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The Simpsons’ “Treehouse of Horror” episodes may not seem so scary today compared to *gestures to literally everything going in the world*. But for those of us who grew up with the show, the horror-themed programming often exposed our impressionable minds to macabre themes that were wholly new to us. For example, there are a whole lot of people who saw “The Shinning” as kids long before they ever saw The Shining.

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Recently, a Simpsons fan on social media asked their followers: “Is there a Treehouse of Horror moment that genuinely scared you?” The answer was a resounding “yes.”

One person shared that they were frightened when “Devil Flanders gets pissed” in the “Devil and Homer Simpson” segment of “Treehouse of Horror IV.” After Homer taunts Lucifer/Flanders, he turns into a giant Fantasia-esque demon. The suddenness of the transformation, and the revelation that Flanders’ devilish alter-ego is genuinely threatening,...

The Twilight Zone Helicopter Crash is one of the most infamous accidents in Hollywood history. It claimed the lives of three people – veteran actor Vic Morrow and two child actors – Myca Dinh Le (age 7) and Renee Shin-Yi Chen (age 6). It led to a nine-month involuntary manslaughter trial, and numerous lawsuits and was considered the moment Hollywood finally started to take child labour laws seriously. It’s become a permanent stain on the legacy of director John Landis, and ghoulish footage of the incident is on permanent record, proving how complicated sequences can have deadly outcomes in only a split second. Indeed, in this episode of JoBlo Scandals, we’re digging into the Twilight Zone accident and the man at its heart, director John Landis.

Before the accident, Landis was one of the top directors in Hollywood. Two movements were going on in seventies films that forever changed the medium. One was the “New Hollywood” movement,...

Before USA Network became series-focused, the cable channel delivered a steady stream of weekly original movies. Many of which were produced by McA (now NBCUniversal). And during this era — between the late 1980s and early 2000s — USA offered a variety of genres; action and suspense were the most common, but horror also came up from time to time.

Especially around Halloween.

USA Network is no longer in the business of airing these “World Premiere Movies,” horror or otherwise, and there haven’t been great strides to bring all of them to streaming or modern home video. However, the horror entries certainly have their merits as well as fans.

See if you can remember these original movies from USA Network’s horror history.

Trapped (1989)

Image: Kathleen Quinlan in Trapped (1989).

Directed by Fred Walton, Trapped was one of USA’s first World Premiere Movies. Here Kathleen Quinlan starred in what feels like a blueprint for P2.

Barry Sonnenfeld's adaptation of "The Addams Family" was a massive hit when it was released in November 1991, making $191 million worldwide over a $30 million budget and reintroducing the Addams characters to the pop culture mainstream. The film also kicked off a trend of high-profile cinematic adaptations of classic TV shows; all due respect to 1983's "Twilight Zone: The Movie" and 1987's "Dragnet," but neither of those films exactly lit up the box office. Thus, it was almost a given that an "Addams" sequel be put into production, with "Addams Family Values," hitting screens just two years after its predecessor, in November of 1993.

The first "Addams Family" made the choice to tap into the pop culture zeitgeist in a big way, partially for satiric reasons (one of the delights of the first movie sees Raul Julia's Gomez become addicted to then-current television) and partially for marketing reasons. For the latter,...

Two of the most-loved sci-fi franchises of all time have a lot more crossover than you might think. Before starring on "Star Trek: The Original Series," several key members of the enterprise popped up in Rod Serling's seminal series "The Twilight Zone." A few decades later, the same pattern would repeat, only it would be future "Star Trek: The Next Generation" stars cutting their teeth on episodes of the '80s "Twilight Zone" reboot. Even the most recent iteration of the show, Jordan Peele's short-lived but ambitious effort that stalled out after just two seasons, has hosted some great past and future "Trek" actors.

It's worth noting that this list concerns the best "Star Trek" actors, and as such, there are no guarantees that these talented folks are actually great or even memorable in their "Twilight Zone" appearances. Some certainly are, while others have only the briefest of guest spots in mostly-forgotten episodes.

Canadian actor William Shatner began his professional career in the early 1950s, appearing in an obscure film called "The Butler's Night Off." He worked in theaters, both as a manager and as an actor, in Montreal and Ottawa, and acted in the Stratford Shakespeare Festival in the mid-1950s. He moved to the United States shortly thereafter to pursue a Broadway career, and made ends meet by appearing on an episode of the Canadian version of "The Howdy Doody Show." Shatner racked up dozens of credits in film and on TV throughout the '50s and '60s, appearing in adaptations of "The Brother Karamazov" and "Judgment at Nuremberg" and on notable programs like "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" and "The Twilight Zone." In 1965, Shatner starred in "Incubus," the only feature film ever made in Esperanto. 

Then, in 1966, Shatner landed the lead role in a new science fiction series called "Star Trek.

