 And we come to the end of our review series for the brand new editions of some classic British supernatural Tv series from Network distribution, and like the previous reviews for The Owl Service, Come Back Lucy, The Intruder, Tales of Unease, provides a unique snapshot of a bygone age of British Television. However, unlike the other shows in this release schedule, Tales of Unease is just a touch on the niche side for reasons I will discuss below. Tales of Unease was a seven-part TV series that was first broadcast on ITV in 1970; based on the horror anthologies edited by John Burke, it filled the gap between shows such as Thriller, Hammer House of Horror, and Tales of the Unexpected and that is where the main issue with the series arises. As Tales of Unease suffers from a lack of identity, it has neither the shock value from shows such as Thriller and Hammer House nor the clever twist endings that were a given with Tales of the Unexpected. This is fine, as a show shouldn't be a carbon copy of any other show; it's just that it really has little of an identity. Don't get me wrong, many stories are well-written, well-acted, and have exciting ideas. They are let down by not going anywhere with it. And more than once, you are left wondering, "was that it?" That's never a good thing for a show of this ilk. I had fun with this series, and many inventive tales mix supernatural and thriller elements with an excellent line of dark humour. For example, "The Old Banger" is a fun tale about a car that refuses to be abandoned or destroyed. It's a witty episode with a typical downbeat ending for this show. It leaves you wondering if a particular American author of a novel about an unkillable motor vehicle may have caught wind of this episode and perhaps another episode of this series. "The Black Goddess " is an emotional and claustrophobic tale about a group of miners trapped underground after a pitfall. This dialogue-heavy tale works well in maintaining the mounting sense of dread as the miner's fate is sealed. It's my favourite episode of the series.  However, "Ride Ride" is a prime example of where this show goes wrong. A spooky tale of a ghostly traveller, it squanders any of the story's positives for a pointless ending that leaves far too many questions unanswered. And this is not a case of a vague ending to leave you wondering what the truth of the story is, and it actually feels as though someone accidentally dropped a couple of pages of the script in the bin. It's frustrating to point out that if I hadn't had to watch the whole series for review, I would have stopped watching at this point. "Ride Ride" is the worst case of this in the whole series, and while a lot of these stories don't hold up to a second watch, Tales of Unease is still an important entry in British TV history; while it never reaches heady heights of its contemporary shows, there is still value in it, especially for the completist nostalgic collectors TALES OF UNEASE (1970) – AVAILABLE FOR THE FIRST TIME EVER A rarely seen anthology series featuring stories full of menace and black humour, Tales of Unease avoids overt horror for a subtler and altogether more unsettling sense of the uncanny. This atmospheric series features stories from novelist John Burke, playwright Michael Hastings, A Bouquet of Barbed Wire's Andrea Newman and James Leo Herlihy – author of Midnight Cowboy. This is the first time the series has been available since its broadcast. Special Features - Limited-edition booklet written by archive television historian Andrew Pixley Order A Copy Here: https://new.networkonair.com/tales-of-unease/ Tales of Unease is on DVD 17 October from Network CHECK OUT TODAY'S OTHER ARTICLES BELOW  THE HEART OF HORROR REVIEW WEBSITES |
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