I am a Twilight Zone fan through and through — the *original* Twilight Zone. I have watched the original series so many times that I often lip sync the lines.
Why? Because the writing is brilliant! I wish I could have met Rod Serling. Anywho, because I watch episodes repeatedly, I began to wonder if the creators of well-known movies have been “inspired” (wink, wink) by Twilight Zone episodes. You be the judge.
1. In The Twilight Zone’s “And When The Sky Was Opened” (1959), three astronauts survive an accident in outer space. While they return to Earth safely, they don't stay long because they start to disappear one by one.
It reminds me of Final Destination (2000), where a premonition in which a large group of people die a horrific death comes true. But, just moments before, a few teens escape death and live just a little while before they begin to suffer grisly deaths...one by one.
2. Twilight Zone’s “Long Live Walter Jameson” (1960) is about a college professor who had not aged in thousands of years and finally confesses this to his future father-in-law, who desperately wants to know the secret to the fountain of youth.
Inspired by this episode, The Man from Earth (2007) is about a professor who tells his colleagues that he is 14,000 years old. Then he holds court while his colleagues interrogate him.
3. A department store in Twilight Zone’s “The After Hours” (1960) has, unbeknownst to owners, mannequins that take turns coming to life and living like a human.
In Life-Size (2000), a popular Barbie-like doll is brought to life, during which she builds strong bonds before deciding to return to her doll status.
4. Twilight Zone’s “Eye of the Beholder” (1960) flips the script: A beautiful woman goes under surgery to look “normal,” but to the horror of hospital staff, the surgery doesn't work.
Likewise, The Munsters (1964) family has a beautiful niece who, according to the family, is the ugly duckling.
5. Twilight Zone’s “It’s a Good Life” (1961) is about an empathic boy with the power to negatively alter people, places, and things when he is displeased.
In The Omen (1976), a boy is just plain evil and causes heinous acts, including death.
6. In Twilight Zone’s “The Invaders” (1961), an old woman hears noises on the roof and finds that Martians have invaded her home.
Signs (2002) centers on aliens terrorizing a family, which fights back using only what they have on hand in their home.
7. Twilight Zone’s “Shadow Play” (1961) is about a man dreaming that he is a prisoner on death row — a dream that starts over each time he is put to death.
Edge of Tomorrow (2014) is similar. It's about a soldier that relives the same day over and over again, the day restarting every time he dies.
8. In Twilight Zone’s “Little Girl Lost” (1962), a girl and her dog fall into a supernatural world via a portal in her bedroom and is saved by her father just before the portal closes.
And then there's Poltergeist (1982), where a girl is sucked into a supernatural world via a portal through the TV, and her mother and father save her. (There's a bit more to the story, but you get the point.)
9. In Twilight Zone’s “Person or Persons Unknown” (1962), a man wakes up to find that all traces of his identity have been erased when no one, including his wife, recognizes him.
In The Forgotten (2004), a mother is told by everyone, including her husband, that the nine-year-old boy she gave birth to has never existed.
10. In Twilight Zone’s “One More Pallbearer” (1962), a man lures three people to his underground bunker to convince them that Earth is about to be destroyed, but that they can live if they stay in the bunker with him.
Similarly, in 10 Cloverfield Lane (2016), a young woman is convinced by a disturbed man to stay in his underground bunker because a hostile event has left Earth's surface uninhabitable.
11. Twilight Zone’s “Living Doll” (1963) focuses on the Talky Tina doll that will kill you if she doesn't like you.
But that's tame compared to Chucky in Child’s Play (1988), who will kill you, well...just because.
12. Twilight Zone’s “A Short Drink from a Certain Fountain” (1963) is about a man so desperate to regain his youthfulness that he drinks an experimental drug to become younger. It works a little too well because he eventually becomes a toddler again.
It reminds me of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008), in which a baby is born old and wrinkly with the ailments of an elderly person and gets stronger every day because he's aging backwards. Meanwhile, the girl he fell in love with is growing older.
13. Twilight Zone's "The Odyssey of Flight 33" (1961) is about a flight filled with passengers that inadvertently goes back in time, and the pilots try to find their way back to normal time.
And then there's The Langoliers (1995), in which a flight full of passengers goes through a time rift, causing dozens of people to disappear and leaving a small group behind that must find their way back to normal time before it's too late.
