Destination Nightmare (1958) (TV)

User Rating:

4.7/10   

Director:

Paul Landres

Writers:

Stanley H. Silverman (writer)
George Waggner (writer)

Release Date:

8 March 1958 (USA)

Genre:

Horror

Plot:

Pilot film for an anthology series called "The Veil." |

Cast

Boris Karloff	...	Morgan Debs / Prof. Charles Goncourt / Pete Wade, Sr. / Ira (archive footage)
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Denise Alexander	...	(archive footage)
Tod Andrews	...	John Prescott (archive footage)
Whit Bissell	...	Dr. Will Madison (archive footage)
Olive Blakeney	...	(archive footage)
Eve Brent	...	Lila Kirby (archive footage)
Claudia Bryar	...	Mrs. Kirby (archive footage)
Iphigenie Castiglioni	...	Madame Naidu (archive footage)
Jean Del Val	...	Armand Vernoy (archive footage)
Roy Engel	...	Wally (archive footage)
Ron Hagerthy	...	Pete Wade, Jr. (archive footage)
George Hamilton	...	Krishna Vernoy (archive footage)
Myron Healey	...	Bill Tighe (archive footage)
Pitt Herbert	...	Garage Attendant (archive footage)
Julius Johnson	...	Rama Mukerjee (archive footage)
Rusty Lane	...	Sheriff (archive footage)
Jack Lomas	...	Bartender (archive footage)
Shirley Mitchell	...	(archive footage)
Frances O'Farrell	...	(archive footage)
Kelly Thordsen	...	Chauffeur (archive footage)
Lee Torrance	...	Santha Naidu

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Company:

Hal Roach Studios

Movie Connections:

Edited from "The Veil" (1958)

No thrills and chills to be found here.

It's easy to see why this never became a successful show, even with Boris Karloff attached to it.

"Destination Nightmare" is actually a collection of four TV episodes of about 25 minutes apiece. The writers apparently had very little creativity when compared to such classics as "Twilight Zone" or "Amazing Stories".

The first episode is about a teenage girl who goes to visit her mother's childhood home. When she gets there, she is overcome with the spirit of a girl who had died ten years earlier. This is the best out of the four, but that really isn't saying much.

The second episode is about a young man who sees a ghost while he is flying a plane. The ghost tries to make him crash.

The third episode is too similar to the first. A young Indian woman has been reincarnated and she remembers her past life. She shocks people by knowing things that only her previous incarnation could possibly know. The fact that white people are trying to portray Hindu Indians adds to the tackiness.

The final episode is kind of hard to explain because it is so utterly illogical. In general, a gentleman encounters a young blonde woman having car trouble. He senses that she is in some sort of imminent danger. I won't spoil the "twist" for you but it makes everything that occurred earlier in the episode lack any sense whatsoever.

If these stories were the best that they could come up with at the start, then I would hate to see what they would've come up with if the show was around for a while. 2/10