Film banned by BBC and 'destroyed' forever for being too scary will be shown next month
A film that has been missing for half a century and was thought to have been destroyed has been found by a film preservation group.
The film, No Such Thing as a Vampire, tells the story of a woman who falls ill 'mysteriously' and is cared for by her husband.
The vampire horror film was one part of a six-episode anthology series Late Night Horror, four parts of which have been fully lost.
Apparently viewers also complained en-masse that it was too scary.
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It's based on a short story by Richard Matheson, who wrote the novel for I Am Legend, and after discovering puncture marks on her neck, the woman, Alexis Gheria, played by British actress Meg Wynn Owen, begins to fear she's fallen prey to something supernatural, much to her husband's dismay.
It was found in a storage area of the 1930s Art Deco cinema, The Regent, in Dorset, thanks to cinema projectionist and engineer Darren Payne and it will be screened on September 20 by campaign group Film is Fabulous!
The group, who describe themselves as an ‘initiative to preserve vulnerable film treasures for future generations’, announced that the TV film had been found by chance.
It is not the first film to ever receive this treatment, with BBC’s nuclear war drama Threads having been shown just a handful of times due to mass complaints that it was too disturbing.
Other movies have been banned in this fashion for their disturbing content too, with A Serbian Film even leading to the director of a film festival being arrested for screening it.
A Serbian Film and Threads can be watched in roundabout ways however, whilst the BBC TV film No Such Thing as a Vampire has previously been entirely impossible to watch.
In addition to No Such Thing as a Vampire there are episodes on creepy gothic tales such as William and Mary, a Frankenstein-like story about a ‘radiologist who discovers a way of preserving the brain after the body has died’, which was written by Roald Dahl.
No Such Thing as a Vampire released in 1968 and was last aired in 1969 at Europe’s Grindfest, however was soon after destroyed.
This was relatively routine at the time, however, and it's estimated that between 60 to 70 percent of BBC programming from the 1950s to the 1970s was destroyed.
It is also rumoured however that Late Night Horror spawned numerous complaints to the BBC, with a theory developing that it was destroyed not as part of a routine move to free up expensive tapes but because it was too dark and terrifying for the BBC.
You can watch a clip from the recovered film below:
A 2007 BBC News feature on the series said it had been taken off the air because of ‘complaints it was too scary’, with BFI film curator Dick Fiddy telling Atlas Obscura: “It was quite shocking, I think it was controversial.”
Atlas Obscura also found a 1968 piece on the series in the Radio Times, saying it ‘makes it sound like it was made by the Antichrist’, quoting how it had ‘BBC technicians buckling at the knees’.
Payne told Film is Fabulous!: “The recovery of No Such Thing As A Vampire was purely by chance. One of the board members at The Regent found a very small collection of reels; we’re not too sure of the background of these films, but they have certainly been there for several years and were on the verge of being thrown away.
“I was asked to check one of the rather nondescript silver cans, which had the words Late Night Horror handwritten on the label. I’m a passionate horror aficionado and the title rang a distant bell with me.”
Darren took the film home to screen and see what it was, saying: “Lo and behold it turned out to be the long-lost first episode of the Late Night Horror series. I had to pinch myself; it was an astonishing and quite emotional moment.
“I wouldn’t underestimate that experience of being the first to watch a production for the first time in nearly 60 years.”
Film is Fabulous! has announced they are working with BBC Archives and the episode will be screened in Dorset on 20 September 2026, as part of the three-day ‘Grindfest’ event.
Topics: BBC, TV and Film, TV
Michael Slavin