The emergency trunk release in a rental car I had recently. Simple, elegant, puts the fun back into kidnapping.
That’s not really fair. Every time I see this, I get a little vicarious thrill for the stick-person making their escape. Well done.
Pop — I’m outta here!
Two little girls are trick-or-treating. At their last house — although that might not have been the original plan — they are taken inside where they see a coven of women chanting and writing in a book using their own blood as ink. The blonde says, “Tonight we settle the score . . . . he chose a life with her over life with me.” She puts a dot of blood on each little girl’s forehead, then hands them the book. The girls are then engulfed in, what appears to be, swirling black liquorice. [1] They scream in horror because what they really had a strange sudden craving for was curry. Because of the dot. See. Hmmmm. Moving on . . .
Meanwhile, at a cabin in the woods, writer Brian and Lisa are looking to spend a little quality time together. As they start making out, there is a knock at the door. Brian opens it, and his agent Anita walks in. She says his publisher George Clayton [2] and Kate are on the way also. In a typically underwritten female role, I have no idea why Kate is there. Is she George’s wife? Business associate?
This seems to be an intervention for Brian who’s first book Blood Thirsty sold 5,000,000 copies in a year [3]. His agent and publisher want to know when the next book will be ready. They are interrupted by another knock at the door. It is the newly-dotted little girls who hand over the book from the coven and disappear.
Anita is thrilled to see the first page says The Circle by Robert Collins (Brian’s nom de plume). She believes Brian set up this elaborate hoax to give them his new manuscript. Everyone selflessly congratulates him for overcoming his writer’s block — the three guests who live on commissions from his work and his wife who benefits also.
Anita begins reading aloud from the book which seems to be autobiographical. The book describes a man bringing together a circle of friends and Kate says to Lisa, “I knew you couldn’t keep a secret!” So she is suggesting the group planned this get-together as Brian was writing the first paragraph of his book that no one knew existed? That’s some good planning there.
Brian accuses them of creating this book to coax him into writing again. Anita continues reading that “a suffocating darkness settled around the cabin, trapping them inside, and sealing their fate forever.” George looks out the window and sees a tangible darkness forming just as the book described. It’s all fun and games until George is yanked into the darkness and killed, leaving Kate without a ride home.
To find out what will happen next, Lisa continues reading. The book predicted that “the editor” would be the first to die, although George was his publisher, not editor. Confusing matters, Brian says this killer darkness was a character in his first novel Blood Thirsty. It attacked a small town in Maine, kind of a more opaque mist. Anita picks up The Circle to see what will happen next, but Brian said it is the plot from Blood Thirsty playing out. So which book is it?
Kate starts yopping up black vomit, so they lock her in the bathroom. This is pretty classic as they maneuver her into the bathroom, then use the old chair-jammed-under-the-door-knob security measure. That is a clever, efficient, time-honored, make-shift way to secure a door. But ya really need it on the side that the door opens into. These chowder-heads put it outside the door which opens into the bathroom.
So, they kill Kate. Anita gets infected and they kill her too. Brian starts showing symptoms, so Lisa ties him to a chair. The blonde from the coven breaks in and holds a knife to Lisa’s neck. She says her name is Robbie Collins — Brian must have chosen his alias in honor of her — way to keep the affair under the radar, genius!
As they fight, Brian writes a new ending while still strapped to a chair. Lisa prevails and reads from the book, “And everything returned to the way it had been at 9:45 that Halloween night.” That passage appears over and over.
Time unwinds so that we are back at the point where the girls knock on the door. Brian is cursed to relive this night for eternity. Is that a reasonable punishment for dumping that psycho witch? And why did Robbie choose a punishment doomed other innocent people, including the two little girls, to the same purgatory?
And did she really choose it? Brian scribbled the ending to the book. Resetting to 9:45 makes sense, but he didn’t have the time or reason to write it over and over like Jack Nicholson in The Shining.
Overall, another fine episode which never even aired (despite having an air date on IMDb). Fear Itself ends leaving with the same impression I got from Night Visions. A few clunkers, but overall, a good series well worth watching. Sadly, the fact that both of these got canceled after one season just tells me there is no place for anthology horror on broadcast TV.
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Calvin Bruce Bruce Calvin is sitting at home wearing a necktie as unemployed men are wont to do. He is checking the want-ads when he sees this item. He calls and is offered an interview that same day even though it is already 7:30 pm.
Bruce still can’t figure out why he was let go from his previous employer after eight years. His wife is about as sympathetic as an Alfred Hitchcock Presents spouse (and by spouse, I mean wife). She nags him for not having a job, having to scrimp on paying bills, and having a conspiracy theory on why he was terminated. Maybe he took her to the office Christmas Party — that would be my guess why they canned him. She continues berating him for falling behind their friends, and calls him a failure. And that is just the abuse in the living room!
