The Monsters are Due on Maple Street (1960)

 

To my mind, Rod Serling's Red Scare classic from 1960, The Monsters are Due on Maple Street, is one of the original Twilight Zone's most potent political allegories.

A quiet neighborhood turns cannibalistic, metaphorically speaking, when the power to everything goes out on the block, the eponymous Maple Street. A creepy, squinty-eyed kid borrows a storyline from a comic book and plants the seed that aliens have invaded and are posing as a family among them.

Everybody laughts it off until that "odd ball" Les Goodman's jalopy starts on its own -- the first crack in the sanity dam. Before the day is done, blood will have been spilt and the neighbors will end up running chaotically from pillar to post in search of the aliens.

As the episode ends, the viewer is taken to a nearby hillside where actual aliens are shown discussing their strategy for taking over the Earth. Put earthlings in the dark, control their access to power and information and watch them destroy themselves. Brilliant, really.

At that time, the aliens were the enemies of civil democracy, manipulating the fearful and the gullible. The applications to modern social and political life remain rich and varied, which makes this episode such entertaining viewing even 60 years after it first aired.

Best line? Les to the madding crowd: You fools. You scared, frightened rabbits, you. You're sick people, do you know that? You're sick people - all of you! And you don't even know what you're starting because let me tell you...let me tell you - this thing you're starting - that should frighten you. As God is my witness...you're letting something begin here that's a nightmare!