Nightmare at Ground Zero

"Nightmare at Ground Zero" is a television drama written by Rod Serling. And, although I liked most of the show, its ending really was poor...and wimped out from what could have been a great show.

George is an odd man. His job is building mannequins to be used by the military at nuclear test sites. But this isn't what makes him odd...it's how much effort he puts into making them look 'just right' and he seems to pay more attention to them than normal. As for his wife, Helen (who overacts), she is a tough lady to love. She nags George incessantly and its obvious George just tries to block it all out...but not successfully. In fact, it's gotten so bad that George is thinking about including Helen among the blast dummies to be used at an upcoming nuclear test.

In addition to the ending that muddles the show (I would have preferred a MUCH darker ending), the film doesn't make a lot of sense near the end. After all, the military think that some folks STILL might be at the blast site but they act like they cannot stop the test...even though the bomb is to be dropped by a plane. Why don't they simply radio them and have them go into a holding pattern until they can check out the site?! This just doesn't make any sense.

The bottom line is that Rod Serling was a genius at writing television shows. But even a genius can make a mistake...especially earlier in his career.

Rod Serling presents a cautionary tale for a different sort of "Suspense" episode. It's in the genre of Orson Welles' classic radio shadow 20 years earlier about a Martian invasion, but is more personal and creepy rather than strictly scary.

In a basically no-name cast (Pat Hingle is the only recognizable star in a small role as a soldier), O. Z. Whitehead is fine, underplaying as a somewhat psychotic creator of puppets and mannequins in charge of filling the target house at Yucca Flats for an atomic bomb test, placing his meticulously crafted "family" of plaster of Paris dummies. He is henpecked by his wife Helen (Louise Larabee), who is tired of him working on his inanimate creations, neglecting her. With spooky shots of the lifeless mannequins and lighting effects, the episode of attempted murder is played Live on TV, with reporting on the radio, and only the shrill organ music as usual detracting from the overall paranoid effect.

Always socially conscious, Serling uses the show to present a warning to mankind, which remains with us 70 years later.