When young Davey Morris tells his parents that he’s been hanging out with a friendly Bigfoot-type creature, all of the adults in town react in the worst way possible.
This episode, from the second season of One Step Beyond, was one of the first to deal with the legend of Bigfoot. Needless to say, it’s the adults who turn out to be the true monsters in this scenario.
This episode originally aired on October 20th, 1959.
On tonight’s episode of One Step Beyond, Cloris Leachman plays Rita Wallace, an American photographer in France. She’s looking for a model whose face will serve as the ultimate symbol of the country. One day, a haunted-looking man (Marel Dalio) shows up at her apartment. She thinks he’s a model. The truth, needless to say, is something quite different….
This episode features good performances from both Leachman and Dalio. In real life, Dalio was an icon of French cinema and a favorite of Jean Renoir’s. When the Nazis invaded France, the Jewish Dalio fled Paris and, after a harrowing journey, eventually made it to America. In America, he played the croupier in Casablanca and appeared in several other films. Tragically, the rest of his family did not escape and were murdered by the Nazis. Dalio returned to France after the end of the war and remained an in-demand character actor for several more decades, making his final film appearance in 1980.
The Darkroom originally aired on February 10th, 1959.
For today’s televised horror, we have an episode of the 1960s anthology series, One Step Beyond. One Step Beyond was like (and aired at the same time as) The Twilight Zone, except that it often claimed that it’s stories were all based on fact.
In this episode, a young Englishwoman is haunted by dreams of drowning. Try as she might, she can’t get the feeling of doom out of her mind. Perhaps her upcoming trip to New York will help to relax her. Her fiancee even tells her that they’ll be traveling to New York on the most luxurious ship ever built. The name of that ship? Why, the Titanic, of course.
For the record, there actually were quite a few people who apparently did have psychic premonitions of doom when it came to the Titanic. Perhaps the most infamous example was the author Morgan Robertson, who wrote a novel in 1898 that was called The Wreck of the Titan: Or, Futility. That book managed to perfectly predict that sinking of the Titanic, right down to the iceberg and the number of lives lost.
This episode originally aired on January 27th, 1959.
Enjoy!
For our final episode of The Veil, we have a look at one of the most infamous real world monsters of all time, Jack the Ripper.
In this atmospheric episode, a London clairvoyant (Niall MacGinnis) is haunted by visions of the Whitechapel murders. Unfortunately, his attempts to help the police only leads to them treating him like a suspect! Each episode of The Veil was usually described as being “based on a true story.” In this case, it’s actually true. A medium named Robert Lees — renamed Walter in this episode — actually did go to the police with claims that he had seen the murders and could identify the killer.
This is the only episode of The Veil in which Boris Karloff acts only as host. That’s because this episode was not originally made for the series. Instead, it was intended for an unrelated British anthology show. The producers of the Veil later bought the episode and tacked on an introduction by Boris Karloff. Of course, because The Veil itself never actually aired on television as a result of the production company running into financial problems, Jack the Ripper never aired in the U.S. It was, however, later included in an anthology film that was put together using four episodes of The Veil.
Enjoy! That’s it for The Veil. Tomorrow, we start a whole new series!
Tonight’s episode of The Veil is a weird one.
Basically, Armand Vernoy (Jean Del Val) is haunted by not only the death of Indian his wife but also the fact that he’s lost all of his money “in the war” and will not be able to send his son, Krishna (George Hamilton) off to study with the world-renowned Prof. Charles Goncourt (Boris Karloff, who not only hosts but gets to play a kindly character for once). Then a young woman named Santha Naidu (Lee Torrance) shows up. She’s a year younger than Krishna but she claims to be his mother, reincarnated! Meanwhile, back in India, a young man hopes to marry Santha but he’s been told that he can’t because she’s already been married in a previous life….
This is an okay episode, though definitely not as good as some of the previous episodes of The Veil. Boris doesn’t get to do much but it’s kind of nice to see him play a character who is as nice as he apparently was in real life. If this episode were made today, the casting of Torrance and Hamilton as Indians would undoubtedly be extremely controversial.
Anyway, enjoy this trip to 1958!
On tonight’s episode of The Veil.…
There’s been a murder! Or has there? Edward Paige (Henry Bartell) swears that he saw someone murdered in a nearby apartment but, when the police investigate, they discover that the apartment appears to be totally deserted. Still convinced that he saw something, Edward is sent for a psychiatric evaluation from Dr. Mason (Boris Karloff, playing a sympathetic role for once). Dr. Mason says that Edward’s not making it up. Edward swears that he saw something. But what?
This is a pretty good episode. Think of it as being Rear Window with an extra twist. Boris Karloff hosts as well as co-stars.
Enjoy!
On tonight’s episode of The Veil….
Peter Wade, Jr. (Ron Hagerthy) is a rather timid man who would rather design planes than fly them. However, his father, Peter Wade, Sr. (Boris Karloff, who also hosted the episode), is a World War I veteran who has gone from being an aviation hero to owning his own aviation company. Peter, Sr. demands that his son become a pilot. And yet, every time that Peter, Jr. is flying, he’s haunted by ghostly face that 1) puts him in a trance and 2) tries to get him to crash his plane! Could it have something to do with a secret from his father’s past?
This episode is effectively creepy, as any show featuring a possessed pilot and a potential aviation disaster should be. As with some of the past episodes of The Veil, the main attraction here is really the chance to see Boris Karloff doing what he did best. Karloff was one of the great actors and it’s always fun to see him get a good character role.
