No movie tonight, but I did break out a new TV Series called "Ghost Story" (aka "Circle Of Fear") which premiered in 1972 on NBC. I became aware of this series about three years ago when it was mentioned by a friend. He knew I was a fan of horror and asked if I remembered this series, which had scared the bejeezus out of him as an adolescent. I replied that I had never heard of it. The show only ran one season. I don't know why it slipped beneath my radar, maybe I was busy with "Streets Of San Francisco" or one of the other police dramas I watched in those days. Anyhow, after my friend described the show I was intrigued. I planned to buy the complete series (22 episodes) at some point. The $45 dollar price tag was prohibitive for a while. A couple of years passed, but I kept checking Amazon every now and then. I never forgot about it, and then last October, when I watched all those William Castle horror movies, my interest in "Ghost Story" was rekindled, because the series was produced by the man himself.
I wasn't aware of how great he was until I saw his movies. Now I knew I needed to buy his television show also. Just before last Christmas, Amazon had a flash sale on dvds. "Ghost Story" was reduced to about 33 bucks, a substantial discount, so I bought it. I had planned on saving the series until Summer, which is prime time for Horror (leading up to Halloween, ya know). But, because I have run out of movies of late, and because I watched the final Durango Kid flick last night, I thought "what the heck" and decided to watch the first "Ghost Story" episode this evening.
The series is an anthology, like "Night Gallery", and like that show it also has a host, Sebastian Cabot. He runs an old manor hotel (with a gorgeous wood interior that at first had me thinking it was the Bradbury Building), and apparently a hotel "guest" is featured in each week's story. For the opening episode, the guests were a married couple (David Birney and Barbara Parkins of "Peyton Place" fame). She is pregnant, not a good state for a woman to be in during the era of "Rosemary's Baby". She and her husband move from Sebastian Cabot's hotel into a beautiful home on top of Pleasant Hill (state unspecified). Wife Barbara starts to hear sounds shortly after the move-in. Footsteps in the hallway. Tapping on the door. The power goes out during a rainstorm and she is scared witless. David Birney is the kind of husband who gives his wife "little woman" platitudes while he heads out to the office every morning. He makes light of her fear; "It's just your pregnancy", he tells her. That is what is causing her to "imagine" the sounds and visions". To him, she is his beloved little wife, having vapors because she's with child.
Boy does he ever find out different. Not that he has to go through any trauma himself; that all is reserved for his wife. She knows what she has seen and heard, so she seeks out some history of the town because she's been told that Pleasant Hill was once the site of a cemetery.
Holy smokes and shades of "Poltergiest"! Run for your lives before your swimming pool fills up with skeletons..... :)
She seeks out the town librarian, who informs her that Pleasant Hill was not the site of a cemetery, but of a gallows, during an era of persecution in the late 1700s.
Not of witch hunts but persecution of the poor. The librarian informs Parkins that a young woman was hung on the gallows at Pleasant Hill for stealing a loaf of bread. She makes the connection that it happened on the same spot where her house now stands.
Holy Smokes! Now you've got you a Ghost Story, and a pretty frightening one at that, thanks to the production skills of William Castle. If you recall from his films, we described him as a craftsman with a strong attention to visual detail. Here in the first episode of the series we see the striking color schemes of the 1970s - multi-color everywhere - but well coordinated so that all the colors do something to the eye and brain. Think of some of the early 70s horror films like "Arnold" or "Tales From The Crypt", where the color was maxed out in every object in the frame, but with a warm tinge, to give the characters a "boxed in" feeling, which increased the tension. A technical person could give you an exact description of what was being sought in the color scheme as it regarded the suspense, but the thing is that, if you remember horror films of the early 70s, before "The Exorcist" and later on the grit of "Texas Chainsaw", then you will know what I am talking about. The colors and warm interiors of early 70s horror. ///
It was a good episode and I look forward to more, though it might be a while until the next one. We finally have some movies coming from The Libe tomorrow, and on Thursday night we will head back to the CSUN Cinematheque for a little reunion of sorts. I also have a mini-series in the que, Steven Spielberg's "Taken", the UFO abduction saga that debuted in 2002. I never saw it, and as with "Ghost Story" I monitored the price of the dvd set until it was reasonable. Finally I bought the show for 20 bucks last week, instead of 50, which is what they wanted for many years. So we will start "Taken" pretty soon too.
Starting tomorrow night I will be off work for several days, so we will do more classical recommendations then.
And as I am sure you know, it will be imperative to watch at least some of Michael Cohen's testimony tomorrow. This time I have a feeling that Trump really will be toast. Let's hope so. :)
See you in the morning. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo (love, love, love) :):)
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