TV Terror Tuesday - Don't Go To Sleep (1982)

As some of you may have noticed, there was no TV Terror Tuesday blog last week because things have been hectic over here wrapping up issue #2 of Evilspeak as well as drowning in schoolwork. Needless to say most of my writing energy lately has been put into these massive papers I've been writing. It's been making me feel too much like an adult. Ha!

So tonight I'm going to talk about something sentimental to revert myself back to my innocent childhood before responsibilities took over. Yes, tonight I will be reminiscing on staying up late to catch the Midnight Movie on the Fox 44 channel. The same Fox that you're thinking of, but for some reason it seemed like it was different then - or maybe the channel would be taken over by a local entity after midnight, who knows. Who cares! The point is I saw some really fucking cool movies for the first time thanks to this channel airing some of the best horror films late at night.

I've always been a night owl, and during my childhood, my father worked second and third shifts and he would come home late, so it was always a goal to stay up until he got home. Sometimes I failed, but there would be times where I would make it all the way through the night. These midnight movie airings, an endless flow of popcorn, and piping hot Totino's party pizzas straight from the oven helped me achieve insomnia status as early as age 7. With all of this said, and now that I feel cozy, time to move on to the movie...

(Contains some spoilers)

One of the first movies I ever saw late at night on this channel was a 1982 made for TV movie called Don't Go To Sleep. I saw the movie once and never could remember the title until my best friend Jamie and I were talking about made for TV horror movies one day and we suddenly remembered things that happened in the movie, but again we were trying to dig deep into our memory filing cabinet for the title. She suggested Don't Fall Asleep, or something similar, so the best thing I could think of was to look it up in my trusty Terror on Tape book (my last Bookworm Wednesday review) and I found it! Don't Go To Sleep was the title and it was just a matter of time before I placed my special order through Blockbuster which was where I worked at the time. But, unfortunately, the only way for me to order this was an $80 VHS tape which was on back order, meaning they probably didn't even have any available. I was so bummed, but luckily I have the memory of an elephant and thanks to IMDB and books featuring this film, more memories were triggered of the movie. So here it goes.

This is your standard made for TV movie; complete with lush suburbia and a nice home. It starts out with the family (mom and dad, Phillip and Laura, played by Dennis Weaver and Valerie Harper) moving to a new house with their son and daughter Mary (Robin Ignico) and Kevin (Oliver Robins of Poltergeist fame) as well as Laura's mother Bernice played by Ruth Gordon. This close family starts facing stress when the young daughter Mary begins to have visions and audio hallucinations of her sister Jennifer who was killed in an auto accident the prior year. When Mary starts to hear her name being called out in a raspy, almost demonic voice, you know some weird events are going to transpire - and boy do they! The first to notice Mary acting strange is her brother when she's staring up at a window as if she sees something, and from then on the family starts to take heed.

Kicking off the slew of eerie events is a scene where Mary trying to sleep. Her bedroom is dark but you can still see her toys and dolls starting to move as a harsh voice growls in the darkness, "Maaaaarryyyy". As Mary sits up quickly in bed the scene cuts to her parents talking in their bedroom. Suddenly screams erupt and they open the door to Mary's room to find that the bed is on fire and Mary sits in the middle unable to breathe. I remember when I was a kid seeing the flaming bed with her in the middle hyperventilating and unable to move was frightening. Actually, a lot of the movie is frightening when you think about it. You begin to realize that Mary is hearing and seeing her dead sister Jennifer and is convinced that Jennifer is under her bed.

So many other creepy scenes in this movie stuck with me over the years and I am aching to watch it again to see if they still creep me out. In one scene, Mary crawls under her bed to see if her sister is there and SHE IS! Other scenes include some kind of reptile crawling up grandma's legs while she's sleeping in bed and it causes her to have a heart attack, a crazy POV shot of a pizza cutter Mary is holding going up the banister of the stairs and across the wall landing on the phone line and cutting it while Laura is trying to call 911, and of course the last shot of the movie...! Enough to send shivers down my spine and I haven't seen it in years. All I can see is the outline of a head coming up over the...HA!

I'm not going to tell you. Seek out this movie for yourself (somehow) and watch it.

For a made for TV movie from 1982 the creep factor is 100% and totally delivers on scares. It's an excellent haunting horror movie with a ghostly grip that will stay with you for a long time after you've seen it. I'm sure when it first aired, those who saw this regained the classic fear of suspecting someone or something could be under the bed while trying to sleep at night. I haven't looked yet, but I'm sure it's on Youtube. I may just have to look it up and endure sitting in my somewhat uncomfortable office chair while I watch it. I'll just need some popcorn and a Totino's party pizza to scarf down to get me through!