The Twilight Zone (TV Series) The Masks (1964) User Reviews

One of the very, very best of the series

[planktonrules · 10/10 · 29 January 2008]

I can't believe I never got around to reviewing this episode of The Twilight Zone until now, as it's probably in the top five of the best episodes for the show--proving that even the show was on its last gasps (this is one of the last episodes), it still could show signs of great genius.

A very old and sickly rich man is waiting to die. Instead of enjoying his final days in the bosom of a loving family, he is beset by greedy and selfish relatives waiting for him to die like a pack of vultures. Make no mistake about it, the old guy knows exactly what they are like and has no illusions about their intentions. So, in a final gesture of contempt, he makes them spend an entire evening at his home "celebrating" while wearing grotesque Mardi Gras masks--resulting in a wonderful and satisfying twist.

The acting is excellent but what really makes this stand out are the wonderful writing and direction (by Ida Lupino). With such a simple story, they truly make the most of it and the pacing and execution are perfect.

A Great Performance By Robert Keith!

[marlene_rantz · 10/10 · 1 October 2012]

I am so glad I have the opportunity to say something good about Robert Keith! His performance in this episode of The Twilight Zone was absolutely great! He portrayed a dying bitter, sarcastic old man in such a way that we can not hate him-quite the opposite, we feel sorry for him, and we admire his honesty in telling his family exactly what he thought of them! He could have portrayed this man in such a way that we hate him, but because of his skill as an actor, he did not portray him that way! The supporting cast was very good, but it was Robert Keith's performance that stood out! I have seen this episode more than once, and I never fail to be in awe of Robert Keith's performance!

Poetic Justice

[Hitchcoc · 9/10 · 18 December 2008]

I've always loved the plots where a group of venomous relatives hang out a dying man who is to be a source of income when he dies. These relatives are about as bad as they can get. Their disingenuous nature makes them prime objects of revenge. It is the end of Mardi Gras and they are forced to wear masks or lose their inheritances. Of course, since it's only two hours, they put up with the old man's warped fancies. In the process we get to see them reveal each of their own worst traits. The conclusion of this episode is one of the most memorable of the series. The back biting and hatred that seeps out of the mouths of these people lets us enjoy this conclusion even more.

The Game

[AaronCapenBanner · 10/10 · 8 November 2014]

Robert Keith stars as Jason Foster, a wealthy but dying man who has gathered his four detested relatives to his New Orleans mansion on Mardis Gras so that a most sinister game can be played out. The four(his daughter Emily, her husband Wilfred, and children Paula & Wilfred Jr.) must each wear specially made masks for the evening until midnight if they are to inherit his wealth, or else they will be cut off. Under protest, they comply, but by the unmasking at the final stroke of midnight may well wish they hadn't... Superbly realized episode has masterful direction by Ida Lupino, incisive script, and a most chilling end, punctuated by a sinister score and excellent makeup.

Wickedly Clever Morality Play

[chrstphrtully · 9/10 · 1 January 2010]

Straightforward morality plays were nothing unusual on "The Twilight Zone", but (especially during the last season of the series) most of those tended to be pedantic and unconvincing. Nothing could be further from the truth here.

Dying millionaire Jason Foster (Robert Keith) brings his venal family together on what will likely be the last night of his life, during Mardi Gras. However, rather than allowing them to make their perfunctory goodbyes, the patriarch forces them them to wear masks -- reflecting their true natures (his daughter's self-pity, his son-in-law's avarice, and his grandchildren's vanity and cruelty) -- as a condition of receiving their inheritance.

While this episode could have been unbearably preachy, what prevents this is Serling's well-written script, and the magnificent lead performance by Keith, who plays the role with such sarcasm and Mephistophelean charm that the payoff is richly anticipated, rather than dreaded. Moreover, the payoff itself is worth the price of admission.

No social life for these heirs

[bkoganbing · 8/10 · 28 November 2012]

Robert Keith gives his farewell performance in this wicked episode of The Twilight Zone where he proceeds to mete out some just rewards to his inpatient heirs.

It's Mardi Gras in New Orleans and the genteel living Keith is awaiting the arrival of his daughter Virginia Gregg, her husband Milton Selzer and their kids Brooke Heyward and Alan Sues. He's got a strange request of them in order to collect on their inheritance. They have to wear Mardi Gras masks until midnight.

