The Twilight Zone - The New Exhbit

I felt that I would definitely revisit this gem at a later date for a more enthusiastic write-up, but currently I’m admittedly close to TZ burnout. Well, I think once I have made my way through the fourth season and after a nice, little Labor Day marathon I have concocted for the early day (nothing in the evening, as time is cut out for the Peele horror feature, Us) tomorrow I will go on a sabbatical until Christmas Eve when I watch Night of the Meek and The Changing of the Guard. I feel like the blog has become one of those mostly TZ decorated and dedicated properties online, which I felt would change once the Holiday Season kicked into gear October 1^st.

Still, The New Exhibit is my personal favorite from the fourth season, thanks to Balsam as the timid, obsessively loyal wax figure upkeeper, so taken to keeping the works of serial killers from deterioration that he has them (after convincing the museum’s curator and owner to part with them so they wouldn’t be destroyed after having to sell the property for a supermarket) moved / shipped to his basement, complete with air conditioner to make sure they don’t melt. His wife doesn’t like the idea, eventually refusing to tolerate Balsam’s devotion (and financial attachment) to them, plotting to unplug the air conditioner one night while he’s asleep, eventually stabbed by the Jack the Ripper wax figure! When her brother comes along and is ax-murdered by the Hicks wax figure and Balsam’s former boss is strangled by Landru’s wax figure, keeping the whole bloody mess a secret any longer seems unavoidable. Balsam’s “decline” (the way his makeup seems to indicate he is so absorbed by the time and effort it takes to keep the figures in decent condition, with the care and admiration for them enveloping his whole life, when even whole manner of conversation seems focused completely on them) scene to scene is quite an acting showcase, with mannerisms on point and the mind’s inability to listen to any reason behind abandoning these duties always conveyed by him. I don’t think the ending works all that well because the episode never really made the case this could have been committed by Balsam although his mental deterioration was evident and clear. The wax figures and the actors in the roles are deliciously sinister. How they rest in the basement, you could see how anyone else other than Balsam would find them terrifying. Good actors and makeup gives them all an eerie presence, especially in the dark when walking past them. While I wasn’t a fan, mentioned before, of the ending, the figures closing in on Balsam is the stuff of nightmares…the idea that the works that don’t  shouldn’t move, called friends even by Balsam, would gang up on you after so much attention to them is rife with irony. Balsam joining the murderer’s row, the rogue’s gallery in France, makes for a clever twist, but I wish the execution up to it was a bit less overt and more understated. Seeing the figures move towards victims before killing them takes a lot of the shine off the twist, I felt. 4/5