Rod Serling: Good evening, and welcome to the Night Gallery. Now if you'll just follow me. (...) Time again for your weekly excursion into the cultural. Painting, statuette, still lifes, collages, some abstracts, and some items in ice. That's not the technique, that hopefully is what we turn your blood into.
A Question of Fear
Original story by: Bryan Lewis
Teleplay by: Theodore J. Flicker
Directed by: Jack Larid
Rod Serling: A good way to begin the attempt: painting number one. About a man who spends a night in a haunted house. An unbeliever, if you will, who by darn believes. The name of the painting is: A Question of Fear. The name of this place is the Night Gallery.
At his gentleman's club, Dr. Mazi (Fritz Weaver) regales his friends with a story about the night he spent in an abandoned (and rumored to be haunted) house. Colonel Denny Malloy (Leslie Nielsen), a brash and hot-headed soldier-for-hire, scoffs at Dr. Mazi's story and calls him a coward. At this, Mazi bets $15,000 that Malloy can't spend a night in the same house, to which the Colonel eagerly accepts. Inside the house, Malloy finds the typical phenomena associated with haunted houses (rats, spiders, mysterious blood, laughing/moaning voices, objects activating on their own), but Malloy shows more action than fear, including shooting a mannequin on fire. Malloy rebukes what he assumes to be Mazi playing a giant prank on him, but as the scares get more complex and specific, it would seem that whatever's behind them as a certain history with the Colonel.
Tropes
- And I Must Scream: Malloy is told that he was injected with a serum that will slowly turn him into a giant worm. He shoots himself to avoid it... after which we learn Mazi was bluffing.
- Batman Gambit: The only reason Mazi succeeds in killing Malloy is that the colonel believes his story that he injected him with a worm transformation serum and shoots himself to escape that fate. Had he called his bluff, he could have walked away 15,000 dollars richer.
- The Bet: Malloy is tested on his courage by being offered $15,000 to spend a night in the haunted house without being scared.
- Chromosome Casting: No women are present throughout the segment, especially since it opens in a gentleman's club.
- Driven to Suicide: Colonel Malloy shoots himself after Mazi tells him that he was injected with a serum that will turn him into a worm. It turns out to be completely unnecessary, as Mazi was lying about the serum.
- Everyone Has Standards: Mazi reminds Malloy that the men who aided him in Mazi's father's interrogation were shocked and appalled that he actually followed through on his threat to burn the guy's hands.
- Eyepatch of Power: Malloy wears an eyepatch to accentuate how much of a fearless badass he is.
- Fate Worse than Death: Mazi lies to Malloy that he's been dosed with a serum that will turn him into a human-sized worm. Malloy shoots himself rather than go through what he suspects to be a gruesome transformation.
- Foreshadowing: One of the scenes included in the haunted house is of a mannequin seated at a piano, whose hands burst into flame. Near the end of the segment, Mazi reveals that Malloy did the exact same thing to his pianist father in World War II, prompting him to devise the haunted house scheme to get revenge on him. The specter that harasses him in the cellar is said to have been modeled after him as well.
- Fright Deathtrap: Dr. Mazi bets Colonel Malloy that he can't stay the night in a local haunted house. Malloy accepts, but soon finds himself tormented by a wide selection of traps as revenge for Mazi's father, who the Colonel mutilated during the war. Finally, Mazi tells him he's been drugged with a serum that will slowly turn him into a worm. Malloy shoots himself to escape this fate, but only after he dies does Mazi reveal that he was lying.
- Haunted House: Mazi rigs one with numerous booby traps and illusions to get back at Malloy for grievously disfiguring his father.
- Hearing Voices: Malloy hears unearthly laughter and moaning throughout his time in the haunted house.
- Hired Guns: Malloy served numerous countries as a soldier for hire, having killed his first victim back during the Spanish Civil War, where he was only 18 years old.
- Idiot Ball: Malloy commits suicide out of belief in Mazi's worm-transforming serum, in spite of being quite skeptical up to that point and uncovering plenty of evidence that Mazi fabricated everything else. Even Mazi himself seems shocked that Malloy didn't just call his bluff and look in the cellar.
- I Lied: There was never a mutating serum in Malloy's bloodstream. Mazi lied about it to scare the Colonel further.
- Man on Fire: A mannequin at a piano has its hands burst into flame when Malloy approaches it, foreshadowing the reveal of what he did to Mazi's father.
- Monochrome Apparition: A ghostly severed head, as well as a full-on ghost itself, harass Malloy at some points, being primarily green in color.
- Never My Fault: When it comes to light that Malloy gruesomely injured Mazi's father after a failed interrogation, he tries to shift the blame by saying that men were dying everywhere in the war, and that his best friend was killed by a landmine the day before.
- Pendulum of Death: At one point, Malloy lies down on a bed in the supposedly haunted house. Steel restraints suddenly emerge and cover his chest, locking him in, and a razor-sharp pendulum descends and swings, moving closer and closer to his neck. Just short of slicing his throat, the pendulum stops. Next morning, the restraints and pendulum are gone.
