Rod Serling: To the shoppers, the hunters, the sifters and widowers; to those of you who comprise that vast fraternity of picture-watchers, we offer you this salon of the special, and the supernatural.
Cool Air
Original story by: H. P. Lovecraft
Teleplay by: Rod Serling
Directed by: Jeannot Szwarc
Rod Serling: Painting number one; it has to do with death. Usually, the last chapter in every man's book of life. The ashes, the dust, the tomb, and the engraving on the stone. Death; the finale. But our first painting offers up a tale with a final curtain not quite the final curtain; there's an epilogue. We offer you now a little item called: Cool Air, tonight's first painting in the Night Gallery.
In the early 1920s, Agatha Howard (Barbara Rush) makes an unannounced visit to the apartment of Dr. Juan Muñoz (Henry Darrow), a colleague of her late scientist father. Juan is quite pleased to meet his late acquaintance's daughter, who finds his views on the subject of postponing clinical death via sheer force of will interesting, and asks him to dinner. The doctor instead offers to invite her to dinner in his apartment, as he has a "condition" that prohibits him from leaving and forces him to remain surrounded by frigid temperatures. Sometime later, Agatha finds Juan wrapped in a blanket, who implores her to find someone to fix the refrigeration machine that keeps him alive. As Juan continues surrounding himself with blocks of ice waiting for the machine to be fixed, Agatha soon learns why exactly he needed to be surrounded by constant cold.
Tropes
- Beyond the Impossible: Juan died of illness-induced organ failure 10 years before the story chronologically begins, but he remained sapient after clinical death by surrounding himself with freezing temperatures and using sheer willpower.
- Bookends: The segment begins and ends with a POV sequence of Agatha visiting, then leaving, Juan's grave.
- Boy Meets Ghoul: A gender-flipped version surrounds the segment, as Agatha falls in love with Juan, who has actually been dead for ten years, remaining sentient by surrounding himself with constant cold and utilizing his own willpower.
- Cheated Death, Died Anyway: Juan managed to walk and talk for 10 years after his heart stopped functioning, but the end of the segment has him keel over for real as he reminisces about his original death, now appearing as heavily desiccated as a man who's been dead 10 years should look.
- Commonality Connection: As she overlooked their correspondence, Agatha notes to Juan how he and her father refused to accept the finality of death.
- Darker and Edgier: Considering it's adapted from a Lovecraft story, it's a given, as the themes of tragic romance and life after death, along with the shot of Juan's heavily desiccated corpse, make this segment a mix of tender and nightmarish.
- Dead All Along: Juan is revealed to have been dead via organ failure for 10 years, but was able to walk and talk by surrounding himself with coldness and using the power of mind over matter. He finally dies for real near the end of the segment, at which point decay quickly catches up to him.
- Driven to Suicide: Juan's beloved wife killed herself 10 years earlier, unable to bear living with the sentient corpse that was once her husband.
- Eerie Arctic Research Station: Technically, Juan's apartment could qualify, since the refrigeration machine keeps the place borderline frozen over, as well as the fact that it's owned and operated by a sentient 10-years-dead corpse, who surrounds himself with hundreds of pounds of ice when the machine breaks down.
- Foreshadowing: Agatha mentions that the letters Juan and her late father shared note how they arrogantly refused the finality of death. As the segment nears its end, it's revealed that Juan (as he hinted at earlier) took that idea to heart and kept himself conscious 10 years after he died through his refrigeration machine and sheer force of will.
- Framing Device: The POV sequence of the elderly Agatha visiting Juan's grave after he dies permanently segues into the story proper.
- Gross-Up Close-Up: The closeup shot of Juan's heavily desiccated corpse when he finally dies for real.
- An Ice Person: Agatha considers Juan one while he's "alive", noting that both his apartment and his body are freezing in spite of coming from the warm climate of Spain.
- Ice Palace: At one point, as Juan waits for the replacement part for his refrigeration machine, he holds himself up in his bathroom and surrounds himself with 300 pounds of ice to keep himself alive, making the bathroom itself a technical example of the trope.
- I Love the Dead: Averted for Agatha. Once it becomes apparent that Juan had been dead for 10 years, her inner monologue shares a partial and belated sense of relief after he dies for real, greatly unnerved by the reveal that she was in love with a reanimated corpse, and the implications of the relationship had it escalated.
- Inner Monologue: Agatha's memories of her experience with Juan are heard throughout the segment, such as when we follow her through the framing scenes of her visiting his grave. There's no other sound heard during these monologues, only a mournful soundtrack of Spanish guitar.
- It Was a Dark and Stormy Night: One of them occurs halfway through the segment, brought about by the warm climate. It's on that stormy night that Juan's apartment loses electricity and the refrigeration machine needs repairs, which begins his slow descent into permanent death.
