THE OMEGA FACTOR (1979) – This eerie BBC series combined the best elements of Doomwatch with Department S and injected supernatural scares that anticipated the much later series Twin Peaks and The X Files.
James Hazeldine, remembered as the snarky butler from The Musgrave Ritual episode of Jeremy Brett’s Sherlock Holmes, starred as Tom Crane. Tom was a reporter whose untapped psychic abilities bring him into conflict with an Aleister Crowleyesque villain named Edward Drexel (Cyril Luckham) and an organization called Omega.
Crane’s wife is killed through Drexel’s machinations, motivating him to give up journalism and join Department 7, a secret British government agency which researches the supernatural and the paranormal.
Louise Jameson, famous from Tenko and as Leela on Doctor Who, is Dr. Anne Reynolds, a physicist colleague of Tom Crane’s. She was a friend of Tom’s late wife and through her he discovers that he has been under Department 7 surveillance since he was a boy because of his nascent psychic powers. Continue reading
WAXWORK (1988) – I’m often surprised at how comparatively overlooked Waxwork is when it comes to 1980s horror films. It’s played straight, packs in a variety of menaces, fun Easter Eggs and sufficient scares and gore for that decade of Freddy Krueger, Jason Voorhees and Pinhead. A sequel followed in 1992.
GHOST RIDER – Daredevil biker Johnny Blaze makes a deal with the devil: Johnny’s soul in exchange for Satan curing the cancer in the body of Blaze’s mentor “Crash” Simpson. We all know how deals with the devil go, and not only does Crash die anyway, but Johnny Blaze is cursed to periodically transform into the flame-headed monster called Ghost Rider.
GANJA & HESS (1973) – Duane Jones, immortalized as “the black guy who got screwed over at the end of Night of the Living Dead“, also starred in this offbeat, artsy vampire film which was also released as Blood Couple and many other titles. 
THE SCARECROW (1972) – Gene Wilder, Blythe Danner, Nina Foch, Pete Duel and Will Geer starred in this Hollywood Television Theatre production that first aired January 10th, 1972. Long time readers of Balladeer’s Blog may recall my remarks on previous Halloweens about how underused I feel scarecrows still are in Halloween movies. 
Percy MacKaye stretched the story out and altered some of the themes, so The Scarecrow is an adaptation of Feathertop, not a faithful dramatization of it. Gene Wilder portrays the scarecrow.
EERIE TALES (1919) – Conrad “Major Strasser from Casablanca” Veidt is, in my opinion, the most neglected figure from silent horror films. In this German work Veidt co-stars with Reinhold Schunzel and Anita Berber. The three portray various characters throughout the film. 
