“The Invaders” by Richard Matheson, is one of the best episodes of The Twilight Zone, partially because it’s so different from any other episode and partially because it takes that experience and turns it into a legitimate horror movie premise. A woman, played by Agnes Moorehead, is alone in her remote cabin—no electricity or other modern amenities—cooking up a stew. There’s a loud crash from the roof, and when she climbs up there, she sees a spaceship (the classic flying saucer) sitting there. As she watches, a ramp lowers, and two spacemen, who look like robots, really, exit, teetering toward her in the manner of wind-up toys. She shoves one through the hole she just climbed up, then closes herself back in the house. And then they start to come after her.
It is a 1986 horror novel by American author Stephen King. It was his 22nd book, and his 17th novel written under his own name. The story follows the experiences of seven children as they are terrorized by an evil entity that exploits the fears of its victims to disguise itself while hunting its prey.
Who are the monsters among us, are they real, imagined, a reflection of our own insecurities or just blatantly evil, with the intention to harm, hurt, and horrify? The Twilight Zone via Rod Serling exposed the human weakness, that often times incites our own weaknesses to become the creature. We use our misgivings, our misunderstandings, our mistakes as a façade permitting US to truly scare the shit out of ourselves. Stephen King (and idol of mine), writes about the maniacs, madmen, and monsters which stir in the back of our minds or lurk in the shadowy corners of our room, or as in the book IT in the rat-infested, toxic sewers. Both Rod Serling and Stephen King, permit our imaginations to become the master, ignoring rationale and reason because FEAR has no limits, and FEAR is the driving force when we feel frail, afraid, and seem to be free falling! To imagine what the boggy man looks like, for me has always been the substance of either facing reality or running from it. Most times we can pretend the ugliness, the danger, the depraved exist, but then we place on the lights, or wake up from the nightmare inhale, look around, and find safety. The shadows have departed, for now…
A real monster exists in the White House, a more powerful man than scary clowns or aliens, Frankenstein or Dracula. A real virus permeates within the Republican Party, more contagious than the Zombie Plague, or manufactured government population-controlled drug gone array. A psychopath, narcissistic demented, insecure, man hacked into the office of President, is caught in a corner, not like a rat, but one of the Giant Rats we find in science fiction movies, nuked by atomic rays to ingest every living being in its way. With Stephen King’s creatures, you can put the book away in some hidden drawer, with the monsters living in the Twilight Zone, just turn the TV knob to off…we have Trump, and I am not certain what the HELL will happen, because he has not and will not go away without dragging ALL of us with him!
