Did a Twilight Zone episode ever scare you? Which one?

[bliss_eternal]

I saw one tonight and remembered how much it scared me the first time I saw it. Looking at it now, it's eery and a bit creepy, but not as scary.

Anyway, it was the episode titled "Mirror Image" with Vera Miles. There were others that frightened me, I just have to go find their names or at least more accurate descriptions of the episodes. In the meantime, please share if any episodes scared you...

:hi:

[hfojvt]

1. none have

but I was not fortunate enough to have seen them as a kid. Probably I have only seen a couple dozen episodes on late night TV while going to the U.

[Oeditpus Rex]

2. One of the 'new' ones didn't exactly scare me

But it sure made me think.

This guy comes to an apartment with a box with a button on top and tells the woman (Mare Winningham) she can keep the box for a week, and if she presses the button she'll get $50,000, but someone will die — "Someone you don't even know."

She agonizes over this moral dilemma during the week. Her husband's been out of work, they could really use the money, etc. etc. etc. And after all, people die every day, and she wouldn't even know about it. So, on the last day, she presses the button.

Later that day the guy comes to pick up the box and gives her the $50,000. "What happens now?" she asks him.

"Oh, I give the box to someone else," he says. "Someone you don't even know."

[bliss_eternal]

6. Whoa--that does make you think

doesn't it?

[hfojvt]

19. the new one was deliberately made scary

the people who watched it as a kid seemed to think it was a horror show rather than a sci-fi one, and they made the new one a horror show, but they did do "The Last Defender of Camelot" too.

In the episode you mention, the husband did not want to press the button. He took the box apart and there was nothing in it. He threw it away, but his wife fished it out of the dumpster. I think he presses the button after staring at the box all night.

[enigmatic]

3. scared? no..

creep me out? Oh yeah.

"Shadow Play", the one w/ Dennis Weaver as a guy living a nightmare over and over about being sentenced to the electric chair, and who tries w/o success to convince everyone that it's all just a dream.

I saw that one as a rerun when I was 19 or so and it's haunted me ever since..

[MrScorpio]

4. Nothing scares me

I am impervious from television induced fear


Great entertainment, though

[RevCheesehead]

5. One comes to mind...

where a guy finds a watch that gives him the ability to freeze time. He loves it, since he can go shopping, and get all his work done while the rest of the world stands still. But at the end, the air-raid sirens go off, and a nuclear missile is seen descending from the sky. It ends with the question "would you unfreeze time? or live the rest of your life in the Twilight Zone?"

:scared:

[bliss_eternal]

7. That's a chilling

example, isn't it?

That's the thing with the Twilight Zone, to me at least they either make you think or scare you somewhat.

[Callalily]

8. Oh gawd yeah!

And it still would scare me if I'd see it now. The one called "It's Still A Good Life" starring Bill Mumy (the old black and white one - you know reruns). The one where the kid has amazing powers and his family is super scared of him. Something about being in the TV!:scared:

[bliss_eternal]

11. Yes--that one is creepy!

I recall when the boy wishes the one man to become a jack in the box--something about the way that was filmed, and shown in a brief glimpse. Scared me when I saw it, too.

[Jamastiene]

9. None scare me, but one has always stood out in my mind.

The one where the guy find out he finally has all the time in the world to read, but then he breaks his glasses. That'd be my luck. I believe I would raid a store for some new ones in that case though. I doubt they had tons of eyeglass stores back then, though.

[QuettaKid]

10. 2 stand out in my mind....

the one with the little girl getting lost in the 4th dimension which was through a hole in the wall in her room, and the one with the hoodlum who thought he had died and gone to heaven, everything was going his way and was so easy....but he get's bored and asks to go to the "other place" and a demon/angel appears and tells him "This IS the other place...." *chills*

[bliss_eternal]

14. QuettaKid--OMG, yes!

"This IS the other place..." I LOVE that one! It's chilling, and the irony is amazing!

