Halloween may be more than a week away, but you’d think it was tomorrow from tonight’s schedule. With the possible exception of Christmas, no holiday is embraced with as much gusto by television programmers.

Nickelodeon kicks off a weeklong spook-slate of scary movies and specials, beginning with tonight’s trick-or-treat-themed “Big Time Rush” (7 p.m., Nickelodeon). Over on AMC, the FearFest continues with the 1993 shocker “Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday” (7 p.m., AMC), followed by the blood-soaked 2005 adaptation of “House of Wax” (9 p.m., AMC) starring Elisha Cuthbert and featuring nonactor Paris Hilton.

The networks have a built-in fear factor with their regular programming. Many TV-watchers were surprised when CBS canceled “Ghost Whisperer” but retained the psychic detective series “Medium” (7 p.m., CBS). Both series were a tad long in the tooth, and you have to figure that this may be the final year for Allison DuBois’ increasingly contrived career. Tonight’s “Medium” takes a page from the silly 1981 shocker “The Hand” when Allison receives a skin graft after a bad burn only to discover that her newly repaired hand develops a “mind” of its own.

• Tonight’s “Supernatural” (8 p.m., CW) glances at the relative popularity of another CW show in an episode in which Dean becomes a Vampire.

• I’m not sure if any kids will be dressing up as the super heroes from “No Ordinary Family” (7 p.m., ABC), but ABC recycles an episode about Jim being mistaken for a rogue vigilante (perhaps because he is one).

• Not to be outdone, Turner Classic Movies offers a full night of campy horror shockers from Britain’s Hammer Studios, most notably “Five Million Years to Earth” (8:30 p.m., TCM) about prehistoric creatures released by a subway excavation and “These are the Damned” (10:15 p.m.) concerning a race of special children bred in a top-secret military project.

TCM’s Underground slate wraps up the wee hours with the hilariously weird 1972 offering “Night of the Lepus” (3:15 a.m.), a tale of giant man-eating rabbits. Fans of really, really bad special effects should not miss this! The killer bunnies are just regular rabbits super-imposed on the screen. This grade-Z laugher featured a cast of well-knowns, including Janet Leigh, Rory Calhoun and Stuart Whitman.

• Dean Kamen, the inventor of the Segway, the insulin pump and a robotic prosthetic arm hosts “Dean of Invention” (9 p.m., Planet Green). Every week he will visit labs and facilities where scientists, physicians and engineers are working on new devices that may change how we live.

Tonight’s installment explores the field of microbots, tiny self-propelled devices that are introduced into the body to target medicine and even perform surgeries.

Over the next weeks, Kamen will discuss advanced prosthetics, robotics and a pollution-free way of harnessing the energy from animal and even human waste.

Tonight’s other highlights

• A failing institution revived on “School Pride” (7 p.m., NBC).

• The clock ticks on a homemade bomb on “Blue Bloods” (9 p.m., CBS).

• “Conspiracy Theory with Jesse Ventura” (9 p.m., TruTV) explores various explanations for the economic crash of 2008.