{"id":26232,"date":"2017-10-02T00:34:41","date_gmt":"2017-10-02T04:34:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/?p=26232"},"modified":"2017-09-05T00:30:14","modified_gmt":"2017-09-05T04:30:14","slug":"my-top-five-the-new-twilight-zone-episodes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/2017\/10\/02\/my-top-five-the-new-twilight-zone-episodes\/","title":{"rendered":"My Top Five \u201cThe New Twilight Zone\u201d Episodes"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><center><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/2Znqt2b8CKQ\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/center>Known primarily as \u201cThe New Twilight Zone,\u201d the new iteration of the classic Rod Serling anthology has garnered its own following and reputation for offering its own unique tales. While not timeless like <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/2010\/10\/08\/our-top-ten-the-twilight-zone-episodes-of-all-time\/\"><strong>the original show<\/strong><\/a>, the 1980\u2019s series from CBS has stellar episodes in its own right, not to mention a pretty awesome twist on the classic theme as performed by The Grateful Dead, no less. The writers and producers took off from the controversial <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/2007\/10\/13\/twilight-zone-the-movie-1983-dvd\/\"><strong>feature film<\/strong><\/a>, this time creating their own stories, with only a few classic &#8220;Twilight Zone&#8221; episodes being remade for the contemporary eighties setting. &#8220;The New Twilight Zone&#8221; aimed to carve out its own identity, and in the end it&#8217;s an above par series with some great episodes.<\/p>\n<p>These are five of my favorite episodes from its 1985 to 1989 run.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><strong>5. Shelter Skelter<br \/>\n<\/strong><strong>Directed by Martha Coolidge<br \/>\n<\/strong><strong>W<\/strong><strong>ritten by Ron Cobb, Robin Love<br \/>\n<\/strong>Some people just want to see the world burn and Joe Mantegna is very good as the picture of a man whose romanticized nuclear war. Spending a lot of his life preparing for war, Mantegna plays a family man who militantly prepares his son for some kind of bleak future. When his long suffering wife, daughter, and son leave for the weekend, he\u2019s shocked to learn of a scuffle involving the military and retreats to his bunker with his neighbor. With the outside in flames, he sticks it out, almost gleefully preparing to take on any marauders of intruders that try to break in to the bunker. With a very ironic climax, \u201cShelter Skelter\u201d is a clever look at hysteria and how some people are at home in chaos and misery.<\/p>\n<p><strong>4. Monsters!<br \/>\n<\/strong><strong>Directed by B.W.L. Norton<br \/>\n<\/strong><strong>Written by Robert Crais<br \/>\n<\/strong>A young boy who loves horror and monsters learns that his neighbor is a vampire. This episode takes a unique twist on the legend of vampires, as the monster is less a threatening beast, and more an infection on humanity that is cursed with living forever. The second twist involves the way humanity responds to vampires as, if the vampire spends too long in one place, surrounding humans develop flu like symptoms and at night transform in to werewolves with the sole mission of destroying the vampire. The episode opts for mostly whimsical with a sinister climax, and it delivers one final twist turning the screws on our unlikely young protagonist. There\u2019s no social commentary here, but you have to love the final twist.<\/p>\n<p><strong>3. A Little Peace and Quiet<br \/>\n<\/strong><strong>Directed by Wes Craven<br \/>\n<\/strong><strong>W<\/strong><strong>ritten by James Crocker<br \/>\n<\/strong>Melinda Dillon is a dead ringer from her character from \u201cA Christmas Story,\u201d once again playing a stressed mother. Having to run back and forth and never finding time, while gardening she discovers a magical necklace that can stop time. Whenever she commands \u201cShut up\u201d the world stops, allowing her complete silence and peace. \u201cA Little Peace and Quiet\u201d is a very memorable remake of \u201cA Kind of Stopwatch\u201d with a gut punch climax, involving our character who is faced with spending the rest of her life in solitude and silence with time frozen in place, or allowing it to play out as it is going to, no matter what she does. Note the theater marquee in the final shot indicates a double bill of \u201cDr. Strangelove\u201d and \u201cFail Safe.\u201d It\u2019s a morbid wink in a very dark ending.<\/p>\n<p><strong>2. To See the Invisible Man<br \/>\n<\/strong><strong>Directed by Noel Black<br \/>\n<\/strong><strong>Written by Steven Barnes<br \/>\n<\/strong>Humans by nature are a social animal and \u201cTo See the Invisible Man\u201d pictures a society where the worst punishment for certain crimes involving cutting humans off from the world. Mitchell Chaplin is a man who has committed a generally unmentioned crime and is given a large mark on his forehead. Acting as a Scarlet A, the mark reminds everyone around him to ignore him. What feels like a dream at first begins driving Mitchell mad as he realizes he needs human contact and attention. Before long he\u2019s spending his time begging for acknowledgement, garnering a new kind of perspective on his own life. Featuring a genuinely gripping finale, this is an interesting commentary on humanity and a unique twist on the future.<\/p>\n<p><strong>1.The Shadow Man<br \/>\n<\/strong><strong>Directed by Joe Dante<br \/>\n<\/strong><strong>Written by Rockne S. O\u2019Bannon<br \/>\n<\/strong>This is classic Joe Dante, as it prominently features the child like whimsy with a very dark overtone of menace. A geeky young boy with a desire to be popular discovers that a dark enigmatic specter known as the Shadow Man lives under his bed. Learning every kid has a Shadow Man, and can never hurt the child whose bed he lives under, he begins sending Shadow Man out to hurt his biggest rivals. As he grows more popular, using the fear Shadow Man spreads among town to his advantage. This is a great episode and one filled with excellent sound design. Everything from the spooky music to the haunting blowing breeze of the small town at night makes this feel like a classic piece of folklore told around the camp fire. The icing on the cake is the surprise ending with the classic piece of comeuppance delivered in a truly twisted manner. I still wonder whose Shadow Man that was.<\/p>\n<p><center><iframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"width: 120px; height: 240px;\" src=\"\/\/ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com\/widgets\/q?ServiceVersion=20070822&amp;OneJS=1&amp;Operation=GetAdHtml&amp;MarketPlace=US&amp;source=ac&amp;ref=qf_sp_asin_til&amp;ad_type=product_link&amp;tracking_id=thebalconymov-20&amp;marketplace=amazon&amp;region=US&amp;placement=B01N9CP5G1&amp;asins=B01N9CP5G1&amp;linkId=931a3fe59aff7014399c2e0cfd7551b3&amp;show_border=false&amp;link_opens_in_new_window=true&amp;price_color=ba7900&amp;title_color=00549f&amp;bg_color=ffffff\" width=\"300\" height=\"150\" frameborder=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><br \/>\n<\/iframe><\/center><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Known primarily as \u201cThe New Twilight Zone,\u201d the new iteration of the classic Rod Serling anthology has garnered its own following and reputation for offering its own unique tales. While not timeless like the original show, the 1980\u2019s series from CBS has stellar episodes in its own right, not to mention a pretty awesome twist [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26232","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-halloween-horror-month","category-list-junkies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26232","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26232"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26232\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26235,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26232\/revisions\/26235"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26232"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26232"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26232"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}