Fall Preview 2011

By Stacey Harrison Follow @ChannelGuideSRH Even using the exaggerated standards befitting a precocious child actor, Bailee Madison can be said to have an extremely sunny disposition. The 12-year-old rising star is genuinely kind and courteous, immediately and effortlessly turning an over-the-phone interview into a real conversation. She emphasizes how important schoolwork is to her, despite her demanding acting schedule, and she even makes time to serve as a national spokesperson for the childhood-cancer charity Alex’s Lemonade Stand. So what’s this sweet little girl’s obsession with horror stories? Aside from terrifying audiences on the big screen in Don’t Be Afraid of [...]

By Stacey Harrison Follow @ChannelGuideSRH Having survived the big-budget blockbuster horrors presented in last summer’s Super 8,  Riley Griffiths is facing sinister forces yet again in his follow-up effort, an episode of R.L. Stine’s The Haunting Hour that pits him against a malevolent mascot willing to resort to any means necessary to keep its station. That’s right. Not all those furry folks who tread the sidelines at football and basketball games are so friendly. In “Mascot,” Griffiths’ character Willie is repulsed by Big Yellow, his high school’s mangy dancing … whatever it is, and is convinced that installing a new [...]

By Stacey Harrison Follow @ChannelGuideSRH I started my conversation with Dylan Minnette by telling him how much I hated his guts. And the young star took it as the compliment it was intended to be. We were on the phone to discuss Minnette’s turn in this week’s episode of R.L. Stine’s The Haunting Hour, where he plays the lead role in a nasty little ditty called “Brush With Madness.” But I had just finished ushering in Halloween a couple days earlier by rewatching Let Me In, the intense vampire story that features Minnette all-too-convincingly portraying a loathsome bully (link NSFW) [...]