Marlon Brando and Charlton Heston in their respective versions of playing Mark Antony in Julius Caesar never loaded as much irony in their eulogy of Caesar than Keith does in describing how these ugly masks are so unalike the fine and noble characters of his relations. In the end the four get the money, but I have a funny feeling they will not be having much of a social life after this evening.

Keith dominates the show and in the end when his mask is ripped off, he's got a look of peace and contentment. A really nice performance to cap his career.

The Masks

[Scarecrow-88 · 10/10 · 4 July 2012]

One of those episodes of Twilight Zone I cherish because of how loathsome people get their comeuppance as only this classic show could do. "The Masks" indicts those despicable relatives who only come to visit when wanting something, in this episode's case to see their wealthy patriarch die so they can be rewarded as heirs to his fortune. Jason Foster's (Robert Keith, exceptional) ticker is about to go and he continues to live, stubborn will and a definite desire to size up his miserable wretch of a family one last time before croaking. His daughter, Emily (Virginia Gregg, of Dragnet fame, perfectly pathetic), is a whining, always-on-death's-door (always hurting somewhere, an ailment of some sort as a means to get attention) complainer, son-in-law, Wilfred (Milton Selzer, subtle as a snake ready for a venomous bite) a cruel businessman wholly concerned with the almighty dollar and what it brings, grandson Wilfred Jr. (Alan Sues) disinterested and lost in his own little world, called out by granddaddy for his sickening abuse of animals for which only brings him pleasure, and granddaughter Paula (Brooke Hayward, not unlike many reality show celebs that exist in our culture today) who spends all of her time touching up her face, concerned with the party lifestyle and picking up a boy, bored with having to spend time in the New Orleans mansion as Mardi Gras happens outside. Foster will require the family to wear specially grotesque masks designed with "special properties" by a Cajun with certain abilities (Voodoo maybe?) until Midnight if they want to receive his fortune, doing so with plenty of bitching, moaning, and groaning. Awaiting his death, these four monsters get one more round of properly fired insults stripping them down to exactly who they are before Foster bites the big one, dying from a coronary, not too harshly, a long gasp and silent peace. The four, however, have quite a surprise in store for them…they may spend his hard-earned fortune, but must wear the faces of their inner ugliness. The masks and make-up effects are as superb as Foster's evaluation of each repulsive character, calling them caricatures before meeting his maker, accurately detailing how vile they really are. The ending is quite satisfying. Expert directorial work by cinema legend Ida Lupino who acted in her own Twilight Zone episode, The Six-Millimeter Shrine, properly building to that masterful conclusion. It is hard to believe such a marvelous episode was one of the last in the entire series.

Based on Edgar Allen Poe's original story

[hfonthebeach · 9/10 · 3 July 2011]

"The Masks" by Rod Serling has enough inferences and similarities to Edgar Allan Poe's 1842 short story, "The Masque of Red Death" that one can conclude Serling was making a kind of 'homage' to Poe with this episode. As with Serling's teleplay, Poe's story concerns a group of people all gathered together in a remote house with a sinister host who forces them to put on masks and participate in a "game" which turns out to be a morality lesson tailored to each guest's particular sin/flaw. Poe ends his story with everyone dying of the plague while simultaneously horrified how wretched a human being they had become. Bummer huh? Not to spoil it for everyone, but this episode of Twilight Zone pretty much goes there too. It is no wonder that Serling, (clearly not an optimist about humanity!) would be attracted to such a cynical tale. The remarkable part is that this episode ever got on TV at all! Today, this type of moral fable would never make it to production: not sexy enough-too depressing-zero physical action, etc. But that is why this series was SO GREAT! Serling operated outside all accepted conventions of television drama, and somehow did not let network hacks ruin his vision. And that is a rare thing in television, my friends. To get a sense of the genius of Serling as a writer, read Poe's "The Masque of Red Death" first, then see the show.

