Pamela Franklin does double duty playing twin sisters Christina & Lisa Burgess. Christina returns home to visit her mother(played by Eleanor Parker) and Lisa(whom she has never met) but is stunned to find out that Lisa has recently died mysteriously. Despondent, she then begins to see her roaming the grounds and calling her name, even though she is supposed to be dead. Not sure about ghosts or not, Christina will confront her mother, and learn some damaging secrets that will mean either Lisa wants to get to know the twin sister she never met, or that she wants to kill Christina for revenge... Interesting episode may not have an entirely original plot, but is still spooky enough to succeed.
4 Reviews
Solid ghost story
ebeckstr-13 November 2021
Pretty good ghost story, including an effective seance scene. The episode is marred by a pointless burglary subplot and the presence of Todd Andrews, who was not a good actor. He somehow manages to simultaneously over act and come off as wooden. (Factoid: Andrews appeared in the final series episode of The Twilight Zone, in which he was equally terrible.) Despite these flaws oh, still a very good piece of early 70's made-for-TV horror.
Not a bad episode
BandSAboutMovies19 February 2022
Warning: Spoilers
Christina has always wanted to meet her twin sister Lisa (both are played by Pamela Franklin from And Soon the Darkness and The Legend of Hell House), but Lisa dies before that can happen. And now, she keeps seeing visions of her rising from an open grave to call out to her in the night.
Then her father dies and her mother (Eleanor Parker, The Sound of Music) takes up with a neighbor way too quickly. So Lisa's haunting grows more horrifying, reminding her of the asylum-trapped other side of herself that she has never even seen in person before. And as twins share one soul, she begins to believe that Lisa is offering her an early death to take away her ennui, a half a death to make their souls whole once more.
This episode comes from Batman TV and Fathom director Leslie H. Martinson, with a script by Richard Matheson and Henry Slesar, whose career was mainly in TV anthologies like The Twilight Zone, Alfread Hitchcock Presents and Tales of the Unexpected. He also wrote Two On a Guillotine and The Man from U. N. C. L. E. Movie One of Our Spies Is Missing.
It's not the Ghost Story/Circle of Fear episode that I would choose to show the best of this series with someone that had never seen it before, but it's not particularly bad. It has some moody graveyard scenes and eerie moments, but the series can and will have better stories to tell.
Then her father dies and her mother (Eleanor Parker, The Sound of Music) takes up with a neighbor way too quickly. So Lisa's haunting grows more horrifying, reminding her of the asylum-trapped other side of herself that she has never even seen in person before. And as twins share one soul, she begins to believe that Lisa is offering her an early death to take away her ennui, a half a death to make their souls whole once more.
This episode comes from Batman TV and Fathom director Leslie H. Martinson, with a script by Richard Matheson and Henry Slesar, whose career was mainly in TV anthologies like The Twilight Zone, Alfread Hitchcock Presents and Tales of the Unexpected. He also wrote Two On a Guillotine and The Man from U. N. C. L. E. Movie One of Our Spies Is Missing.
It's not the Ghost Story/Circle of Fear episode that I would choose to show the best of this series with someone that had never seen it before, but it's not particularly bad. It has some moody graveyard scenes and eerie moments, but the series can and will have better stories to tell.
Are twins really the divided halves of the same person?
mark.waltz26 February 2021
Warning: Spoilers
The minute I saw the name Henry Slesar in the credits, I had high hopes for a really intriguing mystery. After all, Slesar was the head writer of the mystery soap "The Edge of Night" for years, the golden age of its 28 year run. The story surrounds twins (Christina and Lisa) played by Pamela Franklin who have never met because one of them was institutionalized. After the death of Lisa and her father, Christina returns home to join her mother (Eleanor Parker) only to continuously hear her sister calling out to her.
One of the issues that I've noticed in this series thus far is that it only gives the viewer enough information to follow the basic plot, keeping out key elements that would fill in gaps that the script leaves out. That's very apparent in the cut between a scene where Franklin sees her sister in an open grave (nightmare or reality, never explained) and where she's talking with boyfriend Stephen Brooks. It makes it tempting to give up, but with their lineup of guest stars, that temptation disappears.
Among the other guest stars in this are veteran character actor Andrew Duggan and the exotic, mysterious Signe Hasso as a "spiritual expert". She claims that the spirit of the dead sister is trying to grab Christina to join her, yet you have to take the details here with a grain of salt. Parker's obviously keeping something from her daughter as well, evidenced by the lack of Lisa's belongings in the two room she stayed in. Weird and convoluted, this is not an episode worth remembering outside of the veteran actors.
One of the issues that I've noticed in this series thus far is that it only gives the viewer enough information to follow the basic plot, keeping out key elements that would fill in gaps that the script leaves out. That's very apparent in the cut between a scene where Franklin sees her sister in an open grave (nightmare or reality, never explained) and where she's talking with boyfriend Stephen Brooks. It makes it tempting to give up, but with their lineup of guest stars, that temptation disappears.
Among the other guest stars in this are veteran character actor Andrew Duggan and the exotic, mysterious Signe Hasso as a "spiritual expert". She claims that the spirit of the dead sister is trying to grab Christina to join her, yet you have to take the details here with a grain of salt. Parker's obviously keeping something from her daughter as well, evidenced by the lack of Lisa's belongings in the two room she stayed in. Weird and convoluted, this is not an episode worth remembering outside of the veteran actors.
See also
Awards | FAQ | User Ratings | External Reviews | Metacritic Reviews