2024 is, technically, a fallow year for Marvel. Aside from this summer’s (admittedly gigantic) Deadpool & Wolverine, the comic book behemoth that is Marvel Studios has taken a backseat, cinematically-speaking. But the same can’t be said for Sony’s Spider-Man universe. The year began with Madame Web connecting them all, and will end with Kraven The Hunter dishing out serious ultra-violence – and sandwiched between them will be Tom Hardy’s final outing as Eddie Brock. Yes, the Venom saga comes to an end with Venom: The Last Dance – looking to provide some kind of closure on the non-Spidey-featuring and yet somehow Spidey-adjacent trilogy, with a climactic chapter heralding something of a symbiote apocalypse. Check out the full trailer here:

There’s plenty to take in here – not just another look at the Venom-horse (we’re voting ‘neigh’), but a ‘Nightmare At 20,000 Feet’ plane-monster gag, and a better sense of the big picture.

"The Exorcist," "Poltergeist," and... "The Deliverance"? With its wild writing choices, a wig-wearing Glenn Close, and a mounting pile of mostly negative reviews, the new Netflix horror film from Lee Daniels doesn't exactly seem like it's ready to stand among the genre greats. Yet according to Daniels himself, the three movies have something in common: their sets were all supposedly cursed.

"Listen, I read those books about the making of 'Poltergeist' and the making of 'The Exorcist,'" Daniels told Variety in a new interview. "And I'm like, 'Nope, not today, Satan. Ain't happening today up in this motherf***er.'" 

The filmmaker behind "The Butler" and "The Paperboy" may have had some reason to be concerned. Although both of the other movie "curses" mentioned above were likely a combination of coincidence and unsafe working conditions (more on that later), the allegedly true story "The Deliverance" is based on is pretty spooky.

George Miller gets biblical in the opening of Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, the fifth installment in his postapocalyptic action franchise. The young Furiosa (Alyla Browne) picks a ripe piece of fruit from a tree growing at the edge of a verdant forest. “We’ve come too far,” says her companion, emphasizing the forbidden nature of the act with the perfect amount of allegorical on-the-noseness. What happens next certainly has the aura of divine punishment, as Furiosa is whisked away from her home (“the Green Place” first mentioned in Mad Max: Fury Road) by a masked group of motor bikers.

She’s no helpless waif, mind you, and with her steadfast mother, Mary Jo Bassa (Charlee Fraser), in hot pursuit, Furiosa gives as good as any of the lecherous brutes tormenting her. But the fates, not to mention the narrative dictates of an origin story with an already fixed outcome,...

William Shatner found fame with his portrayal of Captain James T. Kirk in the Star Trek franchise. He played thr role for decades in both television and movies, and became synonymous with the character of the captain of the starship Enterprise. At 93 years of age, Shatner is just as spritely as he was before, and keeps popping up in projects every now and then, while continuously interacting with fans during fan-conventions or through social media.

William Shatner in Star Trek: The Original series | NBC

From 1966 to 1994, Shatner repeatedly reprised the role of Captain Kirk for multiple projects. But since then, it’s been a while since he has been back at the Enterprise. In a recent interview, Shatner spoke of his most iconic moments from the franchise, as well as some other equally important roles in his career. He also divulged if there would ever be a chance for him...

When the big-budget sci-fi/boxing flick hybrid "Real Steel" brawled its way into theaters on October 7, 2011, it was ridiculed by some as "Rock'em Sock'em Robots: The Motion Picture." On one hand, the $110 million-budgeted film's blockbuster pedigree of star Hugh Jackman and director Shawn Levy did little to suggest the film was anything more than this. But anyone who grew up gorging on Rod Serling's original run of "The Twilight Zone" in syndication or reading the novels and short stories of Richard Matheson knew there was more to "Real Steel," at least in theory, than family friendly mechanical mayhem.

Obviously, with that budget, Disney (which distributed the DreamWorks production) wasn't going to sell the film primarily on its connection to a nearly 50-year-old black-and-white television show. As for Matheson, while he's considered a god of 20th century sci-fi/fantasy/horror literature by publishing heavyweights like Stephen King and Neil Gaiman,...

In genre television series fandom, there isn't a more reliable argument starter than "What is the best episode of X show?" Devotees of "Star Trek" The Original Series will fight to their dying breath defending the likes of "The City on the Edge of Forever," "The Enemy Within," and "Amok Time". As for the original "The Twilight Zone," it could be "The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street," "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet," "To Serve Man," or just about any other episode because the series had very few duds. And then, of course, there's "Airwolf." Where to start with "Airwolf?" The winning move is not to start, because we'll never stop!

This topic becomes especially fraught when you're dealing with a long-running show like "Bones." Hart Hanson's amiable forensics procedural driven by the romantic chemistry between Emily Deschanel's brainy Temperance "Bones" Brennan and David Boreanaz's impulsive FBI Agent...

