The terrific Dame Judith Anderson is once again the holder of the secrets in this TV pilot that didn't go anywhere America simply because it was far too scary for television audiences at the time. She's once again cast as a spooky housekeeper, dressed very witch like and highly reminding me of Grayson Hall later on the TV soap opera "Dark Shadows". It is ironic that one of Hall's TV characters on that soap opera was obviously based on Anderson's character of Mrs. Danvers in the classic Hitchcock masterpiece "Rebecca", for here, Anderson is both gloomy and sympathetic as a woman whose intentions are unknown and could either be sympathetic...or sinister.
Cast opposite Anderson is the future Oscar-winning Martin Landau, acclaimed for his role of Bela Lugosi in "Ed Wood", here playing a master of decoding the presence of ghostly creatures, and Diane Baker ("Straight Jacket") as the wife of a blind man and a victim of ghostly apparitions, believing that her mother was murdered by a ghost in a nearby mission. it appears that approximately 20 minutes of footage has been deleted from the print that I found, but what remains tells the story quite thoroughly and left no questions unanswered. Some of the ghostly apparitions reminded me of the William Castle cult classic "13 Ghosts", and there are moments that are genuinely more frightening than any of the theatrical release horror movies of this time. That makes this a must for fans of moody ghost stories, with Anderson and Landau truly magnificent in their characterizations.
Cast opposite Anderson is the future Oscar-winning Martin Landau, acclaimed for his role of Bela Lugosi in "Ed Wood", here playing a master of decoding the presence of ghostly creatures, and Diane Baker ("Straight Jacket") as the wife of a blind man and a victim of ghostly apparitions, believing that her mother was murdered by a ghost in a nearby mission. it appears that approximately 20 minutes of footage has been deleted from the print that I found, but what remains tells the story quite thoroughly and left no questions unanswered. Some of the ghostly apparitions reminded me of the William Castle cult classic "13 Ghosts", and there are moments that are genuinely more frightening than any of the theatrical release horror movies of this time. That makes this a must for fans of moody ghost stories, with Anderson and Landau truly magnificent in their characterizations.