Line #317 NightmareFuel/TheTwilightZone1959


1	[[quoteright:320:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/talkytina_3864.jpg]]
2	[[caption-width-right:320:''"My name is Talky Tina, and I am going to kill you!"'']]
3
4	->''"The worst fear of all is the fear of the unknown working on '''you''', which you cannot share with others. To me, that's the most nightmarish of the stimuli."''
5	-->--'''Creator/RodSerling''', interview
6
7	With a series as bizarre and disturbing as ''Series/TheTwilightZone1959'', you bet there's going to be NightmareFuel-tastic content. Here is a list of examples.
8
9	'''As a Moments subpage, all spoilers are unmarked [[Administrivia/SpoilersOff as per policy.]] Administrivia/YouHaveBeenWarned.'''
10	----
11
12	[[foldercontrol]]
13
14	[[folder: General]]
15	* The theme tune. While some find [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Znqt2b8CKQ the '80s version]] worse, the original is still quite creepy.
16	* The intro. Just look at how unnatural everything is moving.
17	[[/folder]]
18
19	[[folder: Season One]]
20	[[AC: Where is Everybody?]]
21	* It's a simple premise, and an interesting case of EarlyInstallmentWeirdness, but the idea of being alone in empty town, which seems to still have recent signs of life in it, is a very unsettling one. As in, a jukebox is playing in a roadside there's still warm food on the tables, a lit cigar in the police station ashtray, a still-wet shaving kit is left out in one of the cells, and ''a movie starts playing in the theater'' even though there's no one in the projection booth. It's as if everyone stepped just out of sight seconds before. All the while, Mike feels like he's being watched...
22	* Not only does Mike not know where he is or how he got there, he doesn't even know WHO he is (we don't find his name out until TheReveal), and his first memory of... ''anything'', is wandering down a deserted road leading to the diner.
23	* In the deserted town, a payphone rings, but when Mike answers it, there's nobody on the other end, and when he tries to get ahold of an operator, it's just a recorded message.
24	* Finally breaking down after the scene in the theater, Mike runs through the empty streets in a panic, collapsing in front of a "Walk/Don't Walk" button, which he presses desperatly while begging for help.... which he gets, as it's actually a panic button [[TheReveal that ends the Air Force experiment he was taking part in]].
25	* Mike spent 484 hours, or ''twenty days'', in that isolation tank in preparation for a trip to the moon. The entire scenario was a literal nightmare, dreamt up by Mike's mind to cope with his isolation.
26	* While the episode's TwistEnding may seem odd to a modern viewer, this was made on the eve of humanity's first ventures into space, before even Yuri Gagarin's historic flight. There was genuinely ''no consensus'' as to what would happen to a person who was all alone up in space for that long, whether they would GoMadFromTheIsolation or not.
27
28	[[AC: Escape Clause]]
29	* The entire experience of Walter Bedecker, a hypochondriac man desperate to find any sort of thrill when he is unable to die after a DealWithTheDevil. Everything from jumping off of buildings to running in front of speeding trains; no doubt terrifying many many people through his insurance fraud. And through sheer happenstance his wife ends up dying via falling off the very roof he intended to jump off. Walter feels absolutely ''nothing'' beyond his desire to experience the electric chair after claiming to the police he did the deed. Unfortunately, his lawyer turns out to be surprisingly competent, and gets the death penalty revoked, leaving Walter facing [[FateWorseThanDeath an eternity in federal prison.]]
30	* The titular "escape clause"? The Devil, knowing full well what the outcome was likely to be, gave Walter a way to end his immortality - an immediate, fatal heart attack, allowing the Devil to claim his soul.
31
32	[[AC: Judgement Night]]
33	* The episode takes place on board of the S.S. ''Queen of Glasgow'', a WWII ship that got separated from her convoy in thick fog... while German U-Boats prowl outside... and the dread and tension builds and builds as Carl Lanser, the main character, becomes convinced that they are being stalked by a German U-Boat and that something bad is going to happen at 1:15 in the morning. It turns out the that the Carl was the U-Boat captain that sank the ship without warning, killing everyone on board and scoffing the notion from one of his underlings that God will judge them for that they've done. Then it cuts back to the opening scene, showing that the Captain has been damned to repeat the events of that fateful night... for all of eternity.
34
35	[[AC: Time Enough at Last]]
36	* The episode features Burgess Meredith as a meek clerk who loves to read, but never has the time to... Until a nuclear blast kills everyone else in the world. First, the episode plays on our PrimalFear of loneliness, and second, there's the famous ending where his glasses slip off his nose and shatter, with him shouting, "It's not fair! There was ''time'' now!" Whether the ending is scary or unintentionally hilarious, the idea of being ''completely alone for the rest of your life'', on top of not being able to see clearly.
37	** The ending showing the aftermath of the destruction the bomb did and the fact all the humans, except for Mr. Bemis, are dead.
38
39	[[AC: Perchance to Dream]]
40	* The dream sequences with the freaky looking amusement park, the shrieking laughter of an unseen woman, the FemmeFatale with that eerie, seductive voice, and finally the climax where the guy sees the woman from his nightmare.
41	* Even the premise is a nightmare in itself: [[AluminumChristmasTrees there is an actual, extremely rare condition]] which can cause a person to experience tachycardia or even stop the heart when surprised by loud noises or shocking experiences. The sensation of your heart skipping a beat can be lethal for these people.
42
43	[[AC: And When the Sky Was Opened]]
44	* Three astronauts are in a hospital recovering from their mission. They start ''disappearing'' [[UnPerson not just from sight but from memory]]. And ''no one knows why''. Even the spaceship disappears in the end.
45	* As soon as you figure out what happened to Harrington, you know the same thing will happen to Forbes, and HE knows it as well. And there's also the fact that the ''second'' that they're out of sight they vanish. Could it have been prevented if there was always someone looking at them? The title itself is one of the eeriest in the show; not being linked to the story, it leaves the viewer to guess as to what it means. It seems to imply that the sky is swallowing the men up when they disappear.
