Halloween TV Havoc!: GHOST STORY “Elegy for a Vampire” (1972)

NBC-TV tried to bring a horror anthology series back to prime time during the 1972-73 season with GHOST STORY, executive produced by the one-and-only William Castle . Sebastian Cabot played Winston Essex, introducing the tales from haunted Mansfield House hotel. GHOST STORY had great writers, including Richard Matheson (who helped develop the concept), Robert Bloch, Harlan Ellison, Henry Slesar, and Hammer vet Jimmy Sangster, some good directors (Richard Doner, John Llewelyn Moxey, Robert Day), and a plethora of Hollywood talent: Karen Black, Kim Darby, Angie Dickinson, Melvyn Douglas, Patty Duke, Jodie Foster, Helen Hayes, Tab Hunter, John Ireland, Janet Leigh, Patricia Neal, Jason Robards, Gena Rowlands, Martin Sheen, and William Windom.

Despite all this, the show got clobbered in the ratings by the CBS FRIDAY NIGHT MOVIE and ABC’s comedy duo of ROOM 222 and THE ODD COUPLE. A mid-season title change to CIRCLE OF FEAR (dropping the Cabot segments in the process) didn’t help, and the series ended after 22 episodes. The following episode “Elegy for a Vampire” is about a killer on campus who drains his victims of their blood, leaving two puncture wounds on their necks! Here’s Hal (BARNEY MILLER) Linden, Mike (M*A*S*H) Farrell, Marilyn Mason, and Arthur O’Connell  in “Elegy for a Vampire”, written by Elizabeth Walter and directed by Don McDougall: