Spooky Series & Freaky Films for Friday the 13th
Supernatural Selections for Children of All Ages
Mar 13, 2009
Friday the 13th is often regarded as a day of unlucky and odd occurrences. It seems to have taken on a Halloween-like quality, filled with mysticism and superstitions about black cats and stepping on cracks. But unlike Halloween, Friday the 13th seems to have acquired a more amusing connotation, so enjoy a marathon of merry magic, freaky frights, and spooky superstition with these 13 entertainment suggestions for children of various ages.
Disney Animation
Walt Disney films often feature magic as a chief ingredient. Alice in Wonderland and Peter Pan each feature child characters wondering at a series of magical and unusual events and things, while magical spells motivate movies such as Beauty and the Beast and Aladdin.
Fairies are featured in films such as Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, and Pinocchio.
Pete’s Dragon, tells the story of a magical dragon who can only be seen by an orphan boy, Pete, who the dragon finds a home,and Mary Poppins, the story of a magical nanny, depicts a number of unusual and fantastical events.
Matilda
Based on a novel by Roald Dahl, Matilda tells the story of a little girl, who having always been different from her family, also discovers that she has telekinetic powers.
The Three Lives of Thomasina
The 1964 movie tells the story of a cat called Thomasina. In the tradition of cat’s having nine lives, Thomasina has several chances at life. The Scotland-set story stars Susan Hampshire and Karen Dotrice.
The Addams Family
Based on the newspaper cartoons by Charles Addams and the television series of the same name, the movie shows the collection of odd and extreme Addams family members who enjoy dark thoughts and seem to think the reverse to the rest of the world.
The Munsters
Nothing can be odder than the family featured in the 1960s television comedy, The Munsters. Grandpa is a Vampire, the father of the family is Frankenstein’s monster, and the son of the family is a werewolf, but they are happy.
The Wizard of Oz
The 1939 Hollywood musical version of a children’s book by L. Frank Baum has proved to become a famous film fantasy, filled with frights and spells as the story follows Dorothy Gale (Judy Garland) attempting to find her way through the magical land of Oz.
Almost fifty years after this film, another motion picture was adapted from later books written by Baum about the world of Oz. Return to Oz, shows a second adventure for safety. Dorothy is played by child-star, Fairuza Balk, who went onto to star in other magical movies.
The Worst Witch
Before Hogwarts was ever created by J.K. Rowling, Jill Murphy wrote a series of novels about a school for young witches. Murphy’s series of books follows the misadventures of the goodhearted Mildred Hubble, as she attempts to overcome being thought of as the worst witch.
The Worst Witch was adapted into a television movie in 1986, which aired on the Disney channel every Ha lloween into the late 1990s. It is now available on DVD. Fairuza Balk plays the muddled Mildred Hubble, and it also stars Charlotte Rae, Tim Curry, and Diana Rigg. Bonnie Langford sings the theme song, “Growing Up Isn’t Easy.”
From 1998 to 2001, the British television channel aired a comedy series based on the books.
Harry Potter
Five of the J.K. Rowling fantasy novels about the school years of the young wizards Harry Potter, Ron Weasley, and Hermione Granger have been filmed as lavish motion pictures. The sixth book in the series, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, is set to be released later this year. In preparation for the opening, the first five films will remind of the story of spells, scariness, and superstition from the school of Hogwarts.
Apart from its leading actors, the Harry Potter films also feature a variety of British stars including, Maggie Smith, Alan Rickman, Dawn French, John Cleese, Zoë Wanamaker, Kenneth Branagh, Emma Thompson, and Ralph Fiennes.
Hocus Pocus
Set in Salem, Massachusetts, on the night of All Hallows Eve, three witches, the seventeenth-century sinister sisters Sanderson return from the dead to suck the life from unsuspecting modern-day children. The story shows the attempts of two teens, one little girl, and an immortal black cat to stop the evil witches.
Bette Midler, who stars as one of the three witches, sings the show-stopping song, “I Put A Spell On You.”
Freaky Friday
Freaky Friday, a novel by Mary Rodgers, has been adapted into several cinema and television movies. The original story is of a mother and her adolescent daughter finding that they are in each others bodies. Television remakes have showed the same reverse between a father and son and a mother and son.
The original film version was made in 1976 and stars Barbara Harris and Jodie Foster. The most recent film version was made in 2003 and stars Lindsay Lohan and Jamie Lee Curtis.
Sabrina the Teenage Witch
Based on the Archie Comic Book Series, it ran as a television comedy as part of ABC’s FGI Friday night lineup from 1996 to 2000. Another three seasons were aired on The WB from 2000 to 2003. It now shows in syndication on ABC Family, and it is available on DVD.
The series follows the experiences of Sabrina Spellman (Melissa Joan Hart), who while living with her aunts in Massachusetts, on her sixteenth birthday learns that she is witch. Throughout the series, her goodhearted good witch aunts and their talking black cat, Salem, assist Sabrina, as she learns how to use her magical powers.
I Married a Witch
The black and white 1942 film stars Veronica Lake as a good witch who wishes to marry a mortal. It is a comic romantic farce, again set in Salem.
Bewitched
An American sitcom which ran on ABC from 1964 to 1972, Bewitched sohowed the magical spells of Samantha Stephens (Elizabeth Montgomery), who having married a mortal man attempts to live life as an ordinary suburban housewife.
