Lot’s of good episodes, but the one with the painter with the deformed hand, and ratlike creature waiting under the manhole cover at the end was the creepiest. Can’t seem to find the episode. Was it even a Night Gallery Episode?
THE SINS OF THE FATHERS*. was pretty creepy too
Which one creeped you out the worst?
The one with the painter sounds like “Pickman’s Model”, from the Lovecraft story. Man, I used to love that show when it first came on (being twelve didn’t hurt). When I see it in repeats, I find that the electronic theme music is still creepy (and something the studio idiots didn’t want, apparently). And the paintings – some of those were great. I wonder what became of them all?
Was “The Sins of the Fathers” the one with Richard Thomas and Michael Dunn, about the sin-eater? Was that from maybe a Manley Wade Wellman story?
I remember being scared by the one with little Clint Howard, where he played a boy who could make accurate predictions about the near future. I went to bed worrying about
the Sun going nova.
As with “The Twilight Zone”, one of the best reasons to watch the show in repeats is to see some great character actors getting work – like Burgess Meredith, who was in several “Twilight Zone” episodes and at least one “Night Gallery”, or William Windom.
The adaptation of Kornbluth’s “Little Black Bag” with (IIRC) Chill Wills.
Just the reaction of the onlookers as he inadvertantly cut his own throat with the futuristic medical scalpel. <shudder>
The one where the female prisoner tries several times to escapt and fails. Then she makes a deal with the prison undertaker to smuggle her out in a coffin the next time someone dies (a bell rings when somedies) and he’ll dig her up a few hours later. So the next time she hears a bell she goes to the morgue and climbs into the open casket. It’s taken to a graveyard and buried. Hours pass and he still hasn’t dug her up. She’s running out of air and panting heavily. Finally she lights a match. Only to find it’s the undertaker who died. Cut to an empty graveyard and the muffles sound of a scream. I was a little kid when I saw that an it gave me nightmares. I still creeps me out.
I remember two episodes that scared the piss out of me when I was young. Well, I remember being pretty creeped out. The details of the episodes escape me.
One was about somebody trying to scare another some body out of a house by changing the painting of the exterior of the house that hung over the stairs.
Another had to do with an old lady’s silhoutte as she lay in bed while her resentful son read to her.
Anybody know what I’m talking about?
I remember the episode with the painting that hung by the stairs. There was a figure that was crawling either to or away from the house and kept being in a different place - obviously, I don’t remember the details.
I was so very freaked out by this show that I got in the habit of going into another room so I couldn’t even hear the opening music when my brother watched it. The one episode that put me over the top was the one about a gardener whose hand was cut off (?). She planted it and grew herself back again (or something). All I remember clearly is the image of a hand covered in creepy-looking roots.
“The Caterpillar.” God, that scarred me for years as a kid.
A synopsis from another site:
“The Caterpillar”; Laurence Harvey (maybe his best performance ever) played a scoundrel wishing to kill an older gentleman to make a move on his much younger and very hot wife (played by Joanna Pettit). His scheme? A hybrid caterpillar (called an “earwig”) would be inserted into the man’s ear during sleep; the hybrid would be unable to “back up” and therefore would eat its way through the man’s brain! Harvey falls afoul of his own scheme when a mistake is made, yet miraculously survives the creature’s 2+ week journey across his head when it somehow finds its way out the other ear. THEN he learns that the earwig was a female, and had laid eggs in his brain!
shudder
I remember the Night Gallery with fondness - but not, alas, with any clarity. I can no longer remember a particular episode that creeped me out.
This is from the original Night Gallery pilot movie, and starred Roddy McDowell and Ossie Davis: "Night Gallery" Pilot (TV Episode 1969) - Plot - IMDb
Patrick MacNee is looking for his lost brother in Africa(?). He comes across a tribe ruled by a shaman named Logoda, who is able to mystically communicated with his collection of shrunken human heads. One tribe member whom they befriend, Kyro, is played by the lovely Denise Nicholas.
