Firstly great site!
Secondly, I have a kindertrauma that's been haunting me FOREVER!!
It was either part of an anthology or a movie or part of a series but it starts with these group of men who go to a summer house (I'm pretty sure it was set in the '30s or '40s and all the men are on a break from college and are all wearing wicker hats and those stripey blazers. Anyway, they end up coming across this doll (a porcelain doll I think) and one by one the doll kills them all. In one of the death scenes one of the men is in bed and the bedroom door is closed with light shining through under the bottom, then you see two small feet (the doll's) appear as shadows.
Cut to the ending and I'm pretty sure the last remaining bloke is left to dispose of the doll, they stuff it in a picnic hamper and he loads it into the back of his car and just as you think everything's alright and he'll get out of it, the camera pans out from the car driving away and it begins to veer off into the side of the road indicating that the doll got him…
I know it's a long shot but this petrified me for years and still to this day I cannot remember what it was, but I'd love to see it again.
Thanks,
Em
UPDATE: NAME THAT TRAUMA SOLVED! Special thanks to Reader DavidFullam for recognizing it as STEPHEN WEEKS' GHOST STORY (a.k.a ASYLUM).
Pretty sure it's an episode of Night Gallery.
Unfortunatley not, I've been through them all and none of them are related to that episode….It's got me totally stumped…
Looking back, you are right. Re-reading the article made me think of a film I came across in an old encyclopedia of Horror Films. I'll dig it out and see if I can find the film.
Could it be 1974's "Asylum of Blood" (aka Ghost Story)?. Directed by Stephen Weeks, the write up sounds similar to what you posted. Their descriptions says at the end "Murray Melvin drives away from the house, but in the back seat a trunk springs open and the hand of the doll emerges."
It says it is set in England, circa 1930s. And has a group of men investigating a reportedly haunted mansion.
I don't know the name of the movie, but those "wicker hats" are actually straw hats called Boaters. They made an obnoxious revival in the early 80's Preppy craze. To this day if I see a man wearing one of those I would like to make him eat the whole thing. In one sitting.
Hi YES!!!! Thank you so much it is indeed madhouse mansion (aka ghost story by stephen weeks) Thank you so much, now I'm off to try and find a decent copy 😀
My pleasure!