1.39 --- The Elevator

Directed by : R.L. Thomas Written by : Ray Bradbury Starring : Stephen Geoffreys, Robert Prescott First aired : 31st of January, 1986. Will (Stephen Geoffreys, Fright Night) and Roger (Robert Prescott, Bachelor Party) break into their dad's research facility one night, determined to find out more about his "secret" project which is supposed to solve the worldly hunger problems. Once inside, they see trails in the dust, but they're only going one way. Following the trail, the brothers run into a bunch of overgrown dead animals - rats, cats, dogs, each one larger than the other. After turning on the light, they also discover the "food" matter which presumably made those animals huge. Will, who is now seriously frightened, deducts that the rats probably got in first, with cats and dogs following, but Roger remarks that something even bigger must've in turn killed them. As their father is nowhere to be seen, Will and Roger decide to try looking for him on the upper floors. They approach the elevator which soon comes, but when the doors for it open, the brothers realize what happened to the other animals - they were eaten by the giant spider, which will now have them for dinner. *** Hats off to Ray Bradbury, who for the second time in this first season succesfully creeped me out. While his previous adaptation, The Burning Man, worked more on psychological levels, The Elevator is purely visceral, with fright being induced by the scary environment and the inevitable big monster. I will note that this episode probably lost a lot of its punch outside the original airing slot - if you watched this when it aired, you probably expected the brothers to climb to the second floor first and got pleasantly shocked. This way, watching on DVD, the timer feature tells you clearly something is gonna happen as they call the elevator mere seconds before the episode ends. Due props go to director R. L. Thomas, who directed this piece with the flair and technique of a veteran horror director...which he wasn't. Brokeback Trivia : the Twilight Zone has a long-standing reputation of serving as a springboard for young acting, writing or directing talent. Stephen Geoffreys is no exception - it's just that he made his name in gay porn industry instead, participating in 20-ish such movies in the late 90s. Yee-haw.