in Halloweentown. While hosting a mortal neighborhood Halloween party in our universe, Marnie tries to impress new neighbor Kal (Daniel Kountz) by showing off Aggie’s magically-hidden room. Before you can say plot device, Aggie notices something wrong with the portal between our worlds, sending her back to Halloweentown.

It turns out that Kal is really the son of Kalabar — didn’t see that coming with that name, huh? — and he’s cast a Gray Spell over the entire realm, making the magically colorful world of Halloweentown boring. Meanwhile, he’s turning Earth into a monster-filled nightmare.

To save the day, the barriers between Halloweentown and our world must be destroyed. But at what cost? Oh, if there were only a third film. There is? And I’m going to write about it this week? Man, this magic has me flummoxed.

As for horror fans, Judith Hoag wears the Silver Shamrock witch mask from Halloween III: Season of the Witch. Here’s hoping she takes it off before the commercial plays.

Marnie Piper can’t understand why her mother Gwen won’t allow her and her siblings Dylan and Sophie to celebrate Halloween. It turns out that both Gwen and her mother Aggie are witches, despite the fact that Gwen yearns to live the life of a mortal. Now, Aggie is intent on training Marnie as a witch and informs her of where she lives, Halloweentown.

Halloweentown is a place where witches, warlocks, vampires, trolls, ogres, zombies, werewolves, mummies, ghosts, pumpkin heads, skeletons, goblins and humanoids with varying numbers of body parts have decided to escape from the fear of humans and create their own alternate universe.

Aggie wants to teach Marnie how to become a witch before she turns 13 and can’t use her powers. She’s also worried that people in Halloweentown have been disappearing. As she goes home on a magic bus, Marnie and Dylan sneak on board.

That’s when they run afoul of Kalabar, a man that used to date Gwen and is still jealous that she chose to marry a human. Luckily, the family comes together and it’s decided that Aggie will spend more time in our world and Marnie will train to be a witch, which is good news, because Halloweentown II: Kalabar’s Revenge would follow four years later. It was directed by Mary Lambert — yes, the same person who made Pet Sematary.

Director Duwayne Dunham was an editor at Lucasfilm and directed three episodes of Twin Peaks before making Halloweentown. A name you may recognize in the credits belongs to Alfred Sole, the production designer, who is better known for directing Alice, Sweet Alice.