The 4th dimension one probably scared me more, as you are wondering if the little girl is going to get stuck there.

[MaggieSwanson]

30. The one with the hole in the wall...

*shivers*

I was really small when I saw that episode. I need to see it again, I think, to make the scary go away.

[bliss_eternal]

12. Jamastiene--

I've always thought that was the cruelest Twilight Zone ever. LOL! That poor bastard, finally gets 'time enough at last' and his damn glasses break. That's just so mean, to me. LOL!

Good episode though. :hi:

[Jamastiene]

21. Yes it was.

I can totally identify with wanting time to just read and be taken away by good stories and learning a lot of valuable information. I felt so sorry for the guy.

[xmas74]

67. Burgess Meredith.

He was one of my favorite actors in a number of things that he did.

[djeseru]

13. The one with Peter Falk...

...when he played a Fidel Castro type character sent me on a bad acid trip once in college. Does that count?

[Broken_Hero]

15. The shatner one...

"theres, some...thing, on the wing!"...I hate flying anyways, and the remake with Lithgow was good.

[bliss_eternal]

33. I agree that the Lithgow

remake was very well done! After seeing the one with Lithgow, to go back and see the Shatner one, I kind of laugh when they show the 'thing' out on that wing. It's all fuzzy like a stuffed animal or a muppet. LOL!

[Broken_Hero]

49. Yeah, true....

I saw the shatner one first, when i was about hmm, 8 or 9...(rerun of course i'm not that "old") and then i saw the lithgow one on vhs, the Twilight Zone the Movie...Lithgows was a lot more scarier, once you go back and compare both episodes. I was like that with the Dark Crystal and ET...both movies, when i was a kid i scared me, but now as an adult, they are laughable...

[Orsino]

53. The *other* Shatner one is pretty scary.

"Nick Of Time": a man obsessed with a fortune-telling machine that produces ominous warnings. Very well done, and a nice, un-Zoney ending.

[bliss_eternal]

64. Oh yeah--

I LIKE that one, too! Especially when they show another couple that feels 'stuck' there because of the 'fortunes' of the machine.

:hi:

[robbedvoter]

84. tricky ending - for a moment you think the other couple them, older

That IS the scary moment - until the happier resolution.

[charlie and algernon]

16. the one with the creature on the airplane wing!

:scared: :scared: :scared:

that one seriously freaked me out

[bliss_eternal]

31. That was such a freaky episode!

I never got how no one saw that big, fuzzy thing except for him!

Really scary...

[Parche]

17. No

But the OUTER LIMITS 1963 did.............all of them
they were the best!!

[GalleryGod]

18. The Monsters Are Coming to Maple Street

:scared: :scared: :scared:

[bliss_eternal]

29. Watching a neighborhood come unglued ,...

...turn on one another then proceed to destroy each other based on unfounded, paranoid suspicions...very scary indeed.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

20. The one with the haunted slot machine.

This couple goes to Las Vegas and the husband can't stop feeding the slots, and at night the slot machine hunts him down, calling his name in this weird rattly voice. Hard to explain, but it really creeped me out at the time.

[bliss_eternal]

27. Really?!

That sounds really eerie! :scared: I wish I had seen that episode--I'll look for it the next time there's a Twilight Zone marathon.

[SPQR]

40. Fraaanklin!! Fraaanklin!!!!

That one freaked out my little brother. We got yelled at by Mom for chanting "Fraaaaankliiiinnnnn" at him.

Good times....

[bliss_eternal]

43. LOL! You guys were bad--

:rofl:

I can't believe I've never seen that one... so weird.

[proud2BlibKansan]

22. I don't remember if it was Twilight Zone or Outer Limits

It was about a graveyard for a prison. One of the inmates talked the caretaker into letting him get into a coffin and then after it was buried, the caretaker was going to come dig him up. Then he would be out of the prison and free.

