![]() If you’ve heard the story before, you know what’s coming, but the episode gets into the major plausibility issue with the original story to suggest that, hey, maybe the dead kid really did get the best of the man who’d been called to town to kill him. That said, “The Grave” does a fairly good job of giving this story a Zone-y twist. It’s fine for what it is, but it’s sort of surprising to see such a basic tale turn up on The Twilight Zone, is all I’m saying. But I can’t say that I’ve found the story all that scary, perhaps because I didn’t grow up in a place with moody, overgrown cemeteries. ![]() Most urban legends are meant to be cautionary tales in one way or another, and the lesson this one purports to teach-don’t freak out, basically-isn’t a bad one for kids and teenagers to learn. Even as a kid, I was vaguely disappointed in it, particularly when I considered how hard it would be to accidentally pin your own clothing to the ground with a knife. (In Scary Stories, the victim is a teenager, which makes the whole “heart attack” thing a bit less plausible.)Īs an urban legend, it’s not bad, though the twist ending is sort of dumb. If only they’d taken the time to think rationally, things might have been okay. Come morning, the others discover the corpse of the person-who died of a heart attack-and realize that he or she pinned the knife through an article of their clothing. In the process of stabbing the knife into the ground, the brave (but actually terrified) individual realizes they can’t get free and is convinced that the specter of whomever occupies the grave has them around the ankle. To prove they’ve been there, they’re to stick a knife in the dirt, and everyone will go and take a look in the morning. ![]() The basic thrust of it is that there’s this spooky old grave that scares everybody, and a group of people dare a certain someone who claims to be brave to go up to the grave at midnight. Indeed, I first encountered it in one of the volumes in Alvin Schwartz’s awesome (and iconic for ‘80s/‘90s kids) Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark. The story behind “The Grave” is an old one. ![]() (Available on Netflix, Amazon, Hulu Plus, and CBS.com.) “The Grave” (season 3, episode 7 originally aired ) ![]()
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