Escapist tales of the ‘occult-fantastic’

Press, 19 October 1987, Page 13

Escapist tales of the ‘occult-fantastic’

Replacing “Minder” this week is a single episode of “Night Gallery,” tales of the supernatural hosted by Rod Serliing. “A Question of Fear,” based on a story by Bryan Lewis, screens at 11 tonight on Two. Denny Malloy, a former army officer, bets an acquaintance called Mazi $19,H0 he can survive a night in a haunted house. Mazi then terrorises him, claiming Malloy was responsible for torturing Mazi’s father, an Italian soldier, during World War 11. Leslie Nielsen stars as Malloy, Fritz Weaver is

Mazi and Paul Golden is a fleeting apparition. Serling describes bis series as belonging to the “occult-fantastic genre,” and writes many of the stories himself. He sees the show as escapist, but explains , this does not necessarily mean light or meaningless fare. “Since life is an obvious struggle for most of us, man must have diversity, the tea kettle must have room for the steam to escape,” says Serling. He says there is such a thing as a funny horror story. “We invade the world

of psychological adventure in the series, touching private dreams and nightmares, and even lampooning classic horror tales. As well as fright, there are laughs in the episodes, and I believe IPs the first time this approach has been taken.” Next week, a Labour Day Late Movie screens at 10.45. It is “Tommy,” the 1975 musical of The Who’s rock opera of the same name, written by Pete Townshend. “Tommy” stars Roger Daitrey, Elton John, Eric Clapton, Oliver Reed, Jack Nicholson and AnnMargret.