6. Will the real Martian please stand up? (Season 2, 1961)

‘A wintry February night - the present. Order of events: a phone call from a frightened woman notating the arrival of an unidentified flying object, and the check-out you’ve just witnessed with two state troopers verifying the event, but with nothing more enlightening to add beyond evidence of some tracks leading across the highway to a diner. You’ve heard of trying to find a needle in a haystack? Well, stay with us now and you’ll be a part of an investigating team whose mission is not to find that proverbial needle - no, their task is even harder. They’ve got to find a Martian in a diner, and in just a moment you’ll search with them, because you’ve just landed in the Twilight Zone.’

Synopsis
A snowstorm forces six bus passengers to make a stop at a diner. But when the police arrive seven people are present - which one’s the Martian?

Review
Zone stories about people searching their own ranks for an outsider are nothing new. Season One’s rather harrowing The Monsters are due on Maple Street gave us a chilling snapshot of a small community falling apart when the folk suspect one of their own of being an alien. The twist of course is that they’re all 100% human, but the idea of a danger from within undermines them entirely. Will the real Martian please stand up? is wittier and less dark than that, but it adheres to the same basic premise. A diner contains seven passengers from a bus that has had to make its unscheduled stop due to a bridge being declared out of use during a snowstorm, yet there should only be six of them. One is a doppelgänger, a Martian in disguise. It’s up to the investigating troopers to discover the alien’s identity before the road is considered passable once again.

Having watched this episode on a number of occasions, I’m still hugely entertained by it. Partly this is due to the fact that none of the passengers really give anything away. It would be easy to label the bad-tempered businessman, the obvious baddie, as the Martian, but having also read and seen an endless number of murder mysteries over the years I have to consider that it’s very nearly always the one you least expect who is actually to blame. This episode isn’t a whodunnit. Not until its climax does the yarn give the merest clue over the Martian’s identity. It’s tempting to point the finger at wily Avery (Jack Elam) thanks to his bulging eyes and the fact he seems to take none of it seriously. But just as cuilpable is the beautiful Ethel (Jean Willes), or one member from within the two innocent couples. Everyone is a potential suspect. At one point, a girl accuses her boyfriend of missing a mole that she was sure he once had, and he doesn’t even turn out to be the alien!

Will the real Martian please stand up? is a great episode because it plays on the national paranoia of the era. With America engaged in Cold War antics against the Soviet Union, people were afraid of an unknowable foe, an enemy of untold might that could seek to undermine the good guys of the West in all kinds of ways, not least by infiltrating society at all levels. The alien doesn’t provoke any of the susipcion within the party of trapped passengers. It plays the part of an innocent traveller to perfection, being as human as everyone else as the collective finger is pointed at one of the group, and then another, and another. The unravelling of the party is such that the story doesn’t even need the occasional aural effect to take place. A jukebox starts playing a record all by itself. The lights flicker on and off. Sugar pots are violently spilled over. Yet you get the impression that everyone is spooked enough; this just adds to the creepy ambience, suggesting that the people are indeed being played by a presence more powerful than themselves.

If the episode has a weak spot, it comes with the conclusion. We get not one but two twists for our money, the second a bit on the unnecessary side as it was probably enough just to know the identity of the Martian. It’s good fun all the same, and the yarn features a very fine turn from classic movie villain, John Hoyt, who manages to be both irritated and composed as the denouement plays out all around him.

7. A World of His Own (Season 1, 1960)

‘The home of Mr Gregory West, one of America’s most noted playwrights. The office of Mr Gregory West. Mr Gregory West - shy, quiet, and at the moment very happy. Mary - warm, affectionate. And the final ingredient - Mrs Gregory West.’

Synopsis
A playwright possesses the ability to bring his own characters to life, much to the consternation of his wife.

Review
A nice change of pace arrives in the shape of A World of His Own. Despite featuring all the usual Zone staples, it’s an episode played very much for laughs, and it’s all the more welcome for that. Given the story is about a playwright, it’s nice to find that we’re watching a Zone that’s structured like a play. The action takes place on a single set, with characters wandering on and off as though working to stage instructions.

In the yarn, Gregory West (Keenan Wynn) is first seen in the company of a lovely blonde woman, Mary (Mary La Roche). Rod Serling’s narration sets it up as though the latter is Gregory’s wife, but then a third character appears, and she’s introduced as Mrs Gregory West, Victoria (Phyllis Kirk). Convinced that her husband is having an affair, Victoria is understandably nonplussed when he tells her the blonde is merely one of a number of characters he has brought to life. Speaking into a tape recorder, Gregory can describe a person or an animal and then suddenly find them stood before him, whether it’s the homely Mary or even an elephant. ‘Uncreating’ them is just as easy - he simply cuts the piece of tape on which he has talked about the character and throws it on to the fire, extinguishing them instantly.

Even after he has explained all this to Victoria, going so far as to recreate his ‘bringing to life’ ritual as proof, she’s unconvinced, and it soon becomes apparent that this couple has no business being together. Gregory is quiet, bookish and mild. Victoria is ravishing in the aloof, ice queen kind of way that made Joan Collins a star. Over the course of the episode, she threatens to both have him committed and claim all his assets, an unwise move as it turns out that she too is a character Gregory has conjured up via the tape recorder and he can get rid of her any time he likes.

In the best bit, Serling himself turns up, delivering his closing narration. Describing the story as ‘purely fictional’ and ’such ridiculous nonsense’ he’s suddenly cut off by a very much still active Gregory, who shows Serling the tape that proves he too is a creation of the playwright’s. Angered at the narrator’s dismissal of his story, Gregory feeds the tape to the flames, at which point Serling looks resignedly at the camera, says ‘Well, that’s the way it goes’ and vanishes.

Gregory it seems is in control of the Twilight Zone, and his story is one of its finest. A comedy of manners that retains the essential Zone spirit, A World of His Own is a hoot and demonstrates the enormous flexibility of this series.

