Twilight Zone: The Changing of the Guard

Fictional Rock Spring School has quite a rigorous academic calendar, considering its classes remain in schedule through Christmas Eve. Sadly, Prof. Ellis Fowler last class of the term might be his last day ever, or perhaps not. When it comes to Christmas episodes of uncanny anthology series, everyone usually focuses on The Twilight Zone’s “Night of the Meek,” because of the Santa suit, but for pure seasonal sentiment it is tough to beat “The Changing of the Guard,” another foray into the Zone written by the great Rod Serling himself.

Fowler presents himself like a Prof. Kingsfield, but deep down, he is a real softy. That is why his students really love him, even though they jokingly refer to him as “Weird Beard.” Unfortunately, the prep school administration does not appreciate him as much. Since he has long declined to retire, despite having well passed the qualifying age, they have decided to make the decision for him. After all, he insists on teaching dead white male writers like John Donne and A.E. Housman. Now they can finally bring in a Third World Studies specialist to replace him (at least that is what would happen if the episode were set in contemporary times).

Believing himself a failure, the despondent Fowler returns to campus intending to commit suicide in his classroom. However, is shocked to find there an assembly of his former students, who died young in service to their country. What starts as Goodbye Mr. Chips turns into It’s a Wonderful Life, ironically just when Fowler takes his detour into The Twilight Zone.

This episode offers up all kinds of heartstring tugging and moral uplift, but it also should be conclusively cement Donald Pleasence’s standing as a genre legend. Years after his death, his forceful performance as Dr. Sam Loomis continues to loom over and drive the Halloween franchise. He was a Bond villain and appeared with Peter Cushing in films like the The Devil’s Men and From Beyond the Grave, yet he is often unfairly overlooked for his significant Twilight Zone appearance that is much more akin to his classic supporting performance in The Great Escape.

Eye of the Devil, Scored by Gary McFarland

It was a far cry from his pop-jazz collaborations with Gabor Szabo, but Gary McFarland’s moody symphonic soundtrack album had been mastered and a commissioned jacket was even teased on Verve record sleeves, but the horror film’s production delays eventually scuttled its release. Decades after his untimely death, it was finally issued on a collector’s label. It is too bad we didn’t get it much sooner, because the themes are quite distinctive and they perfectly underscore the dramatic pagan visuals of J. Lee Thompson’s Eye of the Devil (a.k.a. 13), which airs this Friday night on TCM.

Philippe de Montfaucon is the lord of his ancestral French chateau and the surrounding vineyards, but he rarely allows his British wife and children to visit—for good reason. News of another harvest failure forces him to make a homecoming, but he adamantly leaves Catherine and the kids behind. She just can’t take the hint, though, so she soon follows with their bratty son Jacques and his younger sister Antoinette.

The night that she arrives, Madame de Montfaucon is rather freaked out to find a dozen cloaked figures performing some sort of ritual in the chateau. She is also quite put out by Odile and Christian de Caray, two Aryan-looking siblings, who frequently exercise their familial rights to hunt (with bow-and-arrow) on the de Montfaucon grounds. Brother Christian rather impertinently welcomed Madame by shooting a dove from the sky, right in front of her eyes. Yet, her preoccupied husband always dismisses her concerns. Clearly, bad things are afoot and the entire village is in league to keep her out of the way.

There are many reasons Eye of the Devil could be dubbed a “cursed” film, beyond McFarland’s long-deferred soundtrack release (which surely would have been beneficial to the jazz musician at the time). Reportedly, an accident forced Kim Novak to pull out of the production after shooting several scenes, as Madame de Montfaucon. Yet, it is probably best remembered as the film debut of Sharon Tate, whose relevancy to a supposed film curse hardly needs explanation.

The truth is, Tate was quite good as Odile de Caray, sort of a witchy Diana-the-huntress-type. Despite the uncharitable reviews, she was quite chilling in a way that was clearly enhanced by her cover-model looks. Of course, Donald Pleasence, the old horror movie hand, was reliably creepy as the coldly sinister Father Dominic. Strangely, David Niven seems rather bored and uncomfortable playing de Montfaucon. However, Deborah Kerr really went all in when she tagged-in for Novak, playing the distraught, overheated, and altogether terrified Madame de Montfaucon.

John Carpenter’s Halloween

Two films released in the late 1970s had a disproportionate influence on the movie business in the 1980s. Stars Wars was one. This is the other. It inspired an army of imitators, a platoon of inferior sequels, and what is still considered the most violent Atari game ever. Its place in history has been codified by its selection for the Library of Congress’s National Film Registry—and its still scary. John Carpenter’s Halloween screens tonight in New York and probably somewhere near you, because its Halloween.

For some reason, all the parents in Haddonfield, IL always choose to enjoy a date night on Halloween, leaving their children in the care of sitters. Ordinarily, that means good money for Laurie Strode and her friends, but this year they will be stalked by a monstrous psychopath who has just escape from a criminal insane asylum. You know his name: Michael Myers. You also recognize his iconic William Shatner mask.

Logically, Myers should not be such a superman, since he has sat silently in an apparent catatonic state since murdering his older sister on a fateful Halloween at the tender age of six. Unfortunately, there is nothing logical about pure, unalloyed evil. Dr. Samuel Loomis understands that. He is a headshrinker with a license to practice and to carry, the latter because Myers so profoundly freaks him out. He will follow Myers back to his old hometown of Haddonfield, where the escaped patient will become obsessed with Strode.

Even in 1978, the screenplay, co-written by Carpenter and his producing partner Debra Hill, was not exactly revolutionary, but the way the elements combined was like lightning in a bottle. First and foremost, it is impossible to overstate how much Carpenter’s music adds to the overall vibe of mounting fear. It is not just the instantly recognizable opening theme. The entire soundtrack potently enhances the mood and worms its way into your ear.

Halloween also establishes the signature look of Carpenter’s films, thanks to Dean Cundey’s soft yet sinister lensing. In many ways, Halloween resembles an evil Norman Rockwell painting. Frankly, it is weird that there haven’t regular Cundey retrospectives, since he also shot films like The Thing, Jurassic Park, Psycho II, and the Back to the Future trilogy.