Every anthology TV show has high points and low points, and that includes the best one ever made. Rod Serling's seminal 1959 series "The Twilight Zone" broke new ground in small screen storytelling week after week, delivering sci-fi tinged homilies about the human condition. The show looked to the future frequently and to the past more often than you might remember, but its best stories still feel timeless in their acute understanding of fear, loneliness, love, hatred, and mortality. While most shows have a small handful of standout episodes, "The Twilight Zone" has dozens.

And yet, it's not perfect. Any total watchthrough of the series reveals a few distinct flaws, including repetitive plot points and the show's profound inability to pull off more humorous outings. "The Twilight Zone" is a monument in television history, one that's as daring and imaginative as the medium has ever been, but some seasons of...

George Miller gets biblical in the opening moments of Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, the fifth installment in his postapocalyptic action franchise. The young Furiosa, played by Alyla Browne, picks a ripe piece of fruit from a tree growing at the edge of a verdant forest. “We’ve come too far,” says her companion, emphasizing the forbidden nature of the act with the perfect amount of allegorical on-the-noseness. What happens next certainly has the aura of divine punishment, as Furiosa is whisked away from her home (“the Green Place” first mentioned in Miller’s Mad Max: Fury Road) by a masked group of motor bikers.

She’s no helpless waif, mind you, and with her steadfast mother, Mary Jo Bassa (Charlee Fraser), in hot pursuit, Furiosa gives as good as any of the lecherous brutes tormenting her. But the fates, not to mention the narrative dictates of an origin story with an already fixed outcome,...

In a career that has spanned seven decades, Roger Corman is nothing short of a legend. His influence and impact are almost immeasurable, having mentored or introduced so many prominent filmmakers working today. That doesn’t even touch on how he changed independent cinema or wore multiple hats doing so: director, producer, writer, and actor, to name a few.

With the legend’s passing this weekend, it feels only appropriate to highlight just a handful of the essential Roger Corman horror movies on streaming. This week’s streaming picks celebrate some of the essential works of Roger Corman horror movies, whether he produced, directed, or appeared on screen.

Here’s where you can stream them this week.

For more Stay Home, Watch Horror picks, click here.

A Bucket of Blood – AMC+, Crackle, Fandor, Kanopy, MGM+, Midnight Pulp, Pluto TV, Prime Video, Screambox, Shudder, Tubi, Vudu

Roger Corman had a recurring interest in counterculture,...

True lightning-in-a-bottle phenomena are immensely difficult to recapture. 60 years after "The Twilight Zone" completed its initial run in 1964, subsequent attempts to resuscitate the property -- either with an anthology film or reboot series -- have failed to match its cultural impact, even with vaunted directors Steven Spielberg, George Miller, Wes Craven, William Friedkin, Jonathan Frakes, Ana Lily Amirpour, Justin Benson & Aaron Moorhead, and Osgood Perkins lending their talents behind the camera. It's a testament to everything the late Rod Serling accomplished with his surreal amalgamation of genre storytelling and social commentary that we tend to overlook his many other significant contributions as an artist (which include co-penning the 1968 "Planet of the Apes" movie).

When the original "Twilight Zone" ended, however, its legacy seemed far from assured. Serling had burnt himself out after writing so many episodes for the series, with the consensus being that the show's final two seasons were...

Say what you will of the Netflix era of "Black Mirror," but there's at least one episode everyone agrees is pretty great. "USS Callister," the season 4 premiere centered around a guy who reveals his ugly side in his own personal VR video game, is a clear fan favorite. What made it so good? Well, there's the way it gives us the usual final act twist surprisingly early on, revealing that it's Nanette (Cristin Milioti) who's our actual, far-more-likeable protagonist. Then there's the way the episode's main setting, a "Star Trek"-inspired virtual reality world that the characters are left to explore, leads to so many more storytelling opportunities ahead of them. (That's why the news that the episode's getting a sequel shouldn't be too surprising.)

But the main appeal of "USS Callister" is just how emotionally resonant its main plot point is. Seemingly nice guy Robert Daly is gradually revealed...

The "Twilight Zone" episode "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet", directed by Richard Donner, remains to this day one of the show's most popular. Scripted by Richard Matheson and starring a pre-"Star Trek" William Shatner, "Nightmare" follows a man, Robert Wilson, recently released from a sanitarium due to a mental breakdown. On a flight back home, Robert peers out the plane window into the rainy night and sees a massive, furry gremlin standing on the wing of the plane. The gremlin, in true gremlin spirit, pries up a metal panel on the wing and begins futzing with the machinery inside. The gremlin might very well cause the plane to crash. When Robert tries to alert anyone about the gremlin, they all assume he's imagining it, once again succumbing to his nerves.

Matheson first conceived of "Nightmare" in a 1961 short story, published in his anthology "Alone By Night." The story has become...

When I first saw the title of this, I naturally thought of the song by the same name that became a huge if not ‘Monster Hit’ for Bobby “Boris” Pickett at the height of the fifties and sixties monster craze. The picture takes the theme of sixties creature features and creates a bloody at times gore-filled Anthology of stories to shock, offend and make you go ‘ok’.