46	* Also, the subtle horror -- you could lose your identity or life at any moment if some force beyond your control wills it so.
47
48	[[AC: I Shot an Arrow Into the Air]]
49	* The episode revolves around the first manned mission into space (the episode was made before Gagarin's 1961 spaceflight), which loses contact with Earth, and crashes on an unknown desert planet. The crash kills most of the crew, and destroys most of the supplies, leaving three men stranded in a harsh, unforgiving terrain with very limited water. What's worse, the ship was a ''prototype'', and the only one of its kind; a replacement would require years to produce, leaving little to no hope of rescue. One of the survivors quickly begins to lose his mind, and kills one of the other three while he is returning from a recon mission, seemingly in a hurry. Before the crewman dies, he scribbles an odd symbol into the sand that resembles a cross with two horizontal lines on it. The killer overpowers and murders the remaining survivor, takes the water that's left, and begins to climb the surrounding mountains, eventually reaching the summit, where he sees what his first victim saw, and instantly breaks down in tears. The symbol in the sand was that of ''an electrical pole'', overlooking a highway leading to Reno. They never left Earth; they simply crashed ''in the Nevada desert''.
50
51	[[AC: The Hitch-Hiker]]
52	* A lady, Nan Adams, is on a cross-country drive. Somewhere along the middle of the drive, this creepy guy in black begins to stalk her, trying to lead her into all sorts of lethal situations. Creepy enough on its own, but it gets worse when you find out that she died in a car accident somewhere during the middle of the drive, and the guy was actually the Angel Of Death.
53	-->"I believe you are going my way..."
54	* The part when the lady's car got stuck on the railroad track and nearly gets killed.
55	* [[JumpScare The sudden shot]] where the hitchhiker's face suddenly pops into frame.
56
57	[[AC: The Fever]]
58	* The episode has one of the most chilling allegories for a gambling addiction ever put on screen, complete with Franklin succumbing to the GamblersFallacy. Even worse in that Franklin was never addicted to begin with - his addiction began and lasted for merely two days.
59	* The ghastly, creaky, static-toned 'FRANKLIN' noise made by the slot machine in the climax.
60	* The ending itself is unnerving. We get a nice view of Franklin's broken corpse before and after the police and doctors leave. Then Franklin's last dollar comes spinning across the pavement, resting near his outstretched hand. The camera pans up to reveal the slot machine ''standing there'', somehow having left the hotel of its own accord, before it turns itself off. This being the Twilight Zone, it seems the only explanation is that Franklin wasn't hallucinating at all - ''[[ParanoiaFuel the slot machine really is sentient and can move on its own]].''
61
62	[[AC: Elegy]]
63	* The robot caretaker of the asteroid cemetery kills the astronauts because [[HumansAreTheRealMonsters men are incapable of peace.]]
64	* TheReveal means all of the people in the model town standing around and not moving are actual dead bodies of real people.
65	* The final scene, with the caretaker dusting the frozen corpses of the three astronauts as [[SoundtrackDissonance chipper music plays]], is viscerally unsettling.
66
67	[[AC: Mirror Image]]
68	* A woman is waiting in a bus station. Her bags get moved around and the clerk says that she did it. She meets a man that later calls the cops on her for saying that there's an evil lookalike among them. Then the man turns and sees a lookalike of himself...
69
70	[[AC: The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street]]
71	* The episode "The Monsters are Due on Maple Street" is scary mainly because of the real life subtext. Especially when you consider that "Due" aired almost 50 years before the remake, and how little things have changed...
72	-->''"The tools of conquest do not necessarily come with bombs, and explosions, and fallout. There are weapons that are simply thoughts, attitudes, prejudices, to be found only in the minds of men. For the record, prejudices can kill, and suspicion can destroy. And a thoughtless, frightened search for a scapegoat has a fallout all of its own - for the children, and the children yet unborn. And the pity of it is, that these things cannot be confined...to the Twilight Zone."''
73	* The neighbors end up shooting an innocent man dead, simply because they were frightened and he had the misfortune to be walking towards them up a darkened street.
74	* The ending when they are all freaking out and the close ups of their faces make it really creepy.
75
76	[[AC: A World of Difference]]
77	* Imagine going about your day, doing something you do all the time, just to hear someone yell "cut" and when you turn around, you see that you're on a movie set with everyone insisting that you're an actor and the person you thought you were was just a character in a movie.
78
79	[[AC: Long Live Walter Jameson]]
80	* The way Jameson rapidly aged until he was nothing but a pile of clothes and dust after he was shot was equally creepy.
81	** The radio drama makes it worse by having him ''melt''.
82	* The old woman from the radio drama version was especially creepy to some people: "Hello, Tommy...I saw my Tommy. He's resting now."
83
84	[[AC: A Nice Place to Visit]]
85	* The TwistEnding, no matter how much the man deserved it. After a thug died he was sent to a heaven where he has everything he could ever want, but he got bored after a month and asked to be taken to Hell instead of Heaven, only for his guide to tell him he's been in Hell the whole time. He tries to escape the apartment, but is trapped with his guide maniacally laughing at his panic.
86	-->'''Pip:''' Heaven? ''scoffs'' [[WhamLine Whatever gave you the idea you were in Heaven, Mr. Valentine?]] [[ThisIsntHeaven This]] ''[[ThisIsntHeaven is]]'' [[ThisIsntHeaven the other place!]]
87
88	[[AC: Nightmare as a Child]]
89	* Markie. She may be one of the good guys, but she sure is a CreepyChild.
90	--> And you screamed so loud! And you screamed so loud! ''And you screamed so loud!''
91	* Peter Selden murdered his employer in a fit of rage when she refused to cover for his embezzling, and her young daughter witnessed the murder. ''Ever since then he's been keeping tabs on her, against the day when the memory comes back''!
