10 Great Horror TV Shows Cancelled Too Soon
7. Late Night Horror
The BBC has a rather strong record on horror, remaining innovative and exciting across the majority of its century in broadcasting (so far). But that doesn't mean the people in charge always make the right move.
Horror anthology series Late Night Horror lit up screens in the late 1960s, running for a six-episode season on BBC2, and featuring the writing talents of Roald Dahl and Arthur Conan Doyle behind its stories. But its black and white tales of vampires, ghosts and child murderers was too much for audiences at the time, many of whose exposure to the horror genre was solely through novels, short stories and radio plays. By 1970 the show was cancelled amid a slew of viewer complaints.
Running against the grain of its innovation, the BBC has a spotty history of archiving, failing to archive and preserve some pretty major material - including even big-name titles like Doctor Who. And so, as Late Night Horror was cancelled so soon, there was no impetus for the corporation to store, archive and preserve the existing episodes correctly, meaning there is only one episode of the show available today - The Corpse Can't Play, about a murder at a child's party - recovered on a 16 mm reel in the 1980s, with the others being lost to time.