8 Scary TV Treats Coming This Halloween
2. Inside No. 9 - Dead Line
When & Where: BBC Two on 28th October
League Of Gentlemen and Psychoville creator-stars Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith's endlessly inventive twisted comedy anthology series returns the Sunday before Halloween for a one-off special prior to the upcoming fifth season.
Although billed as a "dark comedy", Inside No. 9 has often placed the emphasis rather more on the "dark" with horror enthusiasts Pemberton and Shearsmith giving us stories in the past that have featured haunted seances, witch trials, and demons, all with a nasty twist in the tail, however much they may have also made us laugh.
Inside No. 9 also likes nothing so much as an episode gimmick. Following previous classics including an episode with no dialogue, one with dialogue entirely in Shakespearean iambic pentameter, and one structured around a cryptic crossword puzzle which Pemberton had also published in that week's Guardian newspaper, the Halloween special's gimmick is that it will be entirely filmed and broadcast live.
The plot, penned as ever by Pemberton and Shearsmith, sees Pemberton as a man plunged into a nightmare scenario after finding an old mobile phone in a local graveyard and attempting to contact its owner. As to what happens next, you'll have to tune in to the live broadcast.
Let's just hope it can come close to matching the scares summoned up by past BBC live Halloween classic Ghostwatch.