"The Masks" reveal the truth about their wearers

[chuck-reilly · 9/10 · 27 June 2008]

Old-time character actor Robert Keith (Brian Keith's father) plays Jason Foster, a very rich man who is on his death bed in "The Masks." Like vultures, his immediate family members (who haven't visited him in years) arrive like clockwork to see him off to the next world and find out how much money he's going to leave them. Foster has no use for any of them and decides to put them through a little test before he departs from the living. Once they've all gathered at his mansion in New Orleans, he informs them that they'll receive an equal share of his inheritance but only if they perform one simple and very demeaning task. They must each put on a strange and utterly grotesque Mardi Gras mask for the duration of Foster's last hours or else NO MONEY. Reluctantly, the greedy relatives comply with his wishes. They're convinced that Foster only has a short time to live anyway, and what's a little inconvenience? What they don't know is that the masks are cursed with a strange power and all the money in the world will be of little satisfaction to them after Foster's imminent death.

"The Masks" is aided by director Ida Lupino's deft handling of the cast, including Milton Selzer as Foster's despicable nephew Wilfred and Alan Sues (of "Laugh-In" fame) as Selzer's degenerate son Junior. Willis Bouchey has a nice turn as Foster's long-time physician who tries to keep his patient alive as long as possible. The "Masks" themselves are the real stars of this episode. They have a way of revealing the inner beings of all who wear them and the end results are frighteningly permanent. For Foster's relatives, it's not a pretty sight.

The Zone Of The Masks

[telegonus · 7/10 · 14 September 2017]

If Rod Serling had a major flaw as a writer for television it was that he seemed, much of the time, incapable of telling a story without at the same time delivering a sermon of some kind. The TV series he's best remembered for, The Twilight Zone, is full of them; and the good news is that some of them are very good. His fifth season entry, The Masks, I rate as good but not outstanding.

It has, however, many outstanding things in it: the magnificent central set of the New Orleans mansion dying millionaire Jason Foster lives in is one of them. A standing set on a studio back lot it may be, it's evocative all the same. Also first rate is the work of director Ida Lupino, who had her time in the sun as a movie star back in the Forties, never made it to the level of the next Bette Davis many predicted for her, she was a very good actress and an even better director.

Miss Lupino elicits fine performances from her gifted cast. Robert Keith is credible as both a dying man and a sadistic human being who sees his worst traits in his various adult children and grandchildren, criticizes them brutally on the eve of his death, as if they were malevolent people who just happened to fall from the sky, not his own flesh and blood, which they are, and true if split off embodiments of his mean-spirited self. Many viewers may view this episode otherwise, with old Jason the One Good Man in a family of nasty pieces of work who gave his offspring the comeuppances they richly deserved.

This seems to be the moral, if it can be called that, of The Masks. As I see it, old Foster had a diabolical streak himself, as we learn early in the episode when he speaks of the masks "an old Cajun" fashioned for him; hideous masks which he makes his offspring wear, till midnight, which, while they are supposed to represent the opposite of the true selves of the people they were intended for, were clearly commissioned as punishment. There's a stark, primitive quality in the story, and I can easily imagine that it would have played better as a silent movie forty years earlier!

Although Twilight Zones were set in many different places, from the exotic to the prosaic, when it ventured, as it sometimes did, into the American South, it was usually the mountain or upland South of the Appalachian region; or else the border or fringe South of western states. The Masks is set in New Orleans, at Mardi Gras time no less, and this makes it feel uncanny, especially as its characters are all locked indoors. One can hear and occasionally see the revelers outside; and yet one never senses that there was ever much to celebrate in this house, and by the episode's end there is much more to mourn than the death of an ancient patriarch.

Mardi Gras will never be the same.

[PaulywoodAZ · 10/10 · 14 May 2016]

Ever had a rich relative you were excited to have die so you could get your inheritance? Me either. I actually love my loved ones and, well, none of them are rich. The same can't be said though for the Harper family that has reluctantly visited their dying Father/Grandfather, Jason Foster. Jason appears to have a closer relationship with his personal doctor compared to that of his own daughter that puts the focus of her own minor ailments above his critical status. A very self absorbed family is inconvenienced one final time in the heart of New Orleans on Marti Gras as Jason requests they all wear masks throughout the evening. This is wonderfully written and never slow or dull. An episode that keeps you wondering until the end and shows that sometimes, your inner ugliness can't always be disguised no matter attractive or successful you are.

