Richard Matheson's The Twilight Zone Scripts (Volume 1) [Paperback]

Stanley Wiater (Author), Richard Matheson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 2001

Apart from Rod Serling, screenwriter Richard Matheson wrote more teleplays for the cult classic The Twilight Zone than any other writer. Many of these episodes became the series' most acclaimed and most frequently aired. Published here for the first time are eight original scripts. Each is preceded by an introduction and commentary that lends insight into Matheson's creative process, how he felt about the adaptation of his scripts, and his relationship with Rod Serling. Information about the fate of two "lost" scripts and suggestions for further reading and viewing are also included. Volume Two includes the final six complete Twilight Zone scripts Matheson wrote for the show.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The 14 complete scripts in Richard Matheson's The Twilight Zone Scripts: Volume One, edited by Stanley Wiater, will be great fun for fans and scriptwriters. In the episode called "Invaders," tiny spacemen land at a desolate farmhouse and the lone occupant fights them off; in "A World of Difference," a man finds that his life is actually a movie in the process of being filmed. A second volume will follow in a year.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

About the Author

Richard Matheson is a screenwriter and novelist. His novels include I Am Legend, The Shrinking Man, Hell House, and Somewhere in Time. Two of his novels were recently adapted to film: What Dreams May Come and A Stir of Echoes. Television film screenplays include The Night Stalker and Trilogy of Terror. He is the winner of numerous awards including the Bram Stoker Award, the Hugo Award, and the World Fantasy and Writer's Guild Award. He lives in Calabasas, California. Stanley Wiater has interviewed countless horror writers for his compilations Dark Dreamers, Dark Visions, and Dark Thoughts. He is writer and host of the television series Dark Dreamers, inspired by his interview books. He lives in Deerfield, Massachusetts.

Product Details

• Paperback: 392 pages
• Publisher: Gauntlet Press; First Trade Paperback Edition edition (April 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1887368426
• ISBN-13: 978-1887368421
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.4 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #318,336 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Praised by Stephen King as "a very talented journalist," Stanley Wiater is a widely acclaimed observer of the dark side of popular culture. He has interviewed more major horror and suspense authors, filmmakers, actors, and artists than any other journalist. He is the creator of "Dark Dreamers" (available on DVD at Amazon), a television series profiling these personalities, which has been broadcast in Canada and Great Britain.

Rue Morgue magazine has hailed him as "the top horror journalist in North
America for the past twenty-five years." He has won the coveted Bram Stoker
Award three times, and been nominated for the International Horror Guild, Hugo, Rondo, Eisner, Harvey, and Readercon awards. A collection of his short stories, "Intimate Strangers," has been dramatized and is available as an audio book at Amazon.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Classic Scripts By a Master of Suspense, August 30, 2002

By 

Edward Garea "Edward Garea" (Branchville, New Jersey United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Richard Matheson's The Twilight Zone Scripts (Volume 1) (Paperback)

"The Twilight Zone" has long been acknowledged as a television classic. Not only can episodes still be seen on the SciFi Channel, but the show has also proven to be a durable video and DVD best seller.

The stories presented on the show are intelligent and have a timeless quality and charm about them that makes even repeated viewings seem new. One of the main reasons for this is the contributions of Richard Matheson. A noted sci-fi and horror novelist with several books turned into classic movies ("Incredible Shrinking Man", "I Am Legend", which became "The Last Man on Earth", and later "The Omega Man" with Charlton Heston, and "Whatever Dreams May Come"), Matheson was a master of the short story, a style perfect for the 30 minute "Twilight Zone" format. While the scripts cannot fully take the place of the televised story, reading them is like reading a short story, with the advantage that the reader is able to see how the story is constructed from scene to scene.

The scripts included in this volume are as follows: "The Last Flight", A World of Difference", "A World of His Own", "Nick of Time" (Who can forget the sight of William Shatner feeding penny after penny into the fortune telling machine with the Devil's head?), "The Invaders" (Agnes Moorehead versus tiny invaders from another world. It was the first episode I saw as a child and continues to scare me.), "Once Upon a Time", "Little Girl Lost", and "Young Man's Fancy".

For those who loved the series or just for those who love a good script.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars T-Zone Scripts 1 &2, October 10, 2003

By 

Igor (Horror-Web.Com) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Richard Matheson's The Twilight Zone Scripts (Volume 1) (Paperback)

The Twilight Zone Scripts by Richard Matheson are a great thing to have if your a nut about the original TV show "The Twilight Zone" These are scripts that include stage direction etc etc... My Favorite one out of both of these books (Vol 1 & 2) is entitled "Mute" (Vol 2). This one is about a group of scientists that come together and are conducting an experiment on teaching children to be telepathic from birth, in order to make a more perfect society. One that is "speechless".

Another one that I found intriguing is entitled "Last Flight" (Vol. 1). This one is about a pilot for the Royal Flying Corps in the 1917's that travels through some type of portal and arrives in the future 1959.

These two books are a great compendium to have if you are a fan of Matheson or a fan of the Twilight Zone. In my opinion a great collectors item!

6 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Great Scripts, Mediocre Presentation, March 14, 2003

By A Customer

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This review is from: Richard Matheson's The Twilight Zone Scripts (Volume 1) (Paperback)

Fans of the original series know of Richard Matheson's

stellar thirteen episodes, which include some of the finest in the series: "The Invaders", "Death Ship", "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet". And at long last, here they are in readable form.

Unfortunately, the two volumes offer little more than

the scripts themselves. Those familiar with the "TZ Companion"

by Zicree and the newly-released "TZ Scripts of Earl Hamner"

(with commentary by Tony Albarella), or "Forgotten Gems from The Twilight Zone" (with commentary by Andrew Ramage) know of the in-depth commentary offered for nearly all the episodes.

Stanley Wiater does little more than repeat what has

been said elsewhere about Matheson's episodes. No

real analyses or significant insight precedes the

scripts themselves, thus making the book rather uninteresting

on the whole.