Rod Serling: Good evening. We offer you an evening sojourned amongst the wild, the wooly, the unbelievable, sometimes make-believable, as our first painting suggests.
The Phantom Farmhouse
Original story by: Seabury Quinn
Teleplay by: Halsted Welles
Directed by: Jeannot Szwarc
Rod Serling: From this picture, one wouldn't necessarily conjure up a story of love, but that's precisely what it tells about it. The emotion as old as man, but the object of the emotion, this is not quite as familiar. Its title: Phantom Farmhouse, offering number one, in the Night Gallery.
Dr. Joel Winter (David McCallum), a psychiatrist at the Delphinium House Sanitarium, hears from a patient named Gideon (David Carradine) about a house in the woods where a beautiful woman lives, and where a former patient disappeared to. Joel thinks this to be a series of hallucinations, but he ends up discovering that house when he goes for a walk. In spite of the warnings that there was never a house in the woods, Joel returns to the house and meets Mildred Squire (Linda Marsh), the beautiful woman Gideon told him about. After going over some books that Gideon shows him, Joel becomes convinced that Mildred and her parents, who also live in the house and are rather antagonistic towards her, are werewolves who have been killing both local livestock and released/escaped patients, which becomes problematic when he and Mildred fall in love with one another.
Tropes
- Abusive Parents:
- Though Gideon is a drug addict, he claims that his parents pay Joel $39,000 a year to keep him locked up.
- Mildred implies that her parents don't share her thoughts of wanting to not be a werewolf anymore, and she even stands up against them when they surround Joel with intent to kill. When she and Joel first meet, she mentions that her father and herself have been having "quarrels" as to who gets which game.
- Affably Evil:
- Mildred's parents are kindly and welcoming to Joel, though they're also werewolves that kill and eat people, and it's largely implied that they aren't that affectionate with their daughter.
- Gideon is tranquil and relaxed, but he's later revealed by his fellow patients to be in league with the Squires, as he provides them with victims from Delphinium House.
- Bittersweet Ending: The Squires and their house are gone, so they'll never be able to kill again, but Joel is left confused and frantic as to where Mildred went, presumably unaware that she sacrificed herself for his safety.
- Cassandra Truth: Gideon's claim of the Squires living in the woods are dismissed by Joel as hallucinations, given that Gideon is a drug addict residing in a sanitarium. Joel soon finds out that his patient was right all along.
- Cruel to Be Kind: As she and Joel fall in love, Mildred demands that he go away, as she doesn't want him to end up in mortal peril thanks to her and her parents. When he keeps seeing her, she insists that he read a prayer book before her family's graves, which destroy them when he does so.
- The Cuckoolander Was Right: While Joel claims that Gideon's experiences with Mildred were drug-induced hallucinations at first, he realizes that the patient was right all along, as he meets Mildred for himself and learns that her parents have killed at least two of his patients. Gideon even foreshadows that Joel will fall in love with Mildred like he claims everyone else has/will, which does indeed come true. We later learn that Gideon is affiliated with the werewolves and has been providing them with fresh victims.
- Everyone Has Standards: Gideon may act as a sort of scout for the werewolves, as he sent some of his fellow patients to be their dinner when they got too nosey, but he clearly didn't want Joel to get involved and only sent him there because he was so sure that he was hallucinating.
- Evil-Detecting Dog: Twice in the segment, the guard dogs at Delphinium House's front gate whine and recoil in Joel's presence, indicating that he's been in contact with the supernatural.
- Face Death with Dignity: Though he's been helping them gain new victims, Gideon doesn't fret when he comes to learn that Mildred's parents are set to kill him.
- Foreshadowing: Early in the episode, Gideon doesn't let anyone see his palms, which we later learn from his fellow patient Betty have pentagrams on them, the Squires having marked him for death.
- Haunted House: The Squires' titular farmhouse, which houses the werewolf family and vanishes off the face of the Earth when Joel destroys them.
- He Knows Too Much: One of Joel's patients, Betty, looks through the lycanthropy books Gideon pulls off the shelves. The day after, she's found dead in the meadow, Gideon claiming that the werewolves killed her for snooping around.
- Heroic Sacrifice: Anti-heroic in this case, as Mildred begs Joel to put her and her parents down by reading prayers before their graves, which he does.
- I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: After falling in love with Joel, Mildred begs Joel to perform the ritual that will kill her and her family so she or her parents don't kill him.
- Karma Houdini: Gideon has the pentagrams marking him for death on his palms, but Joel kills the Squires' through the prayer ritual, leaving him to receive no punishment for sending his fellow patients there.
