Today's movie review is a review of The Twilight Zone's "The Shelter." The Twilight Zone is well known for its horror, science fiction and psychological thriller stories which takes an average situation and gives it a twist, or several, or no twist at all, which kept the audience guessing until the very end. Some of The Twilight Zone's most compelling episodes are not the ones that include little green men or robots, but the ones that address subjects relating to the Cold War and how people react to these Cold War situations that they are thrust into.
"The Shelter" begins like a typical day in 1960's suburbia; a birthday party is being held for the main character Bill Stockton by his wife Grace. His guests include his brother-in-law Jerry, Frank Henderson and Marty Weiss who are former roommates, and the wives of Jerry, Frank and Marty. You can see from the friendly banter that Bill is well liked amongst his group of friends. As a doctor, not only is Bill their friend, but he has also taken care of them and delivered their children. They spend the time toasting him, as well as slightly roasting him about his building of a fallout shelter in his basement. It is clear from the conversation that he is the only one who has made these preparations.
The party continues until it is interrupted by Bill's son Paul who says "Mom, mom! The picture went out on the TV set." Well, this is never a good thing when it comes to a story about the Cold War (see: Fail-Safe and the Day After for starters.) The dreaded instructions are telling them to turn to the CONELRAD stations, and the once jovial party finds out that there are unidentified objects heading towards the US. The party rushes out to get back to their houses and Bill and his family lock themselves into their shelter.
One by one, the party guests come back with their families and they desperately try to get Bill to open the door. The mothers beg Bill to take in their children, and there is nothing that Bill can do; his shelter is stocked for three people only. The once friendly guests begin to turn on Bill and each other, letting their anger boil to the surface. Racism, paranoia and hostility burn into every word they speak to their former friends. Finally, the decision on the outside is made to break down the shelter door and let themselves in. Using what they can for a battering ram, the guests succeed in getting into the shelter only to hear a radio announcement. The threat is over; the unidentified objects were just harmless satellites. The friends apologize for their behavior, but the damage has been done.
We can learn a lot about the Cold War from this episode. Many people took the approach that the party guests had taken; they thought that they would never need a fallout shelter. What they didn't consider was that they might need one someday, and the desperation they would feel once they found out that they were unprepared. Desperation is what leads people to do things out of character. The party guests, who held Bill in such high regard, turned against him when it became a matter of life and death. As they were trying to get into the shelter, they turned against each other. At the very end, they were guilty of committing murder; the breaking of the shelter door rendered the shelter useless and wrote a death sentence for the three people it was intended for. "The Shelter" showed us in a few short hours, a group of people could go from beloved friends to cold blooded killers all in the name of survival.
But Bill is not innocent in all of this. Fallout shelters were supposed to be discreet ways of surviving. There were ways to build one under the cover of secrecy. Bill's building of his fallout shelter was well known, to the point that he was teased by the members of the party. What Bill failed to do is think through the entire timeline of ramifications that would occur if he built the shelter. He stopped right at the "save my family part" of the timeline. He never went further to understand what his neighbors would try to do. In trying to save his family, Bill effectively killed them because he did not consider everything that would happen.
It was very important (and still is important) to keep survival plans as secret as possible. The Cold War showed us that very few people were actually prepared for such an event to happen. Just because people aren't prepared doesn't mean that they are going to give up when the hammer does fall. They will go to those who are prepared or who they perceive as being prepared and try to get them to let them in on the plan. It will not end well. This is good advice to follow today with any survival plans. Now, I know that avid readers of the blog and Facebook know that I have a fallout shelter in my basement and that I am a survivalist. However, the fallout shelter is mainly to showcase my collection of fallout shelter supplies and collectibles. Don't think for one second that I am staying put in my basement; unlike Bill, what I am going to do and where I am going to go is known only to me and my fiance. This is how I am going to ensure our best bet at survival and that is what Bill should have focused on.
"The Shelter" gave us a great glimpse into human psychology and how people would react during the worst of the worst. It taught us that being prepared for a disaster didn't necessarily mean that we were 100% prepared. "The Shelter" showed us the ugly side of human nature and the lengths that people would go to in order to survive. It is one of the more chilling episodes of the entire series, and it is definitely one that should not be missed.
The Twilight Zone "The Shelter": DEFCON 2
-psychological
-realism
-relevance to today
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