Dan Curtis' Gothic Tales

Shot on videotape and originally aired on ABC's late-night series Wide World Mystery, these two features exquisitely demonstrate Dan Curtis' gift for blending 19th-century literature with psychological horror. In The Picture of Dorian Gray, a petulant young Adonis (Shane Briant) indulges in the most decadent pursuits that 19th-century society can provide. While Dorian seems impervious to age and free of guilt for his transgressions, his moral disintegration is foretold in the portrait hidden in his study. In a haunting and sexually-charged adaption of Henry James's The Turn of the Screw, Lynn Redgrave stars as Miss Cubberly, a governess hired to tend two orphans (Jasper Jacob, Eva Griffith) in a country manor. She believes the estate is haunted by the spirits of a former governess and her lover, and her pursuit of the truth leads Miss Cubberly to the brink of insanity.