Happy Halloween, 2015: Rod Serling's Night Gallery: "Fright Night"

“Fright Night” is a really fun, often chilling Halloween-styled episode from the third and final season of Rod Serling’s Night Gallery (1969 – 1973). 

In this story directed by Jeff Corey, a writer named Rick (Stuart Whitman) and his wife, Leona (Barbara Anderson) move into the home of Rick’s deceased cousin, Zachariah Ogilvy (Alan Napier).

The house is completely furnished, but the former housekeeper, Mrs. Patience, won’t stay on the premises after dark. She also informs the couple that Ogilvy only left one instruction about their ownership of the home.  Rick and his wife are not -- for any reason -- to move the crate in the attic. 

“That trunk is not to be moved, and under no circumstances is it to be opened.  Someone will come for it,” she insists.

Rick and Leona settle in at “this very strange house,” but notice something odd.  One night, all the crickets stop making noises simultaneously, as if silenced by an unnatural force.

And on another night, Leona is certain she feels the presence of somebody in bed beside her, despite the fact that Rick is typing away in the attic.  An indentation on his pillow suggests that Leona is not wrong.

Then, one morning, Rick finds that a Satanic prayer has been typed (all-caps…) onto his manuscript. As Rick and Leona grow more accusatory about who may have typed that particular incantation, Halloween arrives -- the one night of the year the dead can walk the Earth -- and Zachariah returns for his crate.

A few simple genre ingredients and a strong 1970s vibe transmit a sense of menace in “Fright Night.”  The narrative makes extensive use of the haunted house trope, which is often a cover, at least subconsciously, for stories of marriages in trouble. 

Consider the paradigm: happy couples move into a new house together, but the honeymoon is over, literally and metaphorically. Despite their new locale, their relationship disintegrates.  Is it their fault, or the house’s?

“Fright Night” follows that established pattern, but not too aggressively, and focuses on some good, if somewhat familiar horror touches. For instance, the audience is treated to fearsome shots of a portrait -- Zachariah’s -- that seems to stare right through you, and whose eyes glow bright red at one juncture. 

Meanwhile, the crate in the attic seems to move frequently of its own volition. At one point, the trunk is opened, and psychedelic lights and shadows dance across the attic wall, playing out some ancient passion play about demonic possession. 

You’ve probably seen horror stories of this type many times before, but the direction is good enough that a tense atmosphere is maintained nonetheless. For instance, the first time we see the dusty attic, Corey’s camera tracks across the room at floor level, going slowly past empty chairs and wooden floor boards. The shot creates a sense of menace about what will be found there, in a place that has gone untouched for some time. And the shots of the crate veritably bouncing on the floor -- demanding attention -- similarly, increases one’s sense of terror about the narrative’s set-up.

Alas, much of the carefully-constructed horror is diffused when old Ogilvy shows up at the door on Halloween night to pick up his luggage. The visual presentation of this old crone is pure pulp comic-book, and in some sense ruins the atmosphere of dread that the episode seems to have been working towards.

 “Beyond the grave there is no innocence,” one disembodied voice reports in the episode, and that seems abundantly true about “Fright Night.”  The episode generates suspense well, but seems frightfully outdated with the final appearance by its un-scary ghoul, who indeed resembles a trick-and-treater more than specter from beyond the grave.

The episode’s final bite -- that Rick and Leona have put the house on the market because Cousin Zachary promises to re-appear next Halloween for another crate -- is also anemic.  So “Fright Night” starts strong, due in part to its 1970s cinematography, but gradually loses its impact.  

It's funny to report, but the scenes that are so scary here involve those with no make-up or visual effects whatsoever, of that damn crate appearing where it has no right to be (and even after it has been locked away in the shed...). 

Rod Serling's Night Gallery: "Fright Night"

“Fright Night” is a really fun, often chilling Halloween-styled episode from the third and final season of Rod Serling’s Night Gallery (1969 – 1973). 

In this story directed by Jeff Corey, a writer named Rick (Stuart Whitman) and his wife, Leona (Barbara Anderson) move into the home of Rick’s deceased cousin, Zachariah Ogilvy (Alan Napier).