The Monster Mash (2022) directed by Kevin Losani and Richard Terrasi succeeds admirably with engaging pulp-like stories whose endings you can see a mile or kilometre off depending on your country. The difference is the work is so lovingly done, with fun, practical effects, at times over-the-top acting that fits and just a little tinge of naughty offence.

The film opens with outstanding titles harkening back to Saturday morning horror cartoons that were never quite frightening. An on-camera host Dr Freudstein (Michael Gentile) and his not-so-able hunchbacked,...

In the "Star Trek" episode "The Enemy Within", Captain Kirk (William Shatner) beams up from the planet Alpha 177 covered in a mysterious magnetic dust. Unbeknownst to any of the Enterprise crew, the dust has fouled up the transporter and created a second Kirk inside its memory buffer. After Kirk leaves the room, the second Kirk materializes ... but displays an altered personality. It seems that Kirk has been bifurcated into a gentle version of himself and a cruel, aggressive version of himself. For much of "The Enemy Within," the Evil Kirk stalks around the halls of the U.S.S. Enterprise, startling the crew and accosting Yeoman Rand (Grace Lee Whitney). Gentle Kirk soon realizes that he needs his aggression back in order to be whole. Eventually, the two Kirks confront one another. 

"Star Trek" had a modest budget back in the day, and it certainly didn't have the resources to...

For a show as ambitious as "The Twilight Zone," with seemingly so many storytelling opportunities to choose from, it's vital to maintain a bit of structure. Not only did the first three seasons stick to a clear 22-minute format with narration and act breaks happening right on cue, but there were clear guidelines on how speculative they should get and how much they should always be asking of their audience. According to the producer Buck Houghton in his 1991 book "What a Producer Does," he and creator Rod Serling established a list of rules that every episode needed to follow. An episode could be about nearly any speculative premise, they decided early on, as long as it remembered to do a few things:

"Find an interesting character, or a group, at a moment in crisis in life, and get there quickly; then lay on some magic. That magic must be devilishly...

Well, this is a semi-dangerous decision. Yes, I’m starting with The Twilight Zone 80s. Niki, haven’t we been telling you to do Og Twilight Zone… why are you doing this? A couple of reasons, the first being that this has been on repeat for me the past 6 months or longer, with Tales from the Crypt never being too far behind it. The other being that I felt like it. You’re lucky I didn’t start with Night Gallery, or maybe that’s what you wanted. So let’s talk 80s Twilight Zone, or New Twilight Zone, or Twilight Zone reboot/revival, whatever you choose to call it.

The reason to give it another go was simple. Rod Serling, my personal hero, sold the rights to Twilight Zone after the show ended its run in 1964. The studio bought the rights even though they weren’t exactly ready to start it up again.

Tubi, Fox’s free streaming service, has announced its list of April titles. The April 2024 slate features new Tubi Originals as well as numerous action, Black cinema, comedy, documentary, drama, horror, kids and family, romance, sci-fi and fantasy, thriller, and Western titles.

As a leading ad-supported video-on-demand service, Tubi engages diverse audiences through a personalized experience and the world’s largest content library, which includes over 200,000 movies and TV episodes, a growing collection of Tubi Originals, and nearly 250 Fast channels.

You can watch the Tubi April 2024 lineup for free on Android and iOS mobile devices, Amazon Echo Show, Google Nest Hub Max, Comcast Xfinity X1, and Cox Contour.

You can also watch the service on connected television devices such as Amazon Fire TV, Vizio TVs, Sony TVs, Samsung TVs, Roku, Apple TV, Chromecast, Android TV, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and on the web at Tubi.tv.

Tubi Originals

Documentary

Behind...

When writing about a legend who’s still working as a nonagenarian, it’s almost obligatory to include a line about how they are seemingly busier than ever. William Shatner, 92, may no longer be on set 12 hours a day for the roles that made him the first Comic-Con celebrity (Star Trek), or that transformed him into a late-career regular at the Emmys podium (The Practice, Boston Legal), but it’s difficult not to marvel at the pace at which he lives his life.

The actor, who looks and speaks much like he did 20 years ago, maintains a healthy travel schedule that includes appearances at a dozen or so fan conventions every year. Always popping up in new projects (he hosted the extraterrestrial base camp-simulating reality contest Stars on Mars that aired on Fox over the summer), in 2021, he became the oldest person to travel to space, pouring that experience into...

Vintage hour-long shows from the pre-peak television era get an bad rap for being rigorously formulaic and self-contained borefests, primarily because they tended to run 20+ episodes a season and thus aren't terribly bingeable in an era when too many people believe bingeability is a vital virtue. For example, "The A-Team" lasted five seasons, but each individual season lacked an arc that progressed from episode to episode. It was just five fugitive Vietnam vets evading law enforcement and, once a week, helping poor, victimized people fight back against gangsters, corrupt local government, and other small-time forces of evil.

