The New Exhibit

One of the last outstanding scripts developed by Charles Beaumont, who left us too soon. Let the record show he also wrote for the dean of shock and horror, Roger Corman, notably THE PREMATURE BURIAL and THE HAUNTED PALACE.

Accordingly, Beaumont takes us into a spooky wax museum, about to be torn down. Dedicated employee (which is an understatement!) Martin Balsam is terribly depressed. Why? He's very "fond" of some of the wax figures, destined for the trash can. How could anyone toss Bluebeard and Jack the Ripper in the street? Sure enough, Martin takes them home with him(!), storing the madmen in his basement, continuing a beautiful friendship, all the while his lonely wife (Margaret Field) is slowing going nuts.

Then the murders start, and the proverbial TZ question -- have these fiends come back to life???

A campy slice of insanity you can't miss, and I agree, Martin Balsam is excellent in a bizarro role, unlike most of the dramatic performances he's remembered for. As for the villains; Milton Parsons, often cast in mysteries and thrillers, makes a wonderful Bluebeard, same for David Bond as Jack the Ripper. Will Kuluva (usually playing professors) plays the owner of the museum and Marcel Hillaire as the guide. Marcel was a prime fit for villains.

If you're a horror buff, you'll enjoy this, particularly for its connection to HOUSE OF WAX (starring Vincent Price) and MYSTERY OF THE WAX MUSEUM.

SEASON 4 EPISODE 13 remastered CBS dvd box set, hour-long episodes collection. The entire series is on blu ray. 24 discs. Released 2016. 74 hrs and 24 minutes total running time. New fans will be impressed.

Martin Senescu (Martin Balsam) is a tour guide in a museum and is obsessed with the exhibits. They are mass murderers in wax about to be discarded as the museum's owner believes the public are no longer thrilled by Jack the ripper and the like. Senescu cannot give up his 'friends' and so keeps them in his basement.

For me this is an ordinary horror tale that lacks depth, meaning, and sensible human aspirations for true Zone standard. Senescu simply has an unhealthy obsession that cannot lead to any good. So you get a weird tale, but not a thought-provoking or an involving one. Martin Balsam was a very fine actor, but the mad single-mindedness of this character does not impress me. Having said all that, this would be one of the better entries in just about any other fantasy anthology series.

John Brahm (director of feature film classics THE LODGER and HANGOVER SQUARE), directed this "Twilight Zone" episode starring MARTIN BALSAM, giving it the sort of Gothic touches he gave his full-length feature films. This one is about a wax museum curator who delights in taking the customers on a tour of "Murder's Row", including lifelike wax figures of infamous criminals like Jack the Ripper. Balsam is so obsessed with these figures that he's soon a good candidate for "the twilight zone" himself.

When told that the museum will have to be demolished to make way for a supermarket, Balsam sees his thirty-year career as a curator coming to an end. The owner explains that "People aren't interested in wax figures any more" when Balsam suggests opening another museum. He shows Balsam the waning cash receipts, but Balsam is obsessed with preserving the five wax figures of murderers in his basement.

What happens next, makes for a very intriguing episode of "The Twilight Zone" called THE NEW EXHIBIT under the expert guidance of John Brahm.

Balsam is excellent as the caretaker who talks to the figures as though they were real. The story takes a sharp turn into high suspense when his wife enters the cellar with every intention of turning off the air-conditioner that keeps the figures from melting. The suspense is even further heightened when her brother becomes suspicious of her eventual disappearance as well as when the museum owner arrives with the news that the figures have been sold to another museum, but has to take their measurements first. What happens can only be described as something that can only occur in "The Twilight Zone".

Well done, it's a special treat for fright fans.

Season 4 had a mixed bag of ok to good episodes, but this episode definitely was the best of the one hour episodes and for good reason.

The atmosphere and setting of the episode is well executed, along with the performances of it leads and also the 'wax figures'. The expressions of the actors portraying them, is absolutely priceless and chilling at the same time.

Martin Balsam was a great character and this episode displays his talents to the extreme and his portrayal of an obsessed and desperate man, is well drawn out. The one hour length, was perfect for this episode.

Not to be discarded or missed by the TZ fans!

I am certainly not the first to comment that the 50-minute runtime for the episodes of season 4 was a bad change, and this is exactly why a lot episodes are so much weaker than they could have been. This is also no exception with this one, as the exposition especially is incredibly bloated. Things do not really pick up until about the 30-minute mark, but when they do, it is a real thrill.

Martin Balsam did a great job in the lead role, and all of the other performances were solid as well, albeit less memorable. There was also some dark humour which I liked a lot (especially after the unfunny trainwreck that was the previous episode with the Genie). This episode is really close to being a great, memorable classic, but I just cannot bring myself to rate it any higher than this. The thing is, if it was not for the runtime and the resulting issues, it could have been one.