Good horror is hard to come by nowadays, either because the plots are unoriginal or the filming is focused on gruesome, bloody imagery. Shaking our heads in disappointment at the present state of horror, we must turn to the classics. Rod Serling’s The Twilight Zone (1959-1964) is an iconic 20th century television series that features creative and innovative plots executed through visuals and sounds that play on primal human fears rather than a general aversion to seeing dismantled bodies. This chilling television show covers genres from science fiction to fantasy to psychological thriller to just plain horror. The show was enormously successful and was revived twice, once from 1985-1989 and again from 2002-2003, even going on to inspire a movie, a radio show, and Disney Hollywood Studios’ ride, Tower of Terror. It is such a timeless show because of its exploration of spooky themes ranging from isolation and time travel to aliens and ghosts.
One theme that might stick out to a 21st century viewer is the role of technology in society. The role of technology is an interesting topic because it has massively changed over the last fifty years. Therefore, many of The Twilight Zone episodes would not scare people today because they do not entirely make sense in contemporary light. On the other hand, some of these episodes play on fears that have actually come to life as time has passed. The following three episodes from The Twilight Zone demonstrate how our society has moved both further away from and maybe even slightly into the twilight zone.
“Where is Everybody” (Season 1, Episode 1) is the frightening opener of the series. In the episode, a pilot who is suffering from amnesia wanders into an abandoned town, lacking any recollection of who he is or how he got there. Although he cannot find another person, he has a strange feeling that he is being watched and constantly runs into signs of life like a still burning cigarette or a fresh spray of shaving cream. The surprising twist is that he is really hallucinating the whole thing and has been trapped in a five foot squared box for two and a half weeks in order to train for the experience of going to the moon. The idea is that he went insane from confinement and isolation, not having heard another human voice or engaging in any type of social interaction in over half a month.
This is one episode that shows how our society may have moved away from the twilight zone. Modern science has produced bigger and better space crafts, allowing more space for astronauts to move around and avoid cabin fever. Although it is not as liberating as walking in fresh air on earth, it certainly beats being stuck in a five foot squared box. More importantly, the issue of isolation is not nearly as nerve-wracking. With developments in communications, astronauts in space can communicate with people on Earth whether it be with NASA or simply checking in with friends and family. Even though living in space is still an enormous burden on the human mind, it is not the same horrific situation as it was fifty years ago. Space crafts in this day and age are generally large enough to fit multiple people and have built in-communications systems that can help prevent astronauts from becoming so isolated that they become delusional.
“A Thing About Machines” (Season 2, Episode 4) is about a bitter man named Bartlett Finchley who is loathsome to people and machines alike. Because he is rude and pretentious, he has no close friends and is believed to be insane when he starts claiming his household appliances are behaving strangely. He is plagued by a television that turns on by itself, a car that can move with no driver, and a radio that plays static without having it’s controls touched.
Interestingly, many of Finchley’s fears came to life. Technology has evolved to the point where it is voice activated and does not need to be pressed to turn on. In fact, most of our precious devices, like cell phones and laptops, do not need to be plugged into an outlet to work. Finchley can say goodbye to his method of unplugging his appliances to shut them off– in this society, that is not how it works. Additionally, Finchley was spooked by his typewriters ability to type a message to him, but he would probably have a nervous breakdown is he could see our modern people talking to Siri on their iPhones, iPads, and Macs among other things. We now have the ability to have full conversations with our machines. Lastly, Finchley ultimately has to face down his self-operating car, a concept that must have seemed foreign in the 1960s but is coming to life in the 21st century. This episode of The Twilight Zone plays on our fear of machinery that can control itself, but it eerily reflects elements found in contemporary technology. After Finchley’s typewriter self-types a message to him, he stares at it in disbelief, saying, “It’s a typewriter, a device, an inanimate, senseless machine.” We would say the same about technology today… wouldn’t we?
“The Arrival” (Season 3, Episode 2) is about a mysterious plane, Flight 107, that lands with no luggage, no passengers, and no pilot. In trying to crack the case, Grant Shekly proposes that the flight is actually an illusion and that everyone has been hypnotized to see it there. When it disappears along with all the other people in the room, Shekly is completely jarred. Upon entering back into reality, he realizes that Flight 107 disappeared into thin air about twenty years ago, haunting him every day. Although he had been the investigator on the case, the plane and its passengers were never found.
The idea of a plane disappearing has always been terrifying. In modern times, a missing plane has the ability to shake society. Because our world is so interconnected and technology is so advanced, we tend to think that the entire earth is small and easy to monitor. In 2014, the global community was shocked and horrified when Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 vanished. Although pieces of the plane have since been found, no one really knows what exactly happened on that flight or how such a massive vehicle could go off the radar. Clearly, even though we have made leaps in technological progress, we do not know nearly as much about the world as we think we do.
The Twilight Zone will chill your blood and raise goosebumps on your arm. It uses human psychology and basic fears to scare the audience. A theme that has played on human fears in both the 1960s and now is the role of technology in society. The three aforementioned episodes are varying examples of how technological progress has brought us further away from and closer to dwelling in the twilight zone. Unfortunately, the thing about the twilight zone is that you never know when you are in it.
