This Article Originally Ran On Blumhouse.com
Welcome to A Very Spooky… where we take a look at and review a classic TV series that is not known for horror but would, on occasion, dip its toes into the waters of terror…
There’s an episode of Little House on the Prairie, two episodes actually - a two-parter, that is one of the most terrifying things to ever be shown as family entertainment. It is, for the most part, a giallo movie with way less blood. The two parter is called “Sylvia” and it is what originally gave me the idea for this series. We aren't discussing “Sylvia” though, because there are already some great pieces about it, and I want to focus on a different episode; one that people tend to overlook, even though it spooked the hell out of me when I was a kid.
Today we’ll be talking about Little House on the Prairie season 3, episode 5 - “The Monster of Walnut Grove”. To be honest, about halfway through this episode, I considered chucking it. The episode, for the most part, isn’t as horror oriented as I remembered from my childhood. But in the last few minutes, it got there. It really got there.
If you aren’t familiar with Little House on the Prairie, the series focuses on the everyday happenings of the Ingalls family, living their lives in Walnut Grove, Minnesota during the later half of the 19th century. The show is based on the Little House book series by Laura Ingalls Wilder. I’ve never read the books, but if they are half as nuts as the show gets, then those books must be pretty great. This is a series that ended with the entire town exploding. Wack-a-doo stuff.
We should really get to the episode in question though. Like I mentioned, the episode doesn’t really start as a horror thing so much as a case of a girl’s imagination getting the better of her. It is Halloween night, and Laura and her older sister, Mary, are headed out for a night of soaping windows - something Pa would normally be against, but the shop owners of the town are welcoming it, so he’s chill with the program. Before they can go, Laura has to finish reading her little sister, Carrie, a bedtime story. Laura reads Carrie The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. The story spooks Carrie so much, she becomes terrified of her own feet. Story done, Laura and Mary jet.
While soaping windows, Laura overhears some yelling and sneaks a peak in on Mr. and Mrs. Oleson in the midst of an argument about money. As Laura watches through the window, Mr. Oleson loses his temper and cuts off his wife’s head with a sword!
Laura freaks and rushes off, but not before knocking over a plant. Mr. Oleson comes out and catches Laura, sword still in hand. Knowing that Laura saw what happened, Mr. Oleson makes Laura swear that she won’t tell anyone. The moment Mr. Oleson turns his back, Laura runs off.
Here is where we learn the truth - Mrs. Oleson is alive and well. What Laura saw was Mr. Oleson cutting off the head of a dressmaker's dummy. Mr. Oleson, tired of arguing, agrees to let Mrs. Oleson go visit her mom.
Laura rushes home where she tells her family what she saw. They call bullshit on her - if you know the show, you know Laura has a tendency to fib. Laura is sent to bed, her family refusing to listen. That night, Laura dreams of decapitations and blood. She wakes to the howling of a wolf. The wolf howls through the episode, leading me to wonder why no one is concerned about this wolf hanging around the Ingalls farm. Maybe the next episode has the wolf eating someone. I didn’t watch it.
In the morning, at the crack of dawn, Mr. Oleson is sending his wife off to see her mother. The moment she is gone, Mr. Oleson is beyond happy. He doesn’t seem to like his wife much, which makes me wonder why he was so against her leaving in the first place. Laura and Mary are on their way to school, and Laura is still upset her family doesn’t believe that she witnessed a murder. She breaks away from Mary to meet up with her best friend, Carl. Laura tells Carl the story, and he thinks she’s full of it too. Carl then tells a pretty useless tale about the time he thought he saw a giant jumping out at him, but it was just a shadow. I guess his vision is crap - he is squinting the entire episode. Laura decides to prove to Carl what she saw by heading to the Oleson shop where Laura is positive Mrs. Oleson won’t be. When they arrive, sure enough Mrs. Oleson is gone, having gone to visit her mom. Laura is even more convinced that the woman is dead. Carl is starting to think Laura is right.
Laura and Carl go over their options - no one believes them, and there is no law enforcement in Walnut Grove - the closest sheriff is in Mankato. They consider writing to the Mankato sheriff, but decide he will not believe them either. Laura decides that Nellie and Willie Nelson, the children on Mr. and Mrs. Oleson need to know that their pops is a lunatic who cuts off women’s heads. If you don’t know the characters of Little House, you need to know that Nellie is a stone cold bitch. She is Laura’s greatest enemy. A real jerk. Look at her hair, and you know she’s evil. Nellie and Willie, as you can guess, don’t believe Laura.
