There are also first time showings for action thriller MOTHER LODE, directed by and starring Charlton Heston, SWEENY!, a Brit action crime drama, inspired by the ITV series The Sweeney, and white-knuckle ride VEHICLE 19.
Plus, two channel premieres head up the popular VINTAGE VAULT strand. Nightmarish chiller FIEND WITHOUT A FACE and the blood-thirsty FIRST MAN INTO SPACE are part of the terrifying Sunday night double-bills – cult masterpieces from the B-movie world of strange creatures, alien invaders and lurid horror.
The vault is unlocked on Sunday October 2nd with subterranean monster thriller THE MOLE PEOPLE. This is paired with Nathan Juran’s Ray Harryhausen-inspired 20 MILLION MILES TO EARTH.
The following Sundays include the beastly mutant classic THE DEADLY MANTIS, Fred F. Sears’ saucer-invading caper EARTH VS THE FLYING SAUCERS, spell-binding horror fantasy THE ABOMINABLE SNOWMAN, THE MONOLITH MONSTERS, in which the world is attacked by thirsty giant crystals, the brilliant Hammer horror, THE CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN (1957) and the hypnotically sensual DRACULA (1958).
And the second season of hit series KNIGHT RIDER, in which Michael, K.I.T.T. and gang return for more roadside adventures, has its channel premiere.
Full film details in transmission order:
Saturday 1 October @ 21:00 – THE DEVIL-SHIP PIRATES (1964) *Channel Premiere
Christopher Lee stars as Captain Robeles, a Spanish privateer in charge of the galleon 'Diablo'. When he realises that Drake has won the battle of Armada, Robeles escapes with his cut-throat crew to a lonely inlet on the Cornish coast. He manages to make the villagers believe that Drake has been defeated and he and his men begin to terrorize the locals.
Sunday 2 October @ 21:00 – THE MOLE PEOPLE (1957)
*Part of The Vintage Vault
John Bentley (John Agar), leads a Middle Eastern expedition in search of a lost tribe of Sumerians. He and his cohorts follow a tunnel deep below the surface of the earth, eventually coming across a tyrannical tribe of albino Sumerians, who use the semi-human Mole People as slaves. Aware of the danger the scientists pose, the subterranean High Priest wants them eliminated.
Sunday 2 October @ 22:30 – 20 MILLION MILES TO EARTH (1957)
*Part of The Vintage Vault
A manned space flight from Venus crash lands in the Mediterranean, losing its most precious cargo: reptilian eggs from the planet's surface. Italian zoologist (Frank Puglia), his American granddaughter, Marisa (Joan Taylor), and returned astronaut Calder (William Hopper) must battle to the creature before it destroys everything in its path.
From Wednesday 5 September @ 19:00 – KNIGHT RIDER, Season Two (1993) *Channel Premiere
In the second season of this hit series, Michael, K.I.T.T. and gang return for more roadside adventures. Whether in a drag race or fighting Michael's evil half-brother Garthe and his behemoth truck, this duo of man and super car are driving straight for thrills and excitement! At full speed!
Saturday 8 October @ 21:00 – BOILING POINT (1993) *Channel
Premiere
Making money is to print it. That's why everyone wants to get in on the act. As the "money men" blow away their rivals, they're sending smoke signals out to the cops. Cornered in a hotel stake-out, the mobsters have to choose between rubbing out their biggest rival and saving their own skins. Stars Wesley Snipes and Dennis Hopper and Viggo Mortensen.
Sunday 9 October @ 21:00 – THE DEADLY MANTIS (1957)
*Part of The Vintage Vault
When a giant insect attacks several people in a remote Arctic region, Col. Joe Parkham (Craig Stevens) swings into action. Parkham and his associates, Dr. Ned Jackson (William Hopper) and Ned's assistant Margie Blake (Alix Talton), track the predatory mantis as it heads southward to Washington DC.
Sunday 9 October @ 22:35 – EARTH VS THE FLYING SAUCERS (1956)
*Part of TheVintage Vault
UFOs from a doomed star system invade Earth with plans of world conquest. Surrender is not an option so the human race must fight to the bitter end. Special effects are by Ray Harryhausen.
Saturday 15 October @ 21:00 – SWEENY! (1976) *Channel Premiere
When one of his informants is murdered, Detective Inspector Jack Regan (john Thaw) is drawn into a deadly political game. He is soon a marked man and, after being framed, is suspended from duty. This doesn't stop him and Detective Sergeant Carter (Dennis Waterman) searching for the truth.
Sunday 16 October @ 21:00 – THE ABOMINABLE SNOWMAN (1957)
*Part of The Vintage Vault
An adaptation of a drama by Nigel Kneale, creator of the Quatermass series, this horror fantasy stars Peter Cushing as scientist John Rollason, who, ignoring his wife's objections, joins an expedition lead by American Tom Friend (Forrest Tucker). They are searching for the legendary yeti in the high Himalayas - a quest with deadly consequences.
Sunday 16 October @ 22:40 – THE MONOLITH MONSTERS (1957)
*Part of The Vintage Vault
A meteor crashes in the desert, leaving behind huge black chunks. While being analysed in a science lab, the crystalline stones are accidentally drenched with water and begin to grow to gargantuan dimensions. The monoliths grow to unimagined heights. Can the world be saved by the saline solution which the scientists are hurriedly developing in the lab?
A parolee unwittingly gets in the wrong rental car at Johannesburg airport with terrifying consequences. He soon realises that not only is he a stranger in inhospitable surroundings, but is the target of an entire police force that will use any means necessary to stop him and the tied-up female passenger he discovers in the back of the vehicle.
Sunday 23 October @ 21:00 – FIEND WITHOUT A FACE (1958) *Channel Premiere
A scientist's thoughts materialise as an army of invisible brain-shaped monsters (complete with spinal-cord tails!) who terrorize an American military base in this nightmarish chiller.This independently made British black-and-white cult classic was directed by Arthur Crabtree and stars Marshall Thompson, Kynaston Reeves, Michael Balfour, and Kim Parker.
Sunday 23 October @ 22:30 – THE CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN (1957)
Scientist Victor Frankenstein (Peter Cushing) will stop at nothing in his quest to reanimate a deceased body and assembles a hideous creature (Christopher Lee) out of dead body parts. He succeeds in bringing it to life, but the monster is not as obedient or docile as Frankenstein expected…
Friday 28 October @ 22:45 – ST. AGATHA (2018) *Channel Premiere
In 1950s Georgia, a pregnant woman on the run from the police, seeks refuge in a desolate convent, only to be met with an unsettling and horrendous evil waiting on the other side. Directed by Darren Lynn Bousman, the director of Saw II, III and IV.
Saturday 29 October @ 21:00 – MOTHER LODE (1982) *Channel Premiere
A couple of adventurers go into the wilds of British Columbia in search of a lost colleague, but when their plane crashes they find themselves at the mercy of a crazy miner who has lived in isolation searching the mountain caves for a chamber of long lost gold. Kim Basinger stars.
Sunday 30 October @ 21:00 – FIRST MAN IN SPACE (1958) *Channel Premiere
*Part of The Vintage Vault
Brash U.S. Navy test pilot, Lieutenant Dan Prescott, hungry for fame, rockets himself beyond Earth’s atmosphere on test flight Y-13, only to become encrusted with cosmic dust and return to earth as a blood-drinking monster. Directed by Robert Day, it stars Marshall Thompson, Marla Landi, Bill Edwards, and Robert Ayres.
Sunday 30 October @ 22:30 – DRACULA (1958)
*Part of The Vintage Vault
On a search for his missing friend, Jonathan Harker (John Van Eyssen), vampire hunter Dr. Van Helsing (Peter Cushing) is led to Count Dracula's (Christopher Lee) castle, where he finds an undead Harker in Dracula's crypt and discovers that the count's next target is Harker's ailing fiancée, Lucy Holmwood (Carol Marsh). With the help of her brother, Arthur (Michael Gough), Van Helsing is determined to protect Lucy and put an end to Count Dracula's parasitic reign of terror.
Monday 31 October @ 22:45 – COLD SKIN (2017) *Channel Premiere
On the edge of the Antarctic circle, a steamship approaches a desolate island. On board is a young man, poised to take up the post of weather observer, to live in solitude far from civilization. But on shore he finds no trace of the man he has been sent to replace, just a deranged brute in the lighthouse who has witnessed a horror he refuses to name. Then night begins to fall…
TV: Sky 148 / Virgin 149 / Freeview 41 / Freesat 137