The house is completely furnished, but the former housekeeper, Mrs. Patience, won’t stay on the premises after dark. She also informs the couple that Ogilvy only left one instruction about their ownership of the home.  Rick and his wife are not -- for any reason -- to move the crate in the attic. 

“That trunk is not to be moved, and under no circumstances is it to be opened.  Someone will come for it,” she insists.

Rick and Leona settle in at “this very strange house,” but notice something odd.  One night, all the crickets stop making noises simultaneously, as if silenced by an unnatural force.

And on another night, Leona is certain she feels the presence of somebody in bed beside her, despite the fact that Rick is typing away in the attic.  An indentation on his pillow suggests that Leona is not wrong.

Then, one morning, Rick finds that a Satanic prayer has been typed (all-caps…) onto his manuscript. As Rick and Leona grow more accusatory about who may have typed that particular incantation, Halloween arrives -- the one night of the year the dead can walk the Earth -- and Zachariah returns for his crate.

A few simple genre ingredients and a strong 1970s vibe transmit a sense of menace in “Fright Night.”  The narrative makes extensive use of the haunted house trope, which is often a cover, at least subconsciously, for stories of marriages in trouble. 

Consider the paradigm: happy couples move into a new house together, but the honeymoon is over, literally and metaphorically. Despite their new locale, their relationship disintegrates.  Is it their fault, or the house’s?

“Fright Night” follows that established pattern, but not too aggressively, and focuses on some good, if somewhat familiar horror touches. For instance, the audience is treated to fearsome shots of a portrait -- Zachariah’s -- that seems to stare right through you, and whose eyes glow bright red at one juncture. 

Meanwhile, the crate in the attic seems to move frequently of its own volition. At one point, the trunk is opened, and psychedelic lights and shadows dance across the attic wall, playing out some ancient passion play about demonic possession. 

You’ve probably seen horror stories of this type many times before, but the direction is good enough that a tense atmosphere is maintained nonetheless. For instance, the first time we see the dusty attic, Corey’s camera tracks across the room at floor level, going slowly past empty chairs and wooden floor boards. The shot creates a sense of menace about what will be found there, in a place that has gone untouched for some time. And the shots of the crate veritably bouncing on the floor -- demanding attention -- similarly, increases one’s sense of terror about the narrative’s set-up.

Alas, much of the carefully-constructed horror is diffused when old Ogilvy shows up at the door on Halloween night to pick up his luggage. The visual presentation of this old crone is pure pulp comic-book, and in some sense ruins the atmosphere of dread that the episode seems to have been working towards.

 “Beyond the grave there is no innocence,” one disembodied voice reports in the episode, and that seems abundantly true about “Fright Night.”  The episode generates suspense well, but seems frightfully outdated with the final appearance by its un-scary ghoul, who indeed resembles a trick-and-treater more than specter from beyond the grave.

The episode’s final bite -- that Rick and Leona have put the house on the market because Cousin Zachary promises to re-appear next Halloween for another crate -- is also anemic.  So “Fright Night” starts strong, due in part to its 1970s cinematography, but gradually loses its impact.  

It's funny to report, but the scenes that are so scary here involve those with no make-up or visual effects whatsoever, of that damn crate appearing where it has no right to be (and even after it has been locked away in the shed...). 

Outré Intro: Rod Serling's Night Gallery (1969 - 1973)

For three seasons in the early seventies, Rod Serling's Night Gallery brought horror stories of all varieties into American living rooms.  

The series was hosted by its creator, who was seeking to repeat the success of his previous anthology, The Twilight Zone (1959 - 1964).  But unlike its celebrated predecessor, Night Gallery was filmed in color, and that technological advance opened up a whole new world of horror, a world splendidly taken advantage of in stories such as "Camera Obscura," which featured a sickly-green tint in some footage.

The premise of Night Gallery is that Rod Serling is our "curator" in a dreadful art museum or gallery, one where the paintings lead viewers into gruesome, twisted, and macabre stories. 

As the series introductory montage for the first two seasons opens, these illustrations literally come towards the camera to the strains of Gil Melle's creepy theme song. The underlying feeling here is of a barrage of sorts, of unending waves hitting the shore, coming at us. And since the images are explicitly of terror or evil, we are overcome by that barrage.  They just keep coming, each image more hideous or weird than the last.

