Night Gallery (TV Series) Fright Night (1972) User Reviews

Pretty decent show

[Woodyanders · 7/10 · 22 October 2018]

Writer Tom Ogilvy (the always excellent Stuart Whitman) and his wife Leona (a solid and appealing portrayal by the lovely Barbara Anderson) move into a big old house that was left to them by Ogilvy's late uncle Zachariah who it turns out was a practitioner of the black arts. Naturally, strange things start happening right away.

Director Jeff Corey relates the obvious, but still enjoyable story at a brisk pace, makes nice use of the dusty rundown country abode setting, and does a competent job of crafting a spooky atmosphere. Ellen Corby contributes a lively turn as cranky old biddy Miss Patience. While Robert Malcolm Young's script for the most part follows a predictable trajectory, he does nonetheless come through with a satisfying logical conclusion: The couple decide to leave at the end and never return after finding out that their new home is beyond a doubt definitely haunted.

The Trunk

[AaronCapenBanner · 5/10 · 13 November 2014]

Stuart Whitman & Barbara Anderson play Tom & Leona Ogilvy, who move into the two-story house of Tom's distant cousin Zachariah(played by Alan Napier), who was rumored to be a sorcerer. The housekeeper warns them to not move or attempt to open the double-locked trunk that is in the attic, as someone will one day call for it, and it had better be there... Meanwhile, the trunk moves about by itself, as if something wanted out, which will put them in a difficult position on Halloween night when someone does indeed come calling for it... Thin tale has much potential but never amounts to much, with few scares or dramatic impact.

Nothing New Here

[Hitchcoc · 6/10 · 20 June 2014]

A number of books, including "The Amityville Horror," came out around this time. It's the old "throw a couple of unwitting people into a house that has a horrible history and watch them squirm." This shows us little else. A writer and his pretty wife are thrilled to have inherited a house that is furnished with antiques. It's beautiful and sedate, or so they think. First, they are told by Ellen Corby, the cantankerous housekeeper that they have walked into a scary situation. They are also told that an old trunk will be "picked up" and that it should not be opened. From the first evening, sounds overwhelm what should be peaceful slumbers. Not only that, ghostly figures are appearing and the man sees the floor and the trunking moving. He begins to do a Jack Nicholson from "The Shining." Great tension develops between them. In reading some of the books left by the crazy late uncle whose house this was, they set out on a pattern of destruction. Unfortunately, we are never given a clue a to how this has all been set in motion. You must give your characters some semblance of discovery. As it is, things never really get explained. Weak plotting to say the least.

Alfred the butler and "Longhair"

[stones78 · 11 April 2014]

While the other reviewer makes some valid points, and his review is written very well, I have to disagree with his overall assessment of what I thought is one of the few episodes that may be scary to some. It's far from perfect, and there were flaws, but I thought it was genuinely creepy, especially the appearance of a ghost/zombie played by Alan Napier, famously known as Alfred the butler from Batman. Stuart Whitman and Barbara Anderson play a married couple(he looks more like her father)who move into the typical Night Gallery mansion that has a mysterious past, surrounded by a garden. A few other characters are played by an angry Ellen Corby(Miss Patience), and someone called "Longhair"(who has short hair and wears the ugliest shirt I ever saw), played by Larry Watson. Look for a cool scene where 2 kids come to the door on Halloween night looking for candy, and the hearty laughs the couple offer the kids before giving them treats; I also liked the scene when we hear evil chanting from an unseen Miss Patience regarding the trunk. The beginning painting was very cool and eerie too. As I said above, there are some important questions that go unanswered, and that is frustrating, but overall, I think this is one of the better episodes of the entire series.

"I've come for the trunk."

[classicsoncall · 6/10 · 9 June 2017]

For this viewer the episode was less than satisfying, because even though it's intent was to deliver an element of horror, there was no subtlety involved in providing the scares. The trunk in the attic of the old house was supposed to have some deep, dark secret that the new owners were warned never to open, but then the picture utilizes some visual camera tricks that don't convince of the trunk's evil nature. It hovers off the ground and unseen goblins mumble some mumbo-jumbo, but then in the following scene, the Ogilvy's (Stuart Whitman and Barbara Anderson) will be chatting nonchalantly as if nothing of a sinister nature ever happened. The scariest thing about the story was seeing actress Ellen Corby in a totally atypical role as a nasty housekeeper, quite unlike parts she handled in a myriad of TV and movie appearances throughout a long career. I think the principals deserved better, they even had to provide some phony laughs for a Halloween trick or treat sequence, most likely wishing to get the embarrassing thing over with.

The trunk came back, the very next day...

