From the time of Adam and Eve, so many of the world’s woes have stemmed from some sort of transgression or disobedience. So in the context of “Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark” (1973), if William Demarest tells you not to open the fireplace, don’t open the fireplace!

You wouldn’t expect any profound subtext in a made-for-TV movie, but there is some pretty palpable feminist anxiety underpinning this tale of Sally, a housewife (“the perfect hostess”), played by Kim Darby, who’s alternately dismissed, neglected, or berated by her ambitious, career-driven husband, played by Jim Hutton. Her only friend tells her, “I don’t care what Women’s Lib tells me, the very mention of a mouse drives me crazy!” Sally’s isolation is made manifest when she’s left alone – in an old dark house, of course.

Sure, the acting is wooden (it doesn’t take much to divine that Demarest is thinking, “I used to work with Preston Sturges!”), the script flat, the set-up pedestrian, and the character motivations preposterous, but there is still something elementally creepy about being stalked by malevolent yams that rasp “Sally, Sally, we want your spirit!”

On the next Roy’s Tie-Dye Sci-Fi Corner, we kick off Halloween month a day early, as we discuss the television movie we all watched for the first time as kids, either through our fingers or from behind the couch. The conversation will be sharper than a pocket full of straight razors, and the coffee will be laced with NoDoz. We’ll leave the lights on in the comments section, when we livestream on Facebook, this Friday evening at 7:30 EDT!

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