In the first shot below, an image within an image grows large, and comes at us.

As the images fill the frame, we see different examples of art (meaning different styles of paintings) and different people too, but all of a monstrous variety.

In terms of the art-work, we first see an M.D. Escher-like work which seems to bend or alter our sense of reality.

In the constantly moving box-within-a-box frame or format, we also detect a human face, particularly its dark eyes. And inside the interior box is yet another painting, one of an abstract or modern type.

The images keep hitting us like a tidal-wave in the shots below, suggesting a sense of enveloping horror that we cannot escape. The idea of bringing up each image in its own box is an original one, and means that we don't get a traditionally edited montage, one in which we follow a chronological sequence, or move from location to location.  Instead, it feels like this montage is happening to us.

Notice that many of the faces we detect in this montage -- above and below -- are lit so as to be immensely creepy (from below), distorted through a mirror or other device.  This imagery also features people who are aged, old men, old crones and the like. 

In the next shot, the object in front of the camera seems to be observing us, even as we look at him (and the other) images.  This visual seems to suggest that the terror is going to actually touch us, or affect us.

Next, our title cards, over more memorable and creepy art.

We finally resolve to a painting of a human eyeball, and in that lens meet our guest cast.

Here is the intro in live-action:

Cult-TV Flashback: Rod Serling's Night Gallery: "Camera Obscura" (1971)

This tale was adapted for TV by Rod Serling and based on a short story by Basil Copper. Viewed now, this creepy 1971 segment boasts a high degree of relevance to our contemporary era; the age of big-business, bail-outs, bubbles, and economic inequality.

Set in London during the early 20th century, “Camera Obscura’s” morality play depicts a prissy money-lender named Mr. Sharsted (Rene Auberjonois) as he makes a collection house call on a “shrewd old dog,” Mr. Gingold (Ross Martin). 

Gingold is an eccentric collector, and his loan -- accumulating 13% interest -- has come due.

But Gingold wants to discuss something important with his creditor before he gets around to “payment.” 

Accordingly, he demonstrates for Mr. Sharsted an instrument called a camera obscura -- a device consisting of prisms and lenses -- that can view (and then broadcast…) the whole panorama of London on a circular table.

In particular, Gingold focuses this arcane instrument’s lens on the image of a foreclosed home belonging to a 76-year old man. Sharsted charged the old man “injurious interest” on a loan and when the sick man couldn’t keep up with the mortgage payments, Sharsted re-possessed his house.

“I charged the legal rate!” Sharsted insists.

Gingold replies that “what is legal is not always just.” He bemoans Sharsted’s lack of humanity.

But Sharsted remains unrepentant. He notes -- in signature Serling cadences -- that “humanity applies to funeral eulogies and Valentine cards,” but most assuredly not to business.

Realizing that Sharsted has irrevocably forsaken decency, Gingold utilizes an occult camera obscura (located in a secret chamber…) to exact moral payment from this emotionally-bankrupt money lender. 

He uses the instrument to trap Sharsted in a Dickensian-style personal Hell, one depicted in a green, lurid lighting scheme.

This Stygian snare is the City of London as it existed in the 1890s. But more than that, it’s a twilight world populated by the greedy, the avaricious. The souls who congregate there have turned into monsters; their faces twisted by the greed and inhumanity they once carried only inside.

Sharsted attempts to flee these creeps, but no matter where he turns…he ends up right back where he started. 

Director John Badham deploys slow-motion photography and jump cuts to visualize the idea of an inescapable Tartarus, and the segment builds to a fever pitch.

Surrounded by the grinning ghouls, Sharsted finally begs for mercy, though he himself has never shown mercy to anyone. He insists to Gingold that these cretins are not his kind. 

That they are “ghouls and grave robbers, bloodsuckers and users…”

Gingold’s final comment on the matter is that, yes, indeed, Sharsted is correct. That’s exactly what they are. 

And so Sharsted is finally with his colleagues and peers. And there he shall remain for all eternity...

Rod Serling always boasted a real affinity for the “shadow people,” for the little guy who just couldn’t catch a break in an increasingly impersonal and heartless world. “Camera Obscura” is perfect material for the author since the outline of Copper’s story permits him to mete out cosmic justice against a man who preys on the weak, the desperate and the hopeless. 