He storms out to meet Mr. J in Room 34. He is actually Dr. Johnson from the Atomic Energy Control, so it should have been Dr. J. He asks Bruce to volunteer for an experiment. It will cause him no harm, take about 3 weeks, and is worth $250,000. Bruce figures it is worth paying that much to get away from his awful wife for 3 weeks so will rob a bank and — oh wait, they’re paying him — maybe he can get away from her forever!
Bruce recognizes that this is too good to be true. After all, this is $2.2M in 2016 dollars and $5B in 2017 dollars. He is also concerned that Johnson seems to have a zuckerbergian knowledge of every detail of his life, and was even expecting his application for the job. Somehow, they even got a blood sample and determined he was perfect for this project. They even had him fired from his old job just so he would be available.
Johnson expects earth to be in contact with another planet soon. The life there closely parallels earth:
OK, we get it.
Johnson shows him pictures of their ships speeding through our atmosphere — UFOs to us. We have also sent ships to investigate their world. Johnson’s agency has built a ship to go to their world. They want him to go to this planet and “arrive in a city just like this. Your home would be there. A woman who would seem in every respect to be your wife will be waiting.” That’s reason enough to refuse right there.
The agency wants Bruce to go to this planet and destroy it before they can destroy us. Can anyone see the problem here? Anyone? Hands? Bueller? They theorize that all it will take is for Bruce to poison his duplicate, then the two planets will go off on alternate timelines like the new Star Trek.
Later at home, he tells his wife about the job and says, “The future of life here on Jupiter depends on the success of my mission.” ZING! I can’t believe this primitive TV show suckered me in. Especially having seen the same twist on Twilight Zone’s Third Planet from the Sun.[1]
Bruce flies to Earth and finds his duplicate house. For some reason, he climbs in the window rather than going in the door. He slips a vial of poison into his duplicate’s scotch bottle, gets a clean shirt from his wife, and returns home to Jupiter. Back at his Jupiter house, he enters through the window again — I guess that’s how he always enters. He shows his wife the $250,000 paycheck and she is all smiles for the first time. His wife mentions giving him the shirt and Einstein suddenly realizes his duplicate was in his house.
He realizes that he just drank the scotch which his duplicate poisoned. He freaks out and tears up the checks. That’s not too nice for his wife, but she wasn’t worthy anyway. In a nicely symbolic but meaningless gesture, he breaks a mirror. Now he will have 7 seconds of bad luck before croaking.
Probably the best episode of this primitive, low-budget series. Of course the science is ludicrous — did it really have to be Jupiter, the ending is telegraphed, and the wife is stereotypical. On the other hand, it did trick me and had a stinger at the end of both act breaks. Darrin McGavin was excellent as Bruce. Patricia Ferris was given a thankless role as his wife. Because of the sexist way she was written, it is hard to judge her performance. However, she was attractive in a modern-era way that many of ToT’s actresses were not, so she gets a pass. So, she’s still being objectified 64 years later.
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John Haney is sick in bed. His son John Jr. answers the door and greets his brother Jamie. There is also a Jonas and a Judge in the episode — this won’t get confusing. OK, I’m going with Mr. Haney, Junior, Jamie, Jonas and Judge.
Since the episode is clearly based on the bible, I might as well have called the first three Isaac, Jacob and Esau. I’m guessing Jamie will = Esau [1] because he has a mustache. Jamie also seems to be a bit of the Prodigal Son as he is returning home for the first time in 10 years. He is also kind of a dandy with suspenders and a fat tie, whereas Junior is wearing overalls indicating that he stayed on the farm with his father or is the 1960s stereotype of a lesbian. [2]
They hear a crash above and run upstairs. They find the cadaverous Mr. Haney — oddly not played by Boris Karloff — on the floor. The brothers lift him back into bed, but he babbles incoherently.
Junior reminds Jamie that he stole money from their father when he ran away 10 years earlier. Jamie counters that he was only 17 and that money was coming to him anyway. Since he was 10 years old, his father had him doing chores like a servant or a slave or his child. Jamie is only back now because he figures their father has built up his cash reserves again. After Jamie goes up to bed, Junior says to the empty kitchen that Jamie wasted his time coming back — if the old man dies, he gets nothing.
Sure enough, the old man croaks. When the family gets back from the funeral, Junior gives the old man’s will to their lawyer Jonas Atterbury (Karloff). As Junior said, he inherits everything. Jamie has an ace up his sleeve, though. And by ace I mean alternate will, and by sleeve I mean coat pocket. He hands it to Jonas who sees that it proclaims Jamie as the sole heir, and is dated later than the first will.