Today submitted for your approval…

8. Living Doll (Season 5, 1963)

‘Talky Tina, a doll that does everything, a lifelike creation of plastic and springs and painted smile. To Erich Streator, she is a most unwelcome addition to his household, but without her he’d never enter the Twilight Zone.‘

Synopsis
A little girl brings her new doll home, but her stepfather doesn’t like it. The little girl thinks he doesn’t like her. The doll thinks it’s time to do something about that.

Review
As far as the more blatantly frightening Zones go, this has to be among the finest. Perpetually creepy, working on two levels and driven by its performers, Living Doll is riveting and scary as hell. Almost as scary as Talky Tina itself, in fact. With its little girl voice and outstretched arms, Talky Tina is still an object of fear, proving that dolls can be sinister as well as cute. This isn’t the only story about childrens’ toys that come to life and hurt people, but it’s certainly the most powerful.

Telly Savalas stars as Erich Streator, husband to Anabelle (Mary LaRoche) and stepfather to little Christie (Tracy Stratford). There are clear references to his inadequacy as a father figure from the very start of the episode. Trying to do the right thing by Christie, his temper drives her away and makes him an emeny of Tina, the talking doll Anabelle has bought for her daughter. When the family are together, Tina speaks in platitudes - ‘My name is Talky Tina, and I love you very much.’ Alone with Erich, her patter soon changes - ‘My name is Talky Tina, and I’m going to kill you.’ He thinks Anabelle or Christie are playing a grotesque joke on him, but later he becomes convinced Tina somehow has a personality of its own, and resolves to destroy it. Only he can’t. His every effort is thwarted, all the while Tina promising him that he’ll be sorry.

On one level, the story can be enjoyed as it plays. Tina really is alive, and it’s out to get the rather odious Erich. However, there are clues in the episode that suggest otherwise. Christie and Tina are two names that could join together, suggesting the little girl and doll share one personality. Certainly, Christie has reason enough to attack Erich. He isn’t an especially nice piece of work, though it seems deep down he means well. A little girl wouldn’t necessarily see this, insteasd focusing on the anger and mood swings to transfer her dark desires into the body of her doll. This means that she can be innocent throughout, whilst Tina carries out all the dirty work.

Another theory is that Erich is doing it all to himself. There’s some deep self-loathing going on inside him, and it’s possible, at least until the very last scene, to suppose that this transfers itself into his imagined persecution at the hands of a small piece of plastic.

Living Doll is superb for what doesn’t happen rather than what does. We never see Talky Tina act on her own, save for twisting her head and delivering chilling pronouncements to Erich. When she finally does make him sorry, as promised, the moment doesn’t require any special effects, or for Tina to carry out any actual work on her own. Almost certainly, a scene showing Tina moving about independently would have dragged the episode into silliness. Instead, it’s a genuinely creepy finish. To add to the chill factor, June Foray was hired to provide Tina’s squeaky voice. Previously, Foray had done the same work for Mattel, adding vocals for real-life doll, Chatty Cathy, which was a big seller at the time this episode screened. It can only be imagined what contemporary audiences might have felt as they heard the murderous Tina use the same voice as the doll that had been part of their household for years.

Though many of you will have seen these episodes previously, possibly on a number of occasions, I am aware there are those who haven’t, and I have structured these pieces with a short, spoiler-free synopsis at the start to whet your whistle. Afterwards, I go into a little more detail about the episode, discussing nuances of the plot that will almost certainly and unapologetically give away its intricacies - you have been warned! In any event, the Zone is available on DVD, and it’s easy enough to discover episodes on the Internet, where Google is always your friend.

So without further ado, submitted for your approval…

9. Nick of Time (Season 2, 1960)

‘The hand belongs to Mr. Don S. Carter, male member of a honeymoon team en route across the Ohio countryside to New York City. In one moment, they will be subjected to a gift most humans never receive in a lifetime. For one penny, they will be able to look into the future. The time is now, the place is a little diner in Ridgeview, Ohio, and what this young couple doesn’t realize is that this town happens to lie on the outskirts of the Twilight Zone.‘

Synopsis
A pair of newlyweds on their way to New York have to stop in a sleepy Ohio town when their car breaks down. As they wait for it to be repaired, they enter a diner and come across a ‘Mystic Seer’ napkin holder, which uncannily seems to be able to predict their future correctly. Does it? Or rather is it trapping the couple into relying on its enigmatic pronouncements?

Review
William Alan Shatner might be seen as a bit of a joke these days, a camp performer with great comic timing and clipped readings of dialogue, which to his credit he has played up to in his recent roles. His ancient turns in the likes of The Twilight Zone, however, show us a different Shatner entirely. Just like his landmark starring performance in Nightmare at 20,000 Feet, he carries this slight tale on his broad shoulders, putting in a fine piece of acting as a seemingly level-headed man whose veneer cracks as soon as he is given the opportunity to hand control of his life away.

Shatner is only one of the reasons for loving Nick of Time. Another is that it’s a perfect yarn for the Zone’s slim 25 minutes format. It covers a very specific situation, introduces two main characters and tells us as much about them as we need to know in order to get along. Unless you find soothsaying machines with little snaggle-toothed devil heads atop them the height of scariness, it isn’t a particularly sinister episode. And the twist is that… well, there isn’t one!

Instead, the show offers a psychological snapshot and asks some really interesting questions. As Don (Shatner) feeds the little machine with dimes, getting answers for his trouble that are open-ended enough to be interpreted just about any way he likes, the premise demands the level to which we want, even need somebody/thing else to be in control of our destiny. Is the machine almost a mirror of religion? After all, cynics would have it that Christianity is a smokescreen, a demand that innocent people put their lives in the hands of a higher being that may not even exist.

