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Twilight Zone: The Movie
You're travelling through another dimension, a dimension not only of sight and sound, but of mind; a journey into a wondrous land whose boundaries are that of imagination. Next-stop
Twilight Zone
The Movie
-where demonic tyrants of the past live again to terrorize a man who carries the seeds of their hate into the present.
-where evil perches on a plane wing taunting the psychic who dare not believe his eyes--and still hold on to his mind.
-where the power to control the world rests in the fantasy-fraught imagination of a lonely child.
-where the joys of eternal youth are offered to those who remember childhood and are not too old to dream.
Twilight Zone
The Movie
-where demonic tyrants of the past live again to terrorize a man who carries the seeds of their hate into the present.
-where evil perches on a plane wing taunting the psychic who dare not believe his eyes--and still hold on to his mind.
-where the power to control the world rests in the fantasy-fraught imagination of a lonely child.
-where the joys of eternal youth are offered to those who remember childhood and are not too old to dream.
208 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 1983
About the author
Robert Bloch
1,109 books1,314 followersRobert Albert Bloch was a prolific American writer. He was the son of Raphael "Ray" Bloch (1884, Chicago-1952, Chicago), a bank cashier, and his wife Stella Loeb (1880, Attica, Indiana-1944, Milwaukee, WI), a social worker, both of German-Jewish descent.
Bloch wrote hundreds of short stories and over twenty novels, usually crime fiction, science fiction, and, perhaps most influentially, horror fiction (Psycho). He was one of the youngest members of the Lovecraft Circle; Lovecraft was Bloch's mentor and one of the first to seriously encourage his talent.
He was a contributor to pulp magazines such as Weird Tales in his early career, and was also a prolific screenwriter. He was the recipient of the Hugo Award (for his story "That Hell-Bound Train"), the Bram Stoker Award, and the World Fantasy Award. He served a term as president of the Mystery Writers of America.
Robert Bloch was also a major contributor to science fiction fanzines and fandom in general. In the 1940s, he created the humorous character Lefty Feep in a story for Fantastic Adventures. He also worked for a time in local vaudeville, and tried to break into writing for nationally-known performers. He was a good friend of the science fiction writer Stanley G. Weinbaum. In the 1960's, he wrote 3 stories for Star Trek.
Bloch wrote hundreds of short stories and over twenty novels, usually crime fiction, science fiction, and, perhaps most influentially, horror fiction (Psycho). He was one of the youngest members of the Lovecraft Circle; Lovecraft was Bloch's mentor and one of the first to seriously encourage his talent.
He was a contributor to pulp magazines such as Weird Tales in his early career, and was also a prolific screenwriter. He was the recipient of the Hugo Award (for his story "That Hell-Bound Train"), the Bram Stoker Award, and the World Fantasy Award. He served a term as president of the Mystery Writers of America.
Robert Bloch was also a major contributor to science fiction fanzines and fandom in general. In the 1940s, he created the humorous character Lefty Feep in a story for Fantastic Adventures. He also worked for a time in local vaudeville, and tried to break into writing for nationally-known performers. He was a good friend of the science fiction writer Stanley G. Weinbaum. In the 1960's, he wrote 3 stories for Star Trek.
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Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews
April 10, 2018
Creo que a nadie que conozca un poco mi canal le será ajeno que La Dimensión Desconocida es mi serie favorita de toda la vida. Este libro recopila las historias homenajeadas en el film "Al filo de la realidad", una película que consiste en remakes de ciertos capítulos originales y clásicos de la serie. Algunos fueron escritos originalmente por Richard Matheson, otros fueron escritos exclusivamente para la serie, pero quien se encarga de (re)escribirlos acá es Robert Bloch. Conocía perfectamente las historias por la serie, pero sentía muchísima curiosidad de saber qué tal sería verlo por escrito. Y si bien todos me han gustado, creo que en ciertas ocasiones no era tan necesario darles extensión de hasta cincuenta páginas. Pero aun así me pareció una linda antología.
February 1, 2013
What's with this anyways? Film novelizations are something that is usually done by a starving beginner anxious to hone his professional skills or an established writer under a pseudonym. In fact one author told me that no writer should do novelizations as publishing companies look down on them as hacks and do not take them seriously. Which is probably why many writers use pseudonyms on their novelizations such as Jack Martin for Dennis Etchison and Carl Dreadstone for Ramsey Campbell.