Mixed feelings

[emguy · 6/10 · 29 April 2016]

I have mixed feelings about this episode. On the one hand, it's well acted, and it has a memorable, classic Twilight Zone twist.

On the other hand, the story loses something for me by being about a last cruel act by a lifelong crabby, difficult person. His relatives were unlikable people, sure, but so was he. It didn't seem that they had done anything especially bad to him. He was no more kind and loving toward them than they were toward him, yet he took it on himself to mete out a punishment that far exceeded the crime, while letting himself off the hook. If this had been a "cosmic justice" episode instead of a tale of personal spite, he would have gotten some sort of comeuppance too. The household staff and his personal physician had apparently been loyal and reliable over the years, so cosmic justice would have seen them rewarded, but they got nothing. He went out on a mean-spirited note.

In addition, we're supposed to believe that Wilfred and Wilfred Jr. are a generation apart, when the two actors were only 8 years apart, and looked it.

It's party time! P-A-R-T-WhY? Because I gotta!

[BA_Harrison · 5/10 · 18 April 2022]

While Mardi Gras revellers dance in the streets, the greedy relatives of elderly millionaire Jason Foster (Robert Keith) gather at his New Orleans home for a very special party: with only hours left to live, Jason tells his heirs that they must don special masks - each purportedly the antithesis of the wearer's personality - and keep them on until the stroke of midnight or else be cut out of the will.

The final twist of The Masks has been described by others as poetic justice and karma, but while it is true that Jason's family aren't particularly nice people, I don't believe that they are deserving of the hideous facial disfigurement caused by the masks. Jason must shoulder some of the blame for how his family have turned out, and surely he is far from perfect, guilty of arrogance, having appointed himself as judge and jury. And yet he gets to die peacefully after having meted out his twisted form of justice on his own flesh and blood.

As someone wise once said, 'Let him who is without sin cast the first stone'. Or something like that.

Internal Uglyness

[hellraiser7 · 9/10 · 17 November 2017]

Warning do not read unless you seen episode.

This episode is another honorable mention. It's a Gothic tale as there is just this sense of constant darkness and discomfort from beginning to end.

I really liked the character Jason whom despite his bitterness and sarcasm that he holds, he's really a character of sympathy. He's this way for good reason when you see the rest of his family whom are just awful people; some of that bitterness I also feel might be toward himself as he feels he might have failed them in some way to wind up the way they are; though personally I don't feel it really is his fault, they've all made their choices and they were bad ones. The only person Jason really is good to is his doctor, you actually get a good feel of their re pore that both are friends; it shows that Jason is capable of kindness and there are people that care about him.

The family members are just scum, even I couldn't stand to be in the same room with them for one minute; in fact they remind me too much of the scum we have in my high school and society today which just makes them even worse. Each are a living embodiment of sins, like Paula she is obviously a Narsist with a capital N as she is just constantly looking in the mirror, not even bothering to look at anyone else or where she's at for 30 seconds. And the dad Wilfred whom is just a brown noser, his only love and passion in life is money. But one thing this family has in common is they have no love or are incapable of it; not just for Jason but possibly even each other.

I like the masks their well designed and made, each of the faces are ugly as hell and that's the point as each represent the ugliness of their own souls, the more they lived off sin the uglier they got. I really like the final speech Jason gives to the family which in a way reflect how we all feel about them but also shows how Jason despite at the end of his life, he chooses to go out with dignity and honor, which is why he leaves our world with his soul intact and one's soul is more valuable than gold.

As for the family their about to learn the hard way the price of Greed is your own soul.

Rating: 3 and a half stars

One of the Series' Standout Episodes

[nycritic · 10/10 · 8 June 2007]

High concept never looked better than it does in this taut episode from the groundbreaking television series "The Twilight Zone" which has consistently placed within the Top Ten favorites of the entire show's roster of the weird, the macabre, and the implausible. In the episode titled "The Masks", usually seen on heavy rotation on the Sci-Fi network, a dying magnate invites his family for a Mardi Gras party, of which the results they cannot fathom (other than the fact that due to their father's impending death is nigh, they will stand to inherit his fortune). The one slight, even eccentric request is that they should all wear specially chosen masks for the entire duration of the party. This of course, spawns an evening that only gets more and more unbearable until the old man dies and their true natures are revealed in more ways than one.

