Customer Reviews

The Outer Limits: The Forms of Things Unknown [VHS]

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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.

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.

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.

"Forms" was the last show of the series' first season and the pilot for another anthology from the same production team. It is unfortunate that the idea did not sell because this episode showed promise of gems to come.

Basically an ensemble Gothic horror piece, it features great camera work, the usual outstanding scoring, thought-provoking dialogue and gifted direction from Paul Stanley. The cast is grand with Vera Miles and Barbara Rush as two women forced to be the pawns of a murderous cad. Sir Cedric Hardwicke scores as the mysterious "servant" to scientist David McCallum, a genius that has mastered time. All actors are highly effective in their respective roles.

It is Scott Marlowe, featured in the series' earlier masterpiece "It Crawled Out of the Woodwork" who excels as Andre... His is a role that others would DIE for.

After killing Andre, two women put his body into the trunk of their car. Traveling through the forest, they enter a house containing an old, blind man and Mr. Tone Hobart, who posseses a "time tilting" device. A device he uses to bring Andre back to life.

Although I'll admit that "Demon with a Glass Hand" is better, this one is my personnal favorite. Every single scene in "Forms.." is beautifully done. The use of light and shadow have never been topped. Particularly the last scene of Tone (played by David McCallum) leaning into his time tilting device. And the editing is top notch as well. Especially a perfectly timed cut involving a thrown rose to a raindrop. This entire episode defies easy description. It doesn't feel like an Outer Limits or Twilight Zone show, it stands up on it's own. Gothic, Hichcockian, and just plain odd.

Two scenes for me that really stand out involve Vera Miles and Barbara Rush running through the forest during a rainstorm. If you look carefully, you can see their breaths and steam rising off their shoulders. It must have been freezing, yet niether actress gives away just how cold it was.
The other is perhaps the single finest shot in Outer Limits history. Tone, holding his pistol on Andre, stares at a spinning minuature ballerina. The shadow of which you can clearly see on Tone's face. A drop dead gorgeous shot.

If your thinking about starting an Outer Limits collection, I can think of no better place to start than here.