Even without that subtext, the episode is pretty chilling. Don is finally prised away from his growing obsession with the machine by his new wife, Pat (Patricia Breslin), but it’s a close run thing. They exit, finally seen driving out of the town, and at the close of the episode, another, older couple enter the diner. They huddle by the soothsayer and ask it whether today is their chance to leave. It’s obvious they’ve been there for years, their lives now completely in thrall to a cheap contraption that seems to provide all the answers.

It’s a rather silly concept, yet one that becomes quite earnest when taken too far. We as viewers might smile knowingly at Don’s predicament. The machine appears to know that he’s due for a promotion (he goes so far as to call the office and find out for himself) and that Pat and he might be in danger if they leave the diner (they do go out, only to narrowly avoid getting run over when they dash across a street). And yet the cards it expels, carrying their oblique messages, really could mean anything, and it’s Don himself who fills in the blanks. Watching their predicament, we can chuckle over Don’s naivete, but are we really so different, when we see something that resonates in a random newspaper Horoscope, or look for sequences that could reveal the winning numbers in the National Lottery? The truth, as ever, is in a realm that will ever be known as the Twilight Zone.

Though many of you will have seen these episodes previously, possibly on a number of occasions, I am aware there are those who haven’t, and I have structured these pieces with a short, spoiler-free synopsis at the start to whet your whistle. Afterwards, I go into a little more detail about the episode, discussing nuances of the plot that will almost certainly and unapologetically give away its intricacies - you have been warned! In any event, the Zone is available on DVD, and it’s easy enough to discover episodes on the Internet, where Google is always your friend.

So without further ado, submitted for your approval…

10. The Howling Man (Season 2, 1960)

‘The prostrate form of Mr David Ellington, scholar, seeker of truth and, regrettably, finder of truth. A man who will shortly arise from his exhaustion to confront a problem that has tormented mankind since the beginning of time. A man who knocked on a door seeking sanctuary and found instead the outer edges of the Twilight Zone.’

Synopsis
Twenty years ago, a man who finds himself lost and caught in a storm comes across a remote castle. This is occupied by an enigmatic Brotherhood, a religious order, who claim to have locked up the Devil. However, the prisoner tells a very different story.

Review
It isn’t hard to be drawn to stories about the Devil, just as in the episode Ellington (HM Wynant) is tempted into seeing and ultimately freeing the prisoner, despite the best efforts of the Brotherhood and in particular Brother Jerome (Horror veteran John Carradine) to persuade him otherwise. As in every Zone yarn, there is an underlying theme, and in The Howling Man it is that of temptation. It’s obvious who the prisoner is from the moment Ellington first meets him, and when Jerome explains the identity of the howling man to him we know he’s telling the truth. The episode isn’t a guessing game, nor is there a typically Zone twist e.g. I half expected Ellington to turn out to be an acolyte, when in fact the story isn’t really interested in delivering that kind of plot-driven revelation. The theme is strong enough to pull the tale along, suggesting that people are drawn inevitably towards evil. It’s in our nature, and just to underline this the Devil is freed twice during the course of the episode.

It’s only once the yarn reaches its conclusion that the subtlety of various elements within it start making sense. Carradine appears to give an overly mannered performance as Jerome, reaching Biblical levels of over-acting when describing his exploits in capturing the Devil. It doesn’t help that he actually looks like a Hestonesque Moses. Later, you realise that Carradine intentionally played him that way. You’re supposed to believe that he’s a bit of a nutter, and that the prisoner - who tells Ellington he’s been locked away for kissing Jerome’s sweetheart, and that the order is ruled by insanity - is completely rational. Indeed, considering he’s the prisoner, the Devil (Robin Hughes) delivers an altogether quieter and less bombastic turn, howling aside. This helps to expand on the theme of temptation, the prisoner working deviously on Ellington’s innate sense of right and wrong in order to get himself released.

When Ellington is alone, the camera is placed at an askew angle, filming at a diagonal to heighten the character’s feeling of disorientation and confusion. It’s only when he is with Jerome or the prisoner that it rights itself, as though these figures offer a degree of clarity, and even then this isn’t always the case. Of course, Ellington eventually frees the prisoner, which turns out to be pathetically easy - he’s bound symbolically rather than by chains and locks. It’s then we get to see the ragged, bearded figure’s transformation into Satan, a masterpiece of revelation and make-up (he becomes more ‘Devilish’ every time he walks behind a column on his stride towards freedom). Though the Devil in his real form conforms to stereotype images, all theatrical cloak and horns, it’s an impressive effect. Naturally, he’s far scarier when all you get as a clue is his incessant howling.

The Howling Man was written by Charles Beaumont and adapted from his own short story. Originally, it was envisioned that the Devil was to be imprisoned by a crucifix, but concerns over upsetting the religious community meant this was changed into the ’staff of truth,’ which actually ends up conjuring a much more subversive image.

It really is a fine little tale, which ends on a devastating note. Having spent 20 years tracking down the Devil who he originally freed, Ellington finally imprisons him once more. The story of their meeting is told in flashback, to a chambermaid, when Ellington reveals that thanks to his action World War II and the Korean War have taken place. As soon as he leaves to contact Jerome and let him know he’s recaptured the Devil, the chambermaid instantly sets him loose.

Even though Burgess Meredith replaces Serling (who died of a heart attack in 1975) on narration duties the movie is undeniably Zonesque in tone. There are several reasons for this, the first being that three of the four segments are adapted from original series episodes. They might not tell exactly the same story, but the spirit of the source is definitely present. Second, the movie is produced by Steven Spielberg, and isn’t it easy to imagine the legendary film maker as an adolescent, perched before the television and sucked in hopelessly by Serling’s yarns? Some real love has gone into the project, evidenced by the proliferation of inside references, cameos from cast members and other bits of trivia littered throughout the action. For instance, Bill Mumy, one of the actors from the series, shows up in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it guest appearance within the segment that draws on an episode he starred in years before. Meredith’s turn as the substitute Serling is wholly appropriate, given he was in some of the series’ most famous stories and is closely associated with it.