The next morning, Logoda’s wife (“Mother Jefferson” Zara Cully) is bawling her eyes out.
Logoda is dead, savagely torn apart. It has also come to light that he had been responsible for the disappearance/murder of Patrick MacNee’s brother. Kyro tells them this. She also informs them, concerning Logoda, that her magic was stronger than his, saying, “Logoda knows how to make them [the shrunken heads] talk–but I. . . I know how to make them kill.” [tight shot of Ms. Nicholas’s smile-only, practically filling the screen. Cut to a close-up of one of Logoda’s heads. There is a bloody piece of flesh in the mouth."
Also, “The Girl with the Hungry Eyes,” about a vampire of the soul, the aforementioned “Pickman’s Model,” and “Brenda,” which has some interesting visual imagery. It also features two of the most common daughters-at-large of that era, Pamelyn Ferdin and Laurie Prange.
I thought this was from Alfred Hitchcock’s show. I seem to remember it done more than once.
I remember watching the show but the only story that sticks in my mind (except for the above mentioned if I’m wrong) is Sins of The Father. The last shot of Johnboy screaming is still in my head.
As some others have said, it’s difficult to recall specific episodes from that long ago. But I seem to recall one that mostly dealt with two men discussing something. One was a rich eccentric who tended to keep to himself while the other was a high-profile mob boss. The episode was pretty dull until…
[spoiler]The rich eccentric spiked the mob boss’s drink with something. Then he led the groggy mob boss down into the basement where he put the mob boss into a cell. Looking around through blurry eyes, the mob boss thought he recognized Adolf Hitler, Amelia Earhart, and Judge Crater in similar cells.
“You see,” said the rich eccentric, “I collect people. You will be remembered as a famous disappearance, like these others; and I will have another fine addition to my collection.”[/spoiler]
Interestingly, given the dates that the show was popular, this episode would have been written and produced before the disappearance of Jimmy Hoffa. Maybe that’s why I remember it–because I remember Hoffa’s disappearance and thinking about this episode.
“The Big Surprise”
John Carradine plays a creepy old man (what else?) who tells a young boy that if he goes to the big tree and counts off X paces in a direction and then digs down a certain depth (don’t remember details, obviously) that “there he’ll find a big surprise.”
The kid follows the scarey old man’s instructions and when he does . . .
he finds a coffin shaped box. He opens it and John Carradine sits up in it and says, “Surprise!”
I went thru the episodes of NG and didn’t it. I tried to look at Alfred Hitchcock presents but there were 270 episodes of the original series! That’s not including the 80s remake. I still think it was on AHP but I can’t prove it right now.
There was an episode where an author was scared of spiders. He noticed one in his sink one day and washed it down the drain. A little while later, there was a somewhat larger spider in his sink and he washed it down the drain. Reapeat until there’s a German Sheperd-sized spider chsing him around his apartment… :eek:
Not so much creepy, as terrific: in that same pilot episode, Joan Crawford (directed by Steven Spielberg, who was, like, ten years old or something) gave her last great performance as a blind millionaire who cons a poor guy into donating her his eyes, for 24 hours of sight. Joannie still had those acting chops!
This episode of AHP was pretty close to the story you’re thinking of. I had thought it was on either AHP or the old “Thriller” with Boris Karloff.
I only have a clear memory of one episode, but as I recall it did send a shiver down my spine. And I’m not positive it was The Night Gallery, but I can’t think of what other show it could come from.
A condemned prisoner is given the opportunity to take part in an experiment, rather than face the electric chair. He is put into suspended animation, so that a future generation can cure him of his violent ways. He wakes up hundreds of years later surrounded by men and women in lab coats. Someone explains to him that, yes, a cure has been found for his “disease”.
He is led down a hall, a door is opened, and in the middle of the room is a gallows.
You probably saw that coming a mile away.
I remember the episode that alphaboi867 is talking about and your link is more or less the same story except that in the one I saw it was a female prisoner. I suspect it was on the 80s remake of the Alfred Hitchcock show since that did redo a number of the old scripts.
