The Twilight Zone excelled in telling tales of terror, exploring the darkest aspects of human existence in myriad ways. To celebrate the Halloween season, we’re counting down the 31 most frightening and unsettling moments from The Twilight Zone, one for each day of October. We’ll be revisiting some of the episodes we’ve already covered and looking ahead to episodes from the final three seasons of the series. -JP
#16 - Double Trouble, from “Mirror Image,” season one, episode 21
Written
by Rod Serling, directed by John Brahm, starring Vera Miles and Martin Milner
Rod Serling’s “Mirror Image” is an
underrated gem of the first season that brings an atmosphere of Gothic horror
to a modern tale of malevolent doppelgängers. The episode is anchored by fine
performances from Vera Miles, as a supernaturally persecuted woman slowly
losing her grip on reality, and Martin Milner, as a sympathetic but doubting
fellow traveler who soon learns the horrible truth of the situation. The
episode benefits from a single, isolated set, a favorite motif of Serling’s episodes
and one which he utilized to great effect in a number of classics (“The After
Hours,” “Five Characters in Search of an Exit,” “The Masks,” etc.). This serves
to constrict the space around the characters and increase the intrinsic tension
of the story. In a clever touch, Serling subtly insinuates the notion that
stations of traveling exchange (train depots, airports, bus terminals) are
areas in which the space between our world and a parallel dimension are
thinnest, allowing for “others” to pass through. Director John Brahm combines
steady framing shots with unnerving, and disorienting, perspective shots as the
episode moves toward its harrowing conclusion. The image of a clearly
malevolent Vera Miles glaring out from a bus window at her unfortunate
counterpart is a highlight, but the strangely effective perspective shot of Martin
Milner chasing after, and subsequently losing sight of, his grinning double is
like a vision from a particularly vivid nightmare.
Trivia:
-During the first season, Rod Serling
was fond of a story type in which a woman, always alone and particularly
susceptible to mental breakdown, is pursued by a supernatural force eventually
revealed to be an apparition contingent with the individual self. Along with
“Mirror Image,” Serling also gave us the characteristically related episodes,
“The Hitch-Hiker,” “Nightmare as a Child,” and “The After Hours” during the
first season.
Read our full coverage of “Mirror Image” here.
You hit the nail on the head. That scene of Milner chasing himself freaks me out. It's hard to imagine watching these when they were first on, not knowing what was coming, not able to rewind or watch again--imagine what your mind would have done with the memories of what passed by so quickly on a black and white screen!
ReplyDeleteI can't imagine what seeing this for the first time would have been like. Nearly sixty years later the show still seems fresh and innovative. This one is easily one of the most underrated episodes. Perfectly written, acted, paced, and directed, not to mention genuinely creepy. It is an excellent take on a standard fantasy trope. There is just something "off" about that end sequence that never loses its ability to creep me out.
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