Twilight Zone-esque?

Daniel Moore

Daniel Moore

Joined
Jul 28, 2003
Messages
2,790
I absolutely cannot get enough of shows like:

The Twilight Zone
Tales from the Crypt
The Outer Limits
Creepshow 1 & 2 (a joint project between Stephen King and the creator of Tales from the Crypt)

I love the format, and I find that it's the most honest storytelling available. You don't need to worry about killing off characters that need to appear later in the series, there aren't so many complications (romantic sub-plots etc.). I also love short horror stories, Stephen King's being my favorite (Skeleton Crew, Nightshift, Nightmares and Dreamscapes). I also really liked Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery" (you can find it online easily enough).

Does anyone know of any TV series, movies composed of short stories (like the Twilight Zone movie or Creepshow), or good short story books for me to check out? I saw the beginning of one from the mid-80's on an old tape, I think it was called Tales from the Darkside. It looked a little lame from the 5 minutes on the tape, but if anyone thinks its worth looking for I'd be willing to give it a shot.
 
Regarding Stephen King short stories:
I loved The Night Shift and Skeleton Crew, but he lost me with Nightmares and Dreamscapes. Now I've started reading the short story collection Everything's Eventual, and it's great stuff, like his older writing styles.

There was another anthololgy film with Stephen King stories called "Cat's Eye", or something.

"Tales from the Dark Side" was a good show from the 80s that ran on independent channels. It might be on SciFi occationally. Some of the episodes had rather low production quality, but others weren't bad. The stories were usually good, and once in a while they were Great.

"One Step Beyond", "The Veil", and "The Night Gallery" are old television shows that you might find on DVD.

Best Wishes,
Bob
 
Rod Serling put out some paperback anthologies of weird stories back in the 60's and 70's, you might be able to find them in used book stores or libraries. Alfred Hitchcock put out some good collections too, just make sure to get the horror ones, not they mysteries.

You are probably about the right age to discover H.P. Lovecraft, which will take you in some pretty strange directions. Get any collection you can find and start reading. Most of it is good, some of it is positively mind-bending.

There is also a good collection of vintage horror stories called "H.P. Lovecraft's book of Horror" which features a number of stories mentioned in Lovecraft's essay "Supernatural Horror in Literature". There are some extremely unpleasant tales in there, such as "The Upper Berth" by F. Marion Crawford, "The Yellow Sign" by Robert W. Chambers, "Lukundoo" by Edward Lucas White, and "The Great God Pan" by Arthur Machen. If you can't find this collection, by all means find these stories in other anthologies as they are among the cream of the crop

Another masterful writer of excellently creepy old fashioned horror stories is M.R. James. You can still find "The Collected Ghost Stories of M.R. James" and other anthologies very easily. On Amazon you can sometimes find used copies for dirt cheap. These stories are not about regular ghosts, but often feature far-less-pleasant supernatural entities and the atmosphere is genuinely creepy.

Other great short stories to locate:

The Red Lodge by H.R. Wakefield

Second Night Out by Frank Belknap Long

Wood by Robert Aickman

Pollock and the Porroh Man by H.G. Wells

I have no mouth and I must scream by Harlan Ellison

These are just a few that have stuck with me for years. Enjoy!
 
Quote:Creepshow 1 & 2 (a joint project between Stephen King and the creator of Tales from the Crypt) Accually, it was a joint venture between Stephen King and George Romero.(The creator of Night,Dawn,Day and Land of the dead)
But anyway, another great short story book by Stephen King, is Skeleton crew.
But My personal favorite is "IT" and the Dark tower series. :thumbup:
 
I'm not sure if they were published in the states or not but you could do no better than "The Pan Book Of Horror Stories" anthologies. the quality of story telling ranges from mean-spirited pap to some of the finest short stories in any genre.
Check out Phillip K. Dick's short stories, most of his stuff will bend your mind, literally and figuratively! :D
Check out Ray Bradbury (I think he scripted some Twilight Zone) I'm reading "S Is For Space" at the moment, marvellous stuff.
I'm with Torz as far as M.R James goes, bloody brilliant. My favourite James tale is "Oh whistle and I'll come to you my lad". see if you can get a copy of the BBC adaptation of it on DVD as well. :thumbup:
If the Lovecraft stuff gets you check out an anthology called "The Starry Wisdom" published by Creation Books. Mmmm, squamous and rugose.. :D
 
TorzJohnson said:
Rod Serling put out some paperback anthologies of weird stories back in the 60's and 70's, you might be able to find them in used book stores or libraries. Alfred Hitchcock put out some good collections too, just make sure to get the horror ones, not they mysteries.

