10 TERRIFYING Made-For-TV Horror Movies
4. Don't Go To Sleep (1982)
Don't Go To Sleep had some lofty ambitions and while not every one lands, the climax to this decidedly ahead-of-its-time thriller would be effectively suited to an M. Night Shyamalan flick.
The cast is another major plus for this ghost story - seventies TV legend and American everyman Dennis Weaver plays the attentive yet oblivious dad, whose family are moving house and moving on from the death of their daughter, Jennifer, in an explosive car crash.
Along with kid brother Kevin (played by Poltergeist moppet Oliver Robins) and the cantankerous mother-in-law Bernice (the one and only Ruth Gordon from Rosemary's Baby), mother Laura (Valerie Harper, a Simpsons regular) must juggle the pressures of a multi-generational household. To add to her woes, daughter Mary is now being punked by the ghost of Jennifer.
So far, so harmless, but when Jennifer essentially tells Mary that she should kill the rest of the family, the tragedy begins to pile up again: Bernice has a heart attack on seeing Kevin's lizard and promptly dies, Kevin attempts to retrieve a frisbee from the roof and falls to his death, and Dennis Weaver electrocutes himself in the bath, also fatally. Mary gets the blame and is locked in a padded cell and this where the film really finds its inner weird...
Mary has been inhabited by the ghost of Jennifer all along, as it was Mary who trapped Jennifer in the car right before it exploded in a ball of flames. Mary is now stuck in an asylum and Jennifer pays mom one last visit...