Did you hear that?

Upstairs, it sounded like someone walking around.

I'm sure it's nothing. Let's just watch the TV. What's on? Oh, a non-stop horror channel. That will calm the nerves.

Scream TV is offering up a host of spooky movies - consider it a marathon of things that go bump in the night.

And that is exactly what the digital-channel world needs - something to scare it silly, said Lori Rosenberg, vice-president and general manager of Scream TV. It's what viewers want, she said, pointing to a survey of current digital subscribers who ranked a horror-movie channel in the top 11 of 200 channels proposed to the CRTC more than a year ago.

"There's an element of mythology in horror films, combined with catharsis," Ms. Rosenberg said. "People want to be provoked to feel fear - in the safe confines of their living rooms."

Indeed, the thrill-seekers are still drawn to the theatres to clutch their companions' arms as the creepy music gets louder, the main character checks inside the closet and then ... gasp for breath as a face emerges front and centre.

There was no shortage of films that fit into Scream's programming mandate, Ms. Rosenberg said. She "combed the globe" and raided the archives of all the major movie studios' vaults for anything that sent chills up the backs of viewer's necks.

Programming horror movies for different times of the day was something that had to be taken into consideration, Ms. Rosenberg said.

"It was a bit of an exercise, we had to think of the sensitivity of the audience," she said. The classic horror movies that would have terrified audience's of the past are now perfectly passable for today's audiences during the day.

"Later at night, it gets wackier, the movies are lot edgier," Ms. Rosenberg said.

The channel wanted to create a comprehensive coverage of the genre, so it organized horror movies into three separate blocks. Each of these blocks will be hosted by an authority on the genre, Ms. Rosenberg said. The host will intro and extro the film with behind-the-scenes information, or extra tidbits for the hardcore horror fan.

Exhumed! features the horror classics, including the blood-sucking Nosferatu, The Thing from another world, Cat People, Invaders from Marsand a variety of film noir classic 'B' films including the 1956 classic Invasion of the Body Snatchers, depicting the story of a disheveled Dr. Miles Bennell who tries to convince those around him about alien invaders in the town of Santa Mira, Calif.

Flatline airs the modern films including Stephen King's Christine, Roman Polanski's The Tenant and Repulsion and John Carpenter's Assault on Precinct 13 and In the Mouth of Madness. This segment will also include thrillers such as Basic Instinct and Single White Female.

The channel's Post-Mortem block includes adult cult favourites. What horror fan doesn't recall watching Freddy Krueger and his razor-like nails in Nightmare on Elm Street, as well as other startling tales from Wes Craven, Mario Bava and Dario Argento.

The Screaming Room is the channel's original, Canadian-produced series. The magazine-style program goes behind the scenes of movies with interviews, profiles and information on horror filmmakers and the stars of these ghoulish films.

David Lynch's cult classic Twin Peaks finds a new home as one of the major series that the channel is airing every night. Scream is also reviving the 1970s series Kolchak: The Night Stalker, considered to be the The X-Files of its time. The series depicts one Chicago reporter's penchant for seeking the truth - no matter how unusual the truth may be. More often than not, the "truth" includes vampires, Indian spirits, werewolves, vengeful Greek goddesses, robots, reptiles and aliens.

The channel will also have theme days for its movies, including a mummy day, or a Jack-the-Ripper theme day. Friday nights, Ms. Rosenberg pointed out, are a vampy, vixen night for viewers.