Though The Twilight Zone holds a great deal of cult value in Britain, it obviously means a lot more to Americans, who continually try to revive it. The concept’s revered status meant that despite the movie’s mixed success, its formula was strong enough to inspire a new series in 1985 and a further run in 2002. Rumours of yet another stab at the Zone are making the rounds, with Leonardo Di Caprio cited as a major influence in the mooted production of a new, big budget movie adaptation. In the meantime, you can catch radio episodes on the web, with Stacy Keach narrating and a well known cast taking part.

It’s easy to suggest they don’t know when to let go, but there’s actually a simple reason why it’s the original series that sticks in the mind. It isn’t the regular appearance of Serling, who looked - and apparently was - nervous at facing the camera, but rather the attitude of the audiences who watched those classic shows from 1959 to 1964. If one mood prevails throughout the run, it’s paranoia, a feeling that was rife in a contemporary USA that was experiencing the Cold War at its height. Just as an Iron Curtain had descended over Eastern Europe, thus cutting the west off from having any real knowledge of what was happening on the other side, so the Zone reflects that fear of the unknown, what it represents and what it might do. Serling tapped into that chilling mood superbly, with iconic movies of the period such as 1956’s Invasion of the Body Snatchers paving the way.

In spite of President Reagan’s best efforts to reignite that feeling, the Cold War didn’t have the same grip in the post-Vietnam 1980s, and as such the movie version of the Zone loses much of its power. We enjoy its tall tales, but we see that’s all they are, flights of fantasy that might have some morality to them but essentially work as a slice of nostalgia. Older viewers might enjoy the simple-minded yearning for youth that lies at the heart of the second segment. The fourth, which was one of the very best episodes from the original series and a pure durge of adrenalin, still works as a taut, knife-edge thriller, but the third has changed completely, now introducing a more human element to a story that was originally about people being scared by something they couldn’t stop.

None of it is dreadful, but the film’s four distinct tales have no connection and can be viewed distinctly. Starting with the loosely linking prologue, here’s a glance at each, accessed as you may well suppose with the key of imagination. Beyond is another dimension…

Prologue (directed by John Landis)

Dan Ackroyd has hitched a lift with Albert Brooks, and they’re driving along a deserted road late at night. The casette player has chewed up Brooks’s tape, and they resort to talking, settling on the subject of guessing each other’s TV theme tunes. Ultimately, they get on to The Twilight Zone, discussing their favourite episodes, before Ackroyd asks Brooks if he wants to see something really scary.

As a five-minute introduction, it’s fine, though how ‘Zone’ it is remains a different subject entirely. Rather, the sequence plays more like a scene from Creepshow, a random slice of jump cut horror that sits at odds with much of the following material. Ackroyd and Brooks are never less than watchable, but mercifully they  don’t outlive their welcome, well one of them doesn’t at any rate.

Segment One (dir. John Landis)

Bill Connor (Vic Morrow) is angry. He’s lost his chance of promotion to a colleague who happens to be Jewish, and over a few drinks with his buddies he lays into Semites, black people and the Vietnamese. The Zone isn’t going to like that, and Bill gets to experience exactly what it’s like to be amongst the minorities he has just abused. After a chase through the streets of Nazi-occupied Poland, he winds up being lynched by the Ku Klux Clan and is then pursued by American GIs in North Vietnam. Clearly, as Bill learns you don’t want to be a bigot whilst crossing over into the Twilight Zone.

As you might expect with Landis at the helm, the segment looks great. Particularly during the scenes where the Auschwitz-destined train collides with 1980s America, the cinematography is excellent. Where it falls down is in its lack of moral centre. Bill is so odious that without ever wishing his fate on anyone, you’re left thinking he may just deserve it. Then again, there’s no chance of redemption. Once Bill enters the Zone, he’s on a roller-coaster nightmare before his extremely bleak end, which amounts to torture. It’s hopeless, grim and then it just sort of finishes without any glimmer of hope.

This segment lent a degree of notoriety that palled over the entire project. Morrow and two young extras were killed during a tragic accident that took place whilst shooting a scene. Though the star of the piece initially attracted the headlines, attention soon turned to the children, who it emerged had been paid in cash for their services due to the fact that it was illegal for them to be working at the time of the filming (2.30 am). It took five years for Landis and the crew involved to be cleared of charges of involuntary manslaughter, but the damage to the movie’s reputation never really went away.

Segment Two (dir. Steven Spielberg)

In the original Zone episode, ‘Kick the Can,’ the ageing resident of an old peoples’ home finds a link to his youth in the shape of an old tin can that has been booted around by some kids. Clearly, it was felt that the 1980s alternatives wouldn’t be able to work this out for themselves, so Scatman Crowthers was introduced as a kind of saintly savant who explains the magic to the coffin dodgers. Crowthers is always good value, but the story transforms him into a wise sage, gently linking the residents’ memories to their childhood and ultimately reacquanting them with it.

This is Spielberg at his most syrupy. The centre of the story sounds a little too close to Peter Pan for comfort, and it’s worth bearing in mind that the auteur always wanted to make something along these lines (until he actually did, with Hook, only to find it wasn’t very good and he needed to up his game). Cue inevitable scenes with cute kids wearing old peoples’ outsized clothes and saying big words in munchkin voices. It’s all a bit shit, bathed in soft focus and pastel and with its heart ever close to breaking. The ‘Take me with you’ speech is retained, however, and achieves some emotional resonance.