This is one of the most incisive of them all, I believe. It's a rather known axiom that people in a social gathering tend to reveal quite a lot about themselves, and for Ida Lupino (and story writer Rod Serling) to create an atmosphere that becomes only more claustrophobic without allowing us to see the inside of anyone's perspectives, just their body language, in such a deadline of a time-frame, is storytelling at its best and sharpest. I always thought that what you couldn't see frightened me more than the silly freak-outs that the show's later incarnations would bring (then again, this was less a horror series than a series of the absurd, and that in itself brought on a whole set of rules, all drenched in the essence of the surreal), and this one milks the suspense for all its worth. We're never informed as to why the old man would want such a request, and the postulate that they all had free will -- indeed, no one puts a gun to their head -- weighs heavily. However, because "The Twilight Zone" always had that coda at its conclusion, where a character's bad move would cause a chain reaction that would ultimately lead to a surprising denouement filled with irony, greed here is the prime motivation. That, and what appears to be unexplained family secrets that due to the show's short run are left untouched (which makes the final revelation so shocking even today). "The Masks" is horror at its most visceral, because it's so much a part of who we can be at our base nature if we let them run riot.

What Do You See When You Look At Me?

[abyoussef · 9/10 · 2 January 2010]

by Dane Youssef

"The Twilight Zone" was a turning point in television because of its entirely human characters, its situations, its usage of the supernatural and the astronomical and it's perplexing surprise endings which were a study in divine poetic karma.

But what's really made so much of this series stand the test of time and the measuring stick for what the quality of "quality programming" is measured is the fact that the show was a lot like a fairy tale. Or the Bible, or any religious tome.

This time, the "Zone" shines it's twilight on an elderly wealthy man on his last gasp. His doctor tells him how critical his situation at this point. He may not have years or even months... he may not even have more than days or minutes.

This particular rich elder still has a few more tasks and loose ends to tie up before he shuffles off this mortal coil. one final task His family is downstairs. But Mr. Foster is not fortunate enough to be embraced by the bosom of a warm embrace full clan when he makes his way down the stairs. His kin is not there to spend the holiday of Mardi Gras with someone they care for deeply in his last few moments.

They are only there to assure they will inherit everything of value once Jason passes. He is not entirely pleased to see them. He knows why they are all there.

The family are the type who have not only character faults, they wear them quite prominently. The family almost seem to be living embodiments of the seven deadly sins. But they all withhold two precise to heart--greed and absolute evil.

After a magnificent meal, he tells everyone he has a surprise for the whole family. He presents a collection of masks hand-made by an old Cajun.

He informs the family that a custom of Mardi Gras is to wear masks that are the exact opposite of a one's true self. Thereupon, he says sarcastically that these masks are just that. The family refuses. He threatens to disinherit them. They agree.

The masks almost seem inspired by the seven deadly sins. When the masquerade ball itself ends and the masks themselves are to be removed...

This is one of Serling's most famous episodes. And with good reason. There isn't a lot of action and topical subjects such as the Cold War and conformity to be had here. It deals with a timeless subjects such as family and love.

Actors are all fine here, they all seems as big as life--flesh-and-blood. But the show of course belongs to one Robert Keith who plays the terminal Jason Foster.

But of course, the real star of this one is as always the teleplay of one Rodman Edward Serling. The man not only penned the bulk of what was seen on "The Twilight Zone," he raised the bar for what was seen on the tube and what "well written" really meant. He took home six Emmys, more than anyone had in history back then. After him, scripture for television became a respectable pursuit.

NOTE: This review is dedicated to Rodman Edward Serling, a man who not only fought to protect our country and our way of life in WWII and took a fair amount of injury for it. But also fought the censors on TV twice as hard to make sure his vision was seen and heard. When TV was about shows like "Leave it to Beaver" and "Donna Reed," here was a man who wanted to use the box to illuminate serious problems like the cold war, racism, anti-society, paranoia and other destructive elements that come from within us. He was buried with military honors. I hope television honors as well. All he wanted was to remembered as a writer.

