World of Darkness — The World Beyond

by G. Jack Urso

World of Darkness (1977) and The World Beyond (1978) are hour-long pilot movies for a proposed supernatural series about Paul Taylor, a sportswriter, who dies in a motorcycle accident but is brought back to life with the ability to talk with the dead, or, more accurately, they with him. The spirit of a dead person reaches out to Taylor and urges him to help someone close to the deceased. Taylor is compelled to help to quiet the voice until the next case comes along. 

The concept draws a bit from Kolchak: The Night Stalker with a roving reporter investigating classic horror concepts and reflects the paranoid psychological plots in the post-Rosemary’s Baby/The Exorcist era. Despite not being picked up for a series, World of Darkness and, especially the second pilot, The World Beyond, still managed to attract a small following. Both films are presented below from the Aeolus 13 Umbra YouTube channel.

World of Darkness (1977)

World of Darkness, on the Aeolus 13 Umbra YouTube channel.

The first pilot movie, World of Darkness, subtitled “Sentence of Death” (original airdate April 17, 1977), jumps in with Paul Taylor already accustomed to the voices of the dead and on a case. His origin story is told all in a 90-second pre-credits sequence. We don’t learn anything about Taylor’s personal life except that he is a sportswriter, which seems to be almost a spurious detail since we don’t see Taylor show any interest at all in sports or reference his career in this first pilot film. No family or friends are mentioned. Taylor is as much a mystery as those he investigates.

Van Dusen as
Paul Taylor.

Here, a voice from beyond compels Taylor to intervene with Clara Sanford. Clara’s father committed suicide prior to the start of the events in the film and is visiting her Aunt Joanna due to the dubious and unexplained details of her father’s death — and Clara is hearing voices from beyond as well. During the course of his investigation, Paul discovers Joanna has a homicidal son who hasn't left his room in five years, and this knowledge puts him and Clara at risk.

The supernatural aspect of the story is minimal. The “voice” guides Taylor at a couple points in the tale, but those parts could have been written out entirely and the plot put forth as any standard mystery-thriller. The supernatural element does give it a distinguishing characteristic, but the story slows down in the middle due to too much exposition. This continues into the final act and the climax when Paul confronts Joanna and her son. 

TV Guide listing.

Director Jerry London, who helmed the epic 1980 miniseries Shogun, worked with what he had, but the script is long on exposition. Writer Art Wallace had a long resume starting in 1954 and included many of the hit shows of the era, including work on Dark Shadows, writing 87 episodes, serving as story creator and developer for 267 episodes, and writing the series’ bible, as reported by the extensive Dark Shadows Wiki. It is from this classic series we see Wallace draw on to create a moody atmosphere in a large, old house with characters driven by fate and circumstances; however, it also lapses into the weakness of the soap opera format (which Dark Shadows was) in creating long bits of dialog to explain the story rather than let the action tell the tale and trust the viewers to follow along.

The World Beyond (1978)

The World Beyond, on the Aeolus 13 Umbra YouTube channel.

Whatever the problems were with World of Darkness, it generated enough interest to warrant the rare privilege of a second pilot, once again staring Granville Van Dusen as Paul Taylor and this time joined by JoBeth Williams as Marian Faber, who Taylor has been called upon to help, and Barnard Hughes as their guide Andy Borchard. Wallace, this time around, creates a truly terrifying horror tale with The World Beyond, subtitled “Monster” (original airdate January 27, 1978). The pacing is tighter than the World of Darkness with periods of real suspense. The director, Noel Black, made his mark on many of the popular series of the 1960s through the 1980s, including the 1980s revival of The Twilight Zone. 

In this pilot, Taylor is compelled by the voice of a dead man who sends him to protect his sister, played by Williams, from a monster the man unleashed with an ancient ritual, and which killed him in return — a golem, a creature made of mud and possessed of great strength and murderous intent. 

TV Guide ad and listing.

Set on a secluded island in Maine, Taylor and Marian are unwittingly led further into danger by a reluctant Borchard, who suspects the reported mud monster is real. Trapped in a boarded-up old home in the wilds of Maine and hunted by a soulless monster, the isolated location intensifies the paranoia and danger. Watching it alone on a cold winter night, it actually did terrify me a bit as a kid. Writer Art Wallace learns from the first pilot and cuts down the exposition, increases the action, and makes the danger tangible.

The camera work includes some interesting angles to emphasize the mood. Given the era and budget, the monster suit itself is unremarkable, but sufficient for the purposes of a pilot movie. Little is seen of the actual monster during most of film's action, likely as a decision to minimize the monster suit's shortcomings on screen; however, I think it was a good decision for plotting purposes as it builds anticipation for a final confrontation. With access to more advanced special effects, modern horror productions try to scare he audience with the gruesome realism they can manifest with the click of a button. In The World Beyond, the tension slowly builds. Like the characters in the film, the viewer is being stalked by an unknown entity. We know as little about it as they do, so we share their fear.

(Left to right) Barnard Hughes, JoBeth Williams, Granville Von Dusen. 

We learn a little more about Paul Taylor in the second pilot. He was born in Minnesota, lives in a small, dark, three-room apartment in New York City, has an anxious editor waiting on his book about skydiving, and calls his mother every Tuesday. Small details, but they give the character depth and make him more relatable as a protagonist.

Like the first pilot, the episode ends with Paul Taylor heading back on the road to face the unknown yet again somewhere else. The 1970s had a pattern of lonely men cursed with extraordinary gifts fated to walk alone. The Incredible Hulk with Bill Bixby and Kung Fu with David Carradine come to mind in this regard, as well as The Six Million Dollar Man and The Man from Atlantis. Taylor fits into this pattern, but as Holmes needs a Watson, as Mulder needs a Scully, or as Kolchak needs an exasperated editor, Taylor needs a partner to play off of and make necessary bits of exposition fit more naturally into the narrative. This may have evolved had the pilot gone to series as the lonely, rugged hero bit might run its course quickly.

The pit where the golem was created.

Slasher horror film aficionados will likely find these films boring, and, in truth, World of Darkness does drag; however, fans of gothic horror like Dark Shadows or the Hammer Studios films will discover some familiar elements. Of the two pilots, The World Beyond better reflects the intended series concept and is a solid tale of TV terror well-told.

I have a friend who had an out-of-body, near-death experience, and it certainly changed her. Yet, in a way, every time we dream we have a sort of out-of-body experience and every time we sleep, we flirt with death, giving ourselves over to unconsciousness and trusting that we will wake up from our visit to The World Beyond — won’t we?

Sleep well tonight . . .

 

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