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If you’re anything like me, you’re tired of the state of Late Night telly. No more odd foreign films or strange late-night quiz shows, It’s just either gambling or Teleshopping. If you’re lucky, you’d get the odd South Park or Family Guy repeat. It’s a far, far cry from years ago, where you had specialist strands and programmes for your late-night enjoyment. For example, You had experimental music heaven 120 Minutes on MTV2, or the downright depraved world of Chris Morris’ Jam on Channel 4. However, in my opinion, none captured the true spirit of oddball late-night television more than the Sci-Fi Channel.

Before it became a place to dump reruns of Star Trek, Stargate SG-1 and Most Haunted, The Sci-Fi Channel was a channel that actually showed viewers that there was more to Sci-Fi than just “space lasers go pew”. In fact, they aired all sorts and even had all sorts of depraved strands. On Saturdays, they’d host an Anime strand, which brought many Anime films and shows to UK audiences, back when most audience’s exposure to anime was either Pokemon on SM:TV or whatever Channel 4 had the rights to. However, the strand we’re talking about today was truly special, as it was a programming block designed to confuse, bewilder, and even disturb. Grab a seat, get comfy, and try not to get lost in the bizarre world… Of Headfuck.

What the fuck is Headfuck?

Headfuck is a programming strand that housed content that was deemed weird and surreal. This ranged from short films, music videos, interviews, clips from Public Information films, and feature-length films, all designed to fuck with your head. Originally starting as a special weekend in 2000, the show was later spun-off into an 8-week programme that ran from August 2001. The block’s mascot, if you will, was a depressed-looking dog, who’d appear during segments and would also occasionally appear as the DOG, alternating with the Sci-Fi logo. A dog as a DOG. Things are getting headfucky already, and we haven’t even talked about the programme.

The show itself was fronted by James Hyman, a former Xfm DJ and programmer for MTV Europe in the 90s. James would not only front the programme, but he’d also pick out all the shorts, music videos, and films that would make up the programme. James would interview eccentric people via telephone, most notably Ouchy, the S&M clown. The short films the programme featured included Martin Scorsese’s The Big Shave, where a guy shaves his face to the point of bleeding… and keeps shaving. And shaving. To the point his face has more blood on it than Patrick Bateman’s suit after telling you about Huey Lewis and The News.

Another notable segment from Headfuck was one called Vid Vicious, where James Hyman selects a series of Music Videos that fit in with Headfuck’s bizarre stylings. The music videos ranged from well-known bands and artists like Radiohead, Prodigy, D12, Bjork, and Korn to more obscure videos like Spacer’s The Beamer and The Avalanches’ Frontier Psychiatrist. Then there’s videos that feel like someone at Sci-Fi accidentally put on someone’s old home video. No better example than Klaus Bryer’s Die Glatze, which James Hyman himself even referred to as “The most Headfuck Video Ever.”

The show itself is a testament to how channels used to treat late-night TV as a place to experiment, as Headfuck usually ran from 12-4am every night and was the last thing Sci-Fi would air for the day before cutting to Shop America, which no doubt added to the bewilderment whilst people questioned what the fuck they just watched. No doubt, the main audience of this show were either; Insomniacs, people high on various substances, some guy coming home from a long night drinking, or people who wanted to watch the adult channel but lost the remote. Or all of the above.

Headfuck as a show would return in a much more condensed form later on, going from 4 hours down to just one. The show would move to the earlier time slot of 11:45 pm and would now be hosted by sports pundit turned whackjob conspiracy theorist, David Icke. In my opinion, I preferred the James Hyman incarnation, as that felt less like a show and more like a strand with both short and feature-length films.

As the years went on, Headfuck, along with what made the Sci-Fi channel interesting in the first place, would be dropped.

The channel would rebrand as “SYFY” in the early 10s and would devote itself less to weird, offbeat, and interesting programming experiments and more so on Sharknado films. As of 2025, the channel is now known as “Sky Sci-Fi” (although “Sky-Fi” was RIGHT THERE) and is currently a place to catch most of the Sci-Fi shows that are being repeated to death on Sky Max or Sky Mix. Although they do show repeats of Todd McFarlane’s Spawn occasionally, which I do appreciate.

So, Why have I gone on about Headfuck?

Good question. Whilst I’ve gone on about one particular block on one particular channel, Late-Night TV as a whole has lost its luster. Back then, you had strands like 4Later or shows like Eurotrash, which took advantage of its late time slot and made late nights somewhat viable. However, ever since the advent of streaming, Late-Night TV has fallen more and more out of favour, with channels using it as either a dumping ground for shows they have 0 faith in or a place to stick on a gambling show hosted by a woman who has probably drunk about 20 cans of Monster beforehand. That’s not mentioning all the teleshopping.

So, really we don’t need Late Night TV at all, one can argue. Hell, who's likely to be watching BBC One at 2am, let alone the Sci-Fi channel. And in the era of streaming, why watch a repeat of Celebs Go Dating when you can pull up Netflix and Amazon Prime and watch whatever, whenever. Despite that, I miss late-night TV. Maybe you’re overwhelmed by Choice Paralysis and you really just want to stick on a linear channel and let it wash over you. When I wake up at 2am, I want to feel disturbed. I want to feel confused. I want to feel like I’m watching something I probably shouldn’t. But most of all, I don’t want a fucking Dormeo mattress.