It’s that spooktacular time of the year when witches darken the skies, ghouls hover in the attic and goblins hide under your bed.

Television knows a bad thing when it sees it and both the big and little screens are tuned up for the screaming.

Disney+ warns its viewers with movies like “Don’t Look Under the Bed,” “Girl vs. Monster,” the ever popular “Hocus Pocus” and "The Nightmare Before Christmas,” Tim Burton’s tale of Jack Skellington the Pumpkin King and his evil plan to kidnap Santa.

Paramount+ plans on pounding your pulse with some classics like “Rosemary’s Baby,” “The Blob,” the 1974 version of “Murder on the Orient Express” and the 1976 iteration of “King Kong.” This is the version in which Kong climbs the World Trade Center (those Elysian days when there WAS a World Trade Center). But, in any case, it proved an unwise move on Kong’s part.

Don’t be dismayed by reruns, there’s always the original feature to fritter your jitters. “Mr. Crocket” emerges on Hulu. He’s the children’s television host who kidnaps small children and murders their parents — not a savvy way to boost his ratings.

Apple TV+ offers the family friendly stop-motion animated “Creepy Cave Crawl,” a “Shape Island” Halloween special. And all three seasons of “Ghostwriter” are loitering in the shadows for viewers who’ve missed them.

A ghost, who haunts a neighborhood bookstore, starts releasing fictional characters into the world. Each episode is wrapped around a piece of children’s literature which earned the series an Emmy and a Parents’ Choice Award.

“Velma: This Halloween Needs to Be More Special!” sounds innocent enough, but this is an adult animated event on Max in which friends have just 24 hours to liberate Velma and face a vengeful spirit. Packed with famous voices like Jane Lynch, Wanda Sykes and Gary Cole, you know this is no slacker flick.

Peter Capaldi and Jessica Raine hunt down an elusive monster in the second season of the Emmy nominated thriller, “The Devil’s Hour,” streaming on Prime Video.

Svengoolie and his Saturday “Classic Horror & Sci-Fi Movie” at 8 p.m. on MeTV will present “Invaders from Mars” featuring the kinda awful performances of Helena Carter, Arthur Franz and Jimmy Hunt. Here a lad learns that space aliens are taking over the minds of earthlings.

Following the Martian invasion, “The Dark Crystal” forms at 10:30 p.m. ET/PT. This is the Jim Henson-Frank Oz film that featured state-of-the-art animatronics at the time and remains a cult classic.

New to the field and just in the nick of time is the new Scream TV which features, you guessed it, horror programming all the time — with bone busting shows and free streaming if you want to test it out.

Scarygirl” is for sale or rent on digital platforms beginning Friday. This is the animated story of a plucky little lass who travels to a spooky city to try to save her planet from inevitable destruction. While it sounds fearful, this one’s rated PG.

NBC joins the act when the doctors at “Chicago Med” cosplay for Halloween on Wednesday.

Over on the Shudder streamer perches a Russell Crowe piece called “The Exorcism,” (not “The Exorcist”) in which he plays an actor (what else?) who begins to fall apart while he’s shooting a horror film.

Starz got the jump on Halloween and has been sporting spooky shows all month. Watch your step with features like “Ash vs. Evil Dead, “The Exorcist III,” “Frailty,” “Navy SEALS v Demons,” “Nothing Left to Fear” and “Santa’s Slay.”

Not to be outdone, Netflix sports a classy original, “1922,” based on a Stephen King novella. A farmer admits he killed his wife – but that’s not the end of it as he supposes. The film stars Thomas Jane, Molly Parker and Neal McDonough.

“We Have a Ghost” is funny as well as scary in this original where a boy befriends a ghost in the attic of a rundown home his family has purchased. This film features the always puckish Jennifer Coolidge as a medium who tries to communicate with the taciturn ghost.

