Thriller (TV Series) The Hollow Watcher (1962) User Reviews

"Maybe he wants to frighten his bride into becoming his wife."

[classicsoncall · 8/10 · 5 March 2012]

Thriller takes another flight of fancy into the supernatural with this entry, and I have to say, just the term 'hollow watcher' is weird enough to give one all sorts of creepy ideas about what's going to happen. For the uninitiated, a hollow watcher is an entity that sneaks around in shadows, seeking vengeance and punishment on the guilty. There's plenty enough guilt to go around too, as Meg O'Danagh Wheeler (Audrey Dalton) and her 'real' husband (Sean McClory), plot the theft of five thousand dollars from the man Meg just 'married' in a mail order arrangement. The story takes a grim turn right from the outset, as Meg takes an ax to her father-in-law to save her 'newlywed' husband (Warren Oates) from a savage beating, then stuffs his remains inside a scarecrow to cover up his disappearance.

What you have going on simultaneously is a horror story built around the concept of this hollow watcher, and the descent into madness of the woman who can't cope with the guilt of her crime. I have to say though, the scarecrow gimmick looked a bit lame in the execution. If remade today one can just imagine what could be done with the concept to pull off a real fright. Still, given the era, this is the kind of stuff that would have given me the creeps for a week if I had seen it as a kid.

Fans of old time TV and movie Westerns will get a particular kick out of this episode considering who showed up in the cast. Denver Pyle had that brief early appearance as the murdered father of Warren Oates' character. Perennial Western baddie Lane Bradford showed up long enough to engage in a spirited tussle with the bulky Irishman brother, and finally you had Norman Leavitt as one of the Black Hollow folks. He had a recurring role as deputy Ralph to Robert Culp's Texas Ranger Hoby Gilman in one of my favorite TV shows of the era - Trackdown.

Scarecrow

[AaronCapenBanner · 7/10 · 2 November 2014]

Audrey Dalton stars as an Irish mail-order bride named Meg in a rural North Carolina town called Dark Hollow who marries a weak-willed man named Hugo(played by Warren Oates) who is under the thumb of his violent and dominating father Ortho(played by Denver Pyle) who ends up killed by Meg and stuffed into a scarecrow. When her "brother" Sean(played by Sean McClory) arrives in town, it sets off a chain-of-events that seem to point that a local legend called the Hollow Watcher has arisen to avenge itself, and it sure looks like it could be Ortho... Interesting episode has a fine performance by Dalton anchoring this somewhat rambling story. An avenging scarecrow was much better handled in excellent 1981 TV movie called "Dark Night Of The Scarecrow".

The first television scarecrow (no. 57)

[kevinolzak · 9/10 · 20 May 2009]

Another sterling entry with a fine cast. In Black Hollow, North Carolina, Hugo Wheeler (Warren Oates) has taken a mail-order bride from Ireland, Meg O'Danagh (Audrey Dalton), much to the chagrin of his disapproving father Ortho (Denver Pyle). During an argument one night, Meg kills Ortho then hides the corpse in a nearby scarecrow, telling Hugo that his father ran off without them. In time, the local townsfolk come to believe that the two murdered the old man for his money, and are surprised by a new visitor to Black Hollow: Meg's brother Sean, who is in actuality her lover (played by Sean McClory, later in final episode "The Specialists"). As the locals whisper fearfully about 'the hollow watcher,' a demon that always leaves behind the remnants of a corpse, the scarecrow mysteriously edges closer and closer to the Wheeler home. Is there a rational explanation or is the supernatural involved? Audrey Dalton makes the last of her three episodes (the others being "The Prediction" and "Hay-Fork and Bill-Hook"), while Warren Oates had appeared in "Knock-Three-One-Two." Walter Burke, as one of the townspeople, would later appear in "Man of Mystery."

Beware The Hollow Watcher!

[telegonus · 10/10 · 6 October 2010]

As with most of the best entries in the Thriller series, The Hollow Watcher tells a story you see, with its conflicts and power struggles, behind which there's a story you don't see, or get only fleeting glimpses of, lurking in the background, often of supernatural provenance, that begins to creep up slowly but surely, usually after the midpoint of the episode, only to play its hand, show its face, if it has a face, in the final moments.

This one's a tale of deception, set in the backwoods of North Carolina, as an Irish couple, masquerading as brother and sister, hoodwink hapless Hugo Wheeler, a young man whom they think has a fortune hidden away somewhere on his property. The woman actually marries the young fellow, then denies him conjugal rights based on what she says is an old Irish custom. It's all lies, as she and her partner are scheming to make off with Hugo's money. As we see quite early in the show, the young woman is a murderer, having killed Hugo's abusive father after a the old man meted out some nasty corporal punishment to his son. She later tells Hugo that his father had fled afterward when in fact she's stuffed his dead body in a scarecrow.

