Hatred Unto Death/How to Cure the Common Vampire

'Hatred Unto Death' - Steve Forrest and Dina Merrill play Grant & Ruth Wilson, two anthropologists in Africa who capture a wild gorilla in a trap that seems to have a bizarre and irrational hatred for Grant, trying to escape and kill him with murder in its eyes. The ape(named N'GI) does show an affection for Ruth, and Grant theorizes that their hatred for each other is fate, as both may have been reincarnated many times until they die together. When N'GI escapes, it seems the final battle will be played out... Bizarre tale has an ambitious philosophical premise, but utterly inept execution, with an embarrassing ape suit.

'How To Cure The Common Vampire' - This brief but inane "cure" proved to be the end of the series.

Steve Forrest plays a guy who usually shows compassion for animals. He is a naturalist and respects the jungle. One day a group of stereotypical movie natives run to get him. When he arrives at a tiger pit, there is a big gorilla (obviously a man in a gorilla suit). His wife and fellow naturalist, want them to pull him out an let him escape back in the jungle. Instead, Forrest sees look of utter hatred in the eyes of the gorilla. Against his wife's wishes, he captures the gorilla and brings him back to the museum of natural history. The wife has developed a bond with the big guy and he responds Fay Rayeishly to her. One day, she makes the mistake of going into the cage and the gorilla gets loose. Forrest, in order to rescue her, battles with the gorilla. There is a kind of animal respect between them which seems to be the theme of this episode. Not one of the best in the series.

This is one of those "humorous" shorts from Night Gallery that really falls flat. Not all of them were bad and they were meant as nothing more than quick time fillers. But this one is a real groaner.

I guess what bugs me the most about this one is that the establishing shot of the castle, and the Vampire Hunters approach and then the opening of the coffin lid. All of this is made to pound the fact in that these guys are going to kill a Vampire.

And then it is all over within a second.

Ah well, I still love Night Gallery. Although as for the short humorous bits my favorites are "Mrs Lovecraft sent me" and "Junior".

If you mix them two together, who knows what you'll come up with. All kidding aside, the main portion of this episode revolves around a couple of anthropologists, Grant and Ruth Wilson(Steve Forrest, Dina Merrill), and how they deal with a gorilla they find in Kenya. It turns out that the gorilla and Grant have a mutual hatred for each other, even though they never met before; the gorilla was solidly portrayed by veteran "gorilla actor" George Barrows, and he does a very fine job as a man in a suit. Grant eventually has the ape captured and sent to a Dr. Ramirez(Fernando Lamas)for observation, while Ruth would rather have the ape free in the wild. Speaking of Ruth, she makes the stupid mistake of sticking her hand inside the cage, and then the ape pulls the ring off her finger; soon after, she opens the cage to get her ring back, and naturally, the beast overtakes her and escapes, and is on the hunt for her husband with a somewhat predictable outcome, even though the episode was solid.

The next segment, and it is very short, starts with a quick cut of a castle surrounded by water, and it looks like something out of a Roger Corman movie, but that doesn't detract here. The next scene has a few vampire hunters, including actors Johnny Brown(Good Times)and Richard Deacon(The Dick Van Dyke Show), as they open the coffin of a sleeping vampire and prepare to take care of business. This is one of those weird Jack Laird segments which border more on being funny rather than being scary, but I enjoyed it anyway, as I consider myself a vampire fan.