(Some Spoilers) The movie "Encounters with the Unknown" just can't seem to make up its mind to what it's trying to tell you in the three supernatural stories in it. We get this prologue about this mysterious Rankin Cluster Phenomenon, discovered by a Dr. Jonathan Rankin, that supposed to be as many as 500 graves clustered together in a number of cemeteries all over the country. Were never told what its, the cluster phenomenon, supposed to be or represent! Were then drawn to this funeral for young Jimmy Davis who was killed because of a dirty prank played on him by his three friends Dave Frank & Randy. Jimmy told by the three that they got a hot date set up for him is accidentally shot and killed by elderly Mrs. Wilson who, after mistaking him for a bugler, shot him when her gun went off.
Jimmy's mother Mrs. Davis, the seventh daughter of the seventh son of her father-in-law, put a curse on the three boys telling them that they'll end up like Jimmy did stone cold dead! One by land and two by air, in the span of 21 days after his funeral! Seven days time for each of them to meet their maker, and just as she predicted that's exactly what happens! Dave gets hit and killed by a car Frank dies in a plane crash and Randy perished when his parachute fails to open when he's out skydiving! All the three boys die exactly seven, or 21 in all, days apart from each other!
The next two stories aren't much better, in fact their even worse. Story #2 is about this hole in the woods that supposedly has the Devil living in it. and where little Jesse's dog Lady ends up falling into. Jesse's straight-laced dad Joe not beveling in all that supernatural rubbish that everyone in town is talking about, about the mysterious hole, decide to go it alone and be lowered down into the hole. Joe tries to get the mutt only to end up stark raving mad when he's brought back up, without Lady. He ends up running through the wood like a mindless lunatic; were told by the narrator that Joe completely lost it and ended up in a padded cell in a local mental institution for the rest of his life.
The third and final chapter to "Encounters with the Unknown" has to do with this young girl Susan who's haunting this bridge in rural Arkansas. We find out that she killed herself by driving her jalopy off the bridge and into the river back in 1929. Susan's very strict father forbid her to marry the boy she loved Paul, he wasn't making enough cash, and drove the love sick girl, and possibly her lover Paul, to kill herself. Susan's old man is still alive, this after almost 45 years after the tragic incident, and has to put up with, what can possibly be, hundreds of sighting of his daughter from motorists. Susan gives her dad's address to any motorist who happen to cross the bridge at night when she's there hunting it! This I assume is the old man's punishment from above in trying to interfere with his daughter Susan's love life and it's a purgatory on earth for him.
There's nothing in the film that you haven't seem before with Rod Serling, sounding as serious as ever, pinch-hitting in some of the narration, he replaces the original narrator after the first five minutes of the film. The movie also has a very annoying habit of repeating itself, Mrs. Davis' Heptagran curse is repeated almost a dozen times. There's what looks like an abridged version of the film in the last fifteen minutes. Probably in order to pad the film and make it look like a full-length motion picture.
Jimmy's mother Mrs. Davis, the seventh daughter of the seventh son of her father-in-law, put a curse on the three boys telling them that they'll end up like Jimmy did stone cold dead! One by land and two by air, in the span of 21 days after his funeral! Seven days time for each of them to meet their maker, and just as she predicted that's exactly what happens! Dave gets hit and killed by a car Frank dies in a plane crash and Randy perished when his parachute fails to open when he's out skydiving! All the three boys die exactly seven, or 21 in all, days apart from each other!
The next two stories aren't much better, in fact their even worse. Story #2 is about this hole in the woods that supposedly has the Devil living in it. and where little Jesse's dog Lady ends up falling into. Jesse's straight-laced dad Joe not beveling in all that supernatural rubbish that everyone in town is talking about, about the mysterious hole, decide to go it alone and be lowered down into the hole. Joe tries to get the mutt only to end up stark raving mad when he's brought back up, without Lady. He ends up running through the wood like a mindless lunatic; were told by the narrator that Joe completely lost it and ended up in a padded cell in a local mental institution for the rest of his life.
The third and final chapter to "Encounters with the Unknown" has to do with this young girl Susan who's haunting this bridge in rural Arkansas. We find out that she killed herself by driving her jalopy off the bridge and into the river back in 1929. Susan's very strict father forbid her to marry the boy she loved Paul, he wasn't making enough cash, and drove the love sick girl, and possibly her lover Paul, to kill herself. Susan's old man is still alive, this after almost 45 years after the tragic incident, and has to put up with, what can possibly be, hundreds of sighting of his daughter from motorists. Susan gives her dad's address to any motorist who happen to cross the bridge at night when she's there hunting it! This I assume is the old man's punishment from above in trying to interfere with his daughter Susan's love life and it's a purgatory on earth for him.
There's nothing in the film that you haven't seem before with Rod Serling, sounding as serious as ever, pinch-hitting in some of the narration, he replaces the original narrator after the first five minutes of the film. The movie also has a very annoying habit of repeating itself, Mrs. Davis' Heptagran curse is repeated almost a dozen times. There's what looks like an abridged version of the film in the last fifteen minutes. Probably in order to pad the film and make it look like a full-length motion picture.