When I was a young kid, during the 1950s, the genre of the movies at that time dealt with UFO’s, invasions by monsters, creatures of all sorts and kinds; I was mesmerized, terrified, causing my imagination to wander, wonder, and willingly seek the secrets of the universe. All I saw was the potential of cataclysmic events changing mankind, but in the end, mankind finding its hero’s and “kicking some monster or alien ass.” My father would take my sister and me to the Liberty Theater in Pittsburgh, a Gothic Place that once boasted three balconies. It had been turned into a B List Movie House, showing a double bill of Lon Cheney, Boris Karloff, and Vincent Price. My dad LOVED a good scary movie, and his interest seeped way down to his kids. The Liberty Theater was HUGE and dark, it actually had lookouts with gargoyles sitting perch, and because the audience was not the once beaming brood, the balconies remained shut, but sitting on the main floor looking up into the vastness of bleakness, as a kid I was certain some THING was just staring down on my father my sister and me!
I remember watching The Twilight Zone as a kid. Just the idea that in the next moment that the haunting theme song would play and Rod Serling would emerge, cigarette hanging from his hand, and his deep voice, warning us that next stop was the Twilight Zone, provided shivers and bravery, and a pre-check of the locked doors and windows of my house. Not until I became older and too much aware of history and politics, did I discover that Mr. Serling and his cadre of writers for the Twilight Zone, were actually Progressives, deriding the Eisenhower years of drawing within a straight line, good or bad are based on religious belief, man is tough, women are chattel, white is right and any other color is bad. Phew, had I known there was relevance and reverence for the PRESENT, but more importantly, cautionary tales for the FUTURE, perhaps the mystic and mystery would have been dulled.
During the Pandemic, I began to watch the original Twilight Zones, now as an adult, still a bit scary, but not as in, there is a monster in the house, but more so and much more frightening, knowing WE, THE HUMAN RACE ARE THE MONSTERS. Watch closely how the evil is more so BECAUSE the HUMAN characters are devious and dangerous. 2016 through 2021 seem to be years one might find in the Twilight Zone, I cannot imagine a fiction writer, transcribing a more heinous or hideous plot. But at least, watching the Twilight Zone, one could, after 30 minutes, sigh and exhale, knowing that SCARY would take at least one more week to arrive. I am so tired of hearing Rod Serling whisper, you have now entered the Twilight Zone!
