Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, October 30, 1993                   TAG: 9311110363
SECTION: SPECTATOR                    PAGE: 1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: RON MILLER KNIGHT-RIDDER NEWSPAPERS
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

TV HORROR MOVIES - BEST OF THE PAST 25 YEARS

Here's a personal selection of the scariest made-for-TV shockers of the past 25 years:

``When A Stranger Calls Back'' (Showtime, 1993)

Director Fred Walton's follow-up to his 1979 classic, ``When A Stranger Calls,'' was even scarier and may be the shocker to beat for the 1990s. Charles Durning reprised his role as the detective who tracks down a psycho who's terrorizing a baby sitter, and Carol Kane returned as his 1979 victim, now older, wiser and eager for revenge.

``Trilogy of Terror'' (ABC, 1975)

Producer-director Dan Curtis, TV's horrormeister of the 1970s, spent the next decade going straight by making ``The Winds of War'' and ``War and Remembrance.'' This may be his genre masterpiece: three terror tales, all starring Karen Black. Scariest: Richard Matheson's ``Amelia,'' with Black cornered by a murderous living fetish doll.

``Salem's Lot'' (CBS, 1979)

This is the best of all the Stephen King dramatizations done for TV, directed by Tobe Hooper (``The Texas Chainsaw Massacre'') with considerable flair. David Soul plays a novelist who returns to his New England hometown and finds it teeming with vampires.

``Duel'' (ABC, 1971)

Steven Spielberg's highway horror story has been imitated but never duplicated. Dennis Weaver is a traveling salesman who becomes the prey of a demonic, 10-ton tanker truck that wants to destroy him. It was Spielberg's excruciatingly nerve-racking tune-up for ``Jaws.''

``Don't Be Afraid of the Dark'' (ABC, 1973)

This was the best of director John Newland's pack of TV chillers from the 1970s. Kim Darby and Jim Hutton move into a house occupied by little demons who want to drag her down the heating ducts.

``Stranger in Our House'' (NBC, 1978)

Long before he started giving us nightmares from Elm Street, director Wes Craven made this frightening tale of a visiting cousin who might be a witch. Starring Linda Blair from ``The Exorcist.''

``Homewrecker'' (Sci-Fi Channel, 1992)

Fred Walton's second film on the list was the first original film done for cable's Sci-Fi Channel, a harrowing, high-tech thriller in which scientist Robby Benson builds a computer that falls in love with him, gets possessive and decides to eliminate his family.

``Omen IV: The Awakening'' (Fox, 1991)

Director Jorge Montesi had an imposing task - doing a sequel to Richard Donner's 1976 box-office smash, ``The Omen,'' after two sequels. This thriller carried the satanic legacy of Damien into a new generation. Genuinely chilling - and gorier than most TV movies.

``The Sitter'' (Fox, 1991)

Most remember the 1952 ``Don't Bother to Knock'' not as a horror film, but as the movie that gave Marilyn Monroe her first substantial, dramatic role as a pathetic, mentally disturbed baby sitter. However, the 1991 remake from director Edward Pei effectively concentrated on the chills provided by newcomer Kim Myers as the sitter from hell.

``Frankenstein: The True Story'' (NBC, 1973)

All right, this really wasn't so scary, but it is TV's most imaginative and enjoyable retelling of Mary Shelley's classic man-made-monster story. Handsome Michael Sarazin was a dashing monster - until he started ripping heads off for lack of a bride. Lavishly filmed by Jack Smight with a cast that included James Mason, Jane Seymour, Ralph Richardson and John Gielgud, from a script by Christopher Isherwood. It originally ran four hours.