5 creepy stories from Night Gallery

From December 16, 1970, until May 27, 1973, NBC carried the American anthology television series Night Gallery. With Rod Serling, the author of The Twilight Zone, acting as both the host and a scriptwriter for several episodes, the show ran a slate of horror and supernatural tales.

Night Gallery concentrated more on the terrible and the macabre, exploring the darker recesses of the supernatural than The Twilight Zone, which frequently dug into science fiction.

Now, Night Gallery is regarded as a cult classic due to its original narrative and eerie environment. The series is available on streaming platforms like Amazon Prime and Peacock, allowing the younger generation of viewers to enjoy the spine-tingling stories of the show.

The series, which has run for more than fifty years, continues to be admired for its provocative and disturbing narratives—many of which are taken from vintage horror books.

The creepiest stories from Night Gallery

1) Lone Survivor

Lone Survivor, one of the most unsettling episodes of Night Gallery, starts with the crew of an ocean liner spotting a lifeboat in the distance. They discover a lone man wearing women's clothes, insane and unable to remember his name when they go aboard. With the name Titanic, the lifeboat suggests frighteningly that this man has been afloat for years.

The narrative veers disturbingly when it is discovered the man is cursed to repeatedly live through the sinking of doomed ships. Every time he is saved, his cowardice during the Titanic's sinking haunts him and he is destined to repeat the terrible event. This story is particularly disturbing because of its supernatural twist on perpetual punishment.

2) The Doll

Still from Night Gallery (Image via NBC)

Another episode that stays with Night Gallery viewers is The Doll. The protagonist of this narrative is Colonel Masters, who comes back from India to discover his niece Monica fixated on a hideous doll dispatched from overseas. The doll, with its demonic skull-like face, is an instrument of supernatural vengeance rather than only a toy.

The Colonel quickly finds out the doll is a vehicle for a curse the brother of a man he killed imposed upon him. The doll's terrible presence and Monica's developing attachment produce a sense of anxiety that culminates in a spine-chilling ending whereby the curse is passed on, and it's assumed that the horror will last. This is an unforgettable tale in the series because of the disturbing picture of a cursed object.

3) Cool Air

Originally based on an H.P. Lovecraft tale, Cool Air is a Night Gallery episode depicting the terrible results of challenging death. The narrative centers on Agatha, a young woman seeing scientist Dr. Juan Muños, fixated on postponing death. He refuses to leave his flat, which is kept shockingly chilly.

Eventually, the terrible truth comes to light: Dr. Muños had died ten years earlier and had been coldly preserving his body. The doctor's body starts to quickly break down when his refrigeration unit fails, resulting in a horrific last scene whereby Agatha finds his corpse. The episode has an eerily lasting effect.

4) The Caterpillar

Perhaps among the most unsettling Night Gallery episodes is The Caterpillar. Set in the humid jungles of Borneo, it chronicles Stephen Macy's plot to have a lethal earwig implanted in the ear of his rival. Before killing the victim, the earwig burrows into the brain causing great suffering. But the scheme fails when the earwig finds its way into Macy's own ear.

Macy survives after weeks of suffering, only to be informed the earwig is female and has laid eggs inside his brain. The psychological horror of knowing that more earwigs will hatch inside Macy's head, condemning him to a fate worse than death, adds to the terror of this narrative beyond only the physical suffering.

5) The Cemetery

The first Night Gallery episode, The Cemetery captures exactly the mix of moral justice and supernatural horror of the show. It centers on Jeremy Evans, a greedy nephew who kills his rich uncle by subjecting him to the frigid night air. Jeremy discovers that a painting of the family cemetery starts to change after his uncle dies, showing his corpse rising from the tomb.

The painting shows the corpse moving towards the house until it finally stands at the door. By chance, Jeremy falls down the stairs and dies; only then does the painting show his own body rising from the grave.

This episode turns out to be a distinguished one in the series because of Jeremy's slow, methodical disintegration of his sanity and the spooky, always-shifting painting.

Night Gallery is a collection of eerie, provocative tales that attract viewers. Every episode in the series shows how well the show combines deep psychological and moral themes with supernatural horror.

Whether it's the curse of perpetual punishment in The Lone Survivor, the sinister presence of The Doll, or the unavoidable fate in The Cemetery, these stories from the show prove that real horror is about what is felt as much as what is seen.

Edited by Apoorva Jujjavarapu