MovieChat Forums > Don't Be Afraid of the Dark (1973) Discussion > Very strange coincidence on original air...

Very strange coincidence on original air date...

posted 12 years ago by shanakin
8 replies | jump to latest

Today Oct 9th during work, for some strange reason of all the movies that I own this movie of Don't be afraid of the dark came to mind. Now I don't know why I thought of this movie but upon getting home around 10:30pm I cleaned up and sat down to watch my copy of the movie blowing off what I usually watch of N.C.I.S..

I turned off the lights lit a couple of candles as I like to watch a horror movie in the dark and proceeded to watch the movie as midnight rolled around to October 10th.

Toward the end of the movie when Sally gets trapped in the house when the creatures begin pulling her to the study and the fireplace I had a weird chill run thru my body that stayed with me for longer then it should have. I just kind of shrugged it off as having a cold chill and watched the movie to it's end.

Not thinking about the chill that ran thru me I rewound the tape that the movie had been recorded on and proceeded to put it back in the case. I had forgot that I had written on the back of the box the original air date and glanced down at the date. Upon seeing the date it dawned on me that somehow out of 365 days of the year that I had somehow watched the movie around midnight rolling into October 10th it's original air date back from 1973. Now it's easy to say well I started the movie on the 9th but that is pretty damn strange that I was watching the climax of the movie on it's original air date way back from 1973 not knowing that I had done so.

When I saw the date on the back of the box I had a weird feeling go thru me and the cold chill that went thru my body before went thru me again. I am 42 years old and do not get easily freaked out by horror movies anymore and I had not felt anything like that since I was very little.

You readers of this can say I'm full of S*** but it's the honest to God truth.

[–] SimplySteve 12 years ago

It's a cool coincidence.

But why did you write the original air date on the box? Seems a little odd. Most people write the date of the actual recording, not the original "air" date, or "release" date of a film. Since you are 42 you obviously did not record it yourself in '73.

I was 8 when i saw it that October night in '73 with two of my brothers and my mom in the upstairs bedroom. No one else home at the time. Scared the living bejeezuz out of me! Then we heard a crashing sound come from downstairs, and there was no way i was going down to check it out!!

No other film scarred me like this one.

[–] shanakin 12 years ago

Well in answer to your question I collect Made for Television movies and when I starting putting them together in my collection instead of keeping them in alphabetical order I decided to keep them in order of there original air date's just to do something different.

Also this is one of those movies that I never did see when I was a kid in the 70's. I was only age three in 1973 so there was know way of remembering it and my parents were never into horror movies.

I had not seen the movie until about 7 or 8 years ago. But being that I grew up in the 70's I still have an appreciation for these made for TV movies.

If I did see this movie as a child it would have of certainly kept me up at night as when I was kid growing up I never was into horror movies. A couple of horror movies that I did see that freaked me out were The original Night of the Living Dead. I had caught that when I was around 11 years of age and it freaked me out big time. Another movie that I did see that freaked me that was a TV movie was Dark Night of the Scarecrow around age 11 too.

I wrote a review of that movie some years back please take the time to read and my review will explain all.

Thank you for the comment it was certainly a strange coincidence indeed.

[–] SimplySteve 12 years ago

Looks like we share an affinity for Made For TV films from the 70's. I do not collect them as you, but they were extremely thrilling, and i have fond, fond memories of them.

From Sybil, to Bad Ronald. From Killdozer to The Night Stalker. From Crowhaven Farm to the Rich Man, Poor Man series, and yes, Dark Night of the Scarecrow. Along with many more, great stuff all!

I too freaked out by the original "Night of The Living Dead". Actually saw "Dawn of The Dead" before i ever saw Night. When it (Dawn) came out, my friends all decided to go see it, and i didn't want to appear chicken (which i definitely was) and said yes too. I was maybe 14. Up until that point i had never seen a true horror picture in the theatre. I ended up loving it and still do to this day. I was petrified going into the theatre, and was pretty nervous the first half hour. But it wasn't that bad in the end, and ended up even a little campy. Love it though. When i watched the original on TV not long after, THAT scared the crap out of me much more than Dead. They are both among my favorites of all time.

It appears from your review that Dark Night of The Scarecrow did to you what DBAOTD did to me. No film, TV or otherwise, had the impact on me as DBAOTD. I've had a very good condition DVD of it for years now, and have a copy of the recent remake as well. Athough, ultimately disappointing because Del Toro went the wrong way with it, but it had it's moments. Here is my review of the '73 version http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0069992/reviews

.

[–] shanakin 12 years ago

I love those old Made for TV movies myself and that is why I decided to start collecting them. They are also some of the hardest movies to collect because as the 2000's rolled around they seemed to disappear from TV all together. If one pops up now it's a pretty rare airing.

Some of the horror oriented TV movies are some of the most collected and one of my favorites happens to be a movie called Black Noon from the early 70's. It stars Roy Thinnes, Ray Milland and the lovely Yvette Mimieux. It is another one of those movies that if I would have of seen it as a child that I know I certainly would have been freaked out by it. It's a weird western horror hybrid and it's pretty damn cool.