Yet here we have not just an established writer but one of the greats in modern horror writing a film novelization under his real name for the Twilight Zone movie. And it wasn't a very good movie. Two of the stories were originally done on the TV series and were based on stories by Richard Matheson and Jerome Bixby. The actual screenplay for the movie was written by Bloch's illustrious colleague, Richard Matheson. Yet now Bloch rewrites them into this questionable and unnecessary novelization and adds nothing to it. They are well written . Bloch could not write crap. But they are ...again...unnecessary. I'm sure there are legal and commercial reasons for this travesty but sometimes, for art's sake, you just gotta pass. Which is what Bloch should have done.
Yet here we have not just an established writer but one of the greats in modern horror writing a film novelization under his real name for the Twilight Zone movie. And it wasn't a very good movie. Two of the stories were originally done on the TV series and were based on stories by Richard Matheson and Jerome Bixby. The actual screenplay for the movie was written by Bloch's illustrious colleague, Richard Matheson. Yet now Bloch rewrites them into this questionable and unnecessary novelization and adds nothing to it. They are well written . Bloch could not write crap. But they are ...again...unnecessary. I'm sure there are legal and commercial reasons for this travesty but sometimes, for art's sake, you just gotta pass. Which is what Bloch should have done.
November 30, 2023
Back in the day it was thought that all big-budget films had to have a prose adaptation in bookstores to help make them more successful, and so when Spielberg undertook overseeing the Twilight Zone film project Bloch was selected as the author for this one. In his autobiography, Bloch mentions having to write, revise, and turn in the completed manuscript in just six weeks, getting almost no cooperation from the film's producers, only getting to see a rough version of less than half of the film, being told that he couldn't add any events or details, not being informed that one of the main characters was black, not being told that one of the episodes was significantly changed due to a tragic on-set accident, etc. The film is a set of four short stories, so you can't really call this book a novelization. The movie presented stories by John Landis, George Clayton Johnson, Jerome Bixby, and Richard Matheson that had been converted to screenplays by Matheson, Johnson, Landis, and Josh Rogan, so it's a true example of commercial art by committee. Bloch did the best he could with the early version of the script he had to work with and came up with over two hundred pretty well-written pages, but it was a sort of unnecessary book based on a somewhat unfortunate (for a number of reasons) movie, and it adds little to his legacy.
August 26, 2023
En Los Límites De La Realidad.- Robert Bloch
"En el momentáneo fulgor de aquel relámpago verdoso lo vio con toda claridad: la silueta desnuda y simiesca de un hombre, a horcajadas sobre el motor del avión.
La visión desapareció en la oscuridad de la tormenta. Retumbaron los truenos.
Y una vez más, una veta mellada de luz verde iluminó el cielo. Valentine vio su fuente. ¡El rayo surgía de los brazos extendidos de aquella bestia!"
En Los Límites De La Realidad (The Twilight Zone) se publicó originalmente en el año 1983, y es una novelización de la película del mismo título escrita por el autor estadounidense Robert Bloch (1917-1994).
Presentado en forma de antología, el libro incluye los 4 segmentos principales de la película, en el orden original que se había pensado, y no incluye el prólogo y el epílogo de la misma. A su vez, la historia que abre el libro, tuvo que ser modificada en su final de forma apresurada por el autor, debido al cambio que produjo en la película la trágica muerte del actor Vic Morrow y dos pequeños niños producto de un accidente con helicóptero. Excepto esta historia que abre la antología, Bill, que está basada muy libremente en dos episodios de la serie, el resto son reversiones de capítulos clásicos. Los títulos de los cuentos llevan los nombres de los protagonistas principales a diferencia de los títulos originales de la película.
Si bien no soy muy fan de las novelizaciónes, esta en particular siempre me llamó la atención, dado el material original y el autor encargado de adaptarlo. Es un libro que se lee rápido, muy entretenido, de contenido variado y que todavía se consigue a muy buen precio en las librerías de usados ¿Que más se puede pedir?
🤘🤘🤘🤘
"En el momentáneo fulgor de aquel relámpago verdoso lo vio con toda claridad: la silueta desnuda y simiesca de un hombre, a horcajadas sobre el motor del avión.
La visión desapareció en la oscuridad de la tormenta. Retumbaron los truenos.
Y una vez más, una veta mellada de luz verde iluminó el cielo. Valentine vio su fuente. ¡El rayo surgía de los brazos extendidos de aquella bestia!"