Jamie wastes no time in announcing that he plans to sell the farm and ship their mother off to an old folks home. Junior contests the will. He tells the judge that he doesn’t trust his brother to take care of their mother because he is “a liar and a thief.” After Jamie’s lawyer objects, the Judge says, “this court will not tolerate name-calling”. Also horseplay and wedgies will be frowned upon. The Judge adjourns the court “until 2:30 o’clock.” WTF?
While Jamie is visiting a buyer for the farm, Junior goes back to the house to get some things. Upstairs he sees his dead father rocking in a chair. Mr. Haney just says, “Genesis 27.” After he disappears, Junior goes downstairs and tells them of his experience. His mother recognizes the citation as the story of Jacob and Esau and the case of the stolen birthright, and the less desired afterbirhright. Junior pulls out the family bible and Jamie grabs a loaded rifle that they apparently keep in the kitchen. Jamie flips through the pages, but finds nothing important, just yada yada, word of God, yada yada.
Back in court, Junior asks his mother if maybe there is another bible laying around the farm. Jamie has the same idea and finds another bible in the attic. Yet another will is inserted in the book at Genesis 27. Junior is again named the sole heir.
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On some Brad and Janice evening, the aforementioned Brad has just given Janice “a kind of pretty piece of glass”. Janice is thrilled with it and eager to get married. She asks if they might set the date in the next couple of months and he counters with three weeks. He just asks for two or three days to clear up some business before the announcement is made.
As he is leaving for a business meeting, she says she hopes it is not to see “that lady novelist.” He assures her that it is over with Leslie. BTW, that’s a nice accusation to throw at a guy who not only just proposed, but gave you a phat ring and fast-tracked the wedding! What an ungrateful shrew! What a finger-pointing harpy! The nerve of that suspicious insecure bitch!
Then he goes to see Leslie. Oh.
Leslie greets him with a big hug and wet kiss. Brad is not very responsive, so she says, “You’ve either been out with another woman or you need a new brand of pills.” Taking place in 45 BC (before Cialis), I have no idea what that means. Is this what Geritol is for? I’ve heard of it all my life, but never had any idea what it does — good job Madison Avenue! Also in that category — Gold Bond Powder. What the hell? Something for old people, I think.
She is selling out by ditching the novel to write for TV. She tells Brad it is so she can continue to afford him. She tactfully reminds him of how she has financed his failed business ventures. He bravely tells her that he is going to marry another woman. Well, he doesn’t say it is another woman, but it was kind of assumed back then. Leslie threatens to cause a scene with Janice threatening “phone calls, letters, shrieking matches [1] that will raise the hair on her head like a $3 wig.” She threatens to harass both of them until they either break up or have a “nervous collapse”.
Kind of whipped, she asks him to put her car [2] in the garage before he leaves. And to call her when he gets home, which he agrees to. Before moving her car, he opens the hood and removes a couple of parts. This is so she will take a cab to work. Then he will pick her up and they will go to her beach house.
The next day, he dresses as a mechanic and takes her car to the beach house, but hides it behind some bushes. That night, he picks her up from work in a rental car and they go to the beach. [3] Before they go for a midnight swim, Leslie returns a knife he left at her place.
After a minute of frolicking in the surf, Brad stands in chest-deep water with his hands on Leslie’s head as he chokes her. Wait, he isn’t choking her, he’s killing her! That is, she isn’t going down on him, but she is going down. After drowning her, he moves her car in front of the beach house, then drives away in his rental.
When he arrives home, he find two detectives there. This being before the Constitution was written, the detectives had the super just let them in. They tell him “your lady friend has been murdered . . . and real good, too — the full treatment.” So not just a little murdered.
They have no hesitation opening his suitcase and rummaging around. When they find his wet, sandy robe he insists he has not been to the beach for a week. They then start patting him down. Next thing these guys will be quartering soldiers in his house. They do find a knife, though, so stop & frisk is once again proven effective.
In a superb double-twist, Leslie stabbed Janice to death, then set Brad up for the murder and his only alibi is that he was murdering Leslie at the time. Oh sure, we could quibble over the time-line. Or how she certainly seems devoted to Brad even after he threatens to end their relationship. But why overthink it?
This is a near-perfect example of what AHP is supposed to be. I especially appreciated the business with the cars. The sabotage of Leslie’s car, hiding it at the beach house, picking up Leslie at work — all carried out silently and directed so clearly and methodically that I had to look to see if Hitchcock had directed this episode.
Great stuff.
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