A suburban dinner party is interrupted by a bulletin warning of an impending nuclear attack. As the neighbors scramble to prepare themselves, they turn against the one family that installed ... Read allA suburban dinner party is interrupted by a bulletin warning of an impending nuclear attack. As the neighbors scramble to prepare themselves, they turn against the one family that installed a permanent bomb shelter.A suburban dinner party is interrupted by a bulletin warning of an impending nuclear attack. As the neighbors scramble to prepare themselves, they turn against the one family that installed a permanent bomb shelter.
IMDb RATING
8.6/10
3K
YOUR RATING
Scotty Morrow
- Boyas Boy
- (uncredited)
Rod Serling
- Narratoras Narrator
- (uncredited)
- …
- Director
- Writer
- All cast & crew
- See more cast details at IMDbPro
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaEarly in the story, Paul tells the adults that their TV set has gone blank and that the viewers have been told to tune into the CONELRAD stations. CONELRAD - which stood for Control of Electromagnetic Radiation - was a Civil Defense radio system that went into effect on December 10, 1951. Under CONELRAD, most AM radio stations and all FM radio and TV stations in the United States would go off the air in the event of a national emergency. Selected AM stations would then air official information and instructions to the public on the 640 and 1240 frequencies on the AM dial. Radios sold in the United States from 1953 to 1963 were required to display the triangular Civil Defense symbol on their dials at those frequencies. Effective August 5, 1963, CONELRAD was replaced by the Emergency Broadcast System (EBS), under which most AM, FM, and TV stations would remain on the air in the event of an emergency, but would switch over to official news and information. On January 1, 1997, EBS was replaced by the current Emergency Alert System (EAS), which is essentially EBS plus cable TV and satellite TV and radio.
- GoofsThe shelter door was obviously plywood (when it finally broke, one could tell it was flimsy material). Even though it was supposed to be of a heavy substance, anything that could be opened with a battering ram would not withstand an atomic blast.
- Quotes
Jerry Harlowe: Hey that's a great idea, block party, anything to get back to normal, huh?
Dr. Bill Stockton: Normal? I don't know. I don't know what normal is. I thought I did once. I don't anymore.
Jerry Harlowe: I told you we'd pay for the damages, Bill.
Dr. Bill Stockton: Damages? I wonder. I wonder if anyone of us has any idea what those damages really are. Maybe one of them is finding out what we're really like when we're normal; the kind of people we are just underneath the skin. I mean all of us: a bunch of naked wild animals, who put such a price on staying alive that they'd claw their neighbors to death just for the privilege. We were spared a bomb tonight, but I wonder if we weren't destroyed even without it.
- Crazy creditsThe sets in the opening scene and the scene showing the neighbors running down the street with the "battering ram" are the same sets used in the "The Monsters are due on Maple Street" & " Black Leather Jackets" episodes.
Top review
Neighbors, everybody need good neighbors!
This episode perfectly illustrates why "The Twilight Zone" is the greatest show that ever aired on television. It's not a typical TZ-tale, mind you, since it doesn't feature any supernatural or mystery elements, but it's disturbing, contemporarily accurate, thought-provoking, intelligent and indescribably tense. What a true genius you were, Mr. Rod Serling! Throughout a total of five seasons and 150+ episodes, we've seen stories with a wide variety of greatly horrific subjects (aliens, parallel dimensions, dystopian futures, post-nuclear landscapes, ...) but, in "The Shelter", Serling establishes once and for all that the biggest menace for the survival of our species is, in fact, man itself. The story opens in the living room of the respectable Dr. Stockton, where he and his family are cozily enjoying a diner party with the closest neighbors and friends. Moments after the neighbors jokingly mocked the good doctor for being the sole resident in the area with a bomb shelter in his basements, the party is rudely interrupted by a government announcement. A nuclear attack is imminent and seemingly unavoidable. Suddenly, the idea of being prepared with bomb-proof shelter isn't so funny anymore.
What happens next is jaw-dropping, because it's simultaneously disturbing and realistic. Everybody thinks they are entitled to seek refuge in Dr. Stockton's shelter. Lifelong friends turn into selfish enemies, neighbors who were enjoying a drink together before the news bulletin are now turning violent on each other, and literally everybody feels that his/her life is more valuable than that of another. And, of course, during all this you can't help thinking: "How would I react?". It's easy to assume we are more civilized than this, but ... are we really? Only great cinema/television can evoke these kinds of thoughts, and "The Twilight Zone" is great television! The events and circumstances obviously look dated in 2020, but can you imagine what impact this must have had upon its release in the fall of 1961, at the height of the Cold War paranoia? In fact, I wouldn't even be too surprised if this TV-episode was single-handedly responsible for the sudden construction of hundreds of domestic bomb shelters all across the United States. I have yet to see and review quite a large number of "Twilight Zone" episodes, but I'm already quite sure that "The Shelter" will eventually pop up in my personal top 10.
What happens next is jaw-dropping, because it's simultaneously disturbing and realistic. Everybody thinks they are entitled to seek refuge in Dr. Stockton's shelter. Lifelong friends turn into selfish enemies, neighbors who were enjoying a drink together before the news bulletin are now turning violent on each other, and literally everybody feels that his/her life is more valuable than that of another. And, of course, during all this you can't help thinking: "How would I react?". It's easy to assume we are more civilized than this, but ... are we really? Only great cinema/television can evoke these kinds of thoughts, and "The Twilight Zone" is great television! The events and circumstances obviously look dated in 2020, but can you imagine what impact this must have had upon its release in the fall of 1961, at the height of the Cold War paranoia? In fact, I wouldn't even be too surprised if this TV-episode was single-handedly responsible for the sudden construction of hundreds of domestic bomb shelters all across the United States. I have yet to see and review quite a large number of "Twilight Zone" episodes, but I'm already quite sure that "The Shelter" will eventually pop up in my personal top 10.
helpful•90
- Coventry
- Jul 1, 2020
Details
- Runtime25 minutes
- Color
- Aspect ratio
- 1.33 : 1
Contribute to this page
Suggest an edit or add missing content

Recently viewed
Please enable browser cookies to use this feature. Learn more.