En Los Límites De La Realidad (The Twilight Zone) se publicó originalmente en el año 1983, y es una novelización de la película del mismo título escrita por el autor estadounidense Robert Bloch (1917-1994).
Presentado en forma de antología, el libro incluye los 4 segmentos principales de la película, en el orden original que se había pensado, y no incluye el prólogo y el epílogo de la misma. A su vez, la historia que abre el libro, tuvo que ser modificada en su final de forma apresurada por el autor, debido al cambio que produjo en la película la trágica muerte del actor Vic Morrow y dos pequeños niños producto de un accidente con helicóptero. Excepto esta historia que abre la antología, Bill, que está basada muy libremente en dos episodios de la serie, el resto son reversiones de capítulos clásicos. Los títulos de los cuentos llevan los nombres de los protagonistas principales a diferencia de los títulos originales de la película.
Si bien no soy muy fan de las novelizaciónes, esta en particular siempre me llamó la atención, dado el material original y el autor encargado de adaptarlo. Es un libro que se lee rápido, muy entretenido, de contenido variado y que todavía se consigue a muy buen precio en las librerías de usados ¿Que más se puede pedir?
🤘🤘🤘🤘
Read
March 4, 2018Het spijt mij, maar hoezeer de korte inhoud op de achterflap mij aansprak, ik raak hier niet doorheen...
April 18, 2016
1st Read: June 19, 1998 - June 25, 1998
This was probably a better book upon its initial release in 1983. Reading it after fifteen years had passed, really dated the stories, as it seemed so much farther from reality. If you want to read it for nostalgia effect, it may be the only way it will measure up.
I) "BILL" - (June 19)
- This was an interesting short story. I enjoyed it for the karma effect it had on the title character and for him being such a racist douche-bag!
II) "VALENTINE" - (June 22)
- The whole time I was reading this one, visualization awakened my mind. The actor, John Lithgow, who had portrayed the crazed man on the airplane in the movie, was there inside my head as well. Good story!
III) "HELEN" - (June 24)
- I didn't really get much out of this one as my mind was struggling to concentrate while I was using Calgary transit.
IV) "BLOOM" - (June 24 - 25)
- There wasn't anything at all spectacular about this one for me. Anyone who remembers being a kid, hasn't wished for this once upon a time in their lives.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 1, 2016
quatro pequenas histórias baseadas no file ou série Twilight zone: 1) História de bill - um branco americano que se vê aflito pois em cenários que não percebe é perseguido como judeu por nazis, negro pelo KKK e vietcong pelo exército americano; 2) História de Valentine e seu pânico no avião; 3)História de Helen do seu encontro com um menino, Anthony, que quer ser amado e que consegue que tudo o que imagina aconteça; 4) História de Bloom que em asilo de idosos faz que os velhos sintam felicidade.
December 5, 2014
A nostalgic science fiction novel, The Twilight Zone offers hours of captivating small stories. You can go back to a simpler time where time and space do not exist, and relax with the accompaniment of 8 tales. Each is just the right amount of length so you may read this at your leisure with the same feeling of depth or complexity of large books. If you don't have a lot of time and you still want to read a quality story this is you book .
August 28, 2013
A disappointing novelization of a movie I recall being pretty disappointing itself. The highlight of both is the same- the remake of the airplane bit, but really only because of Matheson's screenplay for the original show, which was brilliant. Don't waste any time on this, just go watch the old TV show a bit for a Twilight Zone fix.
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August 23, 2008isbn,original
April 25, 2016
Oude herinneringen van een serie die ik soms keek. leuke verhalen.
November 14, 2016
Un viaje a mi infancia.
Excelente amalgama de autores y colaboradores en el genero del horror literario.
Excelente amalgama de autores y colaboradores en el genero del horror literario.
June 22, 2026
When I picked this up in a thrift shop, I was shocked to see that it was written by Robert Bloch, the author of “Psycho”. What was even more surreal to me is that this movie novelization is not only written by a very well-known author, but here that author is writing stories based on scripts by people like John Landis and Richard Matheson. Three of these four stories really don’t add much to the actual movie (although I did find some of the protagonist’s thoughts about the education system in “Helen” it does sound like something that might be said of today’s, which is a reminder that what we complain about today really hasn’t changed as much as we like to think). I still find the John Landis based segment/story to be a difficult read/viewing due to the overt racism and bigotry on the part of the protagonist throughout the story; I know that it’s the focus of the story to point out how horrible discriminatory practices and thought thoughts, but I still find that the end of the story just does not quite pay off. I was hoping that this novelization would have the original true ending of the segment of the film, as that segment was heavily edited and revised due to the horrible deaths that took place on set.
