Night Gallery episode review — 3.15 — Hatred unto Death/How to Cure the Common Vampire

Original air date: May 27, 1973

This isn’t really the last episode, but it’s the last one for the season. I’ll get to the “extra” episode soon.

Hatred unto Death

Director: Gerald Perry Finnerman
Writer: Halsted Welles

Oh, no. From the offensive depiction of African culture to the embarrassing gorilla suit, this is not a good story, and I was put off by it pretty early on.

A couple of anthropologists traversing Africa stumble upon a gorilla trapped in a little pit. Grant Wilson (Steve Forrest) decides to capture it and take it to some museum in America after he notices that it seems to have an irrational hatred for him.

Unsurprisingly, the idea of reincarnation is posed, and it’s suspected that the gorilla and Grant were adversaries in a previous life. It’s an absurdly silly premise, and it’s a shame the series went out like this, as this is the longer segment of the two of this episode.

To be perfectly fair, the gorilla suit isn’t terrible as far as gorilla suits go. It’s no sillier really than anything else that uses a gorilla suit, but that’s really the problem. None of them are too convincing.

The gorilla eventually breaks from its captivity and attacks Grant’s wife, Ruth (Dina Merrill), and Grant’s after it with a revolver. It’s incredibly unexciting, and there’s not even much resolution to the reincarnation plot. Just a really lame segment, probably the worst non-comedic one of the series.

How to Cure the Common Vampire

Director: Jack Laird
Writer: Jack Laird

This one isn’t even trying, to be honest. The punchline sucks, and it’s so rushed that it does nothing to create a serious mood to then be undercut with the joke.
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Rating: 2/10