The Twilight Zone - After Hours *

I just love this ending!

* * * ½ / * * * *
James Millhollin as the worrisome Mr. Armbruster, always anxiously corralling his retail troops into their little department store forts, with the "chop, chop, chop" commands. He is one of those the employees roll their eyes at and disregard, as he bandies about making sure the store runs operationally. In the case of patron, Marsha (Anne Francis), he is taken aback by a mannequin that looks a bit too eerily similar...it is because Marsha *is* a mannequin!


I purposely watched this at Midnight, looking for the desired effect, just a bit of chill. Mannequins at night, I dig that creepy shit. Those painted eyes starting out lifeless, the similar build to us humans, wearing display clothes that might appeal to us, arms, hands, positioning fixed in place to mimic a moment of movement that remains still...but imagine them in some abandoned floor, with no displays, just in their outfits, left to be used whenever the need arises by the store's "outsiders". And then extreme closeups as eerie voices reach out from lips that don't move. These expressions that were molded and created by human hands and just voices that reach out to Marsha to "remember", and eventually she does. But "being human" is such a delight, so Marsha has "extended her stay", seemingly forgotten about the rules of a mannequin's "retreat", a month away from servicing humans.

I continue to remain such a fan of this classic episode. Everything about it suits my fancy. I didn't put this together as necessarily a review as much as adding some snapshots from the episode as I watched it last night. I can only imagine I'll watch it during a New Year's marathon if Syfy doesn't decide to pull the plug on this show. It has been on life support with the network for years now, lost to the wee hours, meant perhaps for only insomniacs, seemingly more or less a novelty kept around, one last reminder of the Syfy's "Sci-fi Channel" past. I bitch and gripe (no perhaps more of disposing of my melancholy and acknowledging an end to one last bit of nostalgia that the channel kind of appeases with its marathons) about this sometimes when writing about the show. God, those mannequins-come-to-life in the ski mask creep me out--okay lost my train of thought. Anyway, seeing Anne Francis frantically scattered about trying to free herself from the store but unable to escape her inevitable return to wearing the newest fashions while trapped again behind painted plastic as her colleagues call out to her in the dark, the camera following her and making sure to emphasize them; this is just part of the reason the episode remains so significant within the impressive girth of television wealth the Twilight Zone left us.