So the guy gets in the coffin and it is buried and he is laying there waiting to get dug up. And he lights a match. Then he sees the body in the coffin.

Guess who it was?

Scared the shit out of me when I was about 8.

[bliss_eternal]

26. Wow!

I don't recall that one, so I'm guessing it may have been Outer Limits. I only say this because I didn't watch Outer Limits and don't know those by description as I do so much of Twilight Zone.

That sounds SO creepy! Definitely would have scared me, too!

[zanne]

50. The one about the "earworm"....

One of the old black-and-white episodes. Some guy living in a tropical place falls asleep and a bug crawls into his ear, eats through his brain and comes out the other ear after days of incredible, screaming pain. Then, he hears the bad news; "It was a female"! AUGH!

[Lydia Leftcoast]

55. That's Outer Limits

I remember that one!

[zanne]

59. I stand corrected.

Whatever it was, I didn't sleep that night!

[peekaloo]

61. I thought that was an Alfred Hitchcock presents.

I could be wrong but the Hitch series always had those wry little twists at the end.

[proud2BlibKansan]

62. It could have been

All I remember is that it was creepy and gave me nightmares for years.

[bliss_eternal]

72. I can certainly see how it would!

That episode sounds ghastly, absolutely terrifying! :scared:

[philosophie_en_rose]

73. I'm pretty sure that it was Alfred Hitchcock presents.

My mom watched reruns, when I was a kid. To this day, Alfred Hitchcock frightens me a little. :scared:

[Lefty48197]

23. Yeah. The one where the electric razor unplugged itself and started

coming after the guy. To this day, I use a non-electric razor.

[bliss_eternal]

24. Oh--I think I recall that one--

do you mean the one where the guy hated all modern conveniences? He hated his electric typewriter, the electric razor, the television, radio, etc., etc. He had such contempt for all of it and one day the appliances turn against him.

If that's the one you mean--that one cracks me up! But I can see why, as a guy that may use an electric razor, it would be a scary thing. :scared:

[MissB]

25. There was one about a killer doll.

I can't recall all of it. Or I don't want to.

[bliss_eternal]

35. Do you mean, Talking Tina

with a young Telly Savalas?

;)

"Hi, my name is Talking Tina and I'm going to kill you..."

:scared:

Something about homicidal statements coming from inanimate objects with innocent, angelic faces is VERY creepy.

[MissB]

38. I don't recall all of it.

And I never want to see it again. Did Tina wield a knife?

[bliss_eternal]

41. No--

she just said awful things to the guy that was trying to destroy her.

Are you by any chance thinking of a made for tv movie called Trilogy of Terror? Where a knife wielding tiki doll tries to kill a woman in her apartment?

If so, I've heard that ws one of the most terrifying things to ever air on television in the 70's. I saw it many years later on a weekend horror movie marathon, one Halloween. I'm not kidding when I say it scared the absolute crap out of me. I vowed to NEVER, EVER watch that thing again. Terrifying!

[MissB]

42. I don't think it was Trilogy of Terror

It was an old black and white episode. I was pretty sure it was a Twilight Zone episode.

I remember a family- like an old woman and a man and a small child. They were in some sort of wooden-walled shack and some doll-like thing was coming after them with a serrated knife.

I'm going to have nightmares tonight, you know. :D

[bliss_eternal]

44. I'm sorry

:hug:

Can you sleep with the lights on? ;)

Well, there's another one I've never seen before. I guarantee if I ever do, it will scare the crap out of me! That sounds chilling. I hate little, weird things wielding knives. Not cool!

[gardenista]

28. Is that the one where she is given special surgery to look like everyone

else? It fails, and the horror is that she, in her freakish state, looks like an average human, and the nurses and doctors have piggish faces?

