Unsettling document of a young woman, a schoolteacher who is visited upon by a strange child with certain facts that awaken repressed, nightmarish memories from when she herself was a little girl. Memories of a tragic night involving the murder of her mother have remained dormant for 18 years, this blond 10 year old girl, Markie (Terry Burnham; for some reason she is rather unnerving) seems to know a lot of personal details only Helen Foley (Janice Rule) should have knowledge of. Helen receives a visitor from the past, Peter Selden (Shepperd Strudwick, conveying a sinister presence) claiming to have known and worked for her mother. As slivers of memory slowly return of the night that sent Helen into a shock, such trauma behind the amnesia fading, Helen's life becomes endangered as the murderer returns to finish the job, one last witness who must be silenced if he is to completely get away with his crime. The mystery of the little girl, the murderer, and how it ties to Helen is obvious, but the presentation is disturbing, Strudwick's Peter a real creep with a smile that gets under the skin. You know from the moment he appears that Peter is not to be trusted even though he projects an air of everyman, seemingly ordinary but harboring an evil that will surface much to the possible detriment of Helen. How the character of Markie is used really provides this degree of unease that I commend director Ganzer for because mood is everything on The Twilight Zone. Serling's script really sets the stage well, how it will take a catalyst of some sort, in this case the little girl, to unearth long buried details needing to be revealed in order for closure.
Review of Nightmare as a Child
