What could be more terrifying than a horror show in the late 1960s that only ran for six episodes and was taken off the air, supposedly due to complaints from viewers that it was "too scary"? Well, the story goes that after it had been removed from the broadcasting slate, all six episodes had vanished. So, who knows how scary it really was? Who else can attest to it other than those who have actually watched it. And from bits and pieces of memory from first-hand viewers, we can only surmise that the tale was true, and that it was the scariest horror show at the time.
That show was called Late Night Horror, and it first went on air on the BBC in April 1968. It was produced by Harry Moore, who had promoted the show as the "first horror series ever", and he had wanted to make the show as vividly visceral as it could be. Though it wasn't the first horror series on TV, it was the first horror show to be done in color. And so, Moore and his production team went all out with the blood and gore. Presumably, it was working, as after six episodes, it was never renewed for a second season, and two years after it first ran, they had completely taken it out of circulation. Then, it went missing.
The reason why it went missing isn't so mystical or esoteric as one would assume however. It was simply because of budget restrictions. Tapes were expensive at the time and the BBC could not afford keeping tapes which cannot be shown again, so along with many other shows in the 60s and 70s, it's thought that the episodes of Late Night Horror had been erased so that the tapes could be reused. Until Chris Perry, a TV archivist, tracked down one of the surviving tapes of Late Night Horror's six-episode run.
It took Perry and his team, an organization called Kaleidoscope, 50 years to recover the lost tape, and have been able to restore it. Currently, the episode titled "The Corpse Can't Play" from Late Night Horror is available on DVD.
(Video credit: Atlas Obscura)