Rent Dead of Night (1972)
3.5 of 5 from 69 ratings
2h 30min
- General info
- Available formats
- Synopsis:
After years of unavailability, the three surviving episodes from the legendary BBC horror anthology series 'Dead of Night' finally come to video. Originally screened on BBC2 in 1972, and rarely seen since, 'Dead of Night' has been highly sought by fans of classic TV and British horror for decades.
1. The Exorcism
In what is perhaps the most terrifying of the episodes, four wealthy, middle-class friends (Clive Swift, Edward Petherbridge, Anna Cropper and Sylvia Kay) gather for a Christmas dinner in a country cottage only to find that the past will not rest while they feast.
2. Return FlightThe professionalism of an experienced and respected airline pilot (Peter Barkworth) is placed under scrutiny when he encounters the ghostly apparition of a Second World War Lancaster bomber.
7. A Woman Sobbing
A middle-class housewife (Anna Massey) becomes increasingly paranoid when her nights are interrupted by the terrifying and unexplained sound of a woman crying in one of the rooms in her new house.- Actors:
- Peter Barkworth, Anna Cropper, Bernard Brown, Sylvia Kay, Artro Morris, Edward Petherbridge, Diana Fairfax, Clive Swift, Kenneth Kendall, Denis Lill, Anthony Dutton, Karin MacCarthy, Barrie Fletcher, Christopher Denham, Laurie Asprey, Roger Avon, Carl Bohen, Paul Bentley, Andrea Allan
- Directors:
- Don Taylor, Paul Ciappessoni, Rodney Bennett
- Producers:
- Innes Lloyd, Bob Clark
- Writers:
- Don Taylor, Robert Holmes, John Bowen
- Aka:
- Dead of Night: Series
- Studio:
- BFI Video
- Genres:
- British TV, TV Classics, TV Dramas, TV Horror
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Reviews (2) of Dead of Night
Vaults across Time - Dead of Night review by CH
Another disinterment, as it were. This is a leap across time - twice over. Made in the early-Seventies - with safari jackets, dinner parties, a store of candles for the three-day week -, each surviving episode turns around an earlier presence in the house, such as a woman who fell from a window around 1910 and now haunts Anna Massey in "A Woman Weeping" by the excellent playwright John Bowen, whose novels should be better known (BFI has reissued his television play Robin Redbreast, also set in a country cottage: highly recommended, available here). Each of these films is fifty minutes long - and contains much more than so many that are now stretched out for hours.
1 out of 1 members found this review helpful.
Slightly unsettling but not scary - Dead of Night review by AR
There's 3 episodes of a sort of UK version of the Twilight Zone, there were more made but as with a lot of programs they were sadly thought of no value by the beeb and wiped or dumped. All 3 episodes are very watchable and give you an eery kind of feeling rather than any actual scares. They're definitely a product of the time and it's rather wonderful to see early 70s depicted. How there weren't more fires in the 70s I'll never know as there's a very relaxed attitude to naked flames and lit cigarettes. There's a lot of jobbing actors here, the most famous of which seems to be Clive Swift who went on to start in Keeping up Appearances. The acting quality is really quite good. There's some slightly sexist attitudes on display, again we've come a long way in 50 years (I'd prefer we didn't try and airbrush old attitudes and language out, we need to see how things have evolved, not censor it). I'm very glad to have rented this and seen what's left of the series. There's another feature length episode of the series that's on a separate DVD which I think is called The Stone Tapes, I've added that to my rental list as well. Highly recommended if you're a fan of the "old but in colour" era of television. We don't seem to make television plays anymore, maybe they've had their day.
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