Segment Three (dir. Joe Dante)

Gremlins director Joe Dante was relatively new on the scene at this stage, and it’s perhaps for this reason that he pulls out a strong, energetic episode that’s full of menace. Helen Foley (Kathleen Quinlan) is a teacher who comes across a small boy called Anthony (Jeremy Licht) in a diner. She drives him home after accidentally knocking him down, but soon learns that his home life isn’t quite as easy going and jocular as it appears. Anthony’s family seem a little too eager to please his every whim, to watch endless cartoons, to treat every incident with a strained smile. The reason is that Anthony can make anything happen just by thinking about it. He can rob people of their mouths, inject them into nightmarish cartoons and even make them disappear entirely. Everyone is terrified of him, everyone that is apart from Helen…

The segment is based on a celebrated episode called ‘It’s a Good Life,’ in which Bill Mumy played the six-year old monster as a scary-eyed kid who sent anyone with unhappy thoughts to the ‘cornfield’*. There’s nothing quite so abstract in the update. Clearly, the writers approached the material from a child’s perspective - what inspires kids? The answer is cartoons. As a consequence, that’s all his family get to watch on TV, and even his house is built according to animated specifications, all weird angles and exaggerated arches. Dante realises that whilst cartoons can be cute and funny, they can also be terrifying, as one of the characters learns when she is summarily dumped into a show that quickly turns horrific. Also worthy of note is the magic trick performed by Uncle Walt (Invasion of the Body Snatchers’ Kevin McCarthy, a marvellous piece of casting), made all the more horrible because the thing that comes out of the hat is something that has obviously emerged on previous occasions, scaring the audience again and again and again.

Unlike the original story, which didn’t bother to do much more than offer us a glimpse into Anthony’s weird life, here the tale ends on a note of hope. we don’t know if things really will turn out all right for Helen and her new charge, but the optimisic climax suggests that even the worst children aren’t beyond all reach.

* In the 2002 series of The Twilight Zone, Bill Mumy returns as Anthony, showing us his adult life in ‘It’s Still a Good Life.’ Needless to say, none of it ends well. Anthony is as terrible as ever, even with the measuring influence of his daughter.

Segment Four (dir. George Miller)

The Twilight Zone saves the best until last, and this reworking of the famous ‘Nightmare at 20,000 Feet’ retains all the power of its source material. Indeed, apart from the omission of a wife for the beleagured hero, the remake is extremely similar to the original episode and at times virtually identical. William Shatner did a very good job of playing the disturbed air passenger in the 1963 version, recovering from a breakdown and convinced that a monster is on the wing of his plane whilst in flight. In the update, an inspired instance of casting has John Lithgow in the role. Adept as the sweaty, saucer-eyed nervous wreck who hates flying and is forced to see a gremlin that no one else notices, Lithgow is simply superb. He wreaks every last drop of tension from his character, and from the agonising situation he is placed in.

When we first meet him, Lithgow is locked in the plane’s restroom, already mentally in pieces at being in flight. He’s guided back to his seat by the stewardess, but then a glance out of the window reveals an impossibility - someone, or something, is on the wing, and it’s ripping out the wires from one of the engines. But nobody else can see it. Whenever he tries to get someone to take a look, nothing is there, which entertains a neat possibility - maybe nothing is there. What’s more likely? That a monster is really taking chunks out of the plane, or that a disturbed passenger with an evident fear of flying is filling in the blanks with his imagination, personifying his fears in the shape of a malevolent, fantastical creature?

Until the close of the episode, this isn’t made at all clear. What we get are moments of mounting horror for Lithgow, his eyes literally popping from their sockets in one delicious scene where he opens his blind to see if the monster is still outside, only to find it pressed against the window and staring right back at him. The segment is helped along by a rather convincing creature. Though the suspense of the original episode holds even when it’s viewed today, its gremlin has dated horribly and now looks just like a bloke in a bear suit, perhaps the irate cousin of Bungle from Rainbow. The movie never makes the mistake of revealing its creature fully, giving us glimpses of a stick-limbed figure with bug eyes that flits far too lightly through the high altitude storm.

As an exercise in pure terror, the final segment is terrific. It very nearly makes the lacklustre first half of the movie worthwhile, and proves that The Twilight Zone, just like any other classic series, had its good and bad weeks. I’m sure we all have our favourite episodes, those we might like to have seen remade for the movie. I hold a great deal of affection for ‘Will the real Martian please stand up?’, about a group of diners who come to realise an alien is amongst them. Another favourite is ‘The Eye of the Beholder,’ with its marvellous twist in a tale of vanity and wanting to belong. And there are many others, as I’m sure there are for you, as witnessed on each occasion when you find yourself travelling through another dimension… a dimension not only of sight and sound, but of mind… a journey into a wondrous land of imagination. Next stop, the Twilight Zone…

The biggest difference between the two movies comes early, when we see that Hammer’s elders clubbed together and invested in a ship for their pirate hordes. ‘El Diablo’ doesn’t appear too often; sadly, its main purpose is to be grounded as the occupants go off on another land-based adventure. But it’s there, and it looks good, certainly in the opening scenes as it finds itself a not altogether willing participant in the Spanish Armada’s attempt to invade England. Seeing that the battle is lost, Captain Robeles (Lee) and his crew prepare to leave, much to the chagrin of the Spanish captain assigned to the vessel. He’s quickly done in, Robeles taking his crew of privateers to an inlet on the English south coast. By chance, the pirates make themselves known to the local village. Don Manuel Rodriguez de Savilla (Barry Warren), another Spanish military man serving on the ship thinks on his feet, telling the people that Spain have won the war and their soldiers are moving in.

The villagers are too cut off to know whether this is true, but at the behest of Sir Basil Smeeton (Ernest Clark) are told to welcome their swarthy captors, all in the name of peace. Fortunately, not everyone is so blindly trusting. Several of the locals (led by Andrew Keir and Philip Latham) are suspicious, and make their own efforts to ascertain what’s going on. There’s also John Cairney (best known in this house for his laid back performance in Jason and the Argonauts) as Harry, the village firebrand. He’s got a dodgy hand, and he’s been a prisoner of the Spaniards in the past. His hatred of all things Iberian suggests that something horrible happened to him during those times, and makes him a natural leader in the growing unrest as Robeles haughtily co-opts the village into repairing the ship. Suzan Farmer appears as Smeeton’s daughter, giving her an early opportunity to be menaced in a movie role by Lee (she later stars in Dracula: Prince of Darkness).

