Television horror films of the '70s and '80s

Is Duel considered horror?

What about Bad Ronald?

The Norliss Tapes

Sorry, forgot the link

I definitely remember ANTS! (1977) Also known as It Happened at Lakewood Manor. Starring Robert Foxworth, Lynda Day George, Suzanne Somers, Bernie Casey, Brian Dennehy, and Myrna Loy.

Totally one of the best...

DON'T GO TO SLEEP

Dennis Weaver

Valerie Harper

Stranger in Our House (AKA Summer of Fear) is a classic for Linda Blair's hair alone

Trilogy of Terror with Karen Black is the gold standard

R7 the GOLD standard? Excuse ME? Then what would you call this masterpiece starring a thespian yankee of old Hollywood?

"The Possessed" starring James Farentino, Claudette Nevins, Anne Dusenberry, P. J. Soles, Diana Scarwid, Dinah Manoff, Joan Hackett, and a slightly pre-"Star Wars" Harrison Ford (looking fine as hell, I might add).

R8 thank you! I think I need to see this!

The Dark Secret of Harvest Home was a fave as a gayling.

Gargoyles

The House That Would Not Die with Barbara Stanwyck and Kitty Winn is a lot of fun

Another contender for the gold standard:

"Curse of the Black Widow" is one I remember. Patty Duke and Donna Mills. 1977.

This classic with Kim Darby and the avocado bitches.

The avocado trolls from DBAotD.

Clearly precursors to DL posters.

Dark Night of the Scarecrow

The Strange Possession of Mrs. Oliver

Invitation to Hell starring Susan Lucci

Midnight Offerings starring Melissa Sue Anderson

The Spell is a 1977 American made-for-television horror film which premiered on NBC as "The Big Event" Movie of the Week. It is directed by Lee Philips and stars Lee Grant, Susan Myers, Lelia Goldoni and Helen Hunt. It touches on the subject of telekinesis and follows the story of an adolescent girl who seeks revenge on those who ridicule her, while her mother tries to bring an end to her evil acts. It has gained a reputation as being an imitation of the 1976 classic Brian De Palma film Carrie as several similarities are present, while it has fallen somewhat under the radar over the years and is considered a "forgotten film".

Another gold standard - "Satan's School For Girls"

This House Possessed starring Parker Stevenson and Lisa Eilbacher

"The Spell" is absolutely fucking batshit. The entire plot hinges on the main character being tormented for being fat (she's only slightly pudgy) and everyone, including her father and her cunt sister played by Helen Hunt, is outrageously mean to her for no apparent reason. Even Lee Remick, who plays the mom and is supposed to somewhat sympathetic, treats her with disdain.

This scene is both horrifying and hilarious. Highly recommended.

R25. Lee Remick?? That was Lee Grant in the clip.

Lee Grant turned out to be a witch herself.

R26 I meant Lee Grant—oops.

I *hate* when that happens, r25.

Lee Remick was in the first Omen, Lee Grant was in the second. So you're forgiven!

Too tired to look up the link, but it's been posted many times.

CROWHAVEN FARM! with Hope Lange. It gave me and many other DL'ers nightmares for years!

Good one r31

How Awful About Allan

Nightkill starring Jaclyn Smith and Robert Mitchum. It's a fantastic desert-set horror/thriller with some fun twists. The atmosphere really makes it for me. There is something about those dusty, desert-set horror flicks of this era that I love (What Ever Happened to Aunt Alice is another). It was originally planned to be a theatrical feature but ended up becoming an NBC Movie of the Week. Released in December 1980.

The Legend of Lizzie Borden, starring Elizabeth Montgomery

Another one with Elizabeth Montgomery - The Victim

Comedian Sam Pancake used to have a great podcast about TV movies from this era, but he just stopped for some reason.

"Daughter of the Mind"

1969 so maybe doesn't count^^°

New Castle After Dark on YT plays a lot of these old TV movies. It’s great!

"Night Terror" with Valerie Harper has some great suspense. Another great arid desert horror flick/road movie. Richard Romanus plays a serial killer with an electrolarynx who pursues Harper while she's making a late-night drive from Phoenix to Denver. It's a lot of fun.

The cast of actors in some of these TV movies is fascinating, when you recognize a name and think, "really? They were in that?"

For example, in the cast of Crowhaven Farm is actess Louise Troy. I only know her from my recording of a 1964 B'way musical, "High Spirits." I did a quick Wiki read of her career and was surprised to learn that her first husband was Werner Klemperer (Col Klink from Hogan's Heroes).

Any ABC movie with one of the Eilbachers! It was their specialty.

Op. People in nor’easter slickers and carrying pitchforks gave me nightmares as a kid. I forgot—who was the killer? Eleanor?

R21, I loved Midnight Offerings! I was a tween when it first aired and was obsessed! Mary from Little House on the Prairie and Erin from the Waltons as warring teen witches. Also starring Mrs. C from Happy Days and the lady from Soap. And cute Patrick Cassidy. We had gotten our first VCR by the time the rerun came on and I recorded it and watched it over and over.