What follows is a tale that has humorous moments, some local color, and a whole lot of pining for his lovely foreign wife on Hugo's part. One can't help but feel sorry for the young man, excellently played by Warren Oates, in a performance that does not beg for the viewer's sympathies,--he's a weak, clueless fellow--and yet one can't help but feel for him. All his life he's been controlled, manipulated and tormented by others. As the couple that deceives him, Sean McClory and Audrey Dalton are just as good; and there's a strange symmetry between their characters and Hugo and his father. McClory's a rugged type, a two-fisted sort who likes to give people a hard time, not unlike old man Wheeler; while Dalton plays second fiddle, has child-like ways, comes across as underdeveloped, and in this sense resembles Hugo. In an alternate universe these two might have soul mate potential, but not in this one.

The episode doesn't wrap things up in a neat bundle when it concludes, when at last the hollow watcher turns up, doesn't like what he sees; and the final ten minutes contains what may be the most sustained moments of horror of the entire series. In typical Thriller fashion, there's confusion and a degree of ambiguity as to what has just transpired, as the hollow watcher's behavior is somewhat unpredictable. The episode, in part derived from folk tales, itself feels like a folk tale. It's sort of a rustic-Gothic story, and for those who like such things it delivers the goods and then some.

Backwoods Horror

[Hitchcoc · 8/10 · 8 December 2016]

An Irish woman marries a farmer. He has been abused by his father. One day when the two are fighting, she hits the old man over the head and wraps up the body in a scarecrow. They don't consummate the marriage because she tells him of an Irish custom that they can't get together for six months. Actually, her lover shows up and they are bound to find a treasure on the farm and take it back to Ireland. But she fears a local legend, the hollow watcher, which begins to pursue the murderer of the old man. The two Irish plot to kill the husband and things get going bad. There is that thing out there and it's more than a scarecrow. There's a little "Blair Witch Project" in this episode. The atmosphere is great and the screen is peppered with a bunch wonderful character actors who play some of the townspeople.

Meg has a terrific ability to exact revenge on Daddy! So, what's Daddy going to do in return??

[planktonrules · 8/10 · 25 October 2018]

Meg (Audrey Dalton) recently married a poor country bumpkin, Hugo (Warren Oates). You wonder why this lady from Ireland would come all the way from Ireland to marry this hillbilly...and you later learn that somehow she think Hugo's family is hiding some fortune. But her father-in-law (Denver Pyle) hates her and her fleecing the family will be tough with him around...so she orchestrates a fight between her new hubby and the father. During this fight, Hugo is quickly knocked out....and Meg kills her father-in-law. To hide him, she hides his body inside a scarecrow!!

Soon, Meg's 'brother' arrives in town. I say it in quotes because he actually is her sweetie...and they both make a living marrying and killing their spouses! Nice family, huh? Now the brother is going to stick around and help look for that hidden money...that is...until the scarecrow arrives and takes its revenge!!

This is a very creepy episode....especially when the scarecrow is running amok. This is a good thing, as early episodes of "Thriller" were rather dull and when they introduced supernatural plots into the show, like this, it was a major improvement. Overall, I enjoyed this one quite a bit....though I was put off by Dalton as her Irish accent came and went and the director should have caught this.

UPDATE: After posting this, I checked and Ms. Dalton was born in Ireland! Nevertheless, her accent came and went on the episode and I am surprised the director didn't notice it and re-shoot a few scenes.

Criminal relationships running off the rails in confrontation with the supernatural

[clanciai · 8/10 · 11 June 2023]

This is supposed to be scary, and I suppose it is to some, but the effects are a little too much overdone to be at all convincing, making the whole show appear ridiculous instead. The idea of the scarecrow is good, the actors are splendid, especially Audrey Dalton, as something between Jean Simmons and Elizabeth Taylor, and her supposed brother Sean McClory, actually her partner in crimes and next to real husband, while she marries into a primitive hillbilly family in North Carolina, just to get at their money, it seems - the plot is very thin and unclear and gets muddled by the effects. William F. Claxton was a typical television director and good as such, with series like Bonanza, Perry Mason, High Chaparral and others, but when it comes to horrors he was not too particular about the details, obfuscating and forgetting all about logic for the preference of scary effects. It's not a bad show, but it just can't fool anyone.