Enjoy!
On tonight’s episode of The Veil, a writer (Booth Colman) is heartbroken when his lover, Marie (Roxane Berard) leaves him so that she can marry his boss (played by Leo Penn, father of Sean). To help soften the blow, Marie gives the writer a parting gift, an ornamental crystal ball. However, it doesn’t turn out to be much of a gift because the only thing that the writer can see in the ball are visions of Marie cheating on her husband! Boris Karloff both hosts and plays the role of the writer’s uncle.
This is one of the lesser episodes of The Veil but it still has its entertaining moments, largely due to the performances of Roxane Berard and, of course, Boris Karloff. I guess my main problem with this episode is that it doesn’t so much end as it just stops. I was waiting for one big twist but …. oh well! Listen, it’s got Boris Karloff in it and you should always watch as much Karloff as possible in October!
Enjoy!
Tonight’s episode of The Veil features Boris Karloff as not only the host but also the star of the show!
Karloff plays Captain Elwood, a sea captain who is desperate to be rid of his wife so he can marry a woman who is about to come into a large sum of money. Elwood plots out his wife’s murder but, as usually happens in stories like this, it turns out that getting her out of his life won’t be as simple as he originally assumed.
This is an enjoyably macabre little ghost story. Karloff gives a great performance as a truly despicable man. From what I’ve read, the real Boris Karloff was an unfailingly polite and very kindly gentleman so it’s always interesting (at least to me!) to consider that he would become famous for playing monsters and madmen. He certainly gives a good performance here!
Enjoy!
Oh my God, do you remember Harper’s Island!?
Way before The Walking Dead and American Horror Story made death and gore safe for mass consumption, Harper’s Island was the scariest show on television. I have to admit that, when I first heard about the show, I wasn’t expecting it to be. Way back in 2009, whenever the commercials for the show would air and that little girl would go, “One by one,” I would roll my eyes so hard that I once nearly gave myself a concussion.
“Really?” I would say, “A slasher television show where at least one person dies every week? And it’s going to be on network TV? There’s no way this is going to be bloody or scary enough to be worth watching.”
However, I did watch the first episode because I figured that I could at least be snarky about it on twitter. (I had joined just a few months before the show premiered. Harper’s Island was the first show that I ever live tweeted, even though I didn’t even know that there was such a thing as “live tweeting” way back then.) The episode opened with a man tied to the propeller of a boat, screaming as the engine started. The episode ended with Uncle Marty (played by special guest star Harry Hamlin) getting chopped in half by an unseen assailant.
“AGCK!” I said.
I was hooked from that episode on.
Believe it or not, Harper’s Island wasn’t just killings. It actually did tell a story, about a young woman named Abby (played by Elaine Cassidy) who returns to her childhood home, on Harper’s Island, for her best friend’s wedding. Many years ago, Abby’s mother was among those who was killed by a serial killer named John Wakefield. From the minute that Abby arrives, she feels that something bad is going to happen and it turns out that she’s right.
Of course, Abby’s not the only one on the island. There’s the other members of the wedding party. There’s the island’s inhabitants, the fishermen and the deputies and the cafe owner and the local reverend whose destined to lose his head in the woods. They’ve all got their quirks and subplots. Boisterous Malcolm (Chris Gauthier) is in desperate need of money. Local fisherman Jimmy (C.J. Thomason) is still in love with Abby. The groom, Henry (Christopher Gorham), has issues from his past that he needs to deal with. Some of them are likable. Some of them are annoying. Some of them, like spoiled Chloe (Cameron Richardson), are meant to be annoying but become likable as the series progresses.
And, in the end, none of their hopes and dreams really mattered because, by the end of the show, everyone was pretty much dead. The ads for Harper’s Island promised a bloodbath and that’s what the show delivered. It wasn’t just that at least one person died per week. It was also that they usually died in the most macabre and disturbing ways possible. This was the type of the show where the most likable groomsman ended up getting chopped into pieces and then tossed into an incinerator. Another wedding guest chose to drown herself rather than be attacked by the killer. Sometimes, the killers didn’t even have to be around for someone to get killed. Who can forget poor Booth (played by Sean Rogerson), accidentally shooting himself in the leg and bleeding out while America watched?
And yes, you did watch every week because you wanted to see who would be the next to die. (That’s where the guilty part of the pleasure comes in.) But you also watched because the show was produced and directed so well. The island was a wonderfully atmospheric location and the cast really committed themselves to bringing the show’s morbid reality to life. At the time, it was the darkest show on television and it could have been even darker because, originally, the plan was for the killer to get away with it. In the end, karma caught up with the killer but not before we were all traumatized upon discovering just who was responsible. Harper’s Island‘s mystery was as intriguing as its deaths were bloody.
Being ahead of its time, Harper’s Island struggled in the ratings and it was never a big hit with critics. But, with the help of Netflix and the the occasional marathon on SyFy, Harper’s Island‘s reputation has improved and grown over the years. Looking back, it’s easy to see that Harper’s Island was not only the forerunner to American Horror Story but it was also a far better series. American Horror Story tends to condescend to the horror, keeping the genre at arm’s length through misdirected pretension. It’s a show for people who think that they’re too good for horror. Harper’s Island, on the other hand, fully embraced both the horror and the melodrama and it did so without apology.
Seriously, what Halloween is complete without a trip to Harper’s Island?
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