THE
WORLD BEYOND-1978-After a near death experience sports writer Paul
Taylor (Granville Van Dusen) gets communications "from the
beyond" telling him to help certain people.
Here he goes to an
isolated Canadian island to help a guy named Frank Faber. Andy (“special guest star” Barnard Hughes), owner of the boat that
takes him to the island introduces him to his other passenger, Mary
Faber (JoBeth Williams), the guy's sister. When they get to the
island a dog attacks Paul. At the house Faber is missing. Then
something wrecks their boat and kills the dog. A loud noise is heard.
They realize there is something on the island and it may have to do
with Frank practicing "the occult arts". While going to a
neighboring house to borrow a boat they find Frank's severed head!
After finding the neighbor dead and his boat wrecked Taylor deduces
that Faber created a "golem" out of mud. "That's
insane. There's no such thing!". After it kills Andy the mud
monster attacks Paul and Mary. They cut off one of its hands and it
terrorizes Mary. While fighting the severed hand in the basement Paul
discovers how to destroy the monster.
I guess this second pilot for an unsold series (by TV director Noel Black) isn't bad for a TV show
despite too many monster POV shots. It was created and written by Art
Wallace who created “Dark Shadows” earlier. The first pilot was made in 1977 and called "World of Darkness", also starring Van Dusen.
Thanks for reading!