92
93	[[AC: A Stop at Willoughby]]
94	* The different kind of horror provided by the TwistEnding: [[DrivenToSuicide If life is just too much to bear, end it, and go somewhere better.]]
95
96	[[AC: The Chaser]]
97	* The idea that someone could derail your entire life, not just destroying all your own plans and hopes for the future but overwriting your personality into a humiliating love-slave persona. Not to mention the implication that this was done to a number of others before Leila, many of whom were subsequently murdered. It's made all the more chilling by the incongruously lighthearted tone of the episode.
98
99	[[AC: The After Hours]]
100	* The living mannequins surround Marsha and begin repeating her name, causing her to break down in tears. Don't see this episode if you have a fear of mannequins or of losing your memory.
101	-->"Marsha? Marsha?"
102	[[/folder]]
103
104	[[folder: Season Two]]
105
106	[[AC: Eye of the Beholder]]
107	* Most of the horror is in Janet's bandaged face, and the [[NothingIsScarier fact that we don't see her face until the last act]], but the nurse and doctor talk about how this woman hasn't been able to live an even vaguely normal life, because her face is so hideously deformed... ''brrr.''
108	-->"TAKE IT OFF MEEEEE!!!"
109	* At the end, we see [[PersecutionFlip the standard she's held up to in the pig-nosed, hideous doctors and nurses]].
110	-->"Needle, please."
111	* The Hitler-esque dictator of the State.
112	-->'''The Leader:''' Blanket the Earth, and infiltrate and weaken! We know now that there must be a single purpose, a single norm, a single approach, a single entity of peoples, a single virtue, a single morality, a single frame of reference, a single philosophy of government! We must cut out all that is different like a cancerous growth! It is essential in this society, that we not only have a norm, but that we CONFORM to that norm! Differences ''weaken'' us! Variations ''destroy'' us! An incredible permissiveness to deviation from this norm is what has ended nations and brought them to their knees. Conformity we must worship and hold sacred! Conformity is the '''''key to survival!'''''
113
114	[[AC: Nick of Time]]
115	* Newlyweds Don (played by Creator/WilliamShatner) and Pat stop in a small time to get a bite to eat at a diner; they start playing with the freaky Devil-head fortune teller, whose fortunes are eerily accurate. At the end of the episode they manage to escape - but another couple rushes in who are completely enslaved to the answers the thing gives them.
116
117	[[AC: The Lateness of the Hour]]
118	* The episode centers around a young woman who lives with her elderly parents and their domestic robots. She begins to wonder why she and her parents never go outside and questions other such abnormal behavior. The twist is that she is a robot built to be their daughter, and when she figures this out, she freaks. She starts hitting her arm screaming "No pain!" and lastly says "I can't even feel love!" The parents then convert her to a maid robot that then [[{{Squick}} gives the mother a shoulder massage]]. Worse, it's easy for them to reprogram their "daughter" because they never considered her human, [[WhatMeasureIsANonHuman just a machine they can discard]] [[HumansAreBastards if she became too much to handle]].
119
120	[[AC: A Most Unusual Camera]]
121	* The ending, where everyone except the French Waiter has died by falling out of a window, then we hear this:
122	-->'''Waiter:''' Yes, there are more than two bodies down there. Just as the picture shows...one...two...three...''[[ExplainExplainOhCrap FOUR?]]'' ''(He drops the camera in shock, [[NothingIsScarier we focus on it as we hear the Waiter scream.]])''
123	* The end dialogue implies the camera had been plotting the four characters' deaths the whole time.
124
125	[[AC: The Invaders]]
126	* Part of what makes that episode so brilliant is that it's terrifying before ''and'' after you know the TwistEnding, but [[RewatchBonus for completely different reasons]].
127	** The first time you watch it, you see it from the perspective of the elderly woman who lives in complete isolation, and starts doubting her sanity when an army of pint-sized creatures invade her house in the dead of night. Then they attack her with her own knife, among other things.
128	** The second time, you see it from the perspective of the helpless human astronauts who have to contend with a terrified alien the size of a skyscraper.
129
130	[[AC: Twenty-Two]]
131	* The nurse/stewardess from the nightmare. "Room for one more, honey."
132	* Like "Little Girl Lost" and "Living Doll", "Twenty-Two" was also remade into a feature film. That film? ''Franchise/FinalDestination''.
133
134	[[AC: The Odyssey of Flight 33]]
135	* A jumbo jet full of passengers somehow travels back in time, once to where they go back to the dinosaur era and again when they go back to the 1930s. It ends with the pilot trying to get the plane to travel forward in time, but there's no way of knowing when they'll end up. Take into account that their fuel and food will eventually run out, and you've got some horrific implications.
136
137	[[AC: Long Distance Call]]
138	* A young boy named Billy claims that he uses a toy telephone to speak with his grandmother. However, the audience knows by this point that the grandmother had recently died. It soon turns out that the grandmother keeps saying that she misses her grandson and is lonely without him. His parents think nothing about it, for the time being... until their son runs out into the path of a car. When they parents ask the driver, he only says that ''someone told him to do it''. And it doesn't stop there - once the father takes Billy's toy telephone away, Billy then ''attempts to drown himself in order to join his grandmother''.
139
140	[[AC: Will the Real Martian Please Stand Up?]]
141	* Haley, the diner's cook, turns out to be from ''Venus,'' with a [[ThirdEye creepy third eye]] under his hat.
142	-->"I don't mind. I have to do a little waiting myself. You see, Mr. Ross, my name isn't Haley. And I do agree with you that this is an extraordinary place to colonize. We folks on Venus got the same idea. We got it several years ago. And I think I ought to tell you now that your friends are not coming. They've been intercepted. Oh, a colony is coming, but it's from Venus. And if you're still alive, I think you'll see how we differ." ''(Haley removes his hat, revealing his Third Eye; he then laughs at Ross)''
143
144	[[AC: The Obsolete Man]]
145	* It turns out that because a high official of a state that executes people for being obsolete showed some weakness, he is considered obsolete by his people. The crowd in the room slowly circles him, before screaming in unison and pouncing on him as he struggles to escape. Another case of AssholeVictim and KarmicDeath. The worst part? The state ''negated an act of great mercy'' this way.
146	* The crowd of the State's board members circling the Chancellor is particularly notable, as they all slowly start growling angrily until they start screaming and pouncing. For all their claims of superiority, it becomes increasingly clear that the people in charge are barely holding back their pure seething ''hatred'' at being embarrassed on live TV.
147	[[/folder]]
148
149	[[folder: Season Three]]
150
151	[[AC: The Shelter]]
152	* This episode might be the most terrifying of all, as it reveals just how thin and fragile the veneer of civilization is, even more so than the more famous episode "The Monsters Are Due On Maple Street". Imagine your beloved friends and neighbors [[HumansAreBastards becoming your mortal enemies]] because a disaster is coming, and you have a way to escape it, while they don't. And it's hard not to imagine ''not'' becoming a bastard yourself if you're one of those in the "unprepared for disaster and screwed" column. [[ArmorPiercingQuestion What depths wouldn't you yourself sink to, in order to save your life or the lives of your children?]]
153	** Just as the neighbors and friends batter down the shelter door (which they know only has enough supplies for three people)...the Civil Defense announces that the event that started the mad panic for survival turned out to be a false alarm. The others apologize to the doctor (the owner of the shelter) and each other for their behavior, even offering to pay for the damages...but the damage has been done. The doctor muses if they had been destroyed without a bomb. They were perfectly willing to save themselves and throw their friend (who they had thrown a birthday party for at the beginning of the episode) and his family under the bus just for a chance at survival.
154
155	[[AC: The Grave]]
156	* Gunman Conny Miller pursues outlaw Pinto Sykes for a bounty - only to find three men beat him to the punch. A displeased Miller then learns that Sykes threatened him in the end, vowing to rise up and grab him from the grave. This leads to a dare to go the grave at night, with sticking a knife into the ground as proof of visit. Miller seems afraid, but fulfills the dare only to mysteriously fall over and not return the next day. The three men go to the grave to find out what happened and are joined by Sykes' sister Ione. They find Miller's body over the grave, his body pinned by a knife through his coattail. One of the men comes up with a perfectly rational explanation: the wind blew the coattail over the grave, it was caught accidentally by the knife and the resulting tug Miller would've felt scared him further - leading to a fatal heart attack. All so rational, but the wind was blowing the opposite direction as pointed out by Ione, who knows the truth and laughs as we leave the graveyard.
157	* The Credits shot of the grave itself, combined with the already-creepy theme tune of the show, puts a cherry on top of the whole "[[GhostStory Scary story]]" theme the episode was aiming for.
158
159	[[AC: It's a Good Life]]
160	* The episode features [[GooGooGodlike a 6 year old boy named Anthony Fremont with god-like abilities]]. He has isolated his hometown Peaksville, away from the rest of the world, cutting off electricity, automobiles and the like. He can create and destroy, as well as read minds. Everyone must be happy and have happy thoughts, or they are [[FateWorseThanDeath sent to the cornfield]].
161	-->"[[HappinessIsMandatory It's good that he went into the cornfield. It's real good!]]"
162	** Bill Mumy's performance deserves a lot of credit. He's just a kid with way too much power. It's still horrifying [[ParodyDisplacement even if you've seen]] ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'' parody (from the second Treehouse of Horror where Lisa, Bart, and Homer have nightmares after binging on candy) first.
163
164	[[AC: Deaths-Head Revisited]]
165	* We see justice without mercy. It isn't pretty, although [[AssholeVictim the recipient]] (a sadistic former [[UsefulNotes/NaziGermany SS captain]]) actually inflicted the pain he's feeling on his prisoners, so it's really hard to feel ''too'' sorry for him.
166	** Making it worse? Becker reveals to a now insane Lutze that this is only the beginning for him...and that his final judgement will come from God. And given that the majority of Lutze's victims worshipped an all-powerful, omnipotent, just God who (famously) broke a powerful empire that had enslaved them because they wouldn't "let my people go"...
167	* At one point the ghost of one of his prisoners mentioned the SS Captain does "unmentionable things" to people in a certain building. The captain falls to the ground, [[GroinAttack clutching his groin.]] Now think about the Nazi stand on eugenics for a second.
168	* And that's what makes this episode terrifying: it's not the pain that's inflicted, but how much the recipient ''deserves'' it. The AssholeVictim trope was taken up to eleven here as we see him reminisce about all the "good times" he had ruthlessly torturing innocent people, which makes the judgement he goes through actually quite satisfying in retrospect. it helps that, as implied above, he ''raped and castrated'' innocent civilians among other things.
169	* Also, whenever Captain Lütze tries to justify or undermine his horrific acts he (and the audience) can hear ghostly wailing coming from the barracks, a noise which greatly unsettles him to say the least.
170	-->'''Captain Lütze:''' What was that? It sounded like...\
171	'''Becker:''' The wind, Captain?
172
173	[[AC: The Mirror]]
174	* A Latin American dictator is presented with a mirror that supposedly shows which people will try to kill him. One by one, he kills his four closest friends due to the mirror showing them, and he keeps on executing members of the old regime, only to commit suicide at the end.
175	* What makes it especially unsettling is the classic question of whether or not anything supernatural is even happening, or if the character in question is simply losing his mind through paranoia and fear, turning on the people who he trusted most, and doing so with such incredible ease. It's frightening to think of a person with so much power being so fragile, but truly anyone could find themselves in such a position, either turning against the people closest to them out of sheer panic... or finding someone close to you turning against you for no sane reason.
176
177	[[AC: The Midnight Sun]]
178	* "Please... ''paint something cool!''" And of course, later Mrs. Bronson just rambling on about a waterfall and swimming in the water before falling over ''dead''.
179	* The part where Norma screams and everything in the room just starts ''melting''...
180	* The very premise: the earth has fallen out of its elliptical orbit and is about to be consumed by the sun. Think of it this way: Everyone on the planet spends their last hours ''burning to death''. At the end of the episode, it's revealed that the scenario was AllJustADream, caused by Norma's dangerously high fever. So everything's okay... Until her doctor and neighbor start talking about how the earth has moved out of its elliptical orbit ''away'' from the sun and will completely freeze over in up to 3 weeks. shudder
181	* The fact that, according to Rod Serling himself, the Earth has moved so close to the sun that, [[EndlessDaytime even though it's five minutes to midnight, there's no more darkness]].
182
183	[[AC: The Jungle]]
184	* According to Alan's wife Doris, he and his company have been cursed by the jungles of Africa for "wounding" the land, for "making it bleed". Alan, although a skeptic, best describes that the African tribe who invoked the curse are infamous for making the people they curse die without explanation.
185	* On his way home, Alan tries to take a cab home. And after stopping at a red light, he tries to urge the cab driver that the light is green and they can go. ...Only, when he touches the still cab driver's shoulder, the driver drops dead like a twig!
186	* After running through the early morning streets, surrounded by the sounds of wild animals, beating tribal drums and loud chanting, [[HopeSpot he finally makes it home to his apartment and the noises stop]]. He decides to pour himself a drink, only to hear something else coming from his bedroom. He opens the door to see a ''lion'' sitting on his bed, having already mauled Doris. The episode ends as [[KilledOffscreen the lion pounces him offscreen, leaving us with nothing but roars and screaming.]]
187
188	[[AC: Five Characters in Search of an Exit]]
189	* Its NightmareFuel status is given to us by Rod Serling himself in the opening monologue, when he tells us that we'll find out what their situation is, but we won't see it end. ''God,'' that alone is enough to give someone the permanent heebie-jeebies. The reveal is just... [[AndIMustScream Horrifying]].
190	* The clown was pretty disturbing in how he seemed to constantly turn on a dime between [[PluckyComicRelief funny]] and [[SadClown depressing]] while always keeping that smile painted on his face.
191	* Whatever the viewer's reaction to the twist ending, the psychological torture the characters experience is just... shivers. The major (and later the clown) said it best: "We are in Hell." (Luckily, the fact it is more of a Purgatory and that the narrator strongly implies an eventual happy ending for all the toys [[NightmareRetardant lessens the intensity a bit]] and adds a SugarWiki/{{Heartwarming Moment\|s}}.)
192
193	[[AC: One More Pallbearer]]
194	* Radin's air of confidence and in-control-ness belies a surprisingly tenuous sanity.
195	** His hallucination at the end, where he is the last survivor in a bombed-out wasteland.
196
197	[[AC: Dead Man's Shoes]]
198	* Shoes possessed by the ghost of a double-crossed mobster, that force whoever wears them to carry out the mobster's revenge against his killer or die trying.
199
200	[[AC: To Serve Man]]
201	* How the Kanamit ambassador beat the lie detector test. [[FridgeBrilliance Their race do not find anything wrong with eating humans]]. [[MetaphoricallyTrue Technically they weren't there to harm humans... but it would suck for those humans that do get eaten]].
202	** Actually, they were [[MetaphoricallyTrue completely honest]] about ''the questions they were asked''. The Kanamits are genuinely here to make Earth a paradise, to eliminate war, hunger, disease and pain... because as any farmer can tell you, the happier and healthier your livestock is, the better their meat will be. And they aren't on ''Earth'' to harm humans, because the actual killing and processing will take place on the Kanamit homeworld.
203	* TheReveal in the TwistEnding itself, is actually rather horrifying, as Mr. Chambers is preparing to join the group of humans on their journey to the Kanamit home planet when Patty shows up, being held back...
204	-->'''Patty:''' Mr. Chambers, don't get on that ship! I've translated the rest of that book, [[DoubleMeaning "To Serve Man"]], it's... IT'S A COOKBOOK!!!\
205	''(Chambers attempts to escape but is dragged screaming onto the UFO, as the hatch is sealed behind him. The Kanamit ambassador raises his hands in triumph)''\
206	'''Chambers:''' NO! NO! NO! ''NO!'' '''''NO!!!'''''
207	** The episode ending, which involves Chambers giving in to the Kanamits' attempts at FatteningTheVictim, resigned to his fate, and BreakingTheFourthWall to tell the viewers it doesn't matter if they're still on Earth or on the ship with him, they're all going to inevitably end up as food.
208
209	[[AC: Little Girl Lost]]
210	* If the premise of a NegativeSpaceWedgie spontaneously forming in your house isn't freaky enough[[note]]Which is one of those wonderful little "we cannot entirely rule out the possibility of this actually happening" things brought to you by theoretical physics...[[/note]], the idea of being able to hear a lost child crying out in distress and being unable to find her or help her is NightmareFuel to many parents. This episode was also remade into ''Film/{{Poltergeist\|1982}}'', widely considered by many to be one of the scariest movies of all time.
211	* Chris and Ruth's worries when they realize that Tina is not in her bed, but they can hear her calling for them. They spend several minutes searching under the bed and all around the room, fearing the worst. Their dog Mack barks and insists on being let inside; they do so and he runs under the bed. His barking abruptly stops. Fortunately, it turns out Mack can navigate through the Fourth Dimension and successfully finds Tina.
212	* Meanwhile, Tina keeps saying, "Mommy? Daddy? Where are you?" and it echoes around the house. Ruth understandably wants to go through the portal to save her daughter while calling out for her.
213	* The ending where it was revealed the portal was closing and had the father stayed there a few more seconds he would've been [[PortalCut cut in half]].
214
215	[[AC: Person or Persons Unknown]]
216	* The idea that you could wake up one morning and discover all evidence for your existence has been [[RetGone wiped away]]. Everyone's memories of you have been erased, all pictures of you have been changed, someone else has your job, and your entire identity is considered some kind of delusion. Except you're still very much alive and remember everything like it used to be. Or ''your own'' memories could be changed instead, so you'd wake up to find everyone acts the same as you remember, but they now look like complete strangers.
217
218	[[AC: The Little People]]
219	* The story itself is about two men who land on a planet where they discover it's colonized by very tiny aliens and one of the men becomes the "god" of them. Towards the end the other man tries to talk some sense into this friend by telling him that they have to leave and if he doesn't come he's leaving without him. He refuses and he tells him that soon he'll get bored and regret not coming. He still refuses and the man leaves without him.
220	* The FridgeHorror of the near-ending, in two ways:
221	** The astronaut: If it hadn't been for the colossal spaceman accidentally crushing him to death, this man could've spent the rest of his life in utter boredom and regret of not going back.
222	** The aliens: This man had no problem crushing them at will. If he hadn't been stopped by the huge spacemen, they would be at the mercy of a larger creature and would have to live in constant fear of him killing them.
223
224	[[AC: The Dummy]]
225	* "The Dummy" where an alcoholic ventriloquist is being tormented by his own puppet and no one believes him because he's alcoholic. In the end, the puppet taunts his owner and a new ventriloquist performs in his place; this ventriloquist looks exactly like the puppet and the puppet looks like the ventriloquist. It's unknown how that happened, but it's probably better left unknown.
226	** However the Nightmare Fuel is considerably lessened when you consider that the ending is implied to be more an artistic representation of what REALLY happened. In the episode, the ventriloquist is constantly upstaged by the puppet who pretty much does all the work for him, making all the jokes and stuff like that. The end is meant to represent that the act is no longer belonging to the ventriloquist, but the dummy, and the ventriloquist on some level has accepted that. The ventriloquist is the one who stays silent from now on--and the DUMMY is now the center of attention.
227
228	[[AC: I Sing the Body Electric]]
229	* While it may not have been intentional, the factory man showing off pieces for the "Grandmothers" -- things like eyes and hands that are not attached to anything -- was somewhat creepy.
230
231	[[/folder]]
232
233	[[folder: Season Four]]
234
235	[[AC: The Thirty-Fathom Grave]]
236	* A navy ship near Guadalcanal picks up what sounds like metal clanging on their sonar, which seems to be coming from a submarine on the ocean floor. While the ship's captain thinks it could be a survivor, there's been no recent incidents in the area, which leads to some of the crew joking that the sub might be haunted. A diver sent down discovers that the sub was a vessel that sank during the Battle of Eastern Solomons-- ''21 years earlier.'' Worse, one of the men on board the ship, Chief Bell, was the SoleSurvivor of the incident and now believing his former crewmen are coming back for him. [[SurvivorsGuilt Overwhelmed with guilt]], Bell throws himself into the water and drowns. Then, when a rescue team later enters the sub, they discover two possibilities for what was making the noise: [[MaybeMagicMaybeMundane a diving trip revealed that part of the sub was swinging loose, but it also revealed that inside were the remains of eight crew members, one of them]] ''[[MaybeMagicMaybeMundane with a hammer in his hand]].''
237
238	[[AC: He's Alive]]
239	* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=mz0zSQAnDVE#t=2002 Ernst's scene in the soda shop]] is nightmare fuel enough as he describes just how men like Peter Vollmer take power.
240	* The simple concept that as long as hatred exists in the world, Hitler may as well still be alive could be this or despair fuel.
241	* The last shot of Hitler's shadow moving down the alley as Rod Serling delivers his closing narration about how hatred is kept alive is downright chilling.
242
243	[[AC: Printer's Devil]]
244	* Three of Burgess Meredith's four performances on ''The Twilight Zone'' ("Time Enough At Last", "The Obsolete Man" and "Mr. Dingle, The Strong") have been sympathetic characters. Then there's this episode, where he plays the mysterious Mr. Smith, a reporter and linotype operator that has come to save a failing newspaper. Like his other performances, Meredith plays the character as charming and very helpful...with a bit of an edge that gets more and more pronounced the longer the episode runs. Then you learn the truth about Mr. Smith...He's the Devil, come to collect the editor's soul in exchange for saving the paper. Yes, Burgess Meredith managed to [[Administrivia/TropesAreTools take the traits that made his previous appearances on the show famous and turn them on their heads so they are chilling as opposed to charming.]]
245
246	[[AC: The New Exhibit]]
247	* The wax figures. They act like reincarnations of serial killers. If you leave your closet open at night, with no night-light, room light, or hallway light, it's going to be hard to sleep at night. The smile of the Jack the Ripper wax figure makes you terrified about how lowly and laughable they think of you, it doesn't matter whether they're going to do anything to you or not.
248	* The ending is ''nerve-wracking''. After the wax Landru murders Mr. Ferguson, Martin threatens to destroy the wax figures... who promptly '''''begin moving towards him''''', all while blaming ''him'' for all the deaths that occurred during the episode. [[AmbiguousSituation It is not clear at all if they are lying.]] And then, a brief FlashForward later, and we see a Marchand's Wax Museum guide showing out a particular wax figure: one Martin Senescu, who is believed to have murdered his wife, brother-in-law, and best friend. What makes things worse is that it's ''heavily'' implied that [[WaxMuseumMorgue Martin's corpse is part of the figure]].
249	-->'''Rod Serling:''' The new exhibit became very popular at Marchand's, but of all the figures none was ever regarded with more dread than that of Martin Lombard Senescu. It was something about [[https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/villains/images/2/28/Newex1.jpg/revision/latest/top-crop/width/360/height/450?cb=20171227025059 the eyes]], people said. It's the look that one often gets after taking a quick walk through the Twilight Zone.
250	[[/folder]]
251
252	[[folder: Season Five]]
253
254	[[AC: Nightmare at 20,000 Feet]]
255	* No matter how cheesy the monster on the plane may look nowadays, it's still a shock when Creator/WilliamShatner's character slowly reaches for the curtain in front of the window on the airplane... then pulls it back really quick and the monster is '''''RIGHT THERE WITH ITS FACE AGAINST THE WINDOW.'''''
256	* The fact that the end of the episode confirms Bob [[RealAfterAll wasn't crazy]]: the Gremlin was real, the engine is badly damaged, and ''nobody else realized it was there.'' Everyone on that plane was at serious risk of dying in a horrifying crash and nobody would've known why. [[FridgeHorror How many other planes have been brought down by them?]]
257
258	[[AC: A Kind of Stopwatch]]
259	* [=McNulty=] was kind of a {{Jerkass}}, but he still didn't deserve to be trapped forever in a frozen moment of time where nothing moves. The more you consider the FridgeHorror of it the scarier it gets.
260
261	[[AC: Living Doll]]
262	* All the horror of the episode is worsened given that the episode was remade into ''Film/ChildsPlay''.
263	* "My name is [[CreepyDoll Talky Tina]], and I'M GOING TO KILL YOU." It was a thousand times scarier when the episode aired because the doll was voiced by Creator/JuneForay, the same woman who voiced an ''actual'' talking doll called [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chatty_Cathy Chatty Cathy]], which looked very similar to Tina. What's more, June was mostly well-known for lighthearted roles in the ''WesternAnimation/LooneyTunes'' series and as [[WesternAnimation/RockyAndBullwinkle the original Rocket J. Squirrel]], making this one ''[[StealthPun hell]]'' of an example of her rarely PlayingAgainstType.
264	* Early in the episode, when talking with the doll at the dinner table, Erich pokes her in the nose with a lit match, causing her to make a startled noise. When he notes this means she has feelings, Tina responds [[ArmorPiercingResponse "Doesn't everything?"]] This comes back around [[CerebusCallBack disconcertingly]] when Erich tries to destroy the doll while in the garage; as Erich attempts to crush her head in a vice, as seen above, and it doesn't have any effect:
265	-->'''Erich:''' I thought you said you had feelings.
266	-->'''Talky Tina:''' ''[[ToThePain I can stand it if you can.]]''
267	** It's not even that he tries to use the vice; Erich also tries [[NoKillLikeOverkill a blowtorch, and a table saw]]. [[NoSell The blowtorch keeps getting blown out the second he tries moving it towards the doll's face,]] [[MadeOfIndestructium while the table saw doesn't even make a scratch.]]
268	* The last thing Tina says to Erich:
269	-->''"My name is Talky Tina and I don't forgive you."''
270	* The ending is particularly chilling, after Annabelle finds him dead after being tripped down the stairs by the doll. When she picks the doll up, she opens her eyes and says "My name is Talky Tina. ''And you better be nice to me.''" It is the first time Tina speaks to someone other than Erich... and it confirms that he ''wasn't'' just going crazy.
271	* What about this slice of FridgeHorror: What would happen when Christie (Erich's stepdaughter) gets bored of her?
272
273	[[AC: Uncle Simon]]
274	* Aging scientist Simon and his niece Barbara hate each other, but she takes care of him because she's his only heir. However, she finally tires of his abuse and kills him, thinking that she is finally free--until she discovers that her uncle's will says she has to take care of a robot he invented or be disinherited. The robot slowly starts acting as her uncle did, so if she still wants his money then she is stuck with a ''never sleeping, immortal version of her uncle to make her life horrible until she dies.''
275
276	[[AC: Number 12 Looks Just Like You]]
277	* Marilyn is told that she doesn't ''have'' to have the transformation; she's just highly encouraged to. But no matter where the girl turns, no matter how much she insists that she likes herself the way she is, everyone from her best friend to her own mother just laugh and puzzle over how silly she's being. Finally, the hospital staff kidnap her while she's trying to escape from her room, lead her into the place where the makeovers are done, and give it to her against her will. And the peak of how horrible it all is? Rod Serling ends the tale by pointing out how, in the age of cosmetics we live in, it's entirely possible that ''this'' could be the future we have to look forward to! The episode supposedly takes place [[TwentyMinutesInTheFuture in the year 2000]]. But before you laugh, how ''much'' of this episode could be called {{Zeerust}}, really, especially if you add a couple decades to that date?
278	** During Marilyn's escape attempt, she bumps into a patient who (presumably) just underwent the Transformation. The patient just smiles at Marilyn, clearly happy at the result and (as confirmed by Dr. Rex in a later scene) has her entire personality stripped away. Marilyn looks in horror at the nurse (also played by the same actress as the patient) and the nurse gives her the same smile...brr...
279	* The DownerEnding. Marilyn, having had the transformation forced on her, ''no longer cares!''
280	-->''And the nicest part of all, Val... I look just like you!''
281	** It is made all the more worse when you consider the last shot of the episode: as Rod Serling finishes up his narration, Marilyn [[TheFourthWallWillNotProtectYou turns and smiles at the camera,]] ''[[TheFourthWallWillNotProtectYou dead-eyed.]]''
282	** If you watch carefully as the final shot fades, you can see Marilyn's smile fade away. This could've been an accident as the actress (Pamela Austin) probably heard the call "Cut" too early. But it can also mean that the person Marilyn was...''is still in there.''
283
284	[[AC: Black Leather Jackets]]
285	* The plot: your next door neighbors and your police force could be part of an alien race that invaded Earth to exterminate all life on the planet for the sake of making room for their own race.
286
287	[[AC: Night Call]]
288	* An old, wheelchair-bound woman receives constant phone calls from a man who only says "Hello? Where are you? I need to talk to you." That's bad enough on its own; what makes it frightening is how the man's voice sounds ghostly... The identity of the caller? HER LATE FIANCÉ! Telephone wires had snapped in a storm and come to rest over his grave.
