Night Gallery: The Cemetery

Rod Serling is one of my heroes. Not only did he give us the genius Twilight Zone but he followed it with the wonderful Night Gallery. Here, the episodes are divided into two or three short films, often featuring well known actors.

The introduction, yet again, is done by Mr Serling himself, standing in the darkened Night Gallery, uncovering paintings that represent the stories to come.

The Cemetery is the very fist tale (of three comprising the pilot episode). It is about the black sheep of a well off family, appearing after his uncle had a series of strokes and speeding the elderly man's demise along to get his hands on the inheritance. As soon as the uncle is dead the nephew is haunted by a painting of his uncle's that appears to be changing before his eyes. It shows a cemetery that suddenly has an extra hole, at first empty, later with the uncle's coffin inside, then with the image of the uncle leaving the family plot, coming to get the culprit. And get him he does.

The body is discovered by the uncle's butler, Portifoy, who pulled the strings on the painting hoax, only to have the painting haunt him as it did the nephew.

6/10