[Hey_Sweden · 7/10 · 7 November 2021]

Stuart Whitman ("The Mark") and the lovely Barbara Anderson (the original 'Don't Be Afraid of the Dark') play Tom and Leona Ogilvy, a writer and his wife who move into one of those old family homes that you find so often in genre fare. It tends to be a spooky place, but spookiest of all is a mysterious trunk in the attic which they are instructed NEVER to touch. Even attempts to remove the trunk from the house are all for naught, since it keeps magically reappearing.

This is a half-hour 'Night Gallery' episode that doesn't add up to MUCH when it's over. It's a fun, entertaining story that seems to delight in trappings of supernatural fright fare. As directed by character actor / acting teacher Jeff Corey, it moves along well enough, but it's ultimately rather minor and forgettable. It might be one of those things one has to have seen at a young, impressionable age to make much of an impact. Some of the dialogue is florid, old-school stuff that is a hoot. Whitman and Anderson are fine, and receive able support from Ellen Corby ('The Waltons') as the ironically named housekeeper Miss Patience, who has to explain to them that this house is one of those classic cases where most people dare not venture too close to it.

The story IS easy enough to watch while it lasts, in any event.

The visage of character actor Alan Napier (Alfred on the old 'Batman' TV series) can be seen in a key painting.

Seven out of 10.

I'd forgotten how bad this show could be. . .

[davejones · 3/10 · 11 April 2014]

This episode was little more than an excuse to string together a bunch of creepy moments. Nothing about it makes any sense. It starts with a couple arriving at a house which the husband has freshly inherited from "Cousin Zachariah." From the outside, the house appears pretty modest and modern. Inside, it has plenty of large, creepy haunted-house rooms and an attic which the exterior house couldn't possibly accommodate. The story takes place in the early seventies, but for some reason this house requires the attentions of a cranky caretaker played by Ellen Corby. Her sole purpose in this episode is to offer exposition about. . . how creepy the house is. She cautions the couple not to move or open a trunk in the attic. "Someone" will be coming for it! Well, that "someone" turns out to be the decayed zombie corpse of cousin Zachariah, now wearing a monk's robe. For some reason, he returns every Halloween to get the trunk--even though the trunk appears to be perfectly capable of moving on its own. Why the trunk is to be retrieved, and what is in it, are never revealed. Or even hinted at. All we know is that it can move, open and close on its own, and that all of the husband's efforts to dispose of it result in the trunk returning to its old spot in the attic.

In the meantime, there's some nonsense about the couple being possessed by spirits from the 18th century--none of which has anything to do with the trunk, cousin Zachariah, or his house (which can't be more than 30 years old).

It's as if the writers took every haunted-house cliché they could think of and just shook them up together in a box. Er, trunk. The actors are trying gamely but they have no motivation to say or do anything they actually do in the story. Stuart Whitman begins the episode with what I'm guessing is supposed to be some kind of English accent, but by the end of it he's abandoned that effort completely and is just grunting out his lines.

I tried to use closed captioning to interpret some of the grunts, but it would give a few words of his speech and then just insert (unintelligible) in all the places I couldn't make out.

Not bad, not good

[BandSAboutMovies · 4/10 · 23 June 2023]

Jeff Corey mostly worked as an actor but also directed several TV series, including nine episodes of Night Gallery. Here, he's working from a script by Robert Malcolm Young (Starflight: The Plane That Couldn't Land ) based on a story by Kurt van Elting.

Tom Oglivy (Stuart Whitman) and his wife Leona (Barbara Anderson) have moved into the home of Tom's dead cousin Zachariah Ogilvy (Alan Napier). But something is wrong with the home, something so off that even the maid, Miss Patience(Ellen Corby), won't stay after dark.

There's also a warning. No one is to move the trunk.

Leona dreams that a man is in her bed. Crickets stop and start with no warning. And Tom's latest novel has a Satanic prayer typed into the middle of it. Yes, this house is strange and Halloween is getting closer, the night that the dead can return. Return for their trunk!

The Oglivy house in this episode was the Bates house from Psycho. That's about the best thing one can say about this entry, which lives up to what Universal wanted from the show. It seems scary but has no lasting terror. It's fun horror and not deep darkness.

"I hated "Fright Night,"" said Corey to Scott Skelton and Jim Benson for their book Rod Serling's Night Gallery: An After Hours Tour. "...I didn't understand the goddamn story. It was a terrible script. You see, the others I did were Rod's and really made sense."

Ah well. This season had been two for two before this. Hopefully next week will improve the average.

He's come for the trunk

[robd2112 · 10/10 · 24 September 2019]

I don't really remember a whole lot about this episode but it scared the hell out of a young lad when Uncle Z finally shows up that much I do remember. Probably cheesy now but back then it was frightening!