Within the pirate ranks are the usual mob of happy go lucky rogues, in love with life and donning fake tan to make them look a bit more Spanish. In reality, they’re all regulars to the Hammer troupe of extras, though it’s worth looking out for a young Johnny Briggs, who was later immortalised as the appropriately ‘wide boy’ Mike Baldwin in Coronation Street. Duncan Lamont plays the Bosun, devoted to Captain Robeles yet utterly disdainful whenever Don Manuel is attempting to dish out orders. The latter is wonderfully played by Warren. Previously, you would have seen him as a rather nasty and scornful bloodsucker in Kiss of the Vampire, but it’s here that he excels. Warren bears a passing resemblance to Daniel Craig, looks good with a rapier and is totally convincing as the one Spaniard who isn’t in tune with Robeles’s schemes. Over the course of the movie, his role is decisive and works because the actor gives good smoulder.

With only Cairney, and a plucky performance from Natasha Pyne as a captured local girl to represent the local resistance, this is Lee’s film entirely. Freed from having to affect a French accent and given more to do, he’s a captivating screen villain. Every other line he come out with is a threat, barked out in the sort of way that makes clear he means exactly what he’s saying. More than once, he menaces people with the prospect of having their tongues cut out, indeed he offers to do the job personally, and coming from him it never sounds like idle bravado. His absolute scorn for Sir Basil is another delight, as is his martial treatment of any villagers he comes across who aren’t in tune with his plans. Poor Andrew Keir once again comes a cropper at Lee’s hands in Devil Ship Pirates, just like he did in Blood River. Little wonder he goes to town on revenging himself in Dracula: Prince of Darkness, which incidentally also features Latham in the standout role of Klove.

As in Blood River, too much is going on for the plotholes and inconsistencies to become too apparent, though I love the fact that the script doesn’t even try to address the issue of any potential language barrier between the Spaniards and their English captives. More obvious is the lack of character development beyond the principals. In Blood River, Oliver Reed and Peter Arne were prominent amongst the pirate ranks, yet here they’re all minor characters, to a man scurvy seadog ne’er do wells whose interest ends in the nearest flagon of ale and vague promise of doubloons. There’s a cracking fight scene between the brigands, as in the previous movie, and similarly it’s played a little quirkily. Rather than let two scrapping pirates skewer each other with rapiers, Ripper’s Pepe invents a contest where each gets a chance to strike the other until one doesn’t get up. The contest ends when one of the contenders wields a cup for extra ballast, a cheat that actually earns him respect from his comrades. Clearly, in piratedom bending the rules to suit your own ends was completely acceptable and indeed encouraged. This sort of stuff really does write itself, doesn’t it?

Tension in the movie comes from the villagers’ growing realisation that they’re being held prisoner not by representatives of the Spanish Empire but rather a motley gang bent on pursuing their own ends. If this had happened in real life, you imagine the locals would simply help the pirates repair their ship and see them off all the sooner. But not here. In the plucky spirit of The Great Escape, our English forebears set about trying to undermine Robeles, with mixed results and a scene that involves Cairney being flogged for his cheek. All this is played straight, and Lee has the savvy to invest his character with sufficient menace to be worth fearing and nasty enough to oppose. As for the pirates, they spend so much of the film getting drunk on English ale that you might think overcoming them wouldn’t be a tall order. Their sozzled cause isn’t helped by Warren’s spanner in the works, making it clear that things will reach a messy climax, which of course they do.

Far from being one of Hammer’s finest pieces of work, Devil Ship Pirates is extremely good fun and on a par with Blood River. But which is the better movie? Voters at IMDb have given them exactly the same score (5.6 at the time of writing) and it really is impossible to prescribe one as the superior piece of work. Having watched both films twice, the first time I enjoyed Devil Ship more, whilst on the second viewing I found myself getting into Blood River. I even started putting together a list of things I liked especially from both films, as though that was going to provide an answer.

The reality is that they are very similar efforts, with comparatively rousing theme tunes and the same filming locations (Devil Ship’s coastal scenes were shot at Maidenhead, but otherwise the films were entirely Bray-based). It looks as though the later movie had a bit more money spent on it, notably in the addition of a ship, which admittedly looks fantastic but turns out to be superfluous to the action. According to Mondo Hammer’s review of the film, El Diablo cost around £17k to build, only for the model to capsize after being overloaded with equipment. Besides, the extra investment doesn’t make an awful lot of difference. All the fun comes from the daft story, Lee’s glowering turn and usual excellent work done on props, costumes and cinematography, which serve to mask the budget limitations.

Yaarrr me hearties! Four score and one years before Johnny Depp donned his hair extensions and started talking like a rum-soaked Jack Tar, Hammer were hoisting up the main sail with lusty pirate exploits of their own! Led by that black-hearted scurvy seadog, Long John Christopher Lee, Hammer’s pirates didn’t actually put to sea at all, but their land-lubbing adventures fair warmed the cockles of an old sea cove’s blarney. So raise the Jolly Roger, crack open a tot of rum, fire a shot across the bows and walk the plank towards Davy Jones’s locker as we step back into ye olde mists of pirate film-making with a yo-ho-ho, and a garrr, and a…

Enough. For a moment, I had stepped into the shoes of Mack, a bawdy stereotype of every screen pirate who ever sailed the four corners of the open blarney, as played winningly in Pirates of Blood River by Michael Ripper. To the uninitiated, Hammer fans’ love for Ripper must appear a strange thing. After all, he wasn’t exactly God’s gift to acting, nor was he anything other than lazily cast. Ripper was the classic Hammer coach driver, or the inn keeper. Now and then he cameoed as a drunk, and just occasionally he got something a little meatier to do. One such case was in this very movie, where he’s a henchman of Captain LaRoche (Lee), and a jolly roger he is too. Until the last few scenes, Mack lights up the screen with his joie de vivre, his love for life, and his interpretation of the pirate’s code - which resonates long after the glowering performances from Oliver Reed and Peter Arne have been forgotten - is one of the very best things in this movie. Why do we love the Ripster? Because he’s good fun, and I imagine bloody good company to boot. When cast correctly, his full-blooded, gleefully amateurish turns can really conjure something memorable from a mediocre picture, which sums up his influence over this otherwise average swashbuckler.