The third time’s a charm for “Terrifier 3” as it became the No. 1 movie in America after it opened in theaters on Oct. 11. That vicious old clown is at it again terrorizing the innocent siblings who assumed their lives were back to normal.

And though it sounds safe enough, the horror-thriller “Director’s Cut” opens in select theaters on Halloween — on demand to follow. Here a sociopath preys on a punk band that wants desperately to be as famous as, well, the Dead Kennedys.

You don’t have to go far on Halloween to find a body-bag full of scary movies on Turner Classic Movies. Starting at 1:15 p.m. ET on Oct. 31, you'll find “Freaks,” followed by “The Bat,” “The Wolf Man,” “The Black Cat,” the original “Dracula” at 6:45 p.m. and, of course, the original “Frankenstein.”

Comedian hosts new game show

Comic JB Smoove shines as the host of a new game show which features entrepreneurs and their dream products demonstrated on Amazon Prime Video beginning Oct. 30. “Buy it Now” features hopeful creators who display their products to an audience. If they pass that muster, they head for a blue-ribbon panel which selects what items will make their way to the Buy it Now store on Amazon. “Buy it Now” not only transports the best products to the free market, one lucky entrepreneur snatches a $20,000 bonus.

Known for his comedic work on “Curb Your Enthusiasm” and his stand-up comedy, Smoove actually began as a graphic designer. In fact, he worked as a graphic designer until his daughter was born. And at that point, he resolved to invest himself only in comedy.

“The hardest thing was trying to be different in the stand-up world,” he says. “When I came out as a comic it was the heyday of the Black comedy which had really hit its strides. And you had to maintain what you actually did. You could follow a certain trend or keep your own course. Plenty of my comedian friends did one thing and one thing only. I always tell them: ‘Vary your resume, do some other stuff, write other things so your resume has some weight to it.’ The hardest thing is just staying the course.”

Always the life of the party, Smoove says when he was in the 10th grade he dressed as the Unknown Comic for a Halloween party. “I had a bag over my head, a suit and high waiters and little shoes. And no one knew who I was for the whole night. They were like, ‘Who is this irritating guy?’ And I kept knocking drinks out of people’s hands and being clumsy, falling on tables, and no one knew who I was.”

‘The Diplomat’ earns another posting

Season 2 of the popular series “The Diplomat” lands on Netflix Oct. 31. Starring Keri Russell as the ambassador to Britain, the show features Rufus Sewell as her husband who — it turns out — has survived a bombing in London from last season.

Sewell tells me that he doesn’t always like acting.” I’m not sure I do like acting all the time,” he chuckles. “You only need to like it once when you decide what you're going to do for a living. And after that, it’s a job, isn't it? I like it, but because I'm determined to like it, that’s why I sometimes have to sit and wait. Because if I only did the stuff I was offered I would not like it. If I wanted only to do films for example, then I’d always play the same kind of character and would I like it? No. So I should do something else. If I want to keep this job the thing that I always wanted to do, I have to be a lot more tenacious, dogged, and stubborn and that means sometimes forcibly being unemployed until something good comes along.”

Inspector Maigret resurrected again

A favorite detective, Parisian Chief Inspector Jules Maigret, has seized another chance at series television when “Maigret” returns to PBS’ “Masterpiece.” Filming is taking place in Budapest, Hungary, now with Benjamin Wainwright as a young Maigret and Stefanie Martini as Mme. Maigret.

Based on the character written by Georges Simenon — a former cop reporter — the gruff but relentless Maigret has been masterfully played a kabillion times before, adapted by everybody from the Japanese to the Russians.

The “Maigret” lexicon is the second bestselling detective series of all time, behind only Sherlock Holmes.

Americans may remember Richard Harris, Rupert Davies, Michael Gambon or Rowan Atkinson as the middle-aged inspector in the bowler hat. The new version sees Maigret as a young man who heads up a unit called La Crim — responsible for investigating all serious crime committed in Paris.

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