On one hand, I agree that shows like "The A-Team," "Riptide," and "Hunter" are nowadays nostalgia pieces that don't have a lot to offer narratively or thematically. They were designed to be easily digestible for hard working folks craving an escape from their nine-to-five drudgery. They did the trick, and, outside of reboots or film adaptations,...

Periodically throughout the animated sci-fi sitcom "Futurama," the couch potato characters will sit in front of their 31st-century TV and take in an episode of "The Scary Door." "The Scary Door" is the future's take on "The Twilight Zone," complete with a Rod Serling-like announcer (played by Maurice Lamarche) explaining the weird ironies about to be witnessed. Naturally, the twist endings in "The Scary Door" go beyond irony and dive headfirst into absurdity. 

In one episode, a gambler dies and awakens in an afterlife casino. He wins once and figures it must be Heaven. He wins twice and figures that it must be Hell; what gambler wants to win every time? But then he realizes that his afterlife casino is actually on a plane ... and there's a monster on the wing of the plane. When he calls someone for help, he realizes that he is also Adolf Hitler. He...

Hannah Gutierrez Reed is scheduled to face a manslaughter trial in two weeks, becoming one of only a handful of people ever tried for an accident on a film set.

The case against her is relatively straightforward. She was responsible for safe handling of guns on “Rust,” the Western starring Alec Baldwin. She loaded a live bullet into Baldwin’s gun. As a result, Halyna Hutchins, the cinematographer, was killed.

“The primary goal of an armorer is to ensure that no one is injured by a prop gun,” wrote the prosecutor, Kari Morrissey, in a recent court filing. “Obviously, Ms. Gutierrez failed to ensure that the gun handed to Alec Baldwin was loaded solely with dummy rounds.”

The defense will have to persuade the jury that it’s more complicated than that. Her team is expected to argue that she has been made into a scapegoat for the mistakes of others — including the production team,...

Look close enough at "The Twilight Zone" and it's clear that events surrounding the making of the show were often as unusual as its otherworldly subject matter. It's not that Rod Serling's science fiction classic was cursed: rather, production of the deeply humane series was often interrupted by deeply human moments. There was that time an episode was improved upon by an actor's injury that forced him to speak out of one side of his mouth, and the fact that veteran Serling named the series without realizing that its title was already an air force term used to describe an especially disorienting moment before landing.

Not every coincidence and unusual set story was serendipitous. In season 1, an actor passed away mid-shoot, and Serling paid out of pocket to reshoot his scenes so he wouldn't appear ill in his final performance. A horrific, preventable accident on the set of "Twilight Zone: The Movie...

For us 90s kids, Dick Tracy was an interesting monster of a movie. It seemed to take a lot of cues from Tim Burton’s Batman, which was released the previous summer, but it definitely had a distinct voice of its own. Dick Tracy was another classic pulp adaptation of an urban enforcer that had very dynamic visuals and an over-the-top rogues gallery. It even sported a score by Danny Elfman, which would have his signature atmospheric sound. The movie would introduce a generation of young audiences to the 1930’s film noir/ detective movie genre. Additionally, the movie brought back Warren Beatty after a three-year absence when his last film, 1987’s Ishtar, was a big flop. Having a star like Beatty in a big-budget franchise like this was an enormous asset for the re-budding intellectual property. And the star power wouldn’t even stop there.

Grab your Tommy guns. It...

Few films have arrived in theaters saddled with more baggage than "Twilight Zone: The Movie." That the anthology film featuring segments from John Landis, Steven Spielberg, Joe Dante, and George Miller actually arrived in the first place was something of a surprise -- and for many in the entertainment industry, it wasn't a welcome one.

The production became a wholly avoidable tragedy on June 23, 1982, when a helicopter crashed on the set of Landis' segment, "Time Out," killing Vic Morrow and child actors Myca Dinh Le and Renee Shin-Yi Chen. The show does not always have to go on, but the movie was nevertheless completed and released (rather insensitively) on June 24, 1983, leading off with "Time Out". For some, it was like watching a snuff film.

How do you not let the realization that you're watching what might be a criminal production -- the National Transportation Safety Board had yet to finish their investigation,...

When "Cheers" returned to NBC's airwaves for its third season, viewers were desperate to see how bartender Sam Malone (Ted Danson) and Diane Chambers (Shelley Long) had handled their breakup at the conclusion of the previous season's finale. Had they moved on or possibly reconciled?

The answer was a little more complicated than perhaps many fans expected.

Recovering alcoholic Sam was back on the sauce and carousing with self-destructive abandon. Diane was, as ever, Diane, but she couldn't bear to see Sam in such a rough way. She didn't want to get back together with him, certainly not while he was scraping rock bottom, but she still cared about her ex. She needed to see him in at least a semi-functional state. She needed to get him help. And she believed she knew just the man who could throw him a lifeline.

