Alfred Hitchcock Presents (1955-1965)
Alfred Hitchcock Presents (1985-1988)
Type: Revival
Alfred Hitchcock was the king of terror and suspense at the movies with seemingly each of his films becoming a classic. In The 1950's he brought his brand of horror home - to your home! - with his highly successful anthology series Alfred Hitchcock Presents. Each week Hitchcock would wish his guests "Good eeeevening" and introduce a dark tale to give you the creeps. Like the Twilight Zone, the stories often had surprise twists and twist endings. Only Hitchcock's twists were really twisted twists.
In 1985, NBC produced a TV movie revival of the show, telling three or four tales of suspense and terror. The movie served as a pilot for a new version of the old show that NBC ended up running with.
For the new show, NBC had the old show's story intros and outros featuring Hitchcock colorized so that Hitchcock, now dead, could still host the show. Many of the pieces were not specific to the stories that had been told anyway and with ten years worth of old shows there were plenty to pick from. The new episodes consisted of remakes of stories from the old show and brand new stories. After a single season on NBC, the USA cable network picked up the show producing even more new episodes.
For those not familiar with the show, here are some plot examples drawn from the old and the new. Don't read further if you don't want stuff spoiled.
- A woman commits murder by clubbing the victim to death with a piece of meat then serves the murder weapon to the investigating detectives.- A Vegas millionaire challenges a man to a game of chance. If the man wins, he gets big bucks. If he loses, they cut off a finger. After winning a few rounds, the man learns he has won nothing. The millionaire is broke, having lost all his money to his wife. The wife explains how long it took her to win it all as she reveals a fingerless hand.
- An powerful evil man in a Central American country has a car accident rendering him paralyzed and apparently dead. We can hear his thoughts as he is loaded off and trucked to the morgue, put in a body bag and readied for autopsy. As he is about to get cut into, a single tear runs down his face and one of the workers spots it. He alerts the mortician. The paralyzed man is thrilled and relieved until he sees the mortician's face - it is a man whose life he was shown ruining at the start of the episode. Autopsy time friends! Noooooo.
- A woman is brutally raped and her attacker gets away. Much later, she spots her attacker on the street and freaks out. Her boyfriend follows the man and kills him to put her mind at ease. As they drive on she spots another man and begins screaming that he is the rapist - she is just unhinged and the boyfriend has killed an innocent man.
- On his birthday man is pulled over by the cops and accused of murder. He is innocent but panics and, not wanting to rot in jail, ends up killing the cop. He arrives at his destination to find a surprise party. He learns from his friends that as a joke they sent a fake cop to arrest him for murder and then take him to the party. Say, where's the cop? Ooooops.
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