EDITOR’S NOTE: Evil Stalks This House was on the CBS Late Movie on January 8, April 29 and August 4, 1987.

This was a pilot for a horror anthology that would be called Tales of the Haunted. According to IMDB, this series was broadcast in syndication as 30-minute episodes shown over five consecutive nights. That means that each story would be a five-parter and then edited down to a 96-minute film.

Sadly, the initial syndicated run of this episode didn’t get great ratings.

Who knows if whatever would have emerged if this had become a series and if it would have been as deliriously weird as this movie, but one could hope, because wow — this one really goes for it.

Hosted by Christopher Lee — that part doesn’t appear on many of the roughly taped YouTube videos that are all the evidence that remains of this show — this tells the story of Stokes (Jack Palance), who drifts into two with two kids in tow who may or may not be his. After their car breaks down in a downpour, they make their way to the home of Maggie and Dody (Helen Hughes and Frances Hyland), who seem to be two easily conned older ladies taking care of a mentally handicapped man.

Stokes learns that there are valuables all over the house, so despite promising to leave, he never does, even stealing the ladies’ heart medicine to keep them enslaved to him. They’re not so helpless, however, and the house is filled with horrifying traps like a quicksand pit in the basement, a deadly spider and a witch coven in the attic that bedevils Stokes and another grifter who also comes to take advantage.

The end of this movie totally steals the shock ending from The Baby and I could not love it any stronger.

Nearly a stage play that’s been shot on video, this was directed by Gordon Hessler (Cry of the Banshee, Pray for Death, The Woman Who Wouldn’t Die) and written by Louis D. Heyward (Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine, Planet of the Vampires, The Crimson Cult), I’ve seen this written up quite dismissively in reviews. But why? This is such a lost moment of strangeness with Palance absolutely snarling and hissing out every line with so many nightmare moments for impressionable kids who stayed up way to late to watch it on the CBS Late Movie.

You can watch this on YouTube.