An example of a failed 1970s TV pilot that went on to become a cause celebre among horror fans (others include LIGHTS OUT, 1972, and THE WORLD BEYOND, 1978, which was a direct follow-up to the present program). THE WORLD OF DARKNESS (1977), created by Art Wallace, was supposed to be a long running horror series, but is represented only by the 50 minute pilot episode “Sentence of Death,” which was exhibited as a standalone TV movie.
Paul Taylor (Granville Van Dusen) is a sportswriter with the distinction of having “an intimate knowledge of death: my own!” This is spoken in voiceover by Paul as he expires on an operating table in the wake of a car accident, only to return to life; this brush with death allows Paul to communicate with the spirit world, and leads him to one Clara Sanford (Tovah Feldshuh).
Clara is currently attending the funeral of her recently deceased father John (James Austin). Located nearby is a mansion owned by John’s sister Joanna (Beatrice Straight), who claims John died of natural causes. Clara, who hears a ghostly voice in the mansion chanting “Go home, go home!,” believes her father committed suicide. So does Paul, who researches John’s life and gets in touch with Clara; he learns there’s a mysterious locked room in the mansion’s upper story, and invites himself to dinner with Clara and Joanna.
The dinner concludes with Joanna ordering her guests to leave, but Paul and Clara elect to continue their joint investigation. This leads them to a very PSYCHO-esque shock reveal inside the locked room, and the realization that a none-too-friendly ghost is afoot in the house.
The director of this program was Jerry London, a TV veteran whose credits include the infamous Theodore Sturgeon adaptation KILLDOZER! (1974) and the miniseries SHOGUN (1980). His helming is crisp and atmospheric, providing a textbook example of “quiet horror” whose shortcomings are due primarily to the script by the show’s creator Art Wallace, which leaves too much unexplained and concludes with a hokey stunt that belies the “quiet” designation.
Acting honors go to the late Beatrice Straight (1914-2001), who was coming off an Oscar winning turn in NETWORK (1976) and would soon appear in POLTERGEIST (1982). In THE WORLD OF DARKNESS she creates a complicated and at time sympathetic villainess who stands in direct contrast to Granville Van Dusen as Paul, the character who was supposed to anchor this never-made series. He is, frankly, boring, although that’s due in large part to the script, which never bothers fleshing out Paul or the precise nature of his connection with the afterlife. The intent, perhaps, was for those things to be addressed in subsequent episodes of THE WORLD OF DARKNESS, of which this intriguing but not entirely satisfying single episode is all that exists.
Vital Statistics
THE WORLD OF DARKNESS (“Sentence of Death”)
Talent Associates Ltd.
Director: Jerry London
Producer: Diana Kerew
Screenplay: Art Wallace
Cinematography: Zale Magder
Editing: Ralph Brunjes
Cast: Granville Van Dusen, Beatrice Straight, Tovah Heldshuh, Gary Merrill, James Austin, Al Bernardo, Jayne Eastwood, Sean McCann