Without giving any spoilers-- those will come below, and you can turn away before you read them-- I'll just say that I was surprised at how dark an entry this was. Dark with a Capital D. There are multiple bad people afoot, and not many (if any) who are completely sympathetic. Even when you find out that this or that character isn't a full-fledged villain, you can't help but note decisions and actions that make the person at least partially culpable. Beach life isn't all fun and games.
Another reviewer had it right in pointing out that the Karen character was inconsistently written. She's terrified one night, then goes surfing the next day, then -- incredibly-- declines her concerned husband's repeated pleas that she not stay home alone again the next night. It was one of multiple instances when I threw up my hands and said out loud, "what the heck?"
Still and all, the last 20 minutes are quite tense and the last 5-10 are downright creepy. To give away more I'll need to reveal spoilers.
**************** SPOILERS *****************
I titled my review "Fun and Games" because this episode's ending reminded me of the incredibly disturbing 1997 movie and 2007 remake, "Funny Games." That movie has two, not three, clean-cut young adult psychopaths, but its sense of sadistic menace comes through in the Hitchcock Hour's conclusion as well. I wasn't expecting multi-person-- ahem-- "assault," to use a cleaned-up term, as well as murder to be implied so strongly in an early 1960s TV program. That turn of events took me by surprise, even though we the audience could see what was coming a few minutes before the main character did.
But while the surfers are the baddest guys, family friend Simon (O'Herlihy) is no angel, either. He comes over knowing that the husband is away, apparently with the intent to have his way with Karen. He prefaces his actions with a soliloquy on the murderous darkness inside every human being, and then gets physical. That he comes back later to apologize-- at least, that's his story-- and helps to catch one of the psychos, doesn't excuse what he'd earlier come to do. And the grief-stricken Sanchez, whose girlfriend has been killed: he refuses to take any responsibility for what happened to his girlfriend, even though he put the homeowner-- the aptly named "Karen," at least by 2022 pop culture standards-- in a terribly uncomfortable position and even though he might have avoided all of the tragedy had he just asked Karen to call the police.
Instead he turns all of his wrath against her, refusing to see how menacing he must have seemed and declining to look for whoever actually assaulted and killed his girlfriend. He breaks into Karen's house and seems intent on doing something very bad. That he, like Simon, winds up saving Karen after the psychotic surfers have revealed themselves as the previous night's murderers doesn't overshadow the misguided revenge that he'd earlier intended.
All in all, a very bleak portrayal of men and not an especially redeeming a portrayal of the lone woman, either. But creepy and a bit haunting if you think back on what might have been.
Another reviewer had it right in pointing out that the Karen character was inconsistently written. She's terrified one night, then goes surfing the next day, then -- incredibly-- declines her concerned husband's repeated pleas that she not stay home alone again the next night. It was one of multiple instances when I threw up my hands and said out loud, "what the heck?"
Still and all, the last 20 minutes are quite tense and the last 5-10 are downright creepy. To give away more I'll need to reveal spoilers.
**************** SPOILERS *****************
I titled my review "Fun and Games" because this episode's ending reminded me of the incredibly disturbing 1997 movie and 2007 remake, "Funny Games." That movie has two, not three, clean-cut young adult psychopaths, but its sense of sadistic menace comes through in the Hitchcock Hour's conclusion as well. I wasn't expecting multi-person-- ahem-- "assault," to use a cleaned-up term, as well as murder to be implied so strongly in an early 1960s TV program. That turn of events took me by surprise, even though we the audience could see what was coming a few minutes before the main character did.
But while the surfers are the baddest guys, family friend Simon (O'Herlihy) is no angel, either. He comes over knowing that the husband is away, apparently with the intent to have his way with Karen. He prefaces his actions with a soliloquy on the murderous darkness inside every human being, and then gets physical. That he comes back later to apologize-- at least, that's his story-- and helps to catch one of the psychos, doesn't excuse what he'd earlier come to do. And the grief-stricken Sanchez, whose girlfriend has been killed: he refuses to take any responsibility for what happened to his girlfriend, even though he put the homeowner-- the aptly named "Karen," at least by 2022 pop culture standards-- in a terribly uncomfortable position and even though he might have avoided all of the tragedy had he just asked Karen to call the police.
Instead he turns all of his wrath against her, refusing to see how menacing he must have seemed and declining to look for whoever actually assaulted and killed his girlfriend. He breaks into Karen's house and seems intent on doing something very bad. That he, like Simon, winds up saving Karen after the psychotic surfers have revealed themselves as the previous night's murderers doesn't overshadow the misguided revenge that he'd earlier intended.
All in all, a very bleak portrayal of men and not an especially redeeming a portrayal of the lone woman, either. But creepy and a bit haunting if you think back on what might have been.