... and he’s the same but everyone else is different.
Kramer: Which one?
Jerry: They were all like that.
Posted on 10/31/2023 8:18:42 PM PDT by dynachrome
If you have only passing familiarity with The Twilight Zone — maybe only really knowing its iconic opening sequence — you might be forgiven for thinking that the classic television show centered on scary themes. In reality, however, while the show certainly had a dark atmosphere and included plenty of suspense, creepiness, and dread, it fell more into the genres of science fiction and fantasy than horror. It was layered more with incisive insights into the dynamics of the individual mind and the group collective than outright frights. The monsters of the show lived in people’s heads; its chills were of the existential variety.
Nevertheless, there are some episodes of The Twilight Zone that land on the more traditionally frightening side of things. Not on the level of modern horror flicks, mind you, but as compared to the rest of the series. Of these episodes, here are the five scariest:
(Excerpt) Read more at artofmanliness.com ...
Is Examination Day in the list?
Read the list .
…
Nope. doll. ventriliquist dummy. shelter. billy and the cornfield, 22
All spoofed in Simpsons Halloween Specials. Very funny indeed.
You Drive
On a rainy day, office manager Oliver Pope is driving home when he hits a newspaper boy with his car and promptly flees the scene. He puts the car in his garage but when his wife sees the lights flashing, she thinks they have an intruder. In fact, its just the car acting up. In the middle of the night, his car horn honks and when his wife takes it out the next day, it stops at the exact corner where the accident occurred. When his competitor at the office, Pete Radcliff, is arrested he thinks he’s home free. It’s apparent however that the car is going to continue acting up until Pope makes things right
Night Call
The elderly Elva Keene is not too happy when she begins receiving phone calls in the middle of the night. At first the calls are little more than static and her complaints to the local telephone operator, Miss Finch, seem to go unheeded. Over time however, she begins to hear a man’s voice but out of fear, tells whoever it is to go away. When Miss Finch reports they’ve found the problem, Elva visits the site only to realize the identity of the caller, and that regardless of anything she’s said, desperately wants the calls to continue.
Examination Day is the coming color revolution forecasted by the show.
*What did your kids say about naming bad driving habits?
Rod Serling also did the intro to “Phantom of the Paradise,” a great movie.
... and he’s the same but everyone else is different.
Kramer: Which one?
Jerry: They were all like that.
Not scary but the episode where the guy had a stopwatch that could stop time. He used it to steal from a bank and while leaving he dropped the watch and time stood still, leaving him nowhere. Very profound and typical for sinful humans.
Mr Garrity and the Graves
In the early 1890s Mr. Garrity arrives in Happiness, Arizona apparently knowing a great deal about some of the people who live there. He knows that Jensen the bartender’s brother died and that Gooberman the town drunk lost his wife. Garrity also reveals that he has a very peculiar gift - he can bring back the dead. When a dog is run down by a wagon in the street he resurrects it without any difficulty. When he offers to do the same for the town’s loved one’s, they realize they would rather he not bring back the dearly departed, something they are quite happy to pay him for. Garrity, a charlatan if ever there was one, is glad to accept their money - though he does seem to leave something behind.
There were no “scary” episodes of Twilight Zone.
A young Wm. Shatner
Nightmare at 20,000 Feet
It’s a cookbook........
I think at this point, none of them are really ‘scary’.
But they all carried a deep message, and that’s what I loved about the series, and miss in television today. None of it is really interesting anymore.
We just don’t seem to have the minds that we did back then.
My favorite. When I retired, I told them I was getting off in Willoughby. But that I would survive.
The Invaders. Agnes Moorhead was the old lady.
I have always held a place for The Outer Limits, especially Season 1 episode 2:100 Days of the Dragon
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