[bliss_eternal]

36. No, but the one you mention is creepy, too!

Mirror Image with Vera Miles is the one where the woman is at a bus station. She is seen interacting with people at the bus station, but they seem annoyed with her or confused. When she inquires why, they inform her it is because they don't understand why she is asking the same questions AGAIN.

The woman asks what they are talking about, given that this is the first time she is talking to them. They look more confused.

Later in the episode, the woman is in the woman's bathroom. When she looks out into the bus station lobby, she sees herself sitting on the bench next to her suitcase. The other 'her' looks back at her with an odd little, smirking smile on her face. That look of acknowledgement really creeps me out.

Anyway, the rest of the episode this woman is treated like she must be insane, because she is telling everyone she has seen herself. She even admits to hearing once of the existence of another dimension where your identical twin exists.

Very creepy episode.

:scared: :scared: :scared:

[gardenista]

45. yeeks.

I never saw that one.

Sounds even creepier than the one with the pigface people.

[bliss_eternal]

46. I think it is.

The idea of seeing yourself looking right back at you, mocking you in a way. So eerie!

*shudder*

[gardenista]

48. Well, I'm a Gemini, so it's par for the course at my house! nt

[xmas74]

69. That's the one w/ Donna Douglas

(played Ellie May later on). Fantastic episode!

[SharonRB]

85. That's always been the one I remember the most

Those pig faces really creeped me out.

[mitchum]

32. Only the introduction (honest)

I first started watching when I was 4 or 5, but had to stay out of the room until the introduction was over. The theme music and opening graphics used to scare the hell out of me.

[bliss_eternal]

37. I believe you--

I think the opening was deemed terrifying by many kids--I was one of them! :hi:

[Canadian Socialist]

34. The one where the guy only wants to be left alone to read

and then there is an atomic war. He is left alive, and in a library; unfortunately, he needs glasses and they break. He can't read the books. That one (for very personal reasons) freaks me out.

[bliss_eternal]

39. I think that one is so mean--

his fondest wish, destroyed just as he finally realizes it. Just a cruel irony of life in the Twilight zone. Kind of pisses me off when I think about it. LOL!

[Orsino]

54. It's a second twist ending.

Burgess Meredith plays a guy never given enough time to read. You think the episode's over when the man finds himself alone in the rubble with all the books he could ever read. The broken glasses after that point is a cruel twist of the knife.

[bliss_eternal]

Yes

I got that. I've seen the entire episode, see my post #12.

[bliss_eternal]

65. Yes

I got that. I've seen the entire episode, see my post #12.

[nytemare]

47. I love the Twilight Zone!

Morality plays in the guise of sci-fi weirdness.

I don't know that I have been scared by any, but many times I viewed them as being very profound.

[bliss_eternal]

66. Absolutely--

many are quite profound. He was a brilliant writer, ahead of his time.

Broke my heart to find out that Serling sold away the rights for next to nothing...

[Orsino]

51. "A Stop at Willoughby"

It's not exactly a frightening episode, but the punchline at the end gives me a chill.

[Arkana]

52. No, but does anyone remember the show "Beyond Belief: Fact or Fiction"?

There was one episode where they did a story about a family that was seeing visions of a red-eyed ghost in their house. They talk it over, decide it's probably just them seeing things, and their child's nanny agrees with them.

Later that night, when the nanny is putting the kid to bed, he asks her if the ghost will get him, and she tells him not to worry, because she will protect him. She kisses him on the forehead and gets up to leave the room.

As she goes through the door, she turns, closes it, and then turns around to face the camera...and we can see that her eyes are glowing bright red.

I couldn't sleep after that. :scared:

[El Fuego]

56. The kid who wished things away into the corn field.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

57. An Alfred Hitchcock episode in which

two nurses are on duty taking care of an elderly man at an isolated mansion. There's a terrible storm raging, with lines of communication down. For the past few days, there have been news stories of an escaped serial killer who specializes in strangling women. The nurses hear what sounds like someone trying to break into the house...

