PLOT SPOILERS I was fortunate enough to come across an unedited version of this episode. Aside from being a classic example of 70s-era TV horror, it also features the last role that Joan Crawford ever played before her death.
The episode features Joan as a woman named Joan Fairchild, who is driving along a dark road through a wooded area when her car breaks down. When she gets out, she has a bizarre hallucination of a ghostly young woman floating toward her out of the woods. Emerging from the woods, she comes across a foreboding house populated by five young people, four of whom are groovy 70s-types and another who is a gentle deaf woman. Joan, of course, finds that she must stay the night, but what she does not realize is that she has stumbled into a group of psychics. The four of them have been experimenting with their abilities, sending distressing images using the deaf girl as their guinea pig. Excited that they've connected with someone, they set their sights on Joan instead, sending her frightening images of her deceased daughter in an attempt to scare her to death.
Eventually Joan bonds with the deaf woman, but the psychics grow more and more threatening until they attempt to drown the deaf girl in a boat and frighten Joan into a fatal asthma attack. A sympathetic member of their group spoils the plan, and Joan finds herself required to summon her own psychic abilities in order to save the deaf girl. To save herself, she simply summons the police.
Amusingly, Joan appears in a candid epilogue alongside series host Gary Collins, where she discusses the show with Collins and admits her own interest in psychic phenomena, recounting an experience where she had a psychic premonition about her pet poodle.
Although fairly tame by horror movie standards, this teleplay is more than a little bit creepy. What interested me most is the fact that the episode is titled "Dear Joan, We're Going to Scare You To Death", and it borrows heavily from the similarly-titled film "Let's Scare Jessica to Death". I wonder if there is a deeper connection here. Scenes of Joan's drowned daughter reappearing to her in visions of a lake recycle several of "...Jessica..."'s jolts, including one where she pulls Joan herself underneath the water.
Great stuff if you can find it. I was lucky to get the unedited version of this episode, since the version shown as part of the "Night Gallery" syndication package is heavily cut and nearly incomprehensible.
The episode features Joan as a woman named Joan Fairchild, who is driving along a dark road through a wooded area when her car breaks down. When she gets out, she has a bizarre hallucination of a ghostly young woman floating toward her out of the woods. Emerging from the woods, she comes across a foreboding house populated by five young people, four of whom are groovy 70s-types and another who is a gentle deaf woman. Joan, of course, finds that she must stay the night, but what she does not realize is that she has stumbled into a group of psychics. The four of them have been experimenting with their abilities, sending distressing images using the deaf girl as their guinea pig. Excited that they've connected with someone, they set their sights on Joan instead, sending her frightening images of her deceased daughter in an attempt to scare her to death.
Eventually Joan bonds with the deaf woman, but the psychics grow more and more threatening until they attempt to drown the deaf girl in a boat and frighten Joan into a fatal asthma attack. A sympathetic member of their group spoils the plan, and Joan finds herself required to summon her own psychic abilities in order to save the deaf girl. To save herself, she simply summons the police.
Amusingly, Joan appears in a candid epilogue alongside series host Gary Collins, where she discusses the show with Collins and admits her own interest in psychic phenomena, recounting an experience where she had a psychic premonition about her pet poodle.
Although fairly tame by horror movie standards, this teleplay is more than a little bit creepy. What interested me most is the fact that the episode is titled "Dear Joan, We're Going to Scare You To Death", and it borrows heavily from the similarly-titled film "Let's Scare Jessica to Death". I wonder if there is a deeper connection here. Scenes of Joan's drowned daughter reappearing to her in visions of a lake recycle several of "...Jessica..."'s jolts, including one where she pulls Joan herself underneath the water.
Great stuff if you can find it. I was lucky to get the unedited version of this episode, since the version shown as part of the "Night Gallery" syndication package is heavily cut and nearly incomprehensible.