Some of my favorites of the made for TV movies are

The Night Stalker and Night Strangler movies with Darren Mcgavin.
A Taste of Evil...
The Norliss Tapes...
Duel...
Satan's School for Girls...
A Cold Night's Death with Robert Culp and Eli Wallach really like this one.
Satan's Triangle...
Gargoyles...
Salem's Lot...
Trilogy of Terror with Karen Black, the end segment with the zuni fetish doll
still creeps me out a little.
Cruise into Terror...
The Victim with Elizabeth Montgomery.

and of course Don't be Afraid of the Dark.

Man if I wanted I could go on and on with a list. So many memories of a time having to get up to change the channel manually to go thru the station's. Oh if there were only such a thing as a time machine to relive those simple days again.

I love the station ME TV they show all old television shows from the 60's and 70's and I still love those shows even if they are dated.

Well i kind of rambled a little there I'm glad you appreciated the irony of just having watched DBAFOTD in and around the date. Till next time....

[–] SimplySteve 12 years ago

Black Noon is actually on youtube. Poor quality of course. But at least it's there.

Shanakin, you're absolutely right, there was a lot more quality during the seventies then people realise. I too, long for those days in a way. As a kid, i was never a fan of getting up to change the channel, but that's all we knew. Or getting up to bang on the side of the TV, or fix the rabbit ears ( covered with tin foil) because the picture got fuzzy or out of whack - but it usually worked!The problem of today if we still had manual channal changing is there are too many blanking channels!! It would take forever, lol!

I think there was talk on one of the boards, maybe the Made For TV board, that it would be great if one of these cable channels would show strictly 70's "Made For TV" movies. This generation is missing out on some great stuff.

The Night Stalker and Night Strangler movies with Darren Mcgavin. - LOVE EM!
A Taste of Evil...never seen, i think
The Norliss Tapes...never seen
Duel...masterpiece
Satan's School for Girls...another good one
A Cold Night's Death with Robert Culp and Eli Wallach really like this one.never seen
Satan's Triangle...good one
Gargoyles...LOVED IT!
Salem's Lot...Fantastic! The scares didn't hold as well over the years though
Trilogy of Terror with Karen Black, the end segment with the zuni fetish doll
still creeps me out a little. another iconic classic of horror TV

Cruise into Terror...never seen
The Victim with Elizabeth Montgomery.

Have you ever seen Killdozer? It was one of my favorites as a kid. Sounds like a stupid premise, but loved it!

.

[–] shanakin 12 years ago

Oh yes Killdozer is one of the movies that I own as well and I happen to love it too. Extremely cheesy movie but OH so much fun to watch.

I even forgot to put on the list even though I mentioned it in the other message of Dark Night of the Scarecrow, it is certainly one of my favorites as well.

There were so many of those Made for TV movies during the 70's put out that one could have of never of seen all of them. I own over 150 Made for TV movies and it is from collecting over 10 years now and more.

I think what's weird is I'm almost proud to of grown up in the 70's. I knew the world before the internet and all those simple little things we take for granted. It was a time when so much was simple it seemed most people still only had two or three stations. At least where I grew up in Texas we picked up both San Antonio stations and Austin stations. With some degree of adjustment from the rabbit ears.

It was before cell phones we still rode bikes in the neighbor hood with out our parents about. We would disappear for hours on end to play with our friends and almost always show up in time for dinner. Hell we went door to door by ourselves to sell candy, magazine all kinds of things that kids just don't do now alone.

A few weeks back I forgot my cell phone which I had not done in quite a few years. When I realized it it was too late to go back to the house to get it. I felt for the rest of the day as if I was missing my left arm. It's kind of sad to think how much we depend on technology now when the kids now will never know what it is to live without the internet. Remember having to do a paper in school we actually had to go to a library and do work.

Damn we are so spoiled.

Well if that wasn't a rant I don't know what is, I took talking about a simple movie that I happened to watch on it's date and just went off. Sorry about that...

Back on subject...

I totally agree with you that I wish that one of these nostolgia station's would show these made for TV movies. What would be cool is if they took those Tuesday movie of the week open's and have a throw back night as to show how the movie was shown back in the day. That would be very cool just to see that open before a movie. I know some of those opens of the Sunday or Tuesday and even Friday movie of the week opens are on youtube and those remind me of a lot of nights staying in with family and friends to watch TV back in the 70's. And I'm not ashamed to say that one of my favorite series of all time is The Rockford Files. Garner was great in it.

Well I guess I'll leave what i wrote up you may think I'm completely nuts now for rambling on.

I certainly do have an appreciation for growing up in the 70's.

It you ever talk to me again let me know your email address and maybe we can do a trade for some movies that you may want to see.

[–] MsELLERYqueen2 12 years ago

I kinda wish that I had seen this movie when I was a kid. I wasn't alive in '73, but if this movie had aired in the 80s, it would have scared me to death.

The first time I saw it was at the tender age of 35 last year. For me, it was mostly eye candy. I rather liked the scene where Jim Hutton has his shirt unbuttoned for a short time. I wish that this scene could have been longer, but oh well. Better than nothing, I guess.

I might rewatch this movie on October 30th. I have plans for Halloween night - a double feature (Frankenstein/Dracula).

~~
Jim Hutton: talented gorgeous hot hunk; adorable as ElleryQueen; SEXIEST ACTOR EVER

[–] 12 years ago

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