Honestly, with those three segments, I would rate this novelization as a 2/5: it was obvious the block was a writer for hire here.
But, than there is that fourth story. The Richard Matheson novelization is an almost surreal and uncanny reading experience as “Valentine” is written from a Richard Matheson script based on his own famous short story, “Nightmare at 20,000 Feet,” one of Matheson’s most famous short stories, and the basis of one of the most famous Twilight Zone episodes from the original series. The original short story by Matheson was published in the 60s and the film came out in the early 80s. I thought Bloch’s version was better than Matheson’s original story, which is crazy because I love Richard Matheson (I have read about everything he published). In Bloch’s interpretation of the story, not only is the story itself much longer and more detail, but the majority of his version focuses on the protagonist’s characterization and fears. The creature (a gremlin in the original story, doesn’t even come in until over halfway through the story. Matheson‘s version is very much focused on the conflict between the protagonist and the gremlin. After reading Bloch’s version, I reread Matheson’s, and I was truly shocked at how much more I enjoyed Bloch’s. Unlike the other three stories in this novelization, in this particular story, Bloch’s writing really comes to life. It sort of felt like it was the only one of the four that Bloch really felt invested in. As a teacher, I plan to use these two stories to help my students understand author’s style. Honestly, I think you could skip the rest of this novelization, but just this one story makes this a worthwhile experience.
Honestly, with those three segments, I would rate this novelization as a 2/5: it was obvious the block was a writer for hire here.
But, than there is that fourth story. The Richard Matheson novelization is an almost surreal and uncanny reading experience as “Valentine” is written from a Richard Matheson script based on his own famous short story, “Nightmare at 20,000 Feet,” one of Matheson’s most famous short stories, and the basis of one of the most famous Twilight Zone episodes from the original series. The original short story by Matheson was published in the 60s and the film came out in the early 80s. I thought Bloch’s version was better than Matheson’s original story, which is crazy because I love Richard Matheson (I have read about everything he published). In Bloch’s interpretation of the story, not only is the story itself much longer and more detail, but the majority of his version focuses on the protagonist’s characterization and fears. The creature (a gremlin in the original story, doesn’t even come in until over halfway through the story. Matheson‘s version is very much focused on the conflict between the protagonist and the gremlin. After reading Bloch’s version, I reread Matheson’s, and I was truly shocked at how much more I enjoyed Bloch’s. Unlike the other three stories in this novelization, in this particular story, Bloch’s writing really comes to life. It sort of felt like it was the only one of the four that Bloch really felt invested in. As a teacher, I plan to use these two stories to help my students understand author’s style. Honestly, I think you could skip the rest of this novelization, but just this one story makes this a worthwhile experience.
September 18, 2019
Excelente recopilación de cuentos adaptados por grandes como Matheson, Bloch, Landis, etc a la pequeña pantalla en la serie mítica de ciencia ficción/terror "The Twilight Zone". Leer estos cuentos me hizo volver a mi niñez cuando veía esos capítulos y quedaba aterrado por días.... un nostálgico y muy buen reencuentro.
December 8, 2019
Way back when, I had seen the movie, thought it was amazing, bought the book, and... was underwhelmed. Started watching the movie the other day and could not believe I liked it so much. So I guess the book has not got better with age either
May 4, 2024
Just like the movie, these stories were fast paced and vivid. Some of the dialogue or references in this book might not be suitable for the modern reader, as a note. If you’ve seen the movie, this book is exactly the same!
July 11, 2024
Un maestro de los relatos de terror, hay varios que ya conocía y que inclusive se han visto en diversas series y capítulos a modo de parodia. Pero leerlos ha sido refrescar la memoria y tener nuevos temores. Muy recomendados estos cuentos.
May 3, 2026
Four decent stories. Quite enjoyable, not too taxing on the Brain.
February 13, 2023
This was a few short stories that had strange twists. Some were better than others.
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June 21, 2009Horror
September 28, 2015
A solid if uneventful novelisation by Robert Bloch covering the four segments of the film - nothing at all remarkable but readable if a little redundant.
January 22, 2016
For once the movie was better than the book
Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews