Ghost Story aka Circle of Fear: The Complete First Season

I was in my teen years and in high school when this television program came out. The show aired on Friday night and I watched some programs. I would watch with other family members. I did not see all the episodes and I was happy to see this series out on DVDSometime back I did buy what I believe were bootleg DVDs of this program. I say this because the picture quality on these DVDs was poor. They were probably recored off the TV. One sees portions of TV commercials and TV station credits would pop up while the program was being played. When I saw this item listed I got curious. I did read some of the reviews and saw none unfavorable. With that I ordered the product, watched the DVDs and was very pleased. The picture quality was fantastic, The colors fantastic, and the sound quality fantastic. However the epiosode titles are not printed on the individual DVDs. I did not see this as a problem.Now all 23 episodes are good-really good. They all have twists and turns that surprise and enhance the story of the individual episode. I can't describe them all but I will briefly describe some that do stand out. Hopefully this will get the reader excited and interested enough to want to go out and buy this product* Ghost Story/The New House: Pilot episode. A young couple moves into a new house-their dream house. The woman is pregnant and the due date is near. Their new house is haunted by a woman who was unjustly hanged back in the late 18th century and she was hanged at the site of the house. Her body was buried at the site of the house. The woman does give birth to a baby girl. In time that woman would have a face to face encounter with the other woman's ghost and she demands the baby. The episode ends with the baby possesed by the dead woman's spirt.* At The Cradle Foot: A man (played by James Franciscus) is having strange dreams. He dreams of a young woman being murdered by a young man. After more dreams and other events he determines the woman in his dreams is his future adult daughter and she will be murdered in the future. So he sets out to a town he would see in his dreams to try and prevent that from happening. While there he learns the name of his daughters future killer who hasn't been born yet. He meets the man who will father that person and he is engaged to be married. The first man tries to stop the marriage. He will succeed in stopping the marriage by accidently killing the other man. He thinks his daughters future killer won't be born. There is a twist: The second mans fiancee is pregnant with his child.* House of Evil: An elderly man in enroute to vist his son-in-law. It's not a friendly visit. He blames his son-in-law for the death of his only daughter who died giving birth. He plans revenge and he plans to use his granddaughter (played by a very young Jodie Foster) to get that revenge. He does this with a doll house that's modeled after the house the family lives in and dolls that represent each family member. Yes he uses voodoo. He almost succeeds but the granddaughter with help from an unlikely source will save the day and the tables do get turned on the grandfather.* Alter Ego: A young boy has an injury that keeps him out of school and confined to his room, He's bored and he loves chess. So he creates a double of himself out of his mind so as to have a chess companion. But things go horribly wrong. The double start living the life of the other boy and it's intentions are evil. The double goes to the boys school and goes to work to bring down the boys teacher (who taught the boy how to play chess). In time the double will cause the teacher to die. In the end the double challenges the boy to a game of chess and the winner is the one who lives on. The boy is saved by the spirit of his teacher-the one the double killed.* Spare Parts: A doctor is murdered by his wife and his spirit is out for revenge. The spirit will get his revenge through three patients who received organs from the doctor. One patient received his eyes, another his hands, and the third his vocal cords. The wife is tricked into coming to the hospital by the patient who received the vocal cords. In time the doctor confronts his wife through these three patients and she confesses to murdering her husband. The episode ends with a mention of the woman going to trial in two weeks. It should be mentioned how the doctor was murdered. She would trap him in the garage with his car running. A weight is placed on the accelerator. This is early 1970's. Automobiles did not have pollution control devices. Also back then gas had lead. The doctor is overcome and dies from carbon monoxide poisoning.* Legion of Demons: Beth,a shy woman from a small town is talked into coming to a big city by her best friend Janet who is also from the same small town. Janet tries to get Beth to attend functions with her and the other office workers, but Beth refuses. But strange erie things start to happen. First Janet vanishes and the other office workers take a special interest to Beth. The other office workers are Satan worshippers and they have special plans for Beth. Also things happen to Beth that frightens her. In time Janet reemerges and directs Beth to a vacant office. It is here where the other office workers dresses in Satanic robes grabs Beth and places her on an alter. Then Janet approaches the alter in Satanic dress that depicts her as the key Satanist for the group. Janet's plan all along was to sacrifice Beth to Satan as a special offering. Janet is about to put the knife to Beth but in the nick of time the office executive who is not among that group and had earlier befriended Beth will rescue herand will turn the tables on the Satan worshippers.In finishing I want to state that Amazon did it's usual good job in getting the item to me in a timely manner. I used the no cost Super Saver shipping and had the product in a manner of days. Again good job.

I had forgotten all about this series until the set was released and then flashes of it came back. Melvyn Douglas as a grandfather on a dark mission, Rip Torn & Geraldine Page as a spooky Southern couple living in a decaying mansion, Patricia Neal as a guest who has lost her husband while staying in an unusual hotel. As someone who has been reading horror stories for over 50 years and who possesses a number of horror anthology books, I used to be quite attracted to horror anthologies on TV until I gave up TV watching (outside of movies and certain sporting events) in the mid 1970s. I grew up with shows like TWILIGHT ZONE, THRILLER, THE OUTER LIMITS, and NIGHT GALLERY.What all these shows had in common in addition to having a supernatural theme, was that they were hosted (or a voiceover in the case of OUTER LIMITS) by someone who introduced the stories and then summed them up in the end. GHOST STORY featured Sebastian Cabot fresh from (and glad to be rid of) FAMILY AFFAIR. He was an ideal host and gave the program an old fashioned storytelling aura. Imagine my surprise when halfway through the season Sebastian was dropped and Mansfield House was replaced by a groovy looking psychedelic intro ballyhooing CIRCLE OF FEAR. At first I thought it was a new show until I saw William Castle's name in the credits. I was so incensed that I stopped watching then and there and put the show out of mind until this set appeared.Watching it again after 40 years gave me a new and now nostalgic appreciation for the program. The list of guest stars was truly astonishing from seasoned pros like Helen Hayes, Jason Robards and Melvyn Douglas to up and comers Mike Farrell, Hal Linden, and a 9 year old Jodie Foster. The script supervisor was Jimmy Sangster who had written so many classic scripts for Hammer Films in the 1960s and the concept/development was by the great Richard Matheson. William Castle was the producer and no matter what you think of his gimmicky horror films, they were always well made. This production savvy also extended to GHOST STORY which, for a 1970s TV series, looked really good with better than average camera movement and some decent lighting (though not as creative as NIGHT GALLERY). It also featured some top flight Brit Horror directors such as John Moxey (HORROR HOTEL) and Robert Day (SHE).Of the 14 original GHOST STORY episodes, the pilot episode (about a bewitched statue), the ones I mentioned at the top of the review, and one about the ghost of a dead twin stand out. I had not seen any of the CIRCLE OF FEAR episodes until now. These stories have a darker edge to them and offer few explanations. I particularly liked DARK VENGEANCE with Martin Sheen, LEGION OF DEMONS with Shirley Knight, and SPARE PARTS with Susan Oliver. It was great getting reacquainted with younger versions of top 1980s stars or older versions of classic Hollywood performers like Helen Hayes and Patricia Neal. GHOST STORY / CIRCLE OF FEAR was the last gasp for the classic horror anthology show. Times and tastes were changing and it succumbed to poor ratings. Kudos to Sony for reissuing it on DVD-R. I know that younger people won't care but I, for one, am glad to have this series back.

Great tv series...very scary...fantastic compilation! Reminds me of my childhood!I've watched this series when I was 8, and I remember I remained shocked! One of the best horror/mistery collection series.

Not all the stories are in the classic category but I still enjoyed most of them, well worth having some great efforts here

Great package of ghostly memory lane for those who remember the show.5 stars for quality, packaging and prompt delivery of item.

Easy to see why it lasted only one season. But the producers were obviously clueless about what made the show good and the nice touches like the host and the excellently creepy theme tune were both removed when the show reformatted partway through. Odd to see Jimmy Sangsters name associated with this as much of it is dross. Too many episodes where an angry spirit inhabits something silly like a dog or a tiger. Many episodes have a good idea but rather than tell a story they just frighten the main star of each story as many times as necessary until the last 5 minutes when there's usually a weak wrapup. Ironically the one story I recall as being interesting when I caught it on BBC1 around 1975 proves to be the best of the whole series. Some good guest stars and a nice touch to include the next episode previews that were no doubt unseen on the BBC. I can't find listings to show that more than half the series aired on the BBC but I don't doubt that if they'd watched them beforehand the BBC felt it right not to inflict such drivel on the public - as some of the stories are very poor. In comparison to other anthology shows like Hammer House of Horror / Mystery & Suspense or even the ATV show Thriller this US series from 1972/73 ranks near the bottom of the barrel

Great item many thanks