That man, of course, was psychiatrist Frasier Crane.

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Quick Answer: Watch every episode of the Syfy channel’s New Year’s The Twilight Zone marathon with a live streaming service like DirecTV Stream or fuboTV, which come with free trials.

Get DirecTV Stream Free Trial

You’re traveling through another dimension — a dimension not only of sight and sound but of mind. That’s a signpost up ahead: Your next stop, streaming Syfy’s super-sized Twilight Zone marathon!

Most episodes of Rod Serling's "The Twilight Zone" are of the tense, mysterious variety. Entries such as "Nightmare At 20,000 Feet" zoom in on the intrinsically human fear of flying, while stories such as "The Masks" linger on the psychological complexities of human nature. To take a break from the overarchingly grim nature of the episodes, Serling occasionally injected moments of levity here and there, including the comedic twist at the end of "Will The Real Martian Please Stand Up?" In 1961, the season 2 episode "Mr. Dingle, the Strong" delighted audiences with its playful, tongue-in-cheek tone, where it embraced comedic moments with sincerity while telling an unusual story about a man who is gifted with superhuman strength by a group of visiting aliens.

How, exactly, did the foundational idea for "Mr. Dingle, the Strong" come about? According to Marc Scott Zicree's "The Twilight Zone Companion," a newspaper reporter who...

When Rod Serling won an Emmy for "Outstanding Achievement in Drama" for "The Twilight Zone" in 1960, he was completely taken aback by this well-deserved win. Serling had previously earned several Emmy nominations for the show, having also won two Emmys for "Patterns" and "The Comedian" under the "Best Teleplay Writing" category. However, the writer-producer had good reason to believe that he would not be winning this particular award — he was up against the likes of James Costigan, and his adaptation of "The Turn of the Screw," alongside Loring Mandel, whose "Project Immortality" also emerged as a worthy contender. Costigan's adaptation was especially deemed deserving, as its screenplay was entirely built on visceral suspense, with a brilliant Ingrid Bergman belting out a chilling, memorable performance.

Per Marc Scott Zicree's "The Twilight Zone Companion," Serling was completely unprepared for the win, to the point that he didn't even bother shaving before the broadcast.

The episode of Revisited covering V/H/S was Written and Edited by Ric Solomon, Narrated by Kier Gomes, Produced by Tyler Nichols and John Fallon, and Executive Produced by Berge Garabedian.

Ever find yourself breaking into someone’s house with the intention of not taking anything of value… just VHS tapes? While I don’t think, or want to believe anyone watching this video has ever thought of doing something that juvenile, it is the central story arc of 2012’s V/H/S (watch it Here). I’m sure you’re thinking “Oh great, another found footage film. What can this one do for me that I haven’t already seen?” Well for one, it was a huge cult classic and so successful that it has spawned multiple sequels and spinoffs! So, on this episode of Horror Revisited, we ask that you not sit too close to the tv,...

Remember "Gilligan's Island?" Yes, the widely-loved American sitcom that earned massive popularity throughout its 98-episode run from 1978 to 1982, and featured an ensemble cast including Bob Denver, Natalie Schafer, Alan Hale Jr., and Russell Johnson. The show took the castaway trope and remolded it as a comedy in which seven castaways attempt to survive on an island after they're shipwrecked, which is further complicated by the shenanigans of the ship's first mate, Gilligan (Denver).

Among this cast of colorful characters is the Professor (Johnson) — the only level-headed person among the castaways, who uses his scientific background to create little devices to make their stay on the island more hospitable. While Johnson perfectly conveyed the subtle comedy inherent in his role (a running gag being his ability to create almost anything using bamboo and coconuts), the actor also embodied serious, dramatic roles in "The Twilight Zone," where he appeared in two separate...

Science fiction is a fascinating film genre. It inspires dreams of extraterrestrial life, futuristic gadgets, and space travel. Today, this all seems more plausible than ever. Yet, besides reflecting society, sci-fi helps us evaluate our actions -- and their consequences.

Creating scenes with nail-biting stunts requires a collaborative effort between actors and directors. Replacing stars with stunt performers due to their physical capabilities usually works but mishaps can still happen --- both on and off camera. The film industry has seen an increase in accidents over the last decade despite the advancement of technology. According to the Los Angeles Times, from 2010 to 2019, 19 fatal injuries occurred on American film sets. As attorney Chris Deacon told the outlet, "If those engaged to work on set in whatever capacity are dying at the hands of the creative process, then something is fundamentally wrong in the production processes."

Sure, authenticity makes for a thrilling watch.

You never knew exactly what you would get when "The Twilight Zone" began. The series — produced and largely written by celebrated Emmy-winning writer Rod Serling — was a loose collection of fantastical tales. Some were supernatural, some were science fiction. Some were comedies, and some were scary as hell.

