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14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The fear of the unknown, May 6, 1999
This review is from: The Outer Limits: The Forms of Things Unknown [VHS] (VHS Tape)
This is the most unconventional episode of the series, which looks like a film, and an expected pilot for a new gothic series : "The unknown". A dreamlike tale about two women who murder their blackmailer in a lake. They take refuge to a country house where a mad inventor creates a timeslanting device that brings the dead back to life. A new score composed by Dominic Frontiere, re-used in "The invaders", five outstanding actors and the most sophisticated cinematography (thanks to Conrad Hall and William Fraker) ever seen for the last episode of the first season. This episode also makes reference to Alfred Hitchcock's "Psycho", Henri-Georges Clouzot's "Les diaboliques", the Val Lewton's horror films and William Shakespeare's "A midsummer night's dream", recited by David Mc Callum : "Such tricks hath strong imagination, That, if it would but apprehend some joy, It comprehends some bringer of that joy; Or in the night, imagining some fear, How easy is a bush supposed a bear !" - Theseus, Act V., Sc. I.
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13 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Cruel Blonde, Clocks and Wires, November 16, 2000
This review is from: The Outer Limits: The Forms of Things Unknown [VHS] (VHS Tape)
Alfred Hitchcock attempted to mold Vera Miles into his classic "cool blonde" such he had done with Grace Kelly, Kim Novak, Eva Marie Saint and Tippi Hedren. However Miles screen persona seemed to lack glamour and radiance. She exuded more pragmatic and matronly qualities as a veneer hiding some darker side of sexuality. Rather than the "cool blonde" she seemed more the "cruel blonde" similar to her role in 1961's "Back Street." In "The Forms of Things Unknown" Vera Miles gives a tour de force in subdued sexual and sadistic manifestations. This episode seems like one of the most explicit ventures into erotica from 1960's television. A strange mixture of 60s chic and spooky Gothic Romanticism it is a highly stylized examination of human sexual behavior, fears and relationships. Stiletto heels, poisoned Martinis, drenching rains, crackling fireplaces, dark shadows, eerie music box tunes, webs of wires and lots of clocks, ticking clocks abound. Is David McCallum a mad scientist or just mad? I was at a science fiction meet in New York City over 20 years ago. Joseph Stefano was the featured speaker. He brought a 16-mm copy of this episode for viewing. Originally this was a pilot episode for a show he was trying to sell to ABC. This pilot was not for "The Outer Limits." It was for another show more in the horror genre. The episode Joseph Stefano showed the audience that day had a different ending. For "The Outer Limits" the ending was re-edited to give it a science fiction element. In the original McCallum was a time traveler only in his mind. For "The Outer Limits" version, well let's just say that you decide. I just touched the tip of the iceberg. There is much more to this episode than I can fathom. It remains my favorite episode. New Haven born composer Dominic Frontiere's title theme from the first season still remains a great piece of classic musical innovation.
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Best of the Series, April 1, 2002
This review is from: The Outer Limits: The Forms of Things Unknown [VHS] (VHS Tape)
Joseph Stefano's most lyrically poetic script is a sturm-und-drang classic. In some ways, it's a quintessential OL, and in others it's nothing like the rest of the series at all. Psychopath Scott Marlowe and his two mistresses, cold-blooded Vera Miles and neurotic Barbara Rush, are vacationing in France to perform a little blackmail. Miles and Rush poison their amoral lover, and Rush's conscience keeps getting the better of her - she thinks Marlowe isn't really dead. In the midst of seeing him stalking them behind every lightning-shadowed tree, Rush runs screaming for help to an isolated country mansion, where kind-hearted blind gentleman Cedric Hardwicke takes them in until the outside storm subsides. Hardwicke has another guest, the elusively unsettling and mercurial David McCallum, who believes he has invented a machine that brings back the dead by "tilting the dead past into the lively present," and the concealed body in Miles and Rush's trunk gives him the perfect opportunity to see if he is right... There's not a bad thing that can be said about this episode. It's darkly and lavishly photographed and produced, with the richest score in the series. The cast is uniformly brilliant. A longer, separate version was filmed for Playhouse 90 and for theatrical release in Europe, with a different ending. "Forms" was the intended pilot for a series that regrettably never flew, called "The Unknown." It performs like a European horror movie of the period, and is one of the finest pieces of cinema I have ever seen. Even non-OL fans will love this one. Don't miss it.
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