Think FEARnet itself is scary?

You ain’t seen nuthin yet.  Just try to get there from your remote.

Time Warner Cable, in Los Angeles, carries an On Demand station called FEARnet — the on-demand version of the website, wherein you can watch free horror movies, television episodes, and shorts to your heart’s content.

Deciding that I wanted to learn how to get to FEARnet intentionally, rather than by hitting random buttons, I searched out a reliable method, dear Reader.  Namely:

Hit the big orange button in the middle of the remote that says “On Demand”.

You’re welcome.

It’s OK, I’ll wait.  Go try it.

Type type type wait quick brown foxymophandlemama backyet?good.

Ha.  Ha ha.  Bet you fell for that.  Ha.  Loser.  Of course you can’t access free, on-demand horror programs by going through the On Demand menu.  What you really need to do is hit the triangular button marked “A”, which maybe-stands-for-or-it’s-just-a-fortuitous-accident “Access Menu”.

Go try.

Back?  Yeah, it’s not in the list, is it?  Look on the bottom of your screen.  What looks like a status bar is actually a scrolling menu that you access with the horizontal buttons on your remote, rather than boringly scrolling up and down through the Actual Menu.

Remember, dear Reader, that we’re trying to access free horror movies, TV episodes, shorts, and maybe other stuff.  So, scroll long enough, and you will see a button that says “Free On Demand”.

You’re welcome.

And then — um — hmm.  What category does it fit into?  Not “Local”.  Not “Kids”.  Maybe “Entertainment” or “Cutting Edge” (voting for the latter, if for nothing else than the play on words.)

OK, I’ll wait while you go through “Entertainment”.  Remember to scroll vertically through all the options.

No?  Well then, they are clever.  It’s in “Cutting Edge”.  See?  Cutting Edge?  Slasher flicks.  Fits!  There you find the free horror content.

Easy.

Ha!  Psyche!  Trick!  Other stuff they used to say in junior high!  Why in the world would free content be under the “Free On Demand” menu in the first place?!  You blithering moron!  What’s wrong with you?

What you actually do to watch free horror content, which includes (just reminding you) television episodes, is go to “Movies On Demand” instead of “Free On Demand”.  Note to self: television episodes are movies if they’re horror television episodes.

OK, whew.  Wanna take a break?

No, you can’t, can you?  You have to do this quickly or you get thrown off the menus.  So we’ll do this properly.  We’re in “Movies On Demand” now.  And now a vertical menu!  Woot!  Scroll up to “Free Movies”.  That’s all there is to it.

I think I’ve cried UI wolf.  You don’t believe me, do you?  Yeah, I admit, FEARnet is not on the first screen.  But we may actually be getting closer.  Hint: it’s a horizontal menu again.  Scroll right, it’s faster.  FEARNET.  Just hit “Select” to, um, select that content.

Grrumph.  Frak.  No no no, that’s not at all what we want.  Turns out, the FEARnet content is in a vertical scroll menu in the upper-left on your screen.  Scroll up and down.  “Select” does things better left to horror movie screenwriters.

We’ve made it!  It’s actually pretty cool.  Hit “Info” for info about the shows, “Select” to play them.  Start your movie (warning: High Tension is pan-and-scan and dubbed.)

OK, how far did you get before the DVR unceremoniously kicked you out of your movie?  If it was more than ten minutes, you’ve beat me.

You’re kicked out because you scheduled two broadcast shows to record simultaneously, and one (or both) just kicked in.  Graciously, they give you a message explaining this.  They give you a pop-up menu through which you can easily cancel one of the tuned programs if you want to watch your on-demand program.

OK, don’t wait too long for the pop-up menu.  It won’t actually, um, appear.  You’ll just be kicked out of your movie.  Fortunately it seems to pause the movie where you left it.

Now the trick is to get out of the On Demand menu.  Just press “Exit”.  I mean, “Stop”.  I mean, “A”.  Or “B”.  Or “C”.  Elephino.  Usually I just type in a channel number and it takes me there, wherein I can do DVR-type stuff to my heart’s content.  Your still-beating, tell-tale heart.  Yum.

OK, I’ll wait.  But not long.  I have stuff to watch.  Wait.  Thought I did.  Frak.  What’s step two again?