It should come as little surprise that the "scary as hell" episodes are among the most memorable installments of the series. William Shatner's desperate screaming that there's a man on the wing of the plane in "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet" was instantly iconic, and repeatedly remade. Agnes Moorehead silently fighting off an invading force of tiny homicidal aliens in "The Invaders" was strange and shocking, and seemingly set the stage for future "tiny monster" horror movies like "Don't Be Afraid of the Dark" and "Gremlins."

But perhaps no "Twilight Zone" episode is more overwhelmingly terrifying than the one about a little kid with godlike powers.

You're about to enter another dimension. It is a dimension as vast as space and as timeless as infinity. I'm talking, of course, about the world of streaming. We've all found ourselves wandering its endless terrain, confused, slightly panicked, ultimately grabbing on to something vaguely familiar just to gain a sense of stability. Alas, we appear doomed to remain stranded in the streaming sphere as long as the idea that being able to access every piece of media ever produced at any time is viewed as a positive thing.

So, what happens when you want to go a level deeper? Perhaps you're not perturbed enough by our contemporary situation as it is, and feel like further spooking yourself with a visit to the Twilight Zone itself? Well, I might suggest Rod Serling's original series, which ran from 1959 to 1964 and in large part remains as relevant today as it was back then.

There is a lot to unpack when it comes to "Twilight Zone: The Movie," a really good movie that comes with a lot of baggage. I'm sure you know some of the movie's reputation, but if you don't then I'd recommend checking out the "Cursed Films" series on Shudder. They did an in-depth episode on the turbulent and tragic production that "Twilight Zone: The Movie" went through. It's a fascinating watch, but trigger warning: they do show the raw footage of the helicopter accident that took the lives of Vic Morrow, Myca Dinh Le, and Renee Shin-Huei Chen during the filming of the movie in full. 

That wholly preventable accident overshadowed the whole movie and tarnished its legacy, but it's important to remember that the whole thing started out with giant filmmakers of the day wanting to pay respect to the sci-fi/horror anthology show that they grew up with.

Whether you know him as Captain James T. Kirk, Sgt. T.J. Hooker, Denny Crane, or General Mortars from National Lampoon’s Loaded Weapon 1, William Shatner is one of entertainment history’s most iconic figures. The Canadian actor is seven decades into his career as a celebrated actor, science-fiction legend, author, musician, and more. His career began in 1951 when he landed a small role in the Canadian comedic drama The Butler’s Night Off. Compared to actors like Steve McQueen, Paul Newman, and Robert Redford, Shatner continued building his credits on the Broadway stage and performing minor roles in television and film.

Shatner eventually entered the world of science-fiction with a part in two episodes of The Twilight Zone: “Nick of Time,” and “Nightmare at 20,000 Feet.” In 1966, Shatner beamed up as the captain of the USS Enterprise, James T. Kirk. When his history-making role ended after three seasons and seventy-nine episodes,...

"The Simpsons" is a pop cultural institution. The yellow-skinned family was introduced to television viewers via a series of animated shorts on "The Tracey Ullman Show," and scored a ratings success with their debut episode "Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire" on December 17, 1989. Before long, Bart Simpson became a troublemaking icon, burning up the Billboard Hot 100 with the novelty rap song "Do the Bartman", and appearing on knock-off t-shirts as everything from a U.S. Army soldier to a spliff-toting Rastafarian.

When the initial sensation faded, and the series' ratings came down to earth (after Fox stupidly moved it to Thursdays at 8 p.m. to challenge "The Cosby Show"), there was a sense that "The Simpsons" was not long for this world. But the show's viewership stabilized, and, most importantly, the writing got sharper. A massively talented group of scribes turned the series into a must-watch satire loaded with if-you-know-you-know references to films,...

If you were to make any list of the best episodes of Rod Serling's seminal sci-fi horror series "The Twilight Zone," it would most assuredly include the season 5 episode "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet," and if you went out and took a poll, this would probably be the episode most would call their favorite. If it isn't their favorite, it's certainly the one most people point to when they think about the show. I would have to agree with that, even if it's not my personal favorite (that would be "The Eye of the Beholder").

Its recognizability is for several reasons. For one, the episode stars a pre-"Star Trek" William Shatner, and genre fans will always gravitate towards the stars they recognize and love when looking back at older media. The episode also received a terrific reinterpretation from director George Miller in "Twilight Zone: The Movie," in which the...

It's always struck me as something of a marvel that "The Twilight Zone" has managed to avoid feeling dated, despite the final episode being broadcast more than 60 years ago. Spanning five seasons between 1959 and 1965, at its best, the show depicts facets of the human condition that are universal, with many plot points, themes, and warnings that remain relevant today.

Rod Serling, the show's creator (and writer of 92 out of 156 episodes) always had an eye for themes that transcended the various settings. The presence of Serling himself in a business suit, offering wry commentary on the episodes, means that however futuristic the environment, they have an almost timeless quality that helps make the series endure. Almost counter-intuitively, this also serves to add to the series' eerie aesthetic.

