MovieChat Forums > Don't Be Afraid of the Dark (1973) Discussion > Is this the same TV movie...?

Is this the same TV movie...?

posted 18 years ago by gatemouthrb
6 replies | jump to latest

I appreciate the guidance here on "TV movies that scared the cr*p outta me when I was 10" category. Fact is, I've heard of this movie, but unsure if I saw it. I'm wondering if somebody can confirm a scene description as being from "Don't Be AfraidOTD", or some other flick.

I believe this was the one that came on TV mid 70's, that my churchgoing mom heard about beforehand and forbade me to view it when it came out. Nevertheless, I believe my father had it on and I saw one scene as I went to get a glass of water, and passed by.

The scene I saw involved a cellar/basement door in a big (haunted) house, and two characters. One, a woman, who admonishes the younger (girl?) that there was "nothing to be scared about" and, true to great horror films, *insisted* on going down into the suspicious cellar door. From the scared girl's view, we get silence, then a scream. The woman who went in the cellar suddenly flings the door over her head in order to escape someone/something, then the door actually hits her on the head on the way down. It knocks her unconcious, and she slowly decends into the cellar, to the witnessing girl's terror.

Any takers?

[–] Error_PC_LOAD_LETTER 18 years ago

In 1978 there was a movie called 'The Little Girl who lived down the Lane" in which a 13 year old girl (may have been Jodi Foster, not sure) was living in a house, pretending that her father lived there (pretending that she lived there with her father). The haughty woman was the landlord. The younger girl was not really afraid but only pretending to be, because she had killed someone and the body was in the basement.

When the landlord Lady went down she saw the body (we the viewers did not know WHAT she saw), came out of the trap door screaming, and was hit on the head, knocked unconscious, and presumably murdered.

The girl in this movie had to kill in order to cover up more and more murders.

The girl, in this movie, was the 'monster' though she really was a victim of circumstance. She was mature for her age, but not really mature enough to be an adult, and was kind of trapped into a cycle of having to kill in order to cover her tracks.

It was not really a supernatural movie, but had the suspence and horror of one.

[–] gatemouthrb 18 years ago

That's it! Got it. Thanks ErrorPC LOAD LETTER.

****Actually, I've got another horror scene I caught a glimpes of on TV one day in the 70' (again, I was about 9) that I'm also dying to get identified:

A period-piece horror, maybe victorian era. Two young girls are rolling in a carraige with their mother. The two girls look toward the side of the road and shriek in alarm. They see a ghost. There it is, in the reeds about four yards from their coach through a slight fog. The ghost of a woman stands, very visible.

Inexplicably, the mother doesn't know what the girls are yelling about, and scolds them. Still, the kids continue to wail, "Don't you see her?? She's RIGHT THERE!!" Through the commotion, the grave-looking ghost of a woman with stingy hair continues to stare at the group. Unmoving.

It may have been cinema only (not made-for-TV movie), but I caught this clip on TV in the late 70's on a "special" about ghosts. It was so deftly done on the screen, it scared the living daylights outta me!!

Does anyone know where this scene came from? I'd love to see it again. Many thanks!!!

[–] Error_PC_LOAD_LETTER 18 years ago

Can't help you with that one, but I'd like to know.

[–] Gremlin_Confusion 18 years ago

I wonder if you can perhaps help me find a horror movie I saw when I was young. Sometime in the early '90s on TV I think.

All I remember is a scene in which a woman is chasing her cat, and follows it into a room with boxes. She suspects the cat is in a particular box, and reaches in, only to have her hand grabbed by some menacing little creature who (I think) starts cutting on it with a bladed implement.

My memory of it is fuzzy, but any help is appreciated. I've been trying to find it for years.

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As private parts to the gods are we, who play with us for their sport!
-Lord Melchett

[–] zhamilton05 12 years ago

Did you ever find it? I had a similar scene I vaguely remembered, but I don't think they're the same. A woman looks for her cat(?) and reaches into a chute in the wall, only to have her arm grabbed by something that pulls her tight up against the wall, then bursts through the wall as she yells. Can't remember what it looked like, but it would have been in the early-mid 90's, as well.

[–] eddiechristo 12 years ago

Sounds like CASTLE FREAK from 1995.