289	* In some ways, the ending is worse: disturbed by the calls, the woman finally demands that the calls stop... only to then find out who they are from and beg for them to start again. Doubles as a TearJerker. However, it got neutered from the original short story. In the story there is no mention of it being her husband: she simply discovers that the calls are coming from the cemetery, and the next phone call (and the last line of the story) is "Hello, Miss Elise. ''I'll be right over.''" Brr.
290
291	[[AC: From Agnes With Love]]
292	* The episode is heaped with Nightmare and ParanoiaFuel. A machine, Agnes, sabotages a man's attempts to impress a coworker because the computer is in love with the man. After the computer admits it loves the man, he's eventually reduced to a neurotic wreck and is given a leave of absence, and [[HereWeGoAgain it is implied the same will happen to his replacement]].
293	-->'''James Elwood:''' (dazed) Two times two equals four shut the door. Two and four are six pick up sticks.
294
295	[[AC: Spur of the Moment]]
296	* A young woman on horseback sees an older woman on a horse at the top of a hill, dressed in black, raising her cape like the wing of a vulture and chasing after her. It's even more terrifying when it's revealed it's her future self trying to warn her not to marry the wrong man and ruining her life. In retrospect, she probably shouldn't have yelled like a banshee at her younger self!
297
298	[[AC: Queen of the Nile]]
299	* Quite possibly one of the most disturbing episodes this show has to offer. It centers around Pamela Morris, a perpetually young and beautiful actress, and it is gradually revealed that she is part of something similar, through Viola Draper, her "mother". In the end it is revealed that Pamela is a [[ReallySevenHundredYearsOld thousands-year-old Egyptian queen,]] [[ScarabPower who uses a scarab beetle to]] [[LifeDrinker SUCK THE LIFE OUT OF PEOPLE SHE MEETS to preserve her youth.]] The scene that reveals the twist ending is ''horrifying''.
300	* And Viola? She isn't Pamela's mother at all but one of her ''daughters'', who grew up and got old [[SupernaturallyYoungParent while her mother stayed the same age the whole time.]]
301
302	[[AC: What's in the Box?]]
303	* Creator/SterlingHolloway as the telephone repairman, who seemingly causes the whole plot because Joe complained about the bill. "You will recommend my service... won't you?" It gets even creepier upon the realization that this is literally Franchise/WinnieThePooh's voice talking.
304
305	[[AC: The Masks]]
306	* Jason Foster's final words to his heirs right before he dies.
307	-->[[ExactWords "You're caricatures, all of you! Even without your masks, you're caricatures!"]]
308	* [[BecomingTheCostume The heirs' faces are stuck like that FOREVER]]. Which, admittedly, is more or less [[AssholeVictim what they deserved.]]
309
310	[[AC: I Am The Night- Color Me Black]]
311	* The premise alone is very unsettling: [[TheNightThatNeverEnds The sun fails to rise on the morning of a condemned man's execution]]. The man in question killed a bigot in self-defense, but said bigot was very popular with the residents of the town and now they're all eager to see the man die. As the town's Reverend speaks with them and the man, it becomes clear to him that the reason why it's dark is because of all their ''hate''; the bigot's hate, the town's hate, even the man's hate. There's so much of it that it's literally blacking the sky and choking them all. And when the man is executed and the Reverend explains it all to the crowd, the town gets even darker...
312	** The ending reveals this isn't an isolated incident either. Dealey Plaza, a section of the Berlin Wall, a political prison in Budapest, sections of Chicago and Shanghai, Birmingham and all of Northern Vietnam have been plunged into darkness as well. All places in the world rife with hatred. As the ending narration makes clear, it's not something you look for in the Twilight Zone. You look for it in a mirror, before it's too late.
313	* The condemned man (Jagger) is prickly and cold with everyone around him. You can chalk this up to Jagger being (understandably) furious at being unjustly executed for killing a popular bigot in self defense. However, as Jagger is being taken to the gallows, the Reverend tries to talk to him. It comes out, much to the Reverend's growing dismay and horror that the one person who stood up for him and his congregation in the whole town is also burning with the same hatred that drove the bigot to persecute them.
314
315	[[AC: Caesar and Me]]
316	* The episode ends with the puppet persuading a bratty girl no older than 11 to kill her grandmother with a poison dart and by the look on her face, she's willing to comply.
317
318	[[AC: You Drive]]
319	* Sure the hit-and-run driver's car was acting as his conscience and endeavoring to make justice happen, but still, imagine having a car ''with a will of its own''.
320
321	[[AC: Stopover in a Quiet Town]]
322	* The sheer creepiness of most of the episode. A bickering married couple awaken after a car crash to find themselves in a seemingly abandoned and unnatural town, haunted by ringing church bells and the sound of an unseen child's laughter, and trapped in a loop where every way out just leads back where they started. It's like an early draft of ''Franchise/SilentHill''...
323	* TheReveal: The couple are going to spend the rest of their lives alone as a giant alien's dolls in a toy town.
324
325	[[AC: Come Wander With Me]]
326	* A traveling musician, Floyd Burney, gets himself stuck in a time loop predestined by an eerie folk song in which a local young woman becomes smitten with him, only for Floyd to accidently murder a young man in a squabble, then be chased down and killed by the young man's brothers.
327
328	[[AC: The Bewitchin' Pool]]
329	* Look at how many children are in her world, all perfectly happy and having forgotten the voices of their parents. Now, look at what drove the two children to go back to her world for good. Just watching how the parents are so cold to their children, to the point where the children are happier abandoning their world and willfully ignoring the cries of their parents calling for them (because the last time they gave in and returned, they were still miserable), well, there's a whole lot of parental fear there.
330	* The ending, if one adheres to the theory that [[AlternativeCharacterInterpretation the grandmotherly old lady is actually the Grim Reaper]]. Notice that the children have to [[DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything dive all the way to the bottom of their pool to see her, and once they've decided to live with the old lady forever, they never resurface]].
331	[[/folder]]
332

Context NightmareFuel / TheTwilightZone1959