19Choose a Victim
A beach bum locks onto a wealthy young woman whose sadness is as obvious as her flashy jewels and sports car. At first Ralphie Teal only desires a quick score, but when the comely Ms. Landers forgives his larceny in exchange for his serious attention, the heel sees a much bigger payoff looming, via her only relative, a harsh uncle who's loaded.
20Hay-Fork and Bill-Hook
On the Welsh Border, an old man suspected of witchcraft is gruesomely murdered with a hay-fork and bill-hook. The Scotland Yard inspector investigating has to wade through a morass of superstition to uncover the killer, but when his wife starts having visions of the Black Dog, harbinger of death, the locals focus their suspicions on her.
23Well of Doom
Fiendish Moloch and his huge creature Styx kill a chauffeur and kidnap his passengers, who are en route to a bachelor party. The two abductees (a bridegroom, who's heir to an English country estate, and the estate overseer), are forced to slog through foggy moors to an ancient Gothic fortress. As dawn approaches, the diabolic pair push their captives to speed up, because the demonic creatures fear the coming of light.
24The Ordeal of Dr. Cordell
28Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper
33The Terror in Teakwood
Erratic, talented pianist Vladimir Vicek cuts short his honeymoon with his beautiful wife Leonie in order to attend the funeral of arch-rival Carnowitz He bribes a caretaker to gain access to the dead man's crypt and desecrates the corpse. His obsession so alienates his wife that she takes on a lover who subsequently insinuates himself into Vicek's employ as a manager. When the pianist's upcoming concert program is announced, it includes a Carnowitz sonata, spitefully written by the late composer exclusively for his over-sized hands, a composition no one believes Vicek is physically able to play. Just before the concert, the graveyard caretaker appears and attempts to blackmail Vicek.
34The Prisoner in the Mirror
A professor studying the depraved sorcerer Count Cagliostro, brings to the U.S. the mirror which was instrumental in the Count's murder spree. The looking glass was blacked over to entrap Cagliostro, but Prof. Harry Langton, obsessed with the magician's secrets, scrapes off the paint and installs the mirror in his residence.
36Pigeons from Hell
This episode was adapted from a Robert E. Howard (Author of Conan the Barbarian) short story. Directed by John Newland (former Director and host of the creepy series "One Step Beyond"). It was set in a lonely old mansion in the southern swamp lands. Two brothers, John (David Whorf) and Tim (Brandon De Wilde) find themselves stranded there after their car breaks down nearby. Traveling through the swamps they find the old abandoned Blassenville mansion. As they approach it a strange cry causes scores of pigeons to burst into flight to swirl eerily in the gathering twilight. Spending the night in the gloomy old place is the only option as the sun is setting and so they settle down in sleeping bags on the lower floor. One brother (Tim) is awakened in the middle of the night and finds he is alone. He hears a terrible scream and climbs the stairs only to see a terrifying sight. He runs from the mansion in abject panic and collapses in the swamp.Awakened by Sheriff Buckner(Crahan Denton) he's taken back to the old mansion and there they find the body of his brother, he is accused of the murder and must return to the mansion again to try to explain what happened the night before and clear his name.Sheriff Buckner:"They say the pigeons are the souls of the Blassenvilles, let out of hell at sunset. The Negroes say the red glare in the west is the light from hell, because then the gates of hell are open, and the Blassenvilles fly out.The short story is available on line and is well worth finding, this episode of Thriller is a very good adaptation of it.
1What Beckoning Ghost?
When a concert pianist envisions her own coffin in her drawing room, she doubts her sanity. No one else sees it or hears a phantom organ's funeral music in the isolated, haunted mansion. Wealthy, but plain Mildred's been housebound with a weak heart, tended by her sensual sister and ne'er-do-well husband, who Mildred dangles on a short financial leash.