Some episodes were incredible for their time and still hold up but watching today, the plot mechanics feel a little more predictable; due in...

One might see Rod Serling's 1959 sci-fi anthology series "The Twilight Zone" as an ambitious amalgam of all modern genre writers. Prior to production, Serling famously solicited scripts from some of the best-known sci-fi writers of his time, including the likes of Ray Bradbury, Richard Matheson, George Clayton Johnson, Malcolm Jameson, and several others. Serling typically wrote the scripts for "The Twilight Zone" himself ... which led to some occasional accidental plagiarism. "The Twilight Zone," then, was somewhat of a culmination of an entire generation's sci-fi literature.

Now handily condensed, many of the more striking speculative tales of the day could be easily consumed by a mass public. Serling's show was a huge hit and lasted five seasons before going off the air in 1964. Sering later wrote "Planet of the Apes" in 1968.

Thanks to syndication deals and Thanksgiving marathons, "The Twilight Zone" lingered in the pop consciousness for decades, eventually spawning...

64 years after its debut on CBS, no series has been able to match the consistency of quality or the rigorousness of thought that Rod Serling's "The Twilight Zone" demonstrated over its five stellar seasons. For many, the series' most memorable episodes set us on edge via science fiction or straight-up horror elements, but Serling and his roster of first-rate writers could be just as brilliant when using nothing but plain old reality to freak us out.

The Red Scare metaphor "The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street" is probably the finest example of this (especially in an era where a massive blackout could easily plunge millions of technology reliant humans into utter chaos), but it's closely followed by the pilot episode that established the series as a one-of-a-kind mindf***. Written by Serling himself, "Where Is Everybody?" sets up as a post-apocalyptic nightmare. Earl Holliman plays an amnesiac who finds...

The sci-fi/horror anthology series "The Twilight Zone" has always had the power to completely blow our minds, with classic episodes that taught fraught moral lessons, and featured twist endings that would eventually become so iconic that modern audiences are likely to watch episodes for the first time around pre-spoiled, whether they realize it or not, just due to cultural osmosis.

But there is perhaps no episode of "The Twilight Zone" quite like "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet." The episode is a claustrophobic thriller about a man on an airplane suffering from intense anxiety, who looks out and sees a man on the wing of the plane. Naturally, no one believes him because when anybody else looks, the man mysteriously vanishes. Only our hapless hero, sanity fraying, knows that the plane is in danger from the mysterious entity. With nobody else willing to believe him, he has to make a terrible,...

The opening narration to "The Twilight Zone" episode "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet" states that Bob Wilson (William Shatner) has just been discharged from a sanitarium, finally having (mostly) recuperated from a nervous breakdown experienced on an airplane six months earlier. He is about to get on a plane again for the first since his breakdown, and his wife Julia (Christine White) is wary that flying may trigger another severe panic attack. Bob assures her that he may be nervous, but that he should be able to survive.

Of course, nothing natural or easy happens in the Twilight Zone. Bob peers out the window and sees, on the wing of the plane, a large furry gremlin (Nick Cravat). It sees Bob as well. When he calls a stewardess for help, the gremlin vanishes, able to lift off into the rainy night sky. When Bob is looking, however, it reappears and begins...

The new horror film “The Last Voyage of the Demeter” was dubbed “Dracula on a Boat” by social media users, and the twist on the chapter from Bram Stoker’s iconic horror novel definitely did deliver on the premise of the age-old vampire feasting on the crew of an unlucky ship.

Introducing a monster of any kind — alien, werewolf, zombies — to a vehicle that can’t stop and can’t let anyone off is a tried-and-true horror formula. Here are some of the movies where the combo of “creature” + “claustrophobic form of transportation” worked and some where it ran aground.

New Line Cinema

13. Snakes on a Plane

The ultimate in high-concept movies had a mad-as-hell Samuel L. Jackson battling, that’s right, snakes on a plane. The venomous reptiles are unleashed on a Hawaiian flight to keep a witness from testifying at a murder trial. And to have Jackson deliver...

William Shatner wasn't always Captain James T. Kirk. Before his breakout part, he starred in two episodes of "The Twilight Zone." The first, and more famous, was "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet." Shatner plays Bob Wilson, an airplane passenger with a fear of flying. Wilson has recently recovered from a mental breakdown and his sanity is seemingly in doubt again when he sees a gremlin messing with the plane's engines. Is the Gremlin just his illness and fear acting up? After failing to convince everyone else aboard of the monster's existence, he takes matters into his own hands.

Shatner wasn't the only future star on board this flight. The episode was directed by the late Richard Donner, future director of "The Omen," "Lethal Weapon," and "Superman." The irony is twofold. In a few short years, Shatner would star as the captain of a ship that flies a lot higher than 20,000 feet.