'Simpsons' showing its age in 19th 'Treehouse of Horror'

"The Simpsons" unveils its 19th annual "Treehouse of Horror" special at 7 p.m. Sunday on Fox's WFLD Channel 32. It opens with Homer being confronted by a rigged voting machine, then sends up "Transformers," "Mad Men" and none other than the sacred text "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown." Yet, despite some promising moments, all the segments sputter to an abrupt halt like skits from "Saturday Night Live." Yes, Virginia, "The Simpsons" is showing its age.

Scary cornucopia

There's an abundance of horror movies running all day on Halloween - try waking up to Tod Browning's "Freaks" at 8 a.m. Friday on AMC - but for an all-encompassing overview try "100 Scariest Movie Moments" and "Even Scarier Movie Moments," two documentaries running back and forth starting at 3 p.m. Friday on Bravo.

Talk about scary

To those holdouts who aren't yet cable or satellite subscribers, there's nothing scarier than the upcoming digital transition, which will render over-the-air TVs obsolete without a converter box come February. Des Plaines media specialist William Soderberg and a representative from the Federal Communications Commission discuss the upcoming transition at 11 a.m. Saturday at the Des Plaines Public Library, 1501 Elmwood St.

The power of Christ compels you to watch

If you ask me, "The Exorcist" is so comically over-the-top it's more hoot than horror. Yet there's no denying if you surrender to its devil-in-a-teenage-girl premise it can still give you the creeps. Linda Blair gives a head-turning performance as the possessed girl. It's at 10 p.m. Friday on Bravo.