Hammer never spent a buck where a dime would just about paper over the cracks. Though they tried, with some success, to tap into the summer blockbuster market with this moderately budgeted effort, the prospect of supplying action at sea was just too costly to consider. Instead, the story (provided by Jimmy Sangster and scripted by John Hunter) was an entirely land-based affair. After some stock footage of contemporary sailing ships, the prologue takes us straight on to a Caribbean island (actually Berkshire, but they just about get away with it) and sets the scene of a restrictive Hugenot settlement where any ungodly activity is frowned upon, and then some.

Quite clearly, no one outlined this mere detail to Jonathon Standing (Kerwin Matthews), who is first seen romping on the outskirts of the village with Maggie (Marie Devereux). They’re caught, and rather than face the wrath of the local law Maggie throws herself into the river, only to fall prey to a school of piranhas. We don’t see any fish. What we get is a wave of bubbles advancing menacingly towards the comely Devereux; then she flails about a bit and vanishes. For his crime, Jonathon is brought before the Council, led by the village elder and his own father, Jason Standing (Andrew Keir). There, he is condemned to serve in a nearby penal colony, even though the Hugenots are supposed to be in a remote world of their own that’s cut off from civlisation, but you know how it is.

Enter the pirates, who have been alerted to the possibility that the settlement contains some hidden treasure. After Jonathon mounts a daring escape from the colony, he’s picked up by the rogues, and forced to lead them back to his village. But, he asserts, there are no riches! Or aren’t there? LaRoche isn’t so certain, and as their enforced stay in the settlement gets more strained, the captain’s attempt to get his hands on the loot starts taking on increasing levels of violence.

There are many problems with Pirates of Blood River, and they only begin with the concern that a film about piracy is entirely landlocked. The plot is laced with holes, and it doesn’t help that Matthews makes for a terribly bland lead. Selected for his looks, and having already covered action adventure by taking the eponymous role in The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad, Matthews can handle action sequences but sinks during the film’s more thoughtful moments. Fellow American actor, Glenn Corbett is also on hand as a peace-loving villager (the trailer rather hilariously describes him as ‘A man who loved peace so much he was prepared to kill for it’), yet he’s just as moribund. Check out just about any American drama serial from the mid-1960s through to Dallas, and invariably you’ll come across Corbett, probably working at the appropriate level for a run of the mill, jobbing actor.

The chops instead go to Hammer’s predictable troupe of British regulars. Keir is marvellous as the Hugenot elder, whose carefully ordered life falls apart with the arrival of the pirates. An early, moody turn from Oliver Reed is fine enough, whilst the well-toned form of Arne makes him one of the more prominent villains. As ever, Lee turns a one-dimensional role as the black-hearted Captain LaRoche (dressed unambiguously in black, with a de rigeur eyepatch and blue headscarf) into something quite wonderful. His secret is to underplay the part, transforming the character into a quietly spoken simmering powder keg that could blow at any moment. It just about makes his stab at approximating a French accent forgiveable.

Despite the uneven acting and shaky plot, the story contains some cracking moments. The discovery of the treasure is nicely paced and a great reveal, and the movie’s last act, when the villagers finally turn on their pirate overlords, lacks the confidence to be as good as it could be, yet makes for a thrilling climax. This is helped by heavy hints that all is not well amongst the pirates, an element that perhaps should have been teased at earlier in the film, along with more expression of the tensions within the Hugenot settlement. Of course, expanding on these plot dimensions could have taken the yarn into directions it doesn’t need to go down. Pirates wasn’t intended to make any profound statements, to give us a glimpse into proto-Pilgrim lifestyles or comment on dissension in the ranks, and it’s worth remembering that this was always made to appeal to family audiences wanting a bit of diversionary fluff, which by all accounts it did.

Hammer’s reputation for superb cinematography is well served here. Director John Gilling and his team work wonders to create a tropical climate from a backlot at their Home Counties studio. Clearly, it was a hot summer when the principal outdoor photography was taking place. Not only do the actors sweat dutifully, but the locations look sunkissed and never out of place. Some praise is also due to Gary Hughes and his epic score. Pirates has a catchy theme tune, and rich strings throughout that don’t impose themselves on the more intense action sequences, such as Reed’s swordfight with Arne that, bizarrely enough, features both protagonists blindfolded.

‘The world is a mess and I just… need to rule it.’

Joss Whedon fans will be delighted to know that their hero is back, and on the web! His latest creation, Dr Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog is available to watch via three, free webisodes, but hurry! Time to catch his adventures is severely limited, and catch them you should.

Dr Horrible (Neil Patrick Harris) is a supervillain. He has a Doctorate in Horribleness, and schemes to join the Evil League of Evil. Via his blog, he outlines his plans for world domination, whilst describing his attempts to overcome arch-nemesis, Captain Hammer (Whedon regular, Nathan Fillion). But life isn’t quite that simple. In the guise of his alter-ego, Billy, he turns into a shy nerd. During trips to the local launderette, he has fallen for Penny (Felicia Day), a nice girl who just happens to be dating Hammer. What’s a baddie to do, other than sing about his troubles?

The first two 13-minute episodes of the show are available now. Its third and climatic act will be online from Saturday, 19 July, only for the lot to be pulled into the Internet ether at midnight on Sunday, 20 July. Subsequently, Whedon plans to make the series available for paying customers via download and DVD.

Dr Horrible comes recommended. Its cheap-as-chips production values are worn like a badge of honour. Nobody takes their roles even slightly seriously, and as you might expect it’s extremely camp. Harris cranks the hamminess up to eleven as the eponymous lead, and Nathan Fillion is good value as always. He plays the hero of the piece, whilst also managing to be a smug, odious bastard. The songs aren’t quite up to the standard of Whedon’s ‘Once more with Feeling‘ (aka the musical episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer), but in that instance the viewers had years of emotional involvement with the characters to back up the odes, whereas this is more in the vein of good, campy fun.

Whedon has essentially done it again. You have to respect a man who uses the medium of the web to churn out something that’s better than much of the rot on television currently, let alone the detritus that has millions of dollars invested in it for the big screen (I’m looking at you, Prince Caspian). What’s important now is for you to click on the unmissably large banner below and check it out for yourself. Dr Horrible won’t change your life, but he might put a smile on your face…

Normal service to be resumed from Monday, which is likely to involve a look at late Hammer release Fear in the Night. In terms of TBW’s future, I’ve picked up a copy of the Definitive Ealing Collection, and intend to comment on the contents therein, whilst a glance through the Rathbone and Bruce Sherlock Holmes collection may be in order, and I have also recently dusted off that old tin case housing the James Bond Special Edition DVDs…

• Four young, good looking Americans on holiday.
• A mysterious, ancient building in the middle of nowhere.
• A rough map to its location.
• Locals who want nothing to do with the place.
• Someone who has previously ‘disappeared’ whilst researching said building.
• One of the Americans isn’t very keen on going.

Honestly, it’s like Scream never happened, though of course with something as uninspired as The Ruins, there’s barely room for any of that postmodern, ironic nonsense. I like to imagine the conversation between Pete and his unwilling girlfriend, Amy, going as follows:

‘Pete, I don’t want to go.’

‘Are you still not feeling well?’

‘No, it’s just obvious we’re walking towards our doom.’

‘Yes but Amy if we don’t go there, what’s the rest of the movie going to be about? Why would anyone care about a story in which four glamorous, vapid tourists are invited to a mysterious monument and decide not to visit it?’

One of the film’s biggest problems is its main characters. It’s not that they aren’t very likeable, as such, more that they aren’t really developed. The Ruins isn’t really about them. They’re pawns, cyphers that are required for no other reason than to give us a reason to go to the ruins, which turns out to be an ancient Mayan temple covered with carniverous vegetation. It’s as though writer Scott B Smith and director Carter Smith know we are never really going to connect with the cardboard cut-out leads, so they don’t bother to make us try, instead shuffling them from A to B as quickly as possible in order to let the horror take over.

Worse still than the Americans is Joe Anderson, who plays Mathias. Mathias holds the map that leads them all to the ruins. His reason for going is that his girlfriend was carrying out excavations, but he hasn’t heard from her in some weeks and foolishly naturally resolves to find out what’s happened. As suggested by the name, Mathias is German, yet instead of hiring a German actor we have Anderson, whose comedy accent would guarantee him work on a remake of Allo Allo. He’s even more thinly drawn than the Americans, the most interesting of whom is Amy, played by Jena Malone. Best known as Gretchen in Donnie Darko, Malone is better than this kind of stuff, and tries gamely to invest her character with a little humanity. Otherwise, I don’t remember a thing about her friends - who they are, why they’re there, why I should give a stuff about whether they make it out of the ruins alive.

The Ruins fairly shamelessly rips off a number of other movies. Links with The Beach are obvious, though I was also struck with its similarities to The Descent, Neil Marshall’s superior fright flick about a bunch of women who go potholing into one hell of a mess. What it loses is all sense of The Descent’s subtlety. Whereas much of Marshall’s film took place in the dark, meaning its shocks and nastiness were at best half-lit and implied much of the gore and violence, thereby leaving our imagination to fill in the blanks, there’s no such luck here. In The Ruins’ most infamous scene, our heroes decide to amputate another character’s legs, using whatever tools they have at their disposal - tequila, a rock and a blade of dubious sharpness and zero sterility. As the grisly operation takes place, the camera doesn’t flinch. There’s no cut away, no reprieve. And it’s here that the obvious third inspiration appears. The Ruins is a by-product of the horror environment established by Hostel, and all its ‘torture porn’ spin-offs. And like the majority of those films, it tries to substitute unpleasantness for anything very frightening, and of course just ends up leaving a bad taste in the mouth.

My real problem with The Ruins, however, is that it’s derivative of much earlier works. As the characters worked their inevitable way towards the temple, the thought kept striking me that this was just like Dracula: Prince of Darkness. Exactly like in the 42-year old Hammer movie, our heroes travel towards their doom, ignore the concerns of the one who has a bad feeling about it (Barbara Shelley in Drac; Malone here) and brush off any warnings along the way. In D:PoD, it became utterly clear the heroes were in trouble once their coach driver refused to take them anywhere near Castle Dracula. It’s a cab driver in The Ruins. ‘Eees bad place,’ he warns in a tourist-friendly Mexican drawl, until the sight of some dollars changes his mind. Presumably in the twenty first century, moral scruples are wiped out by the acquisition of wealth, though any allegorical message the film might have had starts and ends here.

Despite obviously costing a lot more money to make than Teeth, The Ruins made me miss Mitchell Lichtenstein’s wittier and far cleverer little film. It’s utter pulp, told without guile or any degree of sympathy for its characters. It doesn’t even have the morally bankrupt undertone of Hostel. The message of the movie appears to be this - if you are thinking of going to an ancient temple in the middle of nowhere, then don’t. And that’s it. The Ruins isn’t recommended to anyone save those people who want to know how to perform amateur amputative surgery under extreme pressure.