- Love Hurts: Mildred loves Joel, but she knows it can never be as long as she and her parents are risks to both his life and the lives of his patients. To this end, she requests that he perform the ritual to eliminate her for his own safety.
- The Mole: Gideon turns out to be a scout for the Squires, as he raves about them to pique his fellow patients' interest, then sends them off to investigate the house themselves, where they're eaten.
- Our Werewolves Are Different: Werewolves have red nails in human form, and their pointer finger is longer than their middle finger. In their bestial form, they resemble ordinary wolves (or wild dogs), but some of their human mind stays with them after they transform. Gideon notes that they mark their chosen victims (anyone who's seen their house) with pentagrams on their hands, which he shows to Joel. They are also an apparent form of revenant, as Joel finds three graves likely belonging to Mildred and her parents, who were said by Pierre to have died in a fire. His reading a book of prayers in front of the graves apparently causes the Squires to die permanently, as Joel ends the episode by discovering no sign of Mildred or her house.
- Predator Turned Protector: Mildred and her family are werewolves that have no scruples against killing and eating people. In spite of this, Mildred genuinely falls in love with Joel and ends up protecting him against her parents.
- Red Eyes, Take Warning: Werewolves are said to have red eyes, and Joel soon learns the truth about Mildred and her folks when her eyes turn red as they talk, prompting him to bail.
- Silver Has Mystic Powers: As werewolves have a noted vulnerability to silver, Pierre gives Joel a silver cross as protection when he prepares to venture to the Squires' home once again.
- Tragic Monster: Mildred falls in love with Joel and despises her nature as a werewolf, as she's terrified of accidentally killing him if her parents don't do so first. She begs him to help her end her suffering and save his own life by reading the prayer book.
Silent Snow, Secret Snow
Original story by: Conrad Aiken
Teleplay by: Gene R. Kearney
Directed by: Gene R. Kearney
Narrated by: Orson Welles
Rod Serling: For our last offering in the Night Gallery, a painting that brings to life a literary classic. From the pen of Conrad Aiken; fragile, lovely, haunted. Its title: Silent Snow, Secret Snow.
Paul Hasleman (Radames Pera) is a young boy who loves snow above all else. He awakens one morning to the sound of snow-muffled footsteps, but notices a sunny day outside his window. Paul's parents soon notice that he's acting distant and sullen in their presence, while Paul visualizes scenes of heavy snow in the outside world, which soon disappear when he reaches his house. As Paul refrains from explaining his snowy visions to his parents, they call a doctor to deduce the cause of Paul's withdrawal from reality, which has gotten to the point where he imagines the snow itself has started talking to him.
Tropes
- Antagonistic Offspring: Paul's last words are a declaration to his mother that he hates her, leaving him to fully seclude himself in his fantasy world.
- Does This Remind You of Anything?: Paul's extensive intellect, poor social skills, lack of focus, increasing obsession with snow, and his inability or unwillingness to share his fantasies with others indicate that he's on the autism spectrum. The reactions of his teachers and parents, trying to "fix" him instead of understanding just how he feels, further establishes how people often fail to accommodate those on the spectrum.
- Downer Ending: Paul tells his worried mother that he hates her and throws her out of his room, leaving her and his father heartbroken while he's free to completely lose himself in his fantasies, or otherwise succumb to insanity.
- Establishing Character Moment: Paul's first appearance has him watching a snowglobe in school instead of paying attention to the teacher's lecture.
- Formula-Breaking Episode:
- Rather than a horror story featuring a monster or supernatural element, this segment is a straightforward retelling of Conrad Aiken's short story of the same name, which Rod Serling himself lampshades. The supernatural element could be seen with how Paul's fantasies gradually overtake his waking life, and how the snow itself seems to talk to him when he's alone.
- While Serling gives the segment his usual opening narration, the segment itself has constant narration by another person. In this case, it's done by none other than Orson Welles.
- Sanity Slippage: Paul's snow obsession can be interpreted as a strong case of this. It helps given the implications that he's on the spectrum, as noted above.
- Snow Globe of Innocence: At school, Paul is seen gazing longingly at a snowglobe while everyone else listens to the teacher, showing his increasing fixation on his wintry fantasies.
- Snow Means Death: A symbolic variation comes into play here. The final shot of the episode has the imaginary(?) snow completely blanketing Paul's window as he lies in bed, shrouding him in darkness as if he were being buried alive.
- Special Guest: Orson Welles himself provides narration to the story.
- Through the Eyes of Madness: An interpretation of the story's events could be that Paul is dissociating as he blurs the line between fact and fiction.
