In the past two years, I've celebrated Halloween by judging
the most Lovecrafty movies ever made and
the best Stephen King adaptations. This year, I'm looking at thirteen good-to-great horror flicks that mirror classic creepy episodes from
The Twilight Zone. Whether purposeful or accidental, these movies showcase the same imagination and excitement that made Serling's series so fantastic.
Imagine a time in the future when science has developed the means of giving everybody the face and body he dreams of. It may not happen tomorrow, but it happens now in the Twilight Zone.
10. "Number Twelve Looks Just Like You" / The Stepford Wives
"Number Twelve..." (Wri. John Tomerlin, Dir. Abner Biberman, Season Five)
Watch It on Hulu
The Stepford Wives (Bryan Forbes, 1975)
What's So Similar?
Boy, would you look at these women? They're all so beautiful, they're all so happy, they're all so... bland. In "Number 12 Looks Just Like You," the government pushes all persons to go through a transformation that will make them into a specific model of beauty. The women end up with the personality of a real-doll. In
Stepford, the patriarchs of a small town replace the ladies with robots that smooth over pesky problems like independent thought and resistance. In both cases, beautiful, agreeable women are rolled off the assembly line.
What's So Different?
Although the
Zone episode is undeniably feminist - nearly all its characters are females and its chief criticism remains the superficiality of the cheery pin-up girl - it makes a token effort at equality by requiring men to go through the same process, and it diverts on occasion to make points about a totalitarian state.
The Stepford Wives's take on regimented beauty and docility has more focus, wasting no time on developing the men (all pretty much awful) and society (a simple riff on Rockwell's America). In some ways, the original novel by Ira Levin is a more obvious reworking of her previous novel,
Rosemary's Baby, which also had a woman fighting the social pressure to be an agreeable wife and mother. Ultimately, the biggest difference here is that the men of
Stepford doesn't revise the women they have; instead, they start from scratch.
The
Zone episode borrows heavily from popular episodes like "The Eye of the Beholder" and "The Obsolete Man," but
The Twilight Zone always focused more on men, so an episode devoted almost entirely to women struggling with body image and correct "female" behavior makes for a much-needed break. Collin Wilcox of
To Kill a Mockingbird impresses as the curious "plain Jane" lead, and plastic, smiling blonde women are always creepy (trust me - I live in LA). This is the big reason
The Stepford Wives still works, even though it's essentially a dark comedy with the occasional suspense breaks (what's happening up those stairs?). Its similarities to "Number 12" may need to be teased out, but its overall motive - unpacking the American small town to illustrate an important social point - is vintage
Twilight Zone.
All of The Best Twilight Zone Movies...
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10. "Number 12 Looks Just Like You" / The Stepford Wives
11. "Judgment Night" / Triangle
12. "Five Characters in Search of an Exit" / Cube
13. "Twenty-Two" / Final Destination
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