“The Twilight Zone” delivered many sinister stories so let’s celebrate some of them. Here is my list of some of the seriously disturbing episodes from the original series.
- The Dummy
There’s something unsettling about ventriloquist dummies. We get a really sinister story involving a ventriloquist’s strange relationship with his dummy. This episode clearly inspired films such as “Magic” with a delve into psychological horror.
- The Masks
Physical ugliness can sometimes be a reflection of an ugly personality. Nowhere is that point made clearer than with “The Masks”. The ending is still quite disturbing after all these years.
- Living Doll
Very similar to “The Dummy” in a lot of ways. This one sees Telly Savalas (“The Dirty Dozen”) as a man that becomes tormented by his daughter’s toy doll. The doll seems to dislike him but he becomes increasingly unsure whether it’s the doll that’s the problem or if he’s merely losing his mind.
- The Silence
Most of the episode is quite mundane as it focuses on a man accepting a challenge to remain silent for a year in exchange for a huge sum of money. The uncomfortable ending is what makes it so memorable by demonstrating just how far some people will go for money.
- The Monsters Are Due On Maple Street
This episode from the first season does not feature any horrendous monsters or anything like that. However, it does a good job in showcasing just how easily people can be manipulating into turning on one another by external forces. What we see here is microcosm of what happens at the start of civil wars. If that’s not unsettling that I don’t know what is.
Honourable mentions:
Eye of the Beholder, A Nice Place To Visit and Nick Of Time