Wednesday 10/23/24
The Twilight Zone is a number of things as a program from episode to episode, and sometimes within an episode. It's mysterious, wondrous, science fiction, allegory, social critique, philosophy, fantasy. It's also horror and some of the horror episodes number among my favorites. We might not think of The Twilight Zone as horror, even when it is, because of all the other things it can be, but make no mistake about it: The Twilight Zone offered up scare-fare that is every bit as ideal for Halloween viewing as films featuring the classic Universal monsters.
Thought I'd look at six of the scariest episodes of The Twilight Zone that could make for a fun watch party.
"The Grave"--air date 10/27/61
Western-noir-horror! A tale of revenge from beyond the grave--or is it? We've seen this a number of times--the technique of "This could qualify as the work of the supernatural, or it might not!" Be clear, but leave wiggle room. An "out."
This is such an atmosphere piece. It's noir-type of lightning, but it's also straight-up horror lighting.
Westerns work well for "dark and stormy night" stories. It's almost like the unknown gets kicked up a notch because you don't know what the hell is out there on the frontier.
This is the one where Lee Marvin is the gunfighter accused of being a coward, who accepts a bet in the bar to head out to the cemetery on his own and stick a dagger in the ground of the gave of the man who called him a coward. Could have gone better, I'd say. The bit at the end about the direction of the wind is a nice touch.
"Long-Distance Call"--air date 3/31/61
Boy's grandmother dies. She gets lonely in the next life, and starts ringing him from the beyond on his toy telephone, hoping he'll take his own life--in effect--and join her.
What makes this episode so unnerving is that this is a loved one. Presumably. And what's more, a loved one wishing harm on a child, because she's that lonely. Speaks to the oft-deleterious power of loneliness. It can consume all, even our love. Or our ability to love.
"Night Call"--air date 2/7/64
Right before the Beatles appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show there was this other phone-related episode of The Twilight Zone from a Richard Matheson story, directed by no less than Jacques Tourneur (Out of the Past, Cat People, Night of the Demon).
I know that parts of it are a trifle silly--the downed telephone wire on the grave, for instance--but are they really? The mood takes us in, and when that happens, we're pretty much all aboard with what is going on, if you know what I mean.
We're frightened--we want to know what is going on here, but we're also hesitant to want to know what is going on here--and then, too, sad.
Ah, the somber shadings of life and how the choices we make--or don't make--can come back to haunt us. We have a tendency to think it's not going to be too late and then one day it is. You can't go back to all of that time you no longer have. Even though you may have plenty of time left. But not time for that.
The Twilight Zone is good at making you want to know what is going on. That's a big thing. It's not the same as confusion, because we never feel confused watching this episode. Bu there's drama and plot advancement and viewer (or reader) involvement in that "need to know" aspect. That glues us. We become an active participant. We're detecting without being detectives.
"Nick of Time"--air date 11/18/60
Aleatoric horror. A couple have car trouble, drop their ride at a garage, and repair to a restaurant to have a meal and kill some time. A machine at their table with a kitschy devil's head dispenses fortunes/cryptic messages. They start taking said messages seriously. The power of an overactive imagination or supernatural prognostication?
Get too deep inside of your own head, you lose perspective, and you can believe anything. We see this all the time--more so now than ever.
This is "just" two people sitting at a table, and yet it feels like life or death--bigger, perhaps. It's a daytime horror, which I have a thing for, because I think they're a challenge to pull off. And this is an ordinary, everyday space not a catacomb or a haunted house. People ten feet away could be having nachos.
From another Matheson story.
"Nightmare at 20,000 Feet"--air date 10/11/63
Admittedly, as someone who is not a great flier, this one has an extra component of fear for me. William Shatner--who we just saw in "Nick of Time," is back as the man who is meant to be back from his nervous breakdown, but may not be back, given that he thinks he sees a gremlin outside of his window tampering with the wing of the plane.
The horror comes in part from no one else seeing this gremlin, and no one taking Shatner's character seriously. Actually, his wife does, but she pities him, fear for him, wants him to be okay and has this horrible evidence--in her mind--that he isn't after all and life won't be resuming--at least not right now--as they both want it to.
The plane is the haunted house--but the horror is happening outside of the house. It's a bit like Jonathan Harker looking out his window in Dracula's castle and seeing the Count scaling the wall.
This is from yet another Matheson story. See a pattern here? I don't think he was by any means a great writer on the page, but his work could make for superb horror teleplays.
Sometimes people crack wise about how that gremlin looks. I accept it for what it is. Who am I to know what a gremlin who sabotages airplanes should look like? And again, I also don't care, because I'm invested. My imagination is involved. The special effects are anything but the point. The rain, the flashes of light, the shadow play of the aisle, the seats, the low talking, some people being awake, some being asleep...this helps set up the mood.
"Mirror Image"--air date 2/26/60
A woman in a lonely bus stop at night--which is its own scary thing--has a problem: She's starting to appear in duplicate. That is, she sees herself separate from herself. Or another version of herself. A usurper self.
You had a lot of talent contributing to Rod Serling's The Twilight Zone. This episode, for instance, was directed by John Brahm, who did the films The Lodger (1944) and Hangover Square (1945) with Laird Creger, which I highly recommend.
Martin Milner--who always seems so likable--is the caring guy who wants to help her out. It doesn't enter our minds that he's going to be every bit the victim she is. That's a big switcheroo, and the image at the end of him chasing himself--and the look of devilish glee on the face of one of his selves--is among the most enduring images of 1960s television, or from any era of American television history for that matter.
A note on a few omissions: I didn't include "The Hitch-Hiker" because I think it's been done better elsewhere--like by Orson Welles on the radio. Another Beaumont story, "The Howling Man," is what I'd call philosophy-horror, in which the horror is more conceptual than actual. And then there is "Ring-a-Ding girl," which would get my vote for the most underrated episode of The Twilight Zone, and part of me just doesn't want to bill it as horror, like that would leave out these other parts.
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