So, instead of telling a story about a neighborhood trying to out the communist in their midst, he would tell a story about a neighborhood trying to out the alien impostor in their midst. Every episode of The Twilight Zone tells a chilling sci-fi story with a healthy dose of social commentary and a jaw-dropping twist ending.
This sci-fi anthology format became so popular (and was so easily imitable) that it was quickly followed by a bunch of copycats. One of those Twilight Zone copycats, The Outer Limits, actually came close to matching the O.G. show’s greatness — and, according to the master of horror himself, outdid it in one significant way.
Stephen King Once Claimed The Outer Limits’ Horror Elements Are Stronger Than The OG Twilight Zone
Giant reptiles crawling out of a lake in The Outer Limits
King mostly writes fiction, but he’s written a couple of non-fiction books. He wrote On Writing, one of the best books about the craft of writing, and he wrote Danse Macabre about the history of horror fiction and the ways that contemporary social issues and anxieties influence the genre at a given time. Naturally, The Twilight Zone comes up.
But King didn’t think of The Twilight Zone as much of a horror series. He writes that it “did occasionally strike notes of horror,” and that The Twilight Zone’s scariest episodes still “vibrate in the back teeth years later.” However, he feels that, “for sheer hard-edged clarity of concept,” The Outer Limits managed to beat The Twilight Zone.
Created by Leslie Stevens and narrated by Vic Perrin, The Outer Limits focused more on science fiction, but was also a lot scarier. It only ran for two seasons — three short of The Twilight Zone — but it packed a lot of iconic episodes into those two seasons (including the classic “The Zanti Misfits,” in which Earth is asked to house giant, rat-like alien criminals).
Stephen King Called The Outer Limits One Of The Best Anthology Horror Shows
Joseph Stefano behind the scenes of The Outer Limits
In the same book, King noted that, while The Outer Limits “nominally” belonged to the sci-fi genre, he thinks of it more as a horror show. He called it one of the best anthology shows in the history of network television — second only to the British show Thriller, whose stories ranged from grounded whodunits to supernatural chillers. And King knows a thing or two about horror storytelling.
Gerd Oswald, Byron Haskin, Charles F. Haas, James Goldstone, László Benedek, Leonard Horn, Paul Stanley, Alan Crosland, Jr., John Brahm, Abner Biberman, Felix E. Feist, John Erman, Leon Benson
Writers
Joseph Stefano, Seeleg Lester, Robert C. Dennis, Sam Neuman, Milton Krims, Meyer Dolinsky, Allan Balter, Anthony Lawrence, Jerry Sohl, Robert Mintz, Harlan Ellison, Stephen Lord, Robert Towne, William Bast, William R. Cox, John Mantley, Otto Binder, Robert Specht, Samuel Roeca, Oliver Crawford, Richard H. Landau, Orin Borsten, Ib Melchior, Francis M. Cockrell
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