Two mystery TV horror films from the 80s…

Today’s UWTV memory is a guest blog post by one of our readers, named Pat. If anyone can help Pat identify or find these elusive TV horror films from the 80s, please comment here or drop us an email!

Over to Pat…:

The first was screened in the scheduling dead zone after Christmas, definitely on ITV, during a weekday afternoon in early January 1985 or 1986, while the schools were off. I think it was called Fraidy Cats, and it was an American or Canadian production. It was a one-off, shown at maybe 1pm-2pm, on the STV regional channel.

I remember watching this with my brother on an old black and white TV screen, and this would have added to the atmosphere, but there was little doubt that this show was weird, creepy and probably wouldn’t be broadcast now.

It showed this young boy and some of his friends being involved in scary, odd incidents. One of these involved an old man taking the boy out on his boat, and then going mad in the middle of the trip. There are other scenes which show the boy walking around the house at night in the pitch dark, and we “see” what he fears. There are claws rasping against the walls, ghosts and demons following him around. It really lodged in my brain. It’s doubly odd in that I am fairly sure of the name of the show (there is a possibility it was “Scaredy Cats”, but I am sure it was “Fraidy Cats”), but there is no mention of it online, it doesn’t appear on any archived listings, and no-one I know remembers seeing it.

The second one is even more bizarre – a slasher movie, complete with dead bodies and blood, totally serious in tone… that was screened on a Sunday morning on BBC1 at about 10am, 1984 or 1985.

It was shown, again, in that odd dead zone you used to get on Sunday mornings, usually when loads of niche/minority interest or religious shows are scheduled to fulfil quotas. This was an education show (not part of Open University), which proudly showed the winning entries of a national student film contest.

One of these was a slasher movie – and, to seven- or eight-year-old me, it was utterly horrifying.

It followed a school bus trip out into the woods. It was British. Like the American slasher movies of the time, it followed teenagers and presented a list of victims/suspects. They are picked off, one by one, by a hidden figure who is wearing a gauntlet of some kind. I can remember blood; I can remember one of the teenagers ending up garrotted and strapped to a tree by the neck, while another character wanders past on the other side, oblivious.

The final shot of the video reveals the unexpected killer, one of the quieter kids on the coach, wearing the gauntlet.

In my mind’s eye it was quite well shot, but whoever decided this was fit to broadcast on a Sunday morning must have been either out of their mind, or simply not checking the content of the films.

Does anyone remember these?

If you recall either of these films or know where to find them, please comment here or send us an email!

**UPDATE** Thanks to Twitter user Adrian Bott, the first of these two productions has been identified! It is a short Canadian TV film titled Fraidy Cats: The World According to Nicholas , shown on UK TV as a Short Story Theatre feature – and here it is for your viewing pleasure!

Big thanks to Adrian for identifying and finding this for us. Thanks also to @ScarredForLife2 for sharing this post!

Adrian also thinks he may know the second feature remembered by Pat above – the slasher film he thinks may be Breakdown, a Young Film Makers Competition entry that was shown on Screen Test on December 6th, 1984.

If you are able to confirm this for us or shed any further light, please comment or email us!