As the script establishes, Sharsted “backs people into the corner of despair” and so richly deserves his nasty fate.

As is noted above, “Camera Obscura” pointedly notes that what is “legal” is not always “just,” an argument that some people still don’t seem to get, even today. If the rich and powerful are the ones who lobby for laws, and Congress is in their pocket…then how, truly, can a society arrive at “just” and fair rules?

In the news today, credit card company executives whine that laws favoring the consumer are unfair, or anti-business. We see price gouging at the pumps every holiday season, and then -- inevitably -- watch as gas companies brazenly announce record profits at the end of each quarter.

Maybe Mr. Gingold needs to pay those folks a visit too. 

Come on guys: smile and say cheese for the camera (obscura…).

Cult-TV Flashback: Rod Serling's Night Gallery: "Tell David..."

In “Tell David...,” woman prone to jealousy, Ann Bolt (Sandra Dee) is caught in a terrible storm, and stops at the first house she can find in the deluge. 

There, she finds a loving young couple, David Blessington (Jared Martin) and Pat (Jenny Sullivan), but is baffled by the advanced equipment in their house, including a video phone, and closed-circuit TV monitors.

When David tells Ann about his troubled youth, Ann realizes she has somehow ended up twenty-years in the future and that the grown man is actually her own son.  David tells her about the mistakes she is destined to make -- caused by jealousy -- and begs her not to make them a second time.

“Tell David...” is a promising Night Gallery story that ultimately fails to achieve its potential. Rod Serling’s opening narration suggests that the story is about “jealousy” but that suggestion is ultimately off-point. 

Given the fact that Ann’s husband, Tony (also Jared Martin) is cheating on her with the family maid, all the discussion by Serling and by David about the “old green-eyed monster” is misplaced.

Ann’s suspicions are actually right on the money.  Her problem is not jealousy, but rather poor impulse-control and defeatism. 

To wit, Ann knows that she is destined to shoot and murder her husband, because David has warned her that she will.

No matter what, then, she should not take that particular course. Instead, Ann should tell her husband she wants a divorce, take David out of the house, and leave immediately.

But Ann doesn’t do any of those things. Instead, she surrenders to a future that has not yet been written, but which she has the capacity to re-write.  She mindlessly lets fate take the course that she assumes is pre-determined, and commits murder.

Then, we must assume, she follows through with the timeline David diagrammed, and commits suicide in prison, before going to trial.

Again, none of this is really about jealousy at all.  Accordingly, the episode’s whole tenor is off.  Sandra Dee’s character, Ann, has been manipulated grievously by her husband, and then her son blames her for that manipulation…accusing her of being jealous and claiming that said jealousy destroyed his childhood.

Talk about blaming the victim!  Didn’t his Dad’s lies and infidelity play a part in scuttling his childhood too?  

Why does Mom get all the blame?

The most intriguing aspect of Night Gallery’s “Tell David...,” perhaps, is its imagination regarding the future.  In the world depicted here -- of far-flung 1989 -- home security systems consist of CCTV.  And of course, if you watch British TV like Torchwood, Primeval and Doctor Who, you know that CCTV is now ubiquitous in the UK, if not in America. So that prediction seems spot-on.

Secondly, “Tell David” imagines video phones in common usage, which we don’t have, and electronic music…which does exist, though not exactly like the weird, atonal tunes featured here.

Other than these interesting touches, however, “Tell David..” is pretty seriously wrong-headed.  It also fails the test of believability.  David and Tony are dead-ringers, and so it makes no sense whatsoever that Ann fails to recognize David as being related to him. Especially since her son’s name is David. It’s contrived that she can’t put two and two together sooner

So, “Tell David..?”

Well, someone should “Tell David...” that his father is a cheating asshole, and that he is the one, ultimately, to blame, for David’s piss-poor childhood. 

Mom may be impulsive and self-loathing, but she’s not the cause of all his pain.  “Tell David...” shouldn’t suggest otherwise.

Cult-TV Flashback: Rod Serling's Night Gallery: "The Different Ones"

The Night Gallery episode “The Different Ones” serves as an adequate -- if not inspired -- companion piece to the famous The Twilight Zone episode “Eye of the Beholder.” 

