Movie Review: Twilight Zone: Rod Serling’s Lost Classics (1994)

Twilight Zone: Rod Serling’s Lost Classics (1994), directed by Robert Markowitz; starring James Earl Jones, Amy Irving, Jack Palance, Patrick Bergin, Jenna Stern, and Gary Cole.

This 90-minute film is a made-for-television movie that was broadcast as a “CBS Special” in 1994. It consists of two episodes, The Theater and Where The Dead Are.

The Theater is a 30-minute teleplay that was written by horrormeister Richard Matheson from an outline completed by Serling. Where The Dead Are is a complete one-hour teleplay written by Serling in 1968, so technically it’s not a “lost” TZ episode, as the series ended in 1964. However, it’s very much in keeping with the spirit and atmosphere of the original series.

James Earl Jones, aka The Voice of Vader, stands in for Serling and does intro and exit commentaries for both episodes.

The Theater is pretty forgettable and is not really up to the usual standards of either Serling or Matheson. The plot concerns a young professional couple, played by the former Mrs. Steven Spielberg, Amy Irving, and Gary Cole (five years before he would be immortalized as the detestable Lumbergh in the cult hit Office Space.) Cole’s character, an emergency room doctor named James, is eager to settle down and get married, but Irving’s indecisive character, an artist named Melissa, keeps putting him off.

One evening, Melissa attends a revival theater showing of the classic 40s film, Howard Hawks’ His Girl Friday, and sees film clips of her own past and future on the screen, instead of Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell. She returns again and again, each time seeing more clips of her past and future, including a distressing one that features her own death.

James tries to help, but he’s ineffectual and distracted by his job. The execution of the script is boring and disjointed, and the “twist” at the end is pretty weak. In addition, Cole and Irving don’t really click as a couple. Still,if you’re a Serling fan (and who isn’t?), it’s worth sitting through.

Where the Dead Are, in contrast, is the kick-ass killer ep that is essential viewing for Serling fans. Ardent Serlophiles will be reminded of two excellent episodes of Serling’s second series, Night Gallery (1970-1973): Deliveries in the Rear (an original tale which Serling wrote) and Cool Air (based on a 1923 short story by HP Lovecraft.)

The plot concerns a Boston surgeon and medical professor named Ramsey, played by Patrick Bergin of Sleeping With the Enemy (1991) fame, who is obsessed with discovering a way to cheat death. One day, he comes across an indigent patient suffering from a burst appendix. The man dies from the infection, but Ramsey notices that he has suffered a massive head trauma far in the past that should have killed him then.

Intrigued, he tracks the patient’s origin to a small, closed community in rural Massachusetts. When he asks the locals questions about the deceased patient, he is referred to an elderly scientist named Wheaton, (Palance), who lives a secluded life on an island off the coast of the village with his attractive young niece, Susan.

Ramsey visits Wheaton’s stately island mansion and accidentally witnesses Wheaton and Susan reviving a man whom Ramsey saw die earlier in the village. Eventually he learns the creepy truth about Wheaton and the villagers whom the old doctor looks after. The dialogue features plenty of vintage Serlingesque moral speechifying, and there’s a couple of “twists” at the end that are pretty good, plus a great spooky atmosphere. Damn Serling was good when he was at the top of his game!

I give it an 8/10 for the second episode. On disc and currently streaming at Amazon.