A different way of telling a story

I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

This is a dark and sometimes deeply uncomfortable drama

A clunky actioner with a handful of cool moments.

More creepy than The Twilight Zone, this obscure series had a brief run of only 14 episodes which were filmed live back in 1961. You can see many veteran actors and actresses in these macabre little stories. Charlotte Ray, Rosemary Murphy, Richard ("John Boy") Thomas, Martin Balsam, Madeleine Sherwood (who later played the reverend mother on Flying Nun) and many others. Apparently, the debut episode "William and Mary" garnered very positive ratings on both coasts, but the Midwest wasn't all that impressed with this creepy little series and so it was cancelled. None of the episodes were ever shown again on TV after this initial broadcast run. However all 14 shows still exist as kinescopes that were donated by David Susskind to The Paley Center for the Media in NY. 10 of the 14 episodes have been on You Tube. Pity that such a cool albeit short lived series couldn't be released to the public on DVD but I think that CBS or the Susskind Estate may own the rights and what with it being such an obscure series, I just don't see an official release happening. The Paley Center appears to be the only place to have all 14 surviving kinescopes of the series. So unless you go there, there's always You Tube for 10 of the 14.

I don't recall how many episodes I saw of this fill-in horror anthology, but I tend to think of it as a summer show, so this may tell you which episodes I caught. The one episode that has stayed in my mind is about the man who cannot remove his Quasimodo makeup, and the magnificent makeup job was courtesy of the one and only Dick "The Exorcist" Smith (remember his one-shot magazine special published by the FAMOUS MONSTERS OF FILMLAND folks? It cost under a buck at the time, and how I wish I had held onto it, along with all my FAMOUS MONSTER and CASTLE OF FRANKENSTEIN titles). WAY OUT was actually a notch above THE OUTER LIMITS although not as good as THE TWILIGHT ZONE. God, I love Roald Dahl, who served as host. Did you notice Larry "It's Alive" Cohen was involved in the scripting?

I really want to thank the commenter named Guanche for confirming that the opening of this series featured a bunch of hands coming out of the sand. I was about 10 years old when this series aired and ever since the early 1960's, I've been trying to recall the name of the scary TV show with the hands coming out of the sand. As a kid, I was a nut for every type of horror and science fiction program on television. I loved One Step Beyond, Twilight Zone, Thriller, Alfred Hitchcock, and The Outer Limits. This short-lived TV show, though, became my favorite. I won't write any spoilers but I remember one episode that was very creepy about a man who has a terminal disease and who has his brain preserved and hooked up to a computer. He learns that his wife has been cheating on him. I remember a funny scene when the wife visits the lab and blows cigarette smoke at her husband's brain. If I remember well, this series was not shot on film but was like the earlier Twilight Zone episodes in that it was shot on tape. It might even have been live television. I ended up liking this show more than Twilight Zone because it had a more dark edge and more daring horror. Next to the episode of Thriller called 'The Hungry Glass' (which had school kids all across America sleeping with their lights on for weeks after it aired), this was the scariest and edgiest horror and science fiction on early television that I can recall.

I agree with evilgrows comments about this episode. I first saw it when I was 10 years old and have had nightmares about it ever since. I saw it at the Museum of Television and Radio in New York, along with 7 other episodes, quite recently. It is just as I remembered it--its amazing what a ten year old mind can remember if its traumatic. Its just as creepy but not quite as scary as I remember it. The man is played by Murray Hamilton, who played Elaine Robinson's father in "The Graduate"---he's quite a familiar face. The wife is played by an almost unrecognizable Doris Roberts--- Marie on "Everybody Loves Raymond." The museum is a very interesting place to visit, and I highly recommend going there if one is in New York. Admissiion is $10, which can be applied towards a membership.