A new version of “Chiller Theater” would have never happened without permission from the Cardille family.
That’s not to say it was difficult to win over Lori Cardille, daughter of late longtime “Chiller Theater” host Bill “Chilly Billy” Cardille and star of George Romero’s 1985 zombie threequel “Day of the Dead.”
She was at a pop culture convention being interviewed by WPXI-TV meteorologist Scott Harbaugh, who grew up watching “Chiller Theater” on WIIC-TV (now WPXI), when he first brought up the notion of a reboot.
“Scott is just a lovely man,” Cardille told the Post-Gazette. “He has a lot of my father’s qualities, and he’s very bright. I said, ‘That’s great. It would be an honor. Do it!’”
The new “Chiller Theater” premiered Saturday, just in time for the original’s 60th anniversary on Sept. 14. Harbaugh is now hosting what will ultimately be eight episodes of wonderfully schlocky horror films interspersed with trivia, fun facts and accoutrements provided by Tarentum-based haunted-house experience ScareHouse. New episodes will air Saturdays at 11:30 p.m. on PCNC and the WPXI Now app.
“I think it’s part of Pittsburgh history anew,” Cardille said. “Horror is so explosive now. The fact that dad was one of the first horror hosts in the country, I think that a new generation of people seeing the new one who don’t know my dad ... will be able to see Scott doing the ‘Chiller’ and therefore look back and see the history of horror and my father.”
Cardille hosted the original “Chiller Theater” from 1963-1984 and it was so popular in this region that WIIC preempted “Saturday Night Live” episodes airing nationally on NBC in favor of “Chiller Theater” for about four years in the 1970s. Cardille, who died in 2016 at age 87, would often get mobbed at restaurants during his heyday in the 1960s and ’70s, according to his daughter.
This latest iteration of “Chiller Theater” has been in the works for about five years, according to a Sept. 4 story on WPXI’s website. It finally came about thanks to the combined efforts of Harbaugh, WPXI floor director Jake Klingensmith and former WPXI employee Jeremy Lynch. Klingensmith is a Western Pennsylvania native and lover of vintage sci-fi and horror who said in that article the whole “Chiller Theater” 2.0 team feels “we’re taking it in a direction people will love.”
“This was a passion project for some of our employees, and around Halloween and the anniversary of this beloved show, we were happy to provide a platform to share this new version with other fans of the original,” WPXI vice president and general manager Kevin Hayes said via a press release.
Harbaugh said in the same piece that he knows “there is only one ‘Chilly Billy’” and that “we’d be doing ourselves a huge disservice” by trying to replicate his iconic persona. He also said that Lori Cardille “has been incredibly encouraging” of the new “Chiller Theater.”
She hadn’t watched any episodes at the time of her Post-Gazette interview, but she had been sent the new opening, a re-recording of original “Chiller Theater” theme song “Experiment in Terror” by Klingensmith’s band The Subnormals that Cardille described as “very ‘Chiller’-like.”
“I think it’s wonderful, my whole family does,” she said of the entire enterprise. “We’re all really happy.”
The Sept. 9 “Chiller Theater” premiere was centered around a showing of 1957’s “The Brain from Planet Arous.” Subsequent installments will feature films like 1957’s “Plan 9 from Outer Space,” 1963’s “The Terror,” 1963’s “Dementia 13” and, naturally, the 1968 Romero classic “Night of the Living Dead.”
Working directly with WPXI on this rebooted “Chiller Theater” was ScareHouse, which provided sets, characters, costumes and props for the interstitials between movie segments. ScareHouse co-owner Scott Simmons said that he grew up watching “Chiller Theater” and began an almost three-decade career at WPXI because he wanted to be in the same space where the show was filmed.
“It not only inspired me to get into all this, but it’s always been such a core part of my DNA,” he said. “So much of what I always loved about ‘Chiller Theater’ was that it was, ‘Let’s put on a show.’ It’s low-budget, scrappy, and we’re going to go rogue and play by our own rules.”
Simmons has been co-running ScareHouse since 1999. ScareHouse is currently open for its fall season in the Galleria at Pittsburgh Mills —”but after that, who’s to say?” he said, referring to the financial issues plaguing Pittsburgh Mills that could result in it going up for sheriff’s sale next month if owner Namdar doesn't pay the millions in taxes it owes. For now, he can assure Western Pennsylvanians that “we’re making [ScareHouse] really, really weird” this year.
Helping out with a 2023 edition of “Chiller Theater” was much less stressful for Simmons. He said this version has an “independent film vibe to it” and was thrilled to share ScareHouse’s “very cinematic sets” that lent themselves to the show’s mischievous sense of humor. Simmons particularly got a kick out of watching ScareHouse operations and events manager Melissa Sapienza-Garrett and her daughter go full zombie for the “Night of the Living Dead” episode.
“This is one of the few shows that people of multiple ages can watch at the same time,” he said. “It’s right in the wheelhouse of Gen X and older people can share it with younger kids. ... It’s one of the few Halloween programs that people of all ages can get together, watch and enjoy the innocence of a simpler time before these movies got nasty and gnarly.”
Surprisingly, Lori Cardille used to be afraid of the horror movies on “Chiller Theater” and would just watch the bits featuring her father. She still frequently hears stories from folks with cherished memories of watching “Chilly Billy” with their loved ones and hopes this “Chiller Theater” will help younger horror fans discover and embrace that legacy.
As she put it: “Anything that keeps dad alive with people who are good people and are honoring my father, how can it not be a wonderful thing?”
Joshua Axelrod: jaxelrod@post-gazette.com and Twitter @jaxelburgh.
First Published: September 13, 2023, 9:30 a.m.
Updated: September 13, 2023, 4:44 p.m.