You may recall that “Eye of the Beholder” concerns a desperate woman -- with her face in bandages -- who believes that she is ugly.  She has had a few operations already, to make herself more attractive, but they’ve all failed miserably.

When the bandages come off, however, the viewers see that the woman is absolutely beautiful by our standards.  The rest of the world -- the doctors and the nurses -- are hideous by comparison. 

And yet because the staff represents the “norm” in this society, they are considered the pinnacle of aesthetic perfection.

In Night Gallery’s “The Different Ones” -- a story set a few decades in the future -- a boy named Victor is physically repugnant by normal or typical human standards. He sits in his room all day with his head under a black bag, while the neighborhood children shout at him from the front yard.  They call him a “freak” and “ugly.”

Victor’s father, Paul Koch (Dana Andrews), is desperate to help his derided son live some semblance of a normal life, and contacts the government for help 

Although nothing can be done for Victor in terms of surgery, he can -- pursuant to the “Federal Conformity Act of 1993” -- be relocated to another place…another planet. 

In this case, a planet called “Borean” is extremely anxious for visitors from Earth.  So Paul says goodbye to his son, and Victor finds, on the distant world, that he is no longer considered ugly…but beautiful instead

The similarities between “The Different Ones” and “Eye of the Beholder are worth noting. 

In both stories, the main character spends significant running time with his/her face shrouded from the audience, in bandages or under a bag.

Likewise, both characters hail from a society in which conformity is enforced, apparently by law. 

And finally, the solution for both characters in terms of living a happy life is relocation to a place where there are with kindred individuals. In “Eye of the Beholder” that place is a colony to the North (think a leper colony…). In “The Different Ones,” it’s a distant world.

But the two stories differ in some significant ways too, as well as in terms of final impact. 

The first time you watch it, “Eye of the Beholder” generates surprise, shock and terror.  The cinematic techniques trick us, essentially, into believing that the world of the narrative is the same as our world.  We don’t learn about that mistaken assumption until the bandages come off the hospital patient.  The impact is forceful, and astounding. 

“The Different Ones” has no such comparable cinematic technique, and so the punch-line, that Victor goes to visit a world where everyone looks like him feels like simply a whimsical one.  Now, there’s nothing wrong with whimsy. 

Indeed, there’s a certain charm to the conclusion here, which suggests that there’s a place for everyone in this universe.  But I would argue that whimsy is ultimately inferior, as a tone, to stark horror.  That’s especially true if an artist is attempting to make a point about conformity, and the way that society enforces norms.  A sledge-hammer, in this case, is more effective than a feather.

In addition, “Eye of the Beholder” does a powerful job of depicting how the establishment of the alternate world is one of strict, ruthless conformity.  We see the leader of the society on a view-screen, for example, and he gesticulates like Adolf Hitler, and imposes his edict of genetic conformity on his culture.  

Watching this leader, we can’t help but think of the Nazis, and the eugenics program they enforced through genocide. 

In “The Different Ones,” Mr. Koch, by contrast, must deal with a huge futuristic bureaucracy to help his son…but help is acquired.  So here we might get the idea of an over-developed nanny state, in other words, but never the notion that the State is actively evil. 

Sure, one option is for Victor to submit to a suicide regimen, but the State only suggests that avenue and doesn’t enforce it.  In other words, death panels are optional.

One idea that doesn’t age so well, in either case, is that a “happy” ending for those who are different is, essentially, consignment to a ghetto for the rest of their natural lives. 

Frankly, this was as happy an ending as we were going to get in the dark, melancholy “Eye of the Beholder.” 

But “The Different Ones” doesn’t really address the fact that the exchange program between planets is all about getting rid of “undesirables” and those who are different.  Instead, the program seems like a win-win.  On Borean, normal humans are considered ugly, and go to Earth.  And on Earth, ugly folks like Victor look just like the inhabitants of Borean.

It’s all a little pat and contrived.

In short, “The Different Ones” isn’t truly in the same class as “Eye of the Beholder,” despite thematic corollaries.  Instead, the Night Gallery story is a watered-down version of the same tale, but its critique of conformity has largely been rendered toothless. 

Instead, we get the final joke that everybody is beautiful to someone. 

