Familial Haunts No 2 : Halloween Challenge Night 8

 Tonight’s scar is actually one of Mrs Simian’s. Who knew that Little House on the Prairie had such a resource of spooky stories to draw from? Well, it did. The Waltons had a Ouija board story, sure, but Little House had allegedly haunted houses ('Haunted House')  a werewolf ('The Werewolf of Walnut Grove'), and it had this – 'The Monster of Walnut Grove', which was not a monster, but the allegedly murderous Mr Oleson the village shopkeeper and patriarch of the snobbish Oleson family and their seriously weird children (I told you snobbish shopkeepers were required in these stories!)

Little House on the Prairie 'The Monster of Walnut Grove' (1/11/1976)

The tale itself isn’t exactly what’s promised in the title. Here be spoilers: Little halfpint Laura is out soaping windows on Halloween Eve (yay!) when she thinks she spots Mr Oleson decapitating his wife in her chair with a ceremonial sword. Ho ho! And as Mrs Oleson leaves town before sunrise the next day she’s nowhere to be found and soon every child is buying into the murder story. Things escalate, there’s some great graveyard action by day, a rolling mannequin head down cellar stairs, nightmares with Grimsdike-like ghouls and the same sound library wolf howl track playing every time the script calls for EXT. NIGHT. THE LITTLE HOUSE. It’s a hoot! Actually, there are probably some hoots in there, too.

Halloweenometer: Oh, highly recommended – even if Mrs Simian didn’t feel up to revisiting her scar. Compared to The Waltons, this is the real thing, and a great surprise and delight for me. Incredibly, 'The Monster of Walnut Grove' was my first genuine highlight of the spooky season. And it’s bookended with a Headless Horseman, no less. Brilliant!

No musical companion-piece this time, but check this out for Walnut Grove’s most Spooky Moments and tell me you’re not racing off to fire up the Wayback Machine:




Bonus Pumpkinwatch: near the opening of the episode we get this marvel setting the scene:

So we have a few constants developing for an ideal Halloween viewing: kids are good, Halloween night obviously, and scares more than horror. Let’s see where that gets us from here.