2Guillotine
France, 1875. A condemned man learns of a legal loophole that he would be pardoned if the executioner dies before his execution. He then enlists his wife in a scheme to make sure that this improbable scenario comes to pass. |
3The Premature Burial
An aging millionaire survives being buried alive, but his devilish fiancée plans to take advantage of his next cataleptic seizure, by marrying him and then making sure he stays in his grave. Then the gorgeous Victorine will inherit his estate, and run off with her young lover, a painter. But the cataleptic millionaire and his loyal physician Dr. Thorn take every possible measure to allow him to survive another mistaken entombment.
4The Weird Tailor
When a scholar, Mr. Smith, inadvertently kills his son Arthur during a mystic magic ritual, he tries to make amends by turning to black magic to resurrect his child. Smith designs a unique suit of unearthly material, and hires a financially-stricken tailor to make it to the unique specifications. Meanwhile, the tailor's abused wife turns to a damaged mannequin for solace.
5God Grante That She Lye Stille
In 1661 Elspeth Clewer is burned as a witch, cursing her family with her dying breath. Three hundred years to the day afterward, Lady Margaret Clewer returns to her ancestral home to claim her inheritance and finds the ghost of Elspeth trying to seize her body so she can walk the Earth once more.
6Masquerade
A family of cannibalistic thieves menace a young couple, but the husband laughs off their scary Southern hotel as a joke. The lovebirds became lost on a second honeymoon and sought shelter in the spooky Baits Hotel, but were quickly locked in by the Carta Family. The gorgeous wife Rosalynn is appalled to find the Cartas have a private jail cell, containing haggard female relative Ruth Carta, who pleads for the young woman to release her.
7The Last of the Sommervilles
Dragging a murder victim to burial is just 1 chore a servant undertakes to become the last Sommerville standing, to win a wealthy old woman's inheritance. As a distant relative, Ursula steps up her elimination contest when a closer, desperate Sommerville arrives to drain off some of his aunt's estate for a business bailout.
8Letter to a Lover
After the murder of a London doctor, emotionally disturbed Sylvia Lawrence secretly sends a letter to her ex-lover Donald revealing that her husband Andrew is holding her a virtual prisoner at their remote vacation home; Andrew claims to be protecting her but what is he really hiding? And why is he being blackmailed by the late doctor's nurse?
9A Third for Pinochle
Milquetoast plans bumping off his spouse, unaware the nosy sisters across the street just killed one's husband. Layabout Maynard has a cozy love nest for his kept woman Babs, but his stingy wife severely cramps his cheating style, so the would-be bon vivant accelerates his scheme.
10The Closed Cabinet
A medieval curse has hung over the Mervyn family for three hundred years, dictating that there will be a murder in the clan in every generation. A young American visitor is determined to break the curse by solving the riddle of the mysterious locked cabinet in the murder room.
11Dialogues with Death
Two tales of terror centering on communicating with the dead. In the first, an elderly morgue attendant can speak to the cadavers in his charge and he learns the identity of the gunman who killed a noted racketeer. In the second story, a greedy nephew returns to his family home in the Lousiana bayou to claim his inheritance but why does his dotty old aunt insist that he is dead?
12The Return of Andrew Bentley
White magic practitioner Amos Wilder kills himself after securing his nephew's sworn promise to guard his body against evil spirits. The nephew must never leave his uncle's mansion, to protect the shire from the return of black necromancer Bentley, cast back to Hell by Wilder.
13The Remarkable Mrs. Hawk
Cissy Hawk's farm keeps gaining massive blue ribbon hogs, while the passing drifters she hires magically disappear. Well-read grifter Jason Longfellow figures he'll last a lot longer at her Isle of Aiaie via blackmail, but seductive Cissy keeps local Sheriff Ulysses wound around her finger tighter than a pig's tail.
14Portrait Without a Face
Six months after an artist is mysteriously murdered, a blank canvas in his studio begins filling itself in, portraying the crime and building up to the revelation of the killer's identity. |
15An Attractive Family
Family that kills together seeks to stay together in style, by icing the heir of one of their victims, before she comes into her inheritance. If the heiress audits the books, she'll discover that the family has already blown her share of the estate. Her newlywed sister was backed off a cliff while having her photo snapped, so the younger sister is understandably leery of heights, but not of her very understanding new in-laws.