Meanwhile, at the Oleson home, Mr. Oleson is making dinner. The guy trips on his shoe and spills sauce all over his apron. As he is cleaning up the mess, Nellie and Willie come home and run directly for a bowl of candy. Mr. Oleson yells at his kids and tells them to set the table for dinner. Nellie finds the sauce covered apron and thinks it is blood. Both she and Willie come to think Laura may be telling the truth.
The Oleson family, minus mom, sit for supper, where Mr. Oleson tells the kids his funny sauce spilling story - there was no real entertainment back in those days, so even stories like that were exciting to kids. With the revelation that sauce is not blood, Nellie tells her pa that Laura thinks he’s a murderer. Mr. Oleson feels like a real dweeb. Nellie snags the apron and comes up with a plan to freak the poop out of Laura and Carl.
The next day, Willie shows Laura and Carl the “bloody” apron and tells the two friends that he heard his father digging in the cellar all night long. Willie goes on to say that he didn’t tell Nellie about the apron because she, as I said, is a stone cold bitch. Laura and Carl decide to investigate the cellar that night, when that damn wolf will be out there! Careful kids, that wolf sounds hungry! For whatever reason, the kids all meet up at the cemetery which, based on the sounds, is apparently surrounded by coyotes. Laura and Carl aren’t afraid of coyotes, they are frontiers kids! They sit in the cemetery, waiting for Carl to give them the signal. When it comes, the two pals make for the Oleson homestead.
Inside, we witness WIllie taking after his sister and being a stone cold dick. The plan, as made by Nellie, is to get Laura and Carl into the cellar, then frighten them to death. Nellie hides in the cellar as a ghost while Willie brings in the two investigators. The three kids head into the cellar. It isn’t a very spooky cellar, filled with apples and other shop items. As they search the cellar, Carl hears a moaning, like somebody dying. It is then that the ghost appears.
Laura and Carl run upstairs, locking Willie in the cellar with the ghost (Nellie in disguise), which is pretty shitty of them. As they run for the door, the see Mrs. Oleson standing there and freak out, running away. Mrs. Oleson enters the shop, looking for her family. Laura and Carl find themselves in a closet with a headless body and scurry out. As they rush away from the dressmaking doll, they slam into Mrs. Oleson and knock her out. Just then, Mr. Oleson shows up and is all “WTF, kids!” Carl tells Mr. Oleson that his kids are in the cellar - Laura and Carl go to free the trapped Oleson kids, but before they do, Carl comes up with a way to get revenge. Mr. Oleson, apparently hating his own children as much as Laura does, goes along with the plan.
They open the cellar door and throw a mannequin head down. From the scream that Nellie gives, I would say she is traumatized for life. Laura and Carl run from the house, joyful in their vengeance. It is here that the show takes a serious turn for the insane. Understand that what happens next is not a dream sequence - this episode has been very clear on when we are watching a dream versus reality by using a filter on the borders of the screen - there is no filter here.
As Laura and Carl rush from the Oleson house, they hear the neighing of a horse, followed by maniacal laughter. They turn to see what is coming up behind them, only to witness true terror. A man, riding a stark white horse from out of the shadows. As man and beast approach, it becomes evident that the rider has no head. Laura and Carl run into the woods, with the Headless Horseman giving chase. The episode ends right there, and this will never be mentioned in the remaining years of the series. In the world of Little House on the Prairie, the Headless Horseman is real.
While the episode itself isn’t all that scary, they style it is filmed in really brings out a sense of horror. The scenes that take place at night really use the shadows well, creating a sense of unease, and the scenes set in daylight are all claustrophobic. The interiors feel overfilled, and the exteriors always have things coming in on the sides of the shot to kind of trap the actors, be it trees, posts, or gravestones. The director, William Claxton, had some experience with horror, having directed four episodes of The Twilight Zone as well as the classic Night of the Lepus and his knowledge of setting up a shot for maximum effect is clear here. He also ups the sense of dread as the episodes moves forward. The first dream is mainly shadows, the second is a full on scene. The pace of the scenes picks up, adding to the feeling that things are getting crazy. Claxton has the chops, if you know what I mean,
While we know the entire time that Mr. Oleson is not a murderer, there is still a sense of danger to the episode because of Melissa Gilbert. Gilbert was a terrific child actor, and it shows here - she is frightened, and so we get a little frightened too.
The episode also has some great comedy in it, usually dealing with the idea of someone not having a head. Bits like this one between Laura and Carl:
Laura
What Mr. Oleson did was purely wicked. He’s dangerous,
he might even do it again!
Carl
You can only cut off a person’s head once!