Well.... I remember....

--Accepting The Devil's Rejects, Dane Youssef

A true visage

[Foreverisacastironmess123 · 9/10 · 9 March 2019]

So this was really the only ever Twilight Zone episode to be directed by a woman huh.. Well that was a surprise, but I really think that Ida Lupino did a truly excellent job with this one, as I find it to be one of the grimmest, most sharply realised tales of inner ugliness that's ever been done. It's about a dying old man who's visited by his family, who all eagerly await his death and want nothing more than to inherit his fortune, to which he actually agrees - he hasn't written his conniving relatives out of his will, but his one stipulation is that they all have to wear grotesque eerie masks until midnight, masks that were especially crafted just for them, and are designed so as to bring out their worst, most ugly inner qualities of what kind of people they actually are to the surface... They prepare to celebrate when the appointed hour arrives and he has passed, but he has left them all an unexpected parting gift to remember him by, one that they truly deserve, and it's a cruel fate for some horrible, ruthless and greedy people who now have to wear the terrible price for their folly for all the world to see - forever! I really love the special effects, the masks have a really weird look and I don't think I could stand to have one of them being on my wall, and I love the flesh-masks even more, the effect is very well done, the warped and twisted faces fit the actors features in a good way, they're also a bit reminiscent of an earlier great episode where the lady pulls off her bandages and all the doctors are pigs! For me the real pleasure of this episode comes from the onslaught of harsh wordplay that the Robert Keith character delivers to the family of nasty scheming human beings that he has come to despise, and it made for a gripping scene and monologue as he breaks them all down and exposes them for the kind of people they really are and it's bloody well beautiful to see! It was a fitting last role for the actor, his character's death at the end added a more gentle, poignant note to the horror of it. This is a great slow-burning, dialogue driven episode that has a highly satisfying spooky ending that gets under your skin and I love it, I think it's one of the best of the later episodes and one of the best ones period, it's a terrific classic of ghastly poetic justice! "What you are you do not see, what you see is your shadow."

My Two Cents

[ileas · 10/10 · 19 February 2019]

So most people here like this episode. I do too. A couple don't, which is fine, nothing wrong with a difference of opinion, but one complained about the character Jason cruelly playing God, judging his family worthy of this particular punishment...and then proceeds to judge the ones that like this episode. Pot. Kettle. Black. Jason is a crabby, but loveable type. He's friends with his doctor, and polite to his servants. There's a sense of foreboding with regards to his family. Even the servants don't like them. The daughter is a hypochondriac, which isn't evil, it's a mental condition, and she should seek psychiatric help. But when the doctor comes down, she shows perfunctory concern for her father, then says they've been expecting his death for some time (wishing for it, actually), and then tries to get the doctor to diagnos one of her made up ills right then and there. The look on the doctor's face says it all; when your father is dying, expected or not, now is not the time to be focusing on your own problems, unless, of course, you happen to be having a heart attack or stroke at the time, which she wasn't. When Wilfred sr introduces his daughter to the doctor, she doesn't even look up from her compact. She greets her grandfather in the same way. Now, granted, this alone isn't enough to warrant the mask becoming her perminant face. But this is. After dinner, while waiting for her grandfather to come down, she is very bitter about being bored, and having to stay inside with a dying, crazy old man while there's a celebration going on. Isn't that lovely? How dare her elderly grandfather be at death's door when there's a party to go to, (eye roll). Now even though we don't see an example of this, I believe Jason's assessment of his son-in-law as a man who only cares about money, so much so, that there probably is a cash register inside him. Then we come to Wilfred jr. To the person who doesn't think he deserves what's coming to him, this is a guy who takes pleasure in hurting small animals. Hello, that is now known as a major character trait of serial killers! He got off easy. Now as far as them living in a hell thanks to a vindictive old man, couldn't they just wear attractive masks when they go out in public? Look into plastic surgery? Or, heaven forbid, change their ways? Maybe then their faces would return to normal. If not, so they have to live with a permanent reminder of what they are on the inside. Worse things could have happened to them.

TRIBUTE TO ROBERT KEITH, SPOT ON.

