The Forms of Things Unknown

A bleak atmospheric episode on noirish style nestled in a rainy night on the dark woodland, it summed up about two women, the scary maiden Barbara Bush and a cold blood lady Vera Miles in dire straits after poisoned a menacing guy Scott Marlowe, when the body simply disappears from the car's trunk, they find out a mansion nearest, there were received by a blind old man Cedric Hardwicke and a young weird guy David McCallum who had built a time-device whereby transport the dead body of Marlowe back to life.

Actually McCallum had designed the device aiming for bring back the beloved ones that had gone afterlife, such device should be relief the hard mourning, instead now he brings back suffering on threatening mad guy Scott Marlowe over two afraid girls, on regret McCallum ought fix up his mistake trying be back the dangerous guy towards his time-device in order transport him to death again, nonetheless it proves useless, moreover the women are in upmost jeopardy again.

A sort of Shakespearian offering mainly by stronger presence of the legendary British actor Sir Cedric Hardwicke as the owner of the mansion, the highlight is up by a unusual moving camera and stunning photography, for those human eager of sexy, worthwhile a look on wet dressing Vera Miles's sculptural sexy body perfectly outlined, what breathtaking vision of the paradise (forgive me Gordon Scott by nasty comment, I can't resist), without forget the score music is the same that will appears as main song of THE INVADERS series later.

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First watch: 2024 / How many: 1 / Source: DVD / Rating: 7.5.

The visual imagery is quite striking here. The camera uses the shadows of the black and white to create ghostly scenes. The story is, unfortunately, plodding. I have to agree with the reviewer who talked about the young woman's hysteria being a distraction. When she assists in the murder of the man who will ruin her father for some relatively innocent transgressions, she quickly falls into utter guilt ridden craziness. This is actually a good ghost story with the old house in the rain and the weird stuff at the end of the hallway. David McCallum, who has made quite a comeback, is the spooky time traveller who set about from childhood to bring people back from the dead. Vera Miles is the ice blonde who has the chops for murder (who actually set up the old man). But this goes on and on and seems to never get to the point. We are also not given a good understanding of how McCallum put this all together. Hardwick is great as the blind homeowner who spooks around the house, knowing, but not knowing. Despite its shortcomings, it is great for atmosphere and a good bit of TV.

A time machine in an oddball house (with a man-from-uncle inside) create terror.

There is more than a bit of Hitchcock's Psycho (1960) here! Weirdo in out of the way old house with a female criminal knocking on the door. It is raining in both productions...enough said.

This is one of my top five episodes of the whole series. It was a pilot for a never made series, and as we all know pilots are made with twice the money and twice the filming time of a regular TV episode...it shows here!

The care and attention that went into filming this hour will blow your mind. The direction, camera angles, lighting, photography, acting and musical score are of motion picture standard all the way.

There is a lot of style over substance going on here, I can't really say the basic story is the best you will see in the whole Outer Limits series, but you just get sucked into the general look of it and the sound of it. I return to this episode every couple of years with repeat viewings.

Vera Miles and Barbara Rush star as Kasha Paine and Leonora Edmond, two women at the mercy of a sadistic blackmailer named Andre(played by Scott Marlowe) who decide one day at a lake to poison him, which does kill him, and they put his body in the car trunk. Unfortunately, they later seek shelter at the home of an eccentric inventor named Tone Hobart(played by David McCallum) who has invented a means to tilt time, which has the effect of reversing Andre's death, bringing him back to life to torment them all. Will Hobart be able to put things right again? Cedric Hardwicke costars. Bizarre episode is a dud, with a preposterous and excessively contrived plot wallowing in mind-numbing tedium. Good cast can't save it.

And so, once again, I reach the end of the 1st season. I first saw this story when it was first-run --or perhaps on a rerun, if it was... either way, it was almost definitely during that 1st season when the show was on early Monday nights, just as the Tara King AVENGERS were years later. (Funny thing, my favorite "Tara" episode was THEY KEEP KILLING STEED, which blatantly swiped from THE HUNDRED DAYS OF THE DRAGON, which had aired in the same time slot on the same network years earlier.)

I never saw this again until I rented it in the early 90's. I've played the entire 1st season back twice now, so I've seen it 4 times now. I was completely shocked, surprised and blown away when I saw it the 2nd time, after so many years. WHAT THE F***??? Looking at the credits, I see this was the work of Joe Stefano and Gerd Oswald. But they'd done so many episode of OL, and none of them were quite like this!!

The story seems almost relatively simple... but not the way it's told. You feel like you're watching some kind of avant-garde European "art" film. All the weird camera-angles, the bizarre edits, the strange language, the intense expressions of people's faces. It's like some twisted, otherworldly version of Shakespeare... perhaps that's what they were after?

Barbara Rush is so beautiful, yet so tragic. Who'd believe she would later wind up in my vote for the absolute WORST episode of the Adam West BATMAN a few years later?? I found out she was a regular on PEYTON PLACE (as was Tippy Walker, who I fell for watching her early film). Made me wonder how things would have been if she'd been on DARK SHADOWS instead. Vera Miles, meanwhile, is reunited with Stefano (after PSYCHO, heh).

David McCallum is genuinely other-worldly in this. Perhaps, like Lugosi in Dracula, he really is "undead". His facial expressions make him seem something not quite human.

The house and its corridors reminds me of the 2 other "haunted house" stories OL had that year-- Stefano's own DON'T OPEN UNTIL DOOMSDAY and the very similar THE GUESTS (which, in the long run, I came to like much more). But this time out may be Stefano's unsung masterpiece.

Crime melodrama? Science-fiction? Art film? Poetry? All of the above? What a hell of a way for Stefano to depart the show. One can only wonder what might have been if he had stayed... if he hadn't pulled his own vanishing act, just as "Tone" did in the last scene.