You are probably about the right age to discover H.P. Lovecraft, which will take you in some pretty strange directions. Get any collection you can find and start reading. Most of it is good, some of it is positively mind-bending.

There is also a good collection of vintage horror stories called "H.P. Lovecraft's book of Horror" which features a number of stories mentioned in Lovecraft's essay "Supernatural Horror in Literature". There are some extremely unpleasant tales in there, such as "The Upper Berth" by F. Marion Crawford, "The Yellow Sign" by Robert W. Chambers, "Lukundoo" by Edward Lucas White, and "The Great God Pan" by Arthur Machen. If you can't find this collection, by all means find these stories in other anthologies as they are among the cream of the crop

Another masterful writer of excellently creepy old fashioned horror stories is M.R. James. You can still find "The Collected Ghost Stories of M.R. James" and other anthologies very easily. On Amazon you can sometimes find used copies for dirt cheap. These stories are not about regular ghosts, but often feature far-less-pleasant supernatural entities and the atmosphere is genuinely creepy.

Other great short stories to locate:

The Red Lodge by H.R. Wakefield

Second Night Out by Frank Belknap Long

Wood by Robert Aickman

Pollock and the Porroh Man by H.G. Wells

I have no mouth and I must scream by Harlan Ellison

These are just a few that have stuck with me for years. Enjoy!
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I LOVE H.P. LOVECRAFT. From the books to the movies based on them and even the computer games based on them. They have a weird atmosphere.
 
O. Henry, aka William Sydney Porter, wrote stories with surprise twists in the end, similar to the Twilight Zone.

One of my favorite short stories written by him is The Gift of the Magi.

He died in 1910, and it's quite possible his stories served as a model for many of the stories Rod Serling penned for The Twilight Zone.
 
Several of Lovecraft's stories were adapted for the later Serling entry, Night Gallery.
You might be interested to know that a new RPG is in the works, based on the Call of Cthulu storyline. Most of the pre-release (late this year or early next) reviews are pretty good.

I've been a horror fan for some time as well. In addition to Lovecraft, your might try Clark Ashton Smith, who had several collections of rather Poe-influenced stories, and William Tenn, who likewise put out several collections of stories that fall into the "wierd" vein.

Also famous horror authors Richard Bloch, Ramsey Campbell, Richard Matheson, as well as some others my foggy memory won't bring back.

Try Dark Forces edited by Kirby Mccauley. A collection of cutting-edge horror fiction from about 25 years ago.
 
mwerner said:
Several of Lovecraft's stories were adapted for the later Serling entry, Night Gallery.
You might be interested to know that a new RPG is in the works, based on the Call of Cthulu storyline. Most of the pre-release (late this year or early next) reviews are pretty good.

I've been a horror fan for some time as well. In addition to Lovecraft, your might try Clark Ashton Smith, who had several collections of rather Poe-influenced stories, and William Tenn, who likewise put out several collections of stories that fall into the "wierd" vein.

Also famous horror authors Richard Bloch, Ramsey Campbell, Richard Matheson, as well as some others my foggy memory won't bring back.

Try Dark Forces edited by Kirby Mccauley. A collection of cutting-edge horror fiction from about 25 years ago.
Click to expand...
The only episode of "Night gallery" I ever saw was called "Boomerang" it was about a guy who had an insect tunneling through his brain :eek:, :cool: .
 
There is a Neil Gaiman short story that is very much a send-up of H.P. Lovecraft. It is called "Only the End of the World Again" and it involves a werewolf/private eye and the good folk of Innsmouth, a seaport that only Lovecraft could have loved. i forget the collection in which it was published, but there is also a wonderful out-of-print graphic novel version available though Amazon.

Actually, you would probably like Gaiman's stories as they all have the sorts of quirkiness to them that made Serling's work so appealing to me.
 
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