"All Hallows Eve"

Episode 306
(aired the week of 11/1/1998)
Case # 65-9311

Log line: A horror novelist with multiple personalities struggles with the fact that someone is making her book all too real by committing murders exactly the same way they are described in each chapter of her best seller.

Synopsis: Praeger, Donahue, Axon and Donner visit the scene of a grisly, pre-Halloween murder of two college students who died after having their faces torn off. Checking through the victims' belongings, Donner finds a copy of "All Hallow's Horror," a novel written by Rebecca Royce.

As she reads, Donner discovers that the recent murder mirrors the one in the first chapter of the book. What's more, she learns that the house in which the students were killed once belonged to Royce's parents. Praeger and Axon visit Royce at a TV studio where she is taping an interview segment about her novel and pleading for the copycat killer to stop. They ask her if she has any idea who the killer might be, but she says she can't help them. She returns home with her agent, who horrifies her with a prediction that the murder will help book sales. After the agent leaves, the distraught Royce, who suffers from multiple personality disorder, regresses into the alternate personality of a little girl and falls asleep.

The killer strikes again, this time murdering the owner of a costume store, just like in the second chapter of Royce's novel. This time, though, a security camera caught the killer on videotape. Watching the tape, Donahue, Axon and Praeger see the apparition of a man walk into the store and kill the owner. As Donner points out, if the killer continues to mimic the novel, the next murder will take place in two days at a Halloween dance.

Hendricks visits Royce and learns that she has five different personalities, including that of Johnny, the malevolent alter who actually wrote "All Hallow's Horror" and is fed up with Royce getting all of the credit. As he takes control of Royce, Johnny confesses to Hendricks that he committed the murders. Meanwhile, Praeger and Donahue are at the police station, interrogating Bart Haines, a former college classmate of Royce's who has also confessed to the crimes. Confined to a wheelchair, Haines was paralyzed years earlier after a prank by Royce and her college friends caused him to fall three floors. He tells a skeptical Praeger and Donahue that he doesn't know how he commited the murders; he experienced blackouts during which he felt someone else taking over his body. Suddenly Haines is possessed by Johnny. Haines leaps out of his wheelchair, flips over a table, pushes Donahue and Praeger aside, and escapes.

Learning that a Halloween dance will take place at Royce's former college, the OSIR team, including Davison, plots to catch the possessed Haines at the event. But he is ready for them. Haines, possessed by Johnny, captures Davison, carries her to the top of a staircase and holds her over the railing, ready to drop her just like Royce's friends did to him years before. Royce arrives with Hendricks and commands Johnny, who still has control of Haines' body, to let her talk to Haines.

In a fast and furious flash, personalities collide and it remains to be seen who'll survive.

Starring:
Matt Frewer - Case Manager Matt Praeger
Barclay Hope - Peter Axon
Nancy Anne Sakovich - Lindsay Donner
Colin Fox - Dr. Anton Hendricks
Dan Aykroyd - Host

Guest Stars:
Linda Blair - Rebecca Royce
Rosemary Dunsmore - Agent
Phillip MacKenzie - Bart Haines

Written by: Donald Martin
Directed by: Luc Chalifour