[tcchelsey · 10/10 · 1 July 2023]

Robert Keith, the father of actor Brian Keith, played some outstanding roles in his lengthy career, usually as a grizzled old timer or a guy you wouldn't want to mess with. He was in such classics as GUYS AND DOLLS and KISS OF DEATH.

Possibly his best tv role (and his last before retiring) playing a dying millionaire who assembles his greedy family for one last New Orleans (Mardi Gras) party --to remember?

Skillfully directed by Ida Lupino, a noted director in her own right. THE MASKS, without too much surprise, was written by the master himself, Rod Serling, possibly inspired by Halloween with a macabre surprise.

The supporting cast is tops, lead by Virginia Gregg as Keith's brooding elder daughter and dramatic actor Milton Selzer.

Serling certainly makes his point, and its all kind of relatable in an insane way; how many of us have met really greedy folks ourselves. Can't argue with that line.

One of the best dark comedies of the series, and nearing the end of its run. From 1964, SEASON 5 remastered CBS dvd box set.

Personae.

[rmax304823 · 7/10 · 28 May 2013]

Robert Keith, a wealthy old man in New Orleans, is dying. He calls his four relatives in Boston to his mansion during Mardi Gras and tells them that he has only hours to live and wants to have a sort of farewell party in which they all wear masks created by a Cajun Jub-Jub or something. He'll leave them everything he owns, which is evidently quite a lot, but only with the proviso that they wear the masks. They do so. And when the old fellow dies, they rejoice -- until they remove their masks. The horror, the horror! In the drama of ancient Greece, a "persona" was a mask that the actor held before his face on a stick, like a giant, concave lollipop. The masks were designed to reveal the inner character. Any fan of the series will have seen it coming from miles away.

When they first gather around his death bed, Keith calls them "the four most changeless people on earth." And indeed they are. His daughter complains constantly about her own minor ills, like a cramp in her arm. Her husband is a greedy businessman with no pretense of being anything else. Keith's granddaughter is an unalloyed narcissist. The younger grandson is stupid and bored by it all except, like the others, the prospect of being terribly rich. And, as Keith has observed, they don't change in character.

The first time I saw this, years ago, I didn't think much of it. Too talky. Nothing spooky. But, having just reviewed it, and knowing more about personae than I did, I'm inclined to think better of it.

Not that it's flawless. The four relatives who have descended upon the carcass like a quartet of vultures really DON'T change. They're rather like the characters in "Twelve Angry Men," which should be called "Twelve Angry Stereotypes." And there are some weaknesses in the casting. Alan Sues, as the young grandson, is given either too much to do or too little.

And this was the series fifth season and it was showing its age. Serling typically recorded the dialog on tape and when he wasn't gripped by his creative muse he tended towards bombast and a phony kind of elegance. Keith always uses "shall" instead of will. Sometimes Serling seemed to be free-associating and he drags in quotes from other writers, from Shakespeare ("He jests at scars that never felt a wound") to Byron ("She walks in beauty like the night," etc.). Nobody in the story is really very pleasant. Well, I guess the doctor is a man of respect, and the black servant, Jeffrey, is a sympathetic figure.

It would be interesting if we could all wind up like the four mourners, with our inner characters forever plastered over our features, although it would violate every principle of social life. I'd look beautiful, of course, but I don't think it would help my enemies much.

What A Wonderful Episode!

[michaelgarykelley1994 · 10/10 · 4 February 2019]

I had seen this episode of "The Twilight Zone" a couple of times, when I was a young boy. I adore the show, but this episode in particular (amongst a handful of others) really stood out to me, and haunted me to this very day. It's absolutely brilliant, and I don't want to spoil anything for anyone about it. You have to go into this one knowing nothing to really be shocked by it. However, I recently showed the episode to my grandfather, and we both enjoyed it-even though I knew what was going to happen and he didn't.

All of the actors were exceptional, here-especially the old man who's dying and asks his family he despises to where these foreign masks until midnight of the day he'll supposedly die. That actor absolutely killed it, and is the biggest highlight, for this one. I can't imagine anyone else playing that role the way he did. The only thing I would have changed about the cast is the despicable family's son. The dude looks like he's in his forties, and I believe they're mentioning that he's supposedly in high school! It just doesn't work, and is the only standout problem for this entirely perfect episode.