- Shackle Seat Trap: The booby-trapped bed straps Malloy down.
- Slipping a Mickey: Mazi reveals that he drugged Malloy's coffee to make him more susceptible to fear, prompting him to explore the house fully.
- Sociopathic Soldier: Malloy is hinted to be one, as he killed his first victim at 18 years old and gruesomely disfigured Mazi's father by lighting his hands on fire (something that horrified even his fellow soldiers), after his forced interrogation didn't provide him with any useful information.
- Suicidal Sadistic Choice: Mazi tells Malloy that he injected him with a transformation serum that will turn him into a worm. Malloy is armed, so he could choose to avoid this by shooting himself...which is exactly what Mazi wants, because the serum story is bogus.
- Villain Protagonist: Colonel Malloy, who served as a soldier-for-hire in numerous wars and gruesomely mutilated Mazi's father, prompting the doctor to plot revenge.
- Villain Respect: Though he desires to make Malloy squirm and writhe in fear as revenge for disfiguring his father, Mazi takes the time to personally commend the Colonel on his utter fearlessness.
- Wham Line: After being informed that he's been injected with a serum that will turn him into a giant worm, Malloy is told to go into the cellar to see proof of the fate that awaits him. He can't go through with it, though:Malloy: (slowly walks back into view of Dr. Mazi's video feed) You still lose, Mazi. (picks up the gun and shoots himself)
Mazi: ...No, Mr. Malloy. You lose. There is nothing in the cellar. - You Killed My Father: Dr. Mazi's father had been a conscript in the Italian Army during World War II. He wasn't killed, but Colonel Malloy forcefully interrogated him and burned off his hands when he didn't get any useful information, destroying his life as a concert pianist. On his father's deathbed, Mazi swore revenge on the Colonel on his father's behalf.
The Devil is Not Mocked
Original story by: Manly Made Wellman
Teleplay by: Gene R. Kearney
Directed by: Gene R. Kearney
Rod Serling: Oscar Wilde said something to the effect that, if there were not a devil, we'd very likely invent him. He serves many a purpose, and this grim-visaged character here is proof of that rather bitter pudding, in a story that tells what happens when evil collides with evil. The painting is called: The Devil is Not Mocked.
In an old war story-within-a-story told by an old man to his grandson, a Nazi platoon stationed in the Balkans led by General von Grunn (Helmut Dantine) moves out to stop an underground partisan movement stationed below an old castle. The castle's occupant is the narrator (Francis Lederer) in his youth, wearing a cape and inviting the soldiers to a sumptuous banquet, all while denying any resistance movements against them. At around midnight, Grunn hears howling as his men are ripped to shreds by werewolves, and Grunn himself ends up learning the identity of his host: Count Dracula.
Tropes
- Affably Evil: True to form, Dracula is nothing but welcoming to the men looking to kill him and his fellow resistance members, offering a sumptuous last meal for them before they become meals themselves.
- Chromosome Casting: The only females present in the segment are the servants in Dracula's castle.
- Covers Always Lie: The Devil appears in the segment's title and is depicted in its painting, but he doesn't show up in the segment himself.
- Even Evil Has Standards: The resistance force that the Nazis have been looking for is made up of vampires and werewolves, who are led by none other than Count Dracula. They may feed on humans, but that doesn't mean they condone what the Nazis are perpetrating.
- Evil Versus Evil: Monsters versus Nazis, as lampshaded by Serling's narration.
- Foreshadowing: Early in the segment, a Nazi recruit instinctively opens fire on a howling wolf, joking about it with his comrade. The climax of the segment has the platoon getting torn apart by werewolves, who are immune to their ordinary bullets.
- Fur Against Fang: Averted, as the vampires and werewolves within the castle work together to slaughter the Nazi platoon looking to kill them.
- Immune to Bullets: Dracula's staff are able to shrug off Grunn's bullets when they transform. The Count himself tells Grunn that if his bullets were silver, that would be a different story.
- La Résistance: Vampires at least have a sense of patriotism against Nazis, as Dracula leads an underground partisan movement operating from an old Balkan castle, consisting of vampires and werewolves who tear the Nazi platoon looking to kill them apart.
- Mugging the Monster: General Grunn discovers his men being slaughtered by Dracula's fellow creatures of the night, and tries to shoot them in his haste to escape. Predictably, it fails.
- Narrator All Along: Dracula turns out to be the narrator of the segment, as the old man telling the story to his grandson smiles to reveal fangs.
- Nested Story: The main story is bookended by Dracula, now an old man, telling his grandson about how he became a war hero.
- Those Wacky Nazis: The protagonists of the segment. An early scene features two recruits relaxing and sharing laughs as they try shooting at the distant howling of wolves.
- When the Clock Strikes Twelve: Dracula and his resistance movement reveal their true natures when midnight strikes.
