Monthly Archives: November 2015

Crowhaven Farm

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The witches of Crowhaven Farm gather to confront Hope Lange, a modern woman who still owes them for a favor they performed for her in a previous life.

The witches of Crowhaven Farm gather to confront Hope Lange, a modern woman who still owes them for a favor they performed for her in a previous life.

This screen shot opened the MOVIE OF THE WEEK episode every Tuesday and Wednesday evenings on ABC -- back in the days when there were only 3 networks, plus PBS!

This screen shot opened the MOVIE OF THE WEEK episode every Tuesday and Wednesday evenings on ABC — back in the days when there were only 3 networks, plus PBS!

When I was in middle school, one of the scariest movies I have ever seen was broadcast as an ABC Tuesday night made-for-tv Movie of the Week. (Looking over the list of films shown during the run of the series, I still recognize many of them!) But the most riveting was Crowhaven Farm.

First broadcast in the autumn of 1970, Crowhaven Farm starred Hope Lange (known for the series The Ghost and Mrs. Muir) and Paul Burke (known for the television series Twelve O’clock High). As one horror review blog puts it:

“The writers of this show clearly understood horror, they understood that fear is in the mind and that nothing terrifies people more than their own imaginations. Contemporary television shows too much, it tells too much. Crowhaven Farm is spooky, scary, downright terrifying, simply because it makes you think.”

The movie tells the story of a modern woman, played by Hope Lange, who still owes the local witches for a favor they did her during a previous life during the 1600s. Too cowardly to give the witches what they asked for, in both her previous and current lives, she forces them to resort to other methods to be rewarded for the favors they did for her as well as exact revenge for how she cheated them in the 1600s. It is a remarkably subtle movie, with nuances and foreshadowings. It does not rely on slashing-and-gashing to frighten the viewer and many of its most frightening images, which appear here for the first time, later became clichés of the genre.

I heartily recommend that you spend an hour-and-fifteen-minutes to watch this classic movie, which is available here on YouTube. Send me your comments about it, especially if you have never seen it before or have not seen it since you were in high school yourself — I still get chills, just thinking about it!

The Undead… and the Saints

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Bela Lugosi as the most famous portrayal of Dracula, the most famous of the Undead.

Bela Lugosi as the most famous portrayal of Dracula, the most famous of the Undead.

Happy birthday to Bram Stoker, the father of the modern vampire story, on November 8! (This also happens to be my granddaughter Sophie’s birthday, so “Happy Birthday!” to Sophie as well!) Vampires, known today for attacking the throats of the living, are perhaps the most well-known category of a class of beings known collectively as “the Undead.” (The Undead was also one of the possible titles Stoker considered for his novel before selecting Dracula!)

The undead (also known as revenants) are creatures that were once living humans but are now deceased and yet continue to act as if they are alive. They may be physical (vampires, zombies) or immaterial (ghosts) and are most often violent and angry with the living. The best-known ghosts and undead creatures are those known for attacking the living; few people tell stories about the FRIENDLY undead — Caspar the Friendly Ghost is perhaps the exception that proves this rule!

Many of the same signs are used to identify the corpse of both the undead and the saints, especially a corpse that does not decay according to the usual rules or expected timetable. It is the personality of the person before death that usually determines if the body is determined to be undead or saintly: an angry, miserly, or vindictive person is more likely to be identified as an undead monster whereas a kindly, charitable, or generous person is more likely to be identified as one of the saints. The interaction of the saints with the living is considered a miracle; the interaction of the undead with the living is considered a danger and a horror.

The undead are frightening for perhaps no other reason than that they blur the distinction between the living and the dead. They are the shadow-side of the saints, dead people known for interacting with the living in order to help those still on earth. Furthermore, the undead can seem indestructible — because how do you stop or kill a creature that is already dead?!?!