- Jerkass: Juan's landlady Mrs. Gibbons, who gripes about how the doctor's refrigeration machine keeps all her tenants awake at night and takes up three of her apartments. She personally tells Agatha that she'd easily throw him out on the street if he didn't pay his rent as promptly as he does.
- The Lost Lenore: The last relationship Juan had was with his wife, who committed suicide after he originally returned from the dead, horrified by the prospect of living with a corpse. Her death left him very lonely.
- No Immortal Inertia: As Juan dies for the second and final time, his body undergoes 10 years' worth of decay in the handful of seconds between when he collapses and when Agatha opens the bathroom door.
- P.O.V. Cam: The beginning and end of the segment are shot from the elderly Agatha's point of view as she visits Juan's grave.
- The Reveal: Juan died 10 years before Agatha met him, having been remaining self-aware through willpower and surrounding himself with frigid temperatures.
- Second Love: A sort of romance blossoms between Agatha and Juan, who had lost his wife some years back.
- Title Drop: Agatha notes how she remembers the "cool air" Juan was associated with during her opening monologue.
- Tragic Ice Character: Juan has no ice-based abilities, but surrounding himself with constant cold is the only thing, barring his belief, keeping himself conscious after his death. The fact that he has to remain isolated in those frigid temperatures nearly all the time has made him rather lonely and starved for companionship, especially after his wife killed herself.
- Your Mind Makes It Real: It's stated near the end that Juan's theories of continued sentience after organ failure were only theories, and he kept himself alive by believing that he was alive, along with the frigid environments. Once he finally accepts the fact that he should be dead, he finally ceases life functions and undergoes 10 years worth of decay.
Camera Obscura
Original story by: Basil Copper
Teleplay by: Rod Serling
Directed by: John Badham
Rod Serling: We branch out a bit this evening and move a few feet away from the usual, and get into the area of photography. Now, this painting here had best be viewed in a darkroom, because it conjures up the ghostly, the ghastly, and the ghoulish. It tells a story about a very remarkable device, that offers up a vision as things are, and a hellish vision of what they were, and shall be. Our painting is called: Camera Obscura.
William Sharsted Jr. (René Auberjonois), a moneylender in 1920s England, visits the home of Mr. Gingold (Ross Martin) to collect a 300-pound debt. Unable to pay the debt owed to him, Gingold gives William a tour of the paintings around his home, as well as a camera obscura which provides him with a panoramic view of the neighborhood. As William is interrogated about his unfeeling attitude toward his debtors, Gingold shows him a second camera obscura that shows scenes of the neighborhood as it appeared in the past. After leaving Gingold's house, William finds himself in the past version of the neighborhood Gingold showed him. He meets various reanimated ghouls that appear as people from his memories, all of them being either notorious criminals, unscrupulous ne'er-do-wells, or others who simply met an ignoble end. To William's horror, these ghouls not only develop a taste for giving William what he deserves, but a large appetite for his flesh.
Tropes
- Affably Evil: In William's company, Gingold is kindly, polite, and eager to share his collection of historical antiquities. He becomes much more bitter and subdued as he gives William a dressing down and sends him to Hell.
- Asshole Victim: William, who is left stuck in Hell and eaten by cannibalistic sinners for callously ruining lives and taking advantage of those who can't afford to repay their debts to him.
- Break the Haughty: William's smugness disappears when he realizes that he's in the infernal realms, and the hungry souls of criminals from his father's day are eager to feed on him. It gets to the point where William begs that he’ll repent and pleads for William to send him home, even offering to erase his debt, to no avail.
- Bullet Time: Near the end, as William tries to flee from the cannibal sinners, he ends up involuntarily running in slow motion, allowing for Sanderson and his carriage to easily catch up with him.
- Chromosome Casting: There are very few female characters present, and they're largely background characters in both 1920s England and the hellish version of Victorian England William gets stuck in.
- Darker and Edgier: While the preceding segment went down a path of existential horror to generate scares, this one instead travels down a path of visceral horror, given that William is all but said to be devoured alive by flesh-hungry sinners in Hell. Rod Serling's narration itself describes the segment it as "ghostly, ghastly, and ghoulish", and even its corresponding painting gets in on the act, being a collection of skulls that stare at the viewers while appearing to ravenously smile at them.
- Devoured by the Horde: William's final fate, as viewed through Gingold's second camera obscura.
- Driven to Suicide: Some of the sinners William encounters in Hell got there because they committed suicide. Amos, a partner of his late father, still has the noose he hung himself with wrapped around his neck.
- Evil Wears Black: Everyone in Hell wears only black, as does moneylender William, who is devoured by the horde of sinners.
- Grave Robbing: Sanderson was said to be one in life by William, and he got to Hell after dying in prison.