If you ever saw that episode, you'll never forget it, and if you haven't seen it, I will not spoil it for you.

"You're such a pretty nurse..."

[bliss_eternal]

68. I'll look for that one, Lydia--

I've been toying with the idea of buying the Alfred Hitchcock Presents on DVD. Hopefully that one is included in the set--I'm intrigued by your description.

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

77. I remember that one - very scary

[ghostsofgiants]

58. I've only ever seen one episode...

"An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge"

It actually won an Oscar for Best Short Subject. (It was made as a French short film, and shown on The Twilight Zone.)

It also inspired Carnival of Souls and Jacob's Ladder, two films that I absolutely love.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

60. And based on a story by American author Ambrose Bierce

As I recall, it had no dialogue.

I saw it on the Twilight Zone, and several years later, I saw it again in a college film class. Of course, we discussed it afterwards, and we found a few things that hint at the ending.

[stanwyck]

63. Yes. When the little girl falls

into another dimension and her parents can hear her but can't find her. I was convinced that could happen to me.
And maybe it has. I'm now the lone liberal in my once progressive family. They've abandoned their liberal values. Not sure they can hear me anymore.

[bliss_eternal]

70. It does sometimes feel this insanity

has to be occuring in an alternative universe, doesn't it.

Sorry about your family, stanwyck--that sucks.

Growing up my father was a republican--totally voted against his own interests. Really dumb.

[xmas74]

71. My all-time favorite TZ episode used to scare the crap

out of me as a child.
"To Serve Man"

"It's a cookbook!"

[bliss_eternal]

74. Wasn't that the creepiest ending EVER?

Still gives me chills thinking about it.

:scared:

[xmas74]

78. And he still has to get on the ship.

They try to feed him and it's obvious they are fattening him up.

[newyawker99]

75. Yikes! That was creepy.

:scared:

[xmas74]

79. They used to have a list when they ran the

marathon on Sci-Fi channel. To Serve Man is the number one viewer requested episode.

[bliss_eternal]

81. I really miss those lists!

I didn't know that To Serve Man was the number one requested.

Television sucks so much--they never show those lists anymore. The thing I REALLY miss is where episodes were preceeded with information about the episode--episode number, date, name of the episode and interesting trivia about it. I miss that alot. Kind of made you feel like you weren't just watching tv, but learning about the series, the culture of classic tv, etc.

[xmas74]

82. I'm a TZ junkie.

I wrote a 50 question quiz (some of it hard) a few years back. I'll see if I can still find it or if it's been erased. Lots of trivia and facts on it.

[bliss_eternal]

83. It's a healthy addiction, imo!

LOL! Considering the other things you could be addicted to.

I've always loved the Twilight Zone, too.

Oooh, I just thought of an episode that really scared me, and sadly it doesn't get a lot of airplay. What was the one where the woman starts to see a little girl sitting on the steps outside of her apt. The little girl hums a familiar tune and seems wise beyond her years. The little girl tells her that her name is Markie.

I don't want to say more than that so if anyone is reading this that hasn't seen it. Don't want to ruin it for a future viewer. But let me know if you need more info on it, I'll describe more.

This episode really scared me!

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

76. The After Hours kind of creeped me out

That starred Anne Francis and was about a woman who goes to a department store to return an item and finds out that the floor on which she bought it, the 9th floor, doesn't exist. She gets trapped in the store after it closes and, in the dark, she eventually finds her way to the 9th floor but then discovers that she's really a department store mannequin who returned and it had been her turn to go out into the real world for a month.

The Hitchhiker with Inger Stevens was also kind of creepy, about a young woman who drives at night and always sees the same hitchhiker on the side of the road. As I remember, she discovers in the end that she's actually dead and that the hitchhiker is death.

[bliss_eternal]

80. The Hitchhiker episode REALLY scared me!

:scared: The way that one was filmed, the way the guy stands on the side of the road looking kind of seedy---:scared: