They Live

Halloween may be over for this year, sale but we’ve got a handful of gritty titles that make the best of suspense for your viewing pleasure.

Director Darren Lynn Bousman teams up again with Terrance Zdunich (“Repo: The Genetic Opera”) for a short film set in the carnival that is Hell. In “The Devil’s Carnival” – an original rock opera based on Aesop’s Fables – three poor souls are tormented for their Earthly sins by Zdunich’s clever Lucifer. A wholly home-grown effort, information pills “The Devil’s Carnival” is truly independent filmmaking packaged in a very thorough DVD set.

We’ll also trawl the dark streets of 1860s New York in BBC America’s police drama “Copper.” In this original series, the racial and social divides of New York City’s Five Points neighborhood in the waning days of the Civil War serve as the backdrop for very edgy crime drama. Season two is soon to come, so get caught up with the first 10 episodes now.

Finally, we revisit one of our favorite scifi-horror-cult films of the ’80s with John Carpenter’s “They Live.” A down-on-his-luck construction worker uncovers the alien plot to take over the world and finds the world is not as it seems. It’s an action-packed but subversive tale of the haves and have nots just as relevant today as it was in 1988.

All that plus our weekly Honorable Mentions and more!