- "Groundhog Day" Loop: William's futile escape of Hell has him finding himself back in the town square again and again, with the sinners he meets along the way repeating their actions from the first time he saw them. It even happens three times in rapid succession to illustrate the otherworldly nature of his predicament.
- I'm a Humanitarian: The decayed phantoms of sinners William meets during his trip to Hell, who are hinted to feast on him by the segment's end.
- I Never Told You My Name: Sanderson, the grave-robber driving the carriage William meets, refers to the moneylender by name to establish that they're "friends" in his new home.
- Laser-Guided Karma: For his greediness, William ends up trapped in a hellish version of Victorian England populated by ravenous, decayed ghouls, who are implied to tear him limb from limb.
- Like Father, Like Son: William Sharstead Sr. was a moneylender who made it his mission to get all the money he was owed in his clutches, not caring about the elderly, the infirm, and those who couldn't afford to pay their debts. It's abundantly clear that this attitude rubbed off on his son and shaped him into who he is now: a master of the art of backing people into a corner, as Gingold calls him.
- Mad Doctor: Gingold looks the part with his wild, unkempt hair, rather erratic behavior, and his camera obscura that acts as a portal to Hell. Despite this, the person he traps in Hell has insensitively screwed over numerous people who couldn't repay him, and is justified with being condemned and fed upon demonic cannibals.
- Magical Camera: Gingold owns two camera obscuras, the second of which can actively send whoever he chooses to Hell.
- Magitek: Gingold's secondary camera obscura, which acts as a portal to Hell. Specifically, a portion of it that resembles a Victorian England town square, populated by the flesh-hungry, decomposed souls of criminals and other sinners.
- Offscreen Teleportation: The ghoulish sinners have the ability to do this, as the lamplighter William talks to disappears after he turns to look at a horse and carriage.
- Power Echoes: The decayed sinners in Hell have a noticeable echo in their voices while William doesn't, establishing their status as deceased.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here: William tries to flee whenever he meets up with a sinner or ghoul, only to find another one right in his path.
- Sickly Green Glow: Hell is constantly bathed in an otherworldly green light through Gingold's secondary camera obscura, as well as when William explores the square, fitting for the money-grubbing moneylender meeting his most gruesome end.
- Smug Snake: William expounds smugness through his every word and deed, to the point where he outright claims that humanity and business are separate topics in his line of work.
- Unnaturally Looping Location: Hell is shown to be one, as whenever William tries to run and escape, he ends up right back in the town square, complete with the lamplighter he originally met greeting him again.
- War for Fun and Profit: One of the decaying sinners William meets is Amos Drucker, who partnered with his father to illegally profit off of wartime goods before he hung himself.
- Wicked Cultured: Gingold owns a vast collection of paintings and artifacts, and has built two complex camera obscuras to both examine his neighborhood and allow access to Hell. He's only "wicked" in the sense that he traps the arrogant moneylender who wants the money Gingold can't pay him, along with other struggling folks like him, in Hell to be fed on by damned souls.
- Would Harm a Senior: One of William's latest customers is a 76-year-old man in the countryside, who the moneylender stripped of everything without remorse when he couldn't pay back his debts.
Quoth the Raven
Written by: Jack Larid
Directed by: Jeff Corey
Rod Serling: From the pen of Edgar Allan Poe... er, more or less: Quoth the Raven.
On a dark and stormy midnight dreary, Edgar Allan Poe (Marty Allen) sits in his study, writing the poem that will go on to be known as The Raven. He gets stuck on the opening line, however, and this forces his rather unusual partner, an actual raven sitting on an actual pallid bust of Pallas, to finish the line for him.
Tropes
- Breather Episode: The previous segments were both varying levels of dark and horrific, so this blackout sketch is just the thing for the viewers to unwind again.
- The Cameo: Mel Blanc provides the voice of the Raven.
- Covers Always Lie: The sketch's painting portrays Poe and the Raven smiling and appearing to be good friends, a far cry from the relationship the sketch itself portrays.
- Deadpan Snarker: The Raven assists Poe in writing his classic story but mocks his inability to do it himself.
- Denser and Wackier: It's meant to be nothing short of humorous, given that it's a one-note sketch featuring Edgar Allan Poe and his wiseass talking Raven.
- Historical Domain Character: Edgar Allan Poe is the only human character in the segment.
- Snarky Non-Human Sidekick: The Raven, who finishes the namesake poem's opening line, then rebukes Poe for having no writing skills, prompting the angered author to hurl his drink at it.
- Writers Suck: Edgar Allen Poe has trouble penning the opening line of "The Raven", and this prompts the actual, talking Raven who acts as his partner to finish it for him, then calling him out for his lack of talent.
