It was a moody but almost moribund daytime soap opera when creator Dan Curtis introduced a strange, sinister character in 1967. Barnabas Collins (Jonathan Frid), a guilt-ridden vampire who wanted nothing more than to lift the curse of eternity and hunger, became a dark daytime icon and transformed the shadowy serial from gothic romance to gothic horror. The cult of fans, which included school kids, since the show was broadcast in the late afternoon, only grew as ghosts, witches and even a werewolf joined the vampire with a soul, and flashbacks delved into Barnabas' haunted past. It hasn't aged well, but in its time it spawned two movies, loads of merchandising tie-ins (Barnabas fangs, anyone?) and even a short-lived revival in the 1980s.

It debuted the same year as "The Twilight Zone," but this anthology was markedly different. It didn't treat the world of the supernatural as fiction, but as fact. John Newland, our "tour guide into world of the unknown," introduced audiences to real-life ghost stories, urban myths, psychic phenomena and other stories that defy reason and were purported to be true. Think of it as the original "Unsolved Mysteries," but as a weekly drama. The episodes tend to be a little dry -- Newland, who directed the show as well, lacked the dramatic flair of Rod Serling from "The Twilight Zone" -- and it remained in the shadow of Serling's iconic show for its entire run, but it holds a unique place in the television of the supernatural: It was the first show to take it seriously.

Rod Serling's anthology series of the occult and supernatural is a pale reflection of his work on "The Twilight Zone." Though he hosts the show (in a kind of caricature of his old "Twilight Zone" persona), he lacked creative control, which resulted in a spotty, inconsistent series. Yet the best of the portraits in television terror offer some truly chilling and macabre moments -- and a few quite touching ones as well. A fresh-out-of-film-school director by the name of Steven Spielberg helmed a couple of the most memorable episodes (notably "Eyes," with Joan Crawford). Serling himself wrote the most interesting stories of the series -- two of them earned Emmy nominations -- before the show went off the air and Serling, frustrated by the creative restrictions of the networks, left TV for good.

All atmosphere and sinister suggestion, HBO's original series puts the battle between good and evil, and light and darkness, into the Depression-era dustbowl where a supernatural sideshow rooks small town rubes when it's not battling the devil. Nick Stahl is the inarticulate young fugitive with the healing touch, a sullen maybe-messiah with shattering visions. Clancy Brown is his opposite, an evangelical preacher seduced by the darkness who blackmails his way to God's ministry, leaving a trail of broken sinners as sacrifices along the way. Languidly paced and purposefully enigmatic, the series is long on dusty atmosphere and short on exposition, but for all its ambiguity the show is clear about one thing: Every gift comes at a price. These characters pay dearly.