The Ray Bradbury Theater - Creepiest Episodes?

[JaseSF]

One show I grew up watching quite a bit in my teen years was "The Ray Bradbury Theater" which were based on short stories written by Ray Bradbury. Some of the episodes I considered to be good adaptations surprisingly faithful to the Bradbury stories on which they were based. Anyways the episodes I found to be the best and creepiest were:

1) The Playground - William Shatner stars as Charles Underhill, a man afraid to take his son to the playground at which he was horribly bullied as a boy. Finally Underhill musters up the courage to face the ghosts of his past with truly terrifying consequences...

2) The Crowd - Coming home from a party late at night, Joe Spinelli (Nick Mancuso) has a car accident but is mostly shocked and surprised by how quickly a crowd gathers at the scene literally seconds after the accident happened. He soon starts to investigate other accidents and uncovers a startling and horrifying truth...

3) The Town Where No One Got Off - an aspiring writer (Jeff Goldblum) decides to get off in a small town to get a slice of small town life only to find surprisingly hostile townsfolk and he's being followed by a sinister looking old man...

4) The Small Assassin - a woman is convinced her newborn baby is evil and intent on killing....

5) The Veldt - in a futuristic tomorrow, two children play in a disturbing computer generated jungle, of which they seem to have too much control...and where they spend way too much of their time...

6) Mars Is Heaven - the first astronauts to Mars find a replica of small-town America on Mars, just like they grew up with in their childhoods.

Actually most of the episodes have their creepy and unsettling moments although a few are more light-hearted fare too. The stories tend to be a mix of small-town whimsy, dark comedy, science fiction, fantasy and/or horror.

[Nathan45]

I grabbed volume 1 on netflix and I'm working my way through it, they fit a lot of episodes on one disk (high compression, quality is kinda meh, but not that bad.)  So far, The Town where no one got off is my favorite.

[WildHoosier09]

I never knew there was a "Ray Bradbury Theater", I've read several of his books/short stories (F451; Martian Chronicles; Something wicked this way comes; the veldt,... others) He's and amazing writer who has incredibly descriptive way of giving the feel of an item but at the same time leaving it up to the reader to figure out what it actually looks like (For instance, the robotic dog from F451; you have a ton of description about it which lets you know it is one hardcore superevil bada** but its still up to you to ultimately consider what it physically looks like).  It would be nice to see how these translate to screen (hopefully they did a good job).  I'll definitely check into this one because Bradbury is an amazing writer.

[trekgeezer]

I've seen  a couple of the episodes you mentioned on a DVD set (13 episodes). I purchased at a Big Lots.

I especially remember the ones with Shatner and Goldblum. 

[JaseSF]

A very young Drew Barrymore also appeared in a pretty solid adaptation of The Screaming Woman...

[lester1/2jr]

The veldt was in "the tattooed man" movie as you probably know.

[Newt]

The veldt was in "the tattooed man" movie as you probably know.

I believe that was "The Illustrated Man" - same title as the book.   

[Flick James]

You know, I'm always surprised at myself that I've never seen a single frame of this show, yet growing up I was an avid Bradbury reader. His novels were great, but the short story was his arena of true greatness. I was always amazed at how he was able to create such a rich and big picture in such a small package. Even within a very short, say under 2,000-word story, I often got the picture of a much bigger scheme of events. Then, at other times, he could create a stunning microcosm where only the details of that story mattered.

I'll have to seek it out on NetFlix.

[JaseSF]

Not every episode of the series is a winner by any means and sometimes the low budget shows through but more oft than not, I really enjoyed these adaptations and was surprised to see some name actors/actresses appear in them.

[Killer Bees]

You guys are lucky.  Our Netflix equivalent is Bigpond.com and they don't have the Ray Bradbury threatre DVDs.  They probably see it as a niche American thing.

Sometimes it's difficult living at this end of the world   

[Flick James]

You guys are lucky.  Our Netflix equivalent is Bigpond.com and they don't have the Ray Bradbury threatre DVDs.  They probably see it as a niche American thing.

Sometimes it's difficult living at this end of the world   

 

You know, I've always wanted to visit both Australia and New Zealand. But it just seems like it might as well be Neptune, it's so far away. Going from Phoenix, Arizona to Europe is a huge chore for me. I can't even imagine a flight to Sidney. As much as I love to travel, very long flights and me don't get along at all. My height has something to do with it I'm sure.