Unsolved Mysteries with Robert Stack as host was a precursor to the true-crime fascination in this part of the early 21st Century.
The theme song made good use of synthizers which were so popular back then seemed to be as terrifying as the Halloween or Friday the 13th themes. Stories dealt with true-crime cases, some of which remain unsolved. I’m still fascinated by the Kingsbury Run Killer or the Cleveland Torso Killer as it’s also known. It happened in the latter 1930s as Eliot Ness was Director of Public Safety for Cleveland. It was never solved and there’s some speculation it’s connected to the Black Dahlia murder, another unsolved murder.
Stories also dealt with unexplained incidents, alien abductions, UFOs and the lesser thrilling cases of people searching for their parents or siblings. Yes, it can’t always be edge of your seat. But the series was still loved despite criticism of casting and pacing. Matthew McConnaughey had a role playing a murdered victim who appears with his shirt off mowing the grass.
Every now and again, the real-life people connected to the stories would appear as themselves in the dramatic reenactments. However, there was one story the people expressed to keep their kids’ identities private. It focused on a Wisconsin family, the Tallmans, who purchase a bunk-bed at a second-hand store and begin to experience paranormal and sinister activities.
The Tallman kids are terrorized by what they believe is a witch-like vision. We never do see the figure as the show leaves it to our imagination as the Debbie Tallman describes her children saw a small woman surrounded by fire. Sometimes you don’t need big budgets and elaborate special effects.
One night while returning from home, Allen Tallman says he hears strange voices coming from the side of his house. Then as he turns to walk inside, he sees the garage door and side of the house is on fire. When he rushes inside the house, the fire disappears and a strong force knocks his lunch pail out of his arms. At other times Allen had said he’d come home to see visions of his family brutally murdered.
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The bunk-bed reportedly caused the children to have a lot of sickness and illnesses. It all began small at first with the son noticing the dials on the radio move and another instant where Allen noticed a paint brush had been moved. But then things got worse as the entity kept everyone awake at night with noises and visions.
In the end, Allen is having to sleep on the floor of the children’s bedroom where he sees a specter in fog. A family member offers to stay when Allen has to work late only to see the same specter. Debbie and the family relative gather the kids and leave the house in the middle of the night.
It’s revealed the Tallmans moved to another house in another town but never experienced any other activities. They had the bunk-bed wooden frame destroyed. A bulldozer is shown running over it in a landfill but I’m not sure if this was how it happened or for dramatic effect.
The events happened over a nine-month period mostly in 1987. The episode aired on Oct. 26, 1988 and Stack concludes the segment saying another family has moved into the house. Yet they haven’t experienced anything. Still fans of the whole series say it’s the scariest episode ever and I agree.
There has been cases of inanimate objects being possessed or cursed, such as Annabelle the doll. The Hope Diamond is also reportedly cursed by legend to bring misfortune to people who have owned it or tried to purchase it. Yet these misfortunes are believed to be fabricated.
Even though A Confederacy of Dunces won the Pulitizer Prize for Fiction in 1981, its author, John Kennedy Toole, committed suicide in 1969 as he had been unable to get his works published during his lifetime. Attempts to adapt the novel into a movie have been unsuccessful with many actors (John Belushi, John Candy, Divine and Chris Farley) considered having died in their 30s or 40s. Harold Ramis wanted to write and direct it with Richard Pryor but both men would have crippling illnesses later in their lives. Pryor had multiple sclerosis and Ramis had autoimmune inflammatory vasculitis.
Attempts to adapt the novel The Incomparable Atuk have reportedly linked to a curse that led to the deaths of Belushi, Candy, Farley and Sam Kinison. Phil Hartman and Michael O’Donoghue had both been rumored to have worked on separate versions of the scrip. Hartman was murdered by his wife in 1998 while O’Donoghue died of a cerebral hemorrhage in 1994. Both men were in their early 50s.
In the early 1980s, a house was built near the house where I grew up that seemed to have a lot of occupants in about 15 years. Maybe there were more after I went to college and moved to other towns. I don’t know how many people ever lived there. I always thought they’re might be something wrong. I remember hanging out briefly with one of the kids who lived there before they moved but I never noticed anything.
Do curses or hexes really exist? Craig T. Nelson said he had found himself traveling through Oklahoma sometime after his Poltergeist II co-star Will Sampson passed. He was able to track down where the actor was buried to pay his respects. When he showed up at the cemetery, it was summer and cicadas were everywhere. Nelson recalled he said, “Will, it’s Craig” while approaching the gravesite and the cicadas went silent.
Sampson had reportedly performed a blessing on the set of Poltergeist II following strange occurrence which led to them stopping. You never do know what’s going to happen.
What do you think? Please comment.
