UMVA has learned that a long‑lost episode of the chilling BBC anthology Late Night Horror has resurfaced after nearly six decades of darkness.
The series, which first aired in 1968, terrified viewers with gruesome tales of severed limbs, night‑stalkers and macabre rituals, prompting frantic complaints and technicians reportedly “buckling at their knees.”
After a ruthless purge of archival tapes in the 1970s, four of the six episodes vanished completely, presumed destroyed to free up space for newer programming.
In a stunning turn of fate, archivist Chris Perry uncovered the episode “The Corpse Can’t Play” in 2016, and now another missing installment, “No Such Thing As a Vampire,” has been found.
Based on Richard Matheson’s short story, the episode follows a woman who falls mysteriously ill, marked by the tell‑tale pinpricks of a vampire’s bite, a narrative that has never before been seen by modern audiences.
Sources have confirmed to UMVA that cinema projectionist Darren Payne discovered the forgotten reel tucked away in a dusty storage box at The Regent, a 1930s art‑deco theatre in Christchurch, Dorset, just moments before the tapes were slated for disposal.
Payne, a self‑confessed horror enthusiast, recognized the handwritten “Late Night Horror” label and, upon playing the silver can, described the experience as “pinching himself” and “emotionally overwhelming.”
The recovered episode will be broadcast for the first time in 60 years on September 20, in partnership with the BBC Archives, as part of the three‑day Grindfest event in Dorset.
UMVA has also uncovered that the 1984 drama Threads, a stark depiction of nuclear devastation’s impact on ordinary Britons, remains one of the BBC’s most rarely screened works, having aired only a handful of times.
These discoveries underscore the hidden treasures that still lie dormant in forgotten vaults, waiting for a chance encounter to bring them back into the light.