16Waxworks
A murder outside a traveling wax museum attracts the attention of the police--and a European detective who claims that the wax figures of murderers are brought to life by black magic so they can kill again. |
17La Strega
Three men try to drown a young woman, fearing she's a witch. A wandering painter pulls her from the river, refusing to believe in such rural superstition. The young artist shelters her, but her elderly aunt who rules the 18th Century Italian countryside via supernatural power, plots to keep her niece as a sorcerer's apprentice - no matter what.
18The Storm
Woman & her jumpy black cat Baba increasingly besieged by amorous loon of a cabbie, power outages, and menacing sounds throughout her isolated home during a devastating storm. The newlywed just returned early from 2 weeks caring for her sister. As she prays for her husband's arrival, she decides to confront strange sounds emanating from the storm cellar.
19A Wig for Miss Devore
An aging actress tries for a comeback in a film about a witch hanged for murder. As a stunt she insists on wearing the historical woman's wig, which turns out to be cursed, changing her into a literal man-killer. |
20The Hollow Watcher
An Irish mail-order bride marries into a family in North Carolina, with a scheme to steal their hidden fortune. She murders her autocratic father-in-law and hides his body inside a scarecrow--but the vengeful scarecrow is now stalking her. |
21Cousin Tundifer
Mass murderer's descendant plots quicker inheritance options when his ill, rich uncle Pontifex, takes up with Queenie De Lyte, a stripper turned art fancier. A psychologist cured Pontifex's obsession with restoring ancient family homes, destroying nephew Tundifer's hope of having Pontifex declared incompetent. Tundifer looks exactly like his evil ancestor, a portrait of whom hangs in one family mansion, whose expensive renovation may include a portal to a prior century.
22The Incredible Doktor Markesan
Fred and Molly Bancroft, a pair of penniless newlyweds, are so desperate that they visit Fred's mysterious uncle Konrad Markesan, whom he hasn't seen in over twenty years. They are hoping to live in with him rent free until they can find jobs and be self-sufficient. The once-beautiful mansion is in a decrepitly musty state, filled with dust, cobwebs, and rats while Fred's once-kindly uncle is now a disheveled, cadaver-like figure who offers them shelter on condition that they never leave their room after dark, a condition that Markesan insures by locking them in at night.
23Flowers of Evil
A faithless wife and her lover murder her husband and sell his skeleton to a medical school. The skeleton keeps returning, however--and screaming. |
24Til Death Do Us Part
Undertaker Carl Somers murders his nagging wife so he can head west to marry a wealthy spinster. The joke's on him though: eloping with the old maid gets her disinherited, leaving him with another unwanted wife. A new doctor in town hiding from a murder charge comes in handy at this point.
25The Bride Who Died Twice
In a Latin American country, a sinister Colonel forces the Governor's daughter to marry him but she dies on their wedding night-or does she? |
26Kill My Love
Apparent "family man" Guy Guthrie murders his mistress when she threatens to expose him, then his wife when she figures out what he's done. But what will he do about his beloved teenage son when the boy begins to puzzle out that his father killed his mother?
27Man of Mystery
An author is murdered when his book exposing an ex-employer, a secretive international financier, is to be published. A reporter tracks the case, but everyone he tries to interview dies under suspicious circumstances. Meanwhile, the financier gets a comic fired because he's obsessed with ensnaring the funny-man's girlfriend, a leggy nightclub chanteuse.
28The Innocent Bystanders
Jacob Grant and John Paterson, a pair of Victorian-era bodysnatchers, turn to murder to supplement their income. First they take Grant's visiting sister-in-law, then set their sights on the unsuspecting boarders. |
29The Lethal Ladies
2 twisted tales of timid people hitting their breaking point. A philandering investor dreams of independence from his wife, a wealthy, bold geologist, but when his latest scheme plummets down the big board, Myron plots murder. Alice Quimby's entire life is her work at a university library, but she's passed over to be chief librarian, in favor of Dr. Wilford Bliss, a martinet who's going to clean house, forcing her out before she can collect her pension.
30The Specialists
An elite team of federal agents is formed to take down an international ring of jewel thieves. |