You just have to be in the right room, with the right people.

Cult-TV Flashback: Rod Serling's Night Gallery: "Silent Snow, Secret Snow"

In 1934, writer Conrad Aiken penned a short story of a most unusual variety: one concerning a seemingly normal pre-adolescent boy named Paul who succumbs to a voice "inside" his head; the voice of immaculate, glittering, and unending...snow. The boy uses his mental "snow" as a barrier "between himself and the world."

Paul's concerned, frightened parents attempt desperately to reach their son, to pull the boy back to their reality, but the ubiquitous snow -- an all-consuming yet strangely intimate mental blizzard -- buries Paul's mind inside itself. This progression towards isolation continues until Paul is simply...unreachable.

"Silent Snow, Secret Snow" was dramatized on radio in the 1950s and also very memorably on Rod Serling's Night Gallery in 1971. It's one of my all-time favorite installments of Night Gallery, actually. It's very, very disturbing, but also beautiful. 

One of the things I admire most about Night Gallery is that it dealt with horrors of all varieties, whether monstrous (like vampires and ghouls) or very real. On the latter front, it mused seriously about the horror of loneliness and regret ("They're Tearing Down Tim Riley's Bar"). 

Or, as is the case here, the horror of mental illness.

Whether you view this Night Gallery tale and young Paul's plight as a metaphor for autism or for schizophrenia, it's a terrifying journey.  "Silent Snow, Secret Snow" taps into a universal parental fear of losing your grip on your child; of losing him (or her) to something insidious that you can't control.

Orson Welles narrates this distinctive segment of Night Gallery, and his mellifluous voice captures some strange, artistic quality about this story. As scary as Paul's turn "inward" remains, the narration reads like fine, lyrical poetry; and the visuals are dynamic, glorious and well-chosen. 

In a certain sense, this is simply the darkest story of winter ever created because it concerns an interior winter; a metaphorical season of death that arrives like a storm and heralds the cessation of innocent youth.

As the story commences, Welles' recounts for us how Paul's unusual journey into mental illness originated; how his descent into the the never ending snow started simply as "nothing...just an idea. 

But then Paul's fantasy methodically grew worse and worse, becoming an obsession he couldn't turn away from. The notion is that Paul's real world is somehow dirty, muddled or confusing, and so his mind seeks out "the counterpoint of snow," that immaculate, perfect cleanliness of snow fall. 

His mind finds the purity it desires, and can't let go of it once it is located.

In keeping with this visual theme of "whiteness" symbolizing purity, there are moments in the episode in which the audience sees Paul drinking milk (notably also white), or glaring at a glass chandelier, which promptly transforms into ice-laden tree branches. Everything Paul sees is soon affected by the unique filter (his filter) of snow.

When Paul's disassociation from reality grows more pronounced, "Silent Snow, Secret Snow" begins to depict outsiders (a school teacher, parents, and a prying doctor) in the point-of-view subjective shot. They appear more than a little distorted this way; almost like aliens. The effect is that we -- like Paul -- find ourselves distanced from them and their hysterical concerns.

In a despairing, unhappy denouement, Paul finally turns away from the "inquisition" of the outside world for another place, an interior dwelling that "no one will ever again be able to enter."

In this white blizzard, the snow beckons more strongly than before, promising to tell Paul a beautiful story. It is a tale that gets "smaller and smaller," like a "flower that blooms into a seed." 

Again, that's a perfect metaphor for Paul's unexpected turn inward; for his shrinking world. In pre-adolescence, we expect the youthful seed to bloom; for a child to "mature" and become something more than the sum of his or her parts. 

Imagine the terror a parent must feel when a child's journey is the opposite: a doubling down, a turn away from the wonders of the outside world. Welles' narration is especially good in this latter part of the episode, whipped-up into a strange, almost sensual frenzy.

Mental illness can blot out life's colors. It can blot out life's vibrancy and nuance, creating a kind of obsessive blindness, and .here it is visualized as a snow blindness.

 I don't want to say something corny or cheap about an elegant, scary show like this, but "Silent Snow, Secret Snow" is truly and inescapably...chilling. The pristine, cold beauty of this most singular Night Gallery episode will make your blood run cold. Especially if you happen to be a Mom or Dad....