In 1967, the BBC tried to bring horror to British televisions in a big way. The result was a series called Late Night Horror, an anthology show that aimed to scare audiences with blood, gore, and genuine dread. Six episodes aired before BBC management pulled the plug, and the series became a legend that has outlived the footage it produced.
The show’s producer, Harry Moore, wrote a memo in 1967 laying out his goals. “We must do everything we can from the very beginning to stimulate suspense, tension, atmosphere, potential horror and HORROR!” he instructed his staff. “If there is blood, let’s see the blood.” That directive came just a few years before Alfred Hitchcock used chocolate syrup to fake blood in Psycho, whose black-and-white cinematography only intensified its scariness. Late Night Horror wanted to paint the small screen red, and it did so with a mandate to shock.
The story goes that only six episodes were broadcast before complaints about its power to shock and disturb got it the axe from BBC management. Some accounts suggest the concerns were about increasing extremity as much as pure shock value. Either way, the show was cancelled after a handful of broadcasts.
What survives is fragmentary. In 2016, archivists discovered a film copy of “The Corpse Can’t Play,” a story set at a children’s party that takes a deadly turn. The episode was written by John Burke, the prolific English novelist. Its slow burn leads to a grotesque finish that contrasts almost cheekily with the mundane domesticity of its setting. Sadly, the recovered print was in black-and-white, so viewers never saw the colors, sanguineous and otherwise, that would have made such an impact on audiences of nearly six decades ago.
Just this year, another episode was rediscovered: “No Such Thing as a Vampire,” by Richard Matheson, author of I Am Legend and no fewer than sixteen Twilight Zone episodes. As of now, the other four episodes remain missing, and are presumed erased under the BBC’s policy of erasing tapes for re-use in the mid-twentieth century.
One of the missing episodes, “William and Mary,” was based on a Roald Dahl story that had been previously adapted in 1961 for the series Way Out, and would be adapted again in 1979 for Tales of the Unexpected.
The Episodes We Have
| Episode | Writer | Status |
|---|---|---|
| “The Corpse Can’t Play” | John Burke | Rediscovered in 2016, in black-and-white |
| “No Such Thing as a Vampire” | Richard Matheson | Rediscovered recently |
| “William and Mary” | Roald Dahl | Adapted in 1961 for Way Out, again in 1979 for Tales of the Unexpected |
What Happened to the Others
The remaining four episodes are presumed erased. The irony is that the show’s reputation has grown precisely because so little of it exists. A complete set of tapes would likely disappoint the fans who have built their image of the show from scattered fragments and legend.
The Legacy of What Survived
Late Night Horror was too shocking for BBC television, and that fact has become part of its appeal. The show’s mandate to paint the small screen red, combined with its brief run and its subsequent disappearance, has turned it into a cult object. The rediscovery of “The Corpse Can’t Play” and “No Such Thing as a Vampire” has given fans a glimpse of what the show looked like, but the legend remains largely intact.
For a show deemed too shocking for British public television, the irony is that its legend has outlived its actual contents. The fragments that survive — a black-and-white corpse story, a vampire tale by a writer who shaped American horror — are part of what sustains the memory of the show.
The show’s reputation is now built on what its scattered fragments inspire us to imagine, not on what it actually delivered. The irony is that the show’s legend has outlived its actual contents, and that gap is precisely what makes the story worth telling.
See the video the story is built around at Open Culture.
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