R32 I watched that as an 8 year old and had nightmares. Mainly I was haunted by the one scene when they had poor pregnant Hope Lang on the ground under a board while these evil pilgrims piled stone after stone on top of the board until she couldn't breathe.

Creepy William Smith. Was he good, or evil?

[quote] "The Spell" is absolutely fucking batshit. The entire plot hinges on the main character being tormented for being fat (she's only slightly pudgy)

In the '70s, that was fat.

This haunted me as a little child…

Lloyd Bridges and Angie Dickinson in

The Love War

more sci-fi than horror

This one has stuck with me: [bold]A Cold Night's Death[/bold], starring Robert Culp and Eli Wallach as scientists at an isolated research facility in the Arctic.

Devil Dog Hound of Hell

Aside from Shelley Winters, The Initiation of Sarah had everyone you could hope for in a TV movie: Kay Lenz, both Morgan Fairchild and Morgan Brittany, Robert Hays, and Tisa Farrow, sister of Mia.

Mia is bitch.

"The Killer Bees" with Gloria Swanson. Bette Davis was offered the role, but was terrified of bees on her face.

R33 I always got that movie confused with "When Michael Calls."

Does anyone remember the episode of Fantasy Island where they did an "Exorcist" ripoff with Missy Gold as the possessed little girl and made it into a two-parter TV movie?

I remember that R57. She hated sunlight, so her evil nanny kept her constantly covered by an umbrella.

There was even a TV ripoff of "Carrie". It was utterly ridiculous. I can't remember the title, but the girl's father criticized her weight. Afterwards, she enacted revenge via telekinesis through a bedroom alarm clock...sounding the alarm, changing the time etc. I forgot the title, though.

R59 here. The TV file was "The Spell", 1977.

R59 here; the movie was "The Spell", 1977. Shockingly, Lee Grant played the mother. Yet, it's a job...Lee Grant was blacklisted by HUAC for 12 years. (Thanks to those goddamned Republicans.)

[quote]R34 There is something about those dusty, desert-set horror flicks of this era that I love (What Ever Happened to Aunt Alice is another).

Geraldine Page really lets out all the self-indulgent stops in that one!

Shelley Winters hamming it up in high style:

Back then, did all of those movies originally air during Prime Time? I remember seeing some on the Late Movie which was at 11:30pm. But I think they were just rerunning in those syndication time slots.

Yes prime time.

ABC:

Yes…. I don’t think they budgeted movies to premier outside of prime time, unless it was an ABC After School Special or something.

Shit r65. That gets me all misty eyed

Those old TV horror films are a lot scarier than modern horror. I remember being traumatized by several of them as a kid. I still have PTSD from "The Screaming Woman" starring Olivia de Havilland about a woman buried alive.

The Salem's Lot miniseries, directed by Tobe Hooper, was especially scary for TV. I'm surprised that TV censors approved it.

No one has mentioned the scariest of them all, Don't Be Afraid of the Dark. Those little fucking demons terrified me.

I really miss the "Made for TV" films.

Don't be Arfaid of the Dark deserves a sequel of some sort. I mean, what happened to Kim DArby's character after she was taken away and "joined" those little demons? Did she so satisfy them that they never felt the need to come back up from the basement?

Satan's Triangle, with Kim Novak

R72 that one actually scared me when I was a kid. I had nightmares for a week about her.

I checked the release date r73 and I was a sullen, cynical, too cool for school, 15 year old who turned 16 the next day. I never would have admitted it then but it gave me nightmares as well.

That’s the same movie that fucking traumatized me as a kid, too, r69.

I didn’t know the name of that movie until you posted it. Shit. Now I’ll have to rewatch it.

Rather than name the movie, I know it's popular on here so I'm gonna give one clue:

"Breath"....."Brrrr....eth"......"Brrr..rrr....eth"...

Identify the movie! Bonus points: Identify the actress playing the character in question.

It was remade R71.

This thread inspired me to watch Home for the Holidays on YouTube. Ooph.

ABC Friday Movie

"The Longest Night" was apparently so disturbing it has only ever aired ONCE.

Although I was only a kid I vividly recall watching it and being terrified by the plot.

Home For The Holidays 1974

has two of the first stage Sally Bowles / Cabaret

Julie Harris and Jill Haworth

R43 Whatever happened to the Eilbacher girls? Seemed like Lisa was an up and coming star but disappeared shortly after Beverly Hills Cop.

This has been my favorite interpretation of Frankenstein:

Frankenstein: The True Story 1973

Starring the strangely alluring Michael Sarrazin and what I believe is one of Jane Seymour's earliest roles, with a very memorable scene.

He was a no good Peter Proud

I suppose it doesn’t count as a horror film, but Helter Skelter scared the bejesus out of me when it premiered in prime time on CBS in1976. It’s something I normally wouldn’t be allowed to see, but it came on while my parents were playing tennis and I was set down in front of the TV in the clubhouse where they had it playing. I must have caught the first half hour or so and that was enough to make me sleep with the lights on.

I was going to add “Devil dog : the hound from Hell”, R52 😂

The trailer has ALL the cheesy tropes, and is worth the watch:

R79 those were feature films on Friday, not tv movies produced for ABC as on Tuesday.

I had read somewhere (probably here) that Lisa Eilbacher went into hiding after a bad facelift.

R69 It’s been mentioned in the thread @ R16 .

Pay attention or they’ll come to get you.

R88 I can relate

KILLDOZER (1974) - A small construction crew on an island is terrorized when a spirit-like being takes over a large bulldozer, and goes on a killing rampage.

(I remember watching the movie, and also buying the Marvel Comics adaptation. I don't know why Marvel chose this out of all the TV movies of the time to make into a comic.)

I just watched Dark Night of the Scarecrow and it's still as creepy as I remember.

Dark Night of the Scarecrow is scary insofar as the Deep South is still full of bigoted yokels.

This one was good. Janet Leigh marries a millionaire in Spain who disappears the day after their wedding, then a different man shows up claiming to be him. Great twists and turns.

Steven Spielberg's first feature length film -

Something Evil

For fans of the Dan Curtis film Trilogy of Terror, he did another trilogy a year or two later called Dead of Night.

The third tale ("Bobby" starring Joan Hackett and the kid from Burnt Offerings) is a killer.

R95 sorry, Charlie. Duel was his first film.

Dying Room Only, starring Cloris Leachman as a woman searching for her husband after he disappears at a lonely desert cafe. This one is a real white knuckler.

I just watched Home for the Holidays. It was interesting, Eleanor Parker playing Sally Field’s SISTER a year after playing her mother in Maybe I’ll Come Home in the Spring. (There was a 24 year age difference.)

Crowhaven Farm had one of the very young Eilbachers choosing Paul Burke as her new husband and they torture Hope Lange to get her to give up her wedding ring. They place a wooden door on top of her and began piling rocks on her until she submitted. Around the same time, poor Hope also got the shit kicked out of her in Death Wish by Jeff Goldblum.

Someone's Watching Me. Early John Carpenter with Lauren Hutton as the stalked newswoman and Adrienne Barbeau as the lesbian producer.

I remember one TV movie with a girl with telekinetic powers in PE class and a girl was climbing a rope and she made the girl fall. Was that "The Spell"?

Something Evil was really good and Sandy Dennis got to play a normal victim of the supernatural as opposed to the weirdos she became famous for playing.

R100 as we all know from up thread. TIA

I don’t remember the name, but the plot featured bugs that exploded and caught fire. I remember a woman’s hair catching fire, and she burned to death, and it was traumatic for me! I think there was a scene in a pick up truck or car, and it blew up because of the bugs, and I was scarred for life. This would be in 1975-77 or so.

It was called Bugs R105, and eventually they evolved and learned language before assuming a flying form and returning underground, where they came from. I think it starred Bradford Dillman.

He was hawt back in the day.

Thanks, r106. I should have guessed the title, but I figured it was more descriptive and wordy.

I still flinch like hell when a June bug buzzes by. Damn things.

Scream, Pretty Peggy

With Ted Bessell, Sian Barbara Allen…and Bette Davis!

ANTS!

I watched Home for the Holidays and Dying Room Only. Two thumbs up for both. Does anyone have a link to Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark? It doesn’t seem to be on YouTube…

Audrey Rose/1977 created a bit of a furor when it was released.

You'll Never See Me Again - based on a Cornell Woolrich story

R111 Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark might be under lock and key for streaming as it’s a fairly popular Warner Archive release. You may have to pay to rent it. Dying Room Only was also put out on DVD by Warner but not on Blu-ray/HD and isn’t as well known of a title, so free streams of that may be under the radar.

The YouTube channel TV Terrorland has a lot of TV horror

r111 I torrented it from Yify.

Audrey Rose and Bugs were both theatrical releases, not TV movies.

[quote]"The Longest Night" was apparently so disturbing it has only ever aired ONCE.

I was probably five and I can't believe my parents let me watch it. I still remember the man's voice telling the girl that the ants would eat her if she tried to break out of the box.

I was in my teens and almost the whole family watched including my younger brother and sister who were 8 and 7. As I recall, there was a lot of publicity.

R112 that was NOT a tv movie….get a clue.

The TV movies about leukemia scared me more than The Longest Night.

R116 I have no idea how to do that. I’d it difficult?

R122 no it’s easy and the downloads are fast. Just install utorrent and then go to Yify and find a movie, click 1080p and it should show up in your downloads, then click open file and it should pop up in utorrent, a window will open asking where you want the file, then click ok and it will start downloading.

"Something Evil" (1972). Sandy Dennis, Darren McGavin, and Ralphy Bellamy.

A married couple with two young children move into a Pennsylvania farmhouse that turns out to be inhabited by demons.

Notable for me because I sucked off my husband twice while we watched that movie. Scary movies make me horny.

The Night Strangler with Darren McGavin as Kolchak.

Later a TV series, but the TV movie came first.

Night Strangler and The Night Stalker are good. I always thought Darren McGavin was sexy.

LadyKillers (1988) Chippendale strippers are knocked off by a killer with big shoulder pads and a wig that looks like David Bowie's in Labyrinth. Lesley-Anne Down as the Alexis Colby-like proprietress of the male strip club and Marilu Henner as the cop on the case.