Film buff finds lost 1968 vampire TV movie that was rumored to be so scary it was ordered destroyed

NY Post ^ | 5/24/26 | Brandon Cruz

[Libloather]

A film buff found a lost 1968 British TV movie about vampires that sparked a legend it was so terrifying it was marked for destruction, a preservation group announced.

“No Such Thing as a Vampire” — one of six episodes from the short-lived 1960s BBC anthology series “Late Night Horror” — has been missing for more than half a century after it scarred viewers and caused an uproar that prompted the network to not only kill the show.

But what is now believed to be the last surviving copy of the gory movie was recently discovered by English film-buff and cinematic engineer Darren Payne, the film preservation group Film is Fabulous! announced on Saturday.

“I am really passionate about this episode being seen again,” Payne said, according to the group.

The newly re-discovered horror film will screen publicly for the first time since 1969 at Europe’s “Grindfest” horror festival this September, the group said.

From the 1950s through the 1970s, BBC routinely erased old broadcasts to reuse expensive tapes, a cost-cutting policy that wiped out an estimated 70% of its programming throughout those two decades, according to an estimate by the British Film Institute.

But the total disappearance of Late Night Horror’s six episodes, which was canceled by the BBC after numerous viewers called in to the network complain it was far too horrific, fueled a darker theory that the network deliberately destroyed the copies because the content was too disturbing at the time, according to Atlas Obscura.

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TOPICS: History; Music/Entertainment; Science; TV/Movies
KEYWORDS: destroyed; movie; movies; scary; vampire

[Reily]

i liked that one too!

[Salamander]

I know.

Watched them ONE time

Never again.

🫪

[Trump_Triumphant]

Scared the hell out of me.

[parmamenian]

Is Rosie O’Donnell in it??

[jocon307]

LOL!