Part Twilight Zone, part after school special, and directed by the great Joe Dante, Eerie , Indiana was an all too brief breath of fresh air marked by genuinely good writing and imagination in a medium that too often rehashed itself. For adults revisiting the series on DVD the test isn’t so much whether Eerie evokes enough nostalgia for itself but for the myriad of Twilight Zone, Outer Limits, Sci-fi monster movie homages paid throughout it’s half hour episodes.
Comparisons to Twin Peaks are largely disingenuous. Eerie doesn’t compete for sophistication but it was just as good at having fun with what could have been a lame the show was certainly Young Marshall Teller and his family, in search of the most statistically normal place in the world, moves to Eerie, Indiana (Pop. 16,661). But statistics lie. It isn’t long before Marshall discovers that Eerie is the epicenter of all things weird. Bigfoot goes through the family garbage can, Elvis is on his paper route and behind every door on the block is a story fit for child’s imagination.
It wasn’t just that Marshall and Simon ran into unique paranormal creatures and situations. That sort of tired rehash is what killed the great Kolchak: The Night Stalker series. The series chose, instead, to introduce and develop characters throughout it’s run and used it’s paranormal aspects to offer perfect little moral lessons at the end o each episode.
Sadly only nineteen shows comprise the entire series but it does make it affordable to collect. The lack of extras is sad here. Where are Dante commentaries- at the very least a featurette or cast interviews. So many great character actors took part in the show during it’s short run it’s a shame they aren’t given the opportunity to share anecdotes about their involvement.
But this is the entire run of the series and a great, great series it was. The best Halloween advice you will get this year is to get this box set, turn out the lights, and then go scour your hometown in the dark. But don’t look at that house on the edge of town. Give a second glance to the house next door, how well do you really know those people. Do they sleep in giant Tupperware containers to stay forver young? Maybe they run the other dimensional office where lost things are collected and collated? Maybe every town USA has a little bit of Eerie inside.
Originally Posted on Imagine 'Dat!