The tone of this episode is very, very dark. If you aren't ready for it, be ready-at the very least-for the chills it will give you. Modern filmmaking and television have absolutely NOTHING on this mere twenty-five-minute-long episode of black-and-white TV from so long ago. It's a shame, but this is proof of such.

The music is so tense, here. It adds to that thick, scary, eerieness the episode swims in, and I absolutely adore it-every second of it!

The writing of the many characters it balances in such a short time are well-crafted, and their conversations truly reveal what kind of awful, thankless people they truly are. I'd even go as far to say that the dying grandfather in the story is not close to being the good guy. He's angry, and he's meticulous, and he's hurt by so many wasted years where his own family haven't cared about him whatsoever. It's just such powerful subject matter, and there's no other way this could have been more well-executed.

This. Episode. Is. Brilliant.

If you haven't seen anything from "The Twilight Zone" before, this is a wonderful place to start at. I think most of the collections of stories the show has to offer are excellent, but this one is timeless. This one has themes that mankind will always hate, but will always be exposed by. This episode-"The Masks"-will make you self-analyze to see how you treat those you claim to love-in OR outside of your family.

What a damned fine classic of filmmaking-TV or otherwise. There's nothing like it, anymore.

The series' best episode

[Red_Identity · 3 July 2011]

The Masks remains to this day my favorite episode of The Twilight Zone. Sure, there are other great episodes, but to me this tale and all of these characters are completely intriguing.

I thought that there is definitely foreshadowing of the ending throughout the episode, and it makes sense. Also, what makes it great is how chilling it is (in that department it reminds me of The Eye of the Beholder as well). Also, seeing it reminds me of the Goosebumps episode that i used to watch when I was a kid. This is a great episode, and together with Monsters Due on Maple Street it is perhaps the shows finest 30 minutes.

Should've left it to no one

[Calicodreamin · 7/10 · 23 June 2021]

Decent episode of the storyline with an unexpected ending. Makeup effects were great and the characters well acted.

Even Ida and Rod can drop the ball

[drystyx · 1/10 · 23 January 2014]

This is unfortunately the worst and sickest episode of TWILIGHT ZONE, which is surprising, considering it was directed by Ida Lupino, and very hands on work done by Rod Serling as writer.

These two are usually very forward thinking, and look down on the very self righteousness they display in this episode. It is the opposite of what we usually get from Ida, which makes me feel she deliberately wanted to show the piece for what it was, an ironic piece to appease and make fun of the very people who would enjoy it.

A man is dying. His last wish is an evil obsession to play God with the lives of four people in a horribly meaningless way. Maybe they are as bad as he says, but all we get is his self righteous and prejudiced judgment. In the end, he makes their lives a Hell after he dies. He could just leave them out of his will, but "No", he intends to play God.

Ida Lupino usually chose scripts in which people were taught better than to judge others. So, I'm sure she wasn't thrilled with this venomous piece.

Perhaps I don't know the upper class well enough. It isn't that I would like the four people who are sentenced to a man made Hell, it's just that it's the exact opposite of a Christian script. It's a story for control freaks, about the ultimate control freak, and those he judges are supposed to be "evil", but all we really see is this old man deciding in advance they would be evil. It wouldn't matter what they would do, he was going to decide they be unworthy.

It doesn't matter how callous the four are, the script makes no sense. In the end, the only people who would enjoy this or praise, are the very personalities of the four people they would sentence to a Hell. That's the ironic part. To like it, you would be judging yourself. It is a total hate piece, and has no value. No one should have the right to control others to that extent. It's a story of a man playing God, and actually cheered on by what are supposed to be objective observers, but that again is what makes this piece so sick. Maybe Rod knew four people he wanted to judge this way, but this is the sort of judgment that is called a "self fulfilling prophecy". If you push people into a corner, they will ultimately behave as defensively as these four did. In the end, no matter how bad they were, a sane person can't pull for the sick monster who plays God with their lives.

This one is as bad as it gets. Almost all the episodes of the Zone are great, and none are less than 6/10, and most of the films Ida directed are potential classics, and again none less than 6/10, but this one stands alone. It looks like a personal vendetta against some people, and it isn't well executed at all.