The Twilight Zone (TV Series) Still Life/The Little People of Killany Woods/The Misfortune Cookie (1986) User Reviews

Past Amazon ghost brought to life by camera?/aliens in woods?/A cookie of misfortune!

[blanbrn · 8/10 · 25 January 2008]

This is episode 14 of "The New Twilight Zone" from the 1985-1986 CBS series. It featured three segments the first "Still Life" a neat and clever tale, second "Little People of Killany Woods" an Irish alien tale and best and last "The Misfortune Cookie" "Still Life" involves a couple that's just moved who recover many old and antique house items come across an old style camera. And the husband played by Robert Carradine discovers that photos of a 1913 Amazon expedition is present inside of the camera. Only oddly these old warriors come to life out of the camera and attack! The trick and only way to get rid of them is flash and snapshot them by flashing the ancient camera and taking pictures! Really a neat and good concept story.

The worst and second story is a drag simply about an Irish pub that does the typical bar stuff like talking, drinking, and grieving only to discover the rumor is true that little men alien like live in their woods. It's rightfully titled "Little People of Killany Woods".

Last and best episode of revenge for the fact that it brings moral justice. Titled "The Misfortune Cookie" stars movie and TV veteran Elliott Gould as Harry Folger an arrogant and crude rude food critic who trashes the ingredients and menus in his newspaper column. Yet as one sees in life you meet your match when eating at a Chinese place and after giving it a bad review, the fortune cookie he receives at last turns out to be a misfortune! Really well done a great twist of revenge and karma! This episode alone makes it worth a watch.

The Twilight Zone - The Little People of Killany Woods

[Scarecrow-88 · 6/10 · 5 September 2016]

Amusing piffle about Irish moocher, O'Shaughnessey (Hamilton Camp), claiming to pub patrons and the bartender that he seen "the little people" and is laughed to scorn. One in particular is fed up with him, Mike Mulvaney (Michael Alldredge, often a thick heavy), wanting to be paid (O'Shaughnessey is not known to pay his debts) due to the unemployment plaguing the region. Well Mulvaney starts to investigate O'Shaughnessey when he starts paying for supplies and his final rent with rectangular gold pieces, following behind to confront him about a debt owed and not paid. Mulvaney will see there are little people first hand…but not the leprechaun kind! Fun twist at the end compliments the light-hearted tone and musical accompaniment. This is solely meant to put a smile on the face of sci-fi fans and placing this in an Irish setting plants in our minds an idea of what the little people look like, only to go in a different direction, one we are familiar but not expecting. The accents are a bit rough, and the emphasis to bring out the Irish in the tale is heavy-handed, but I couldn't help but just grin it off.

A Developing Plot/Dumb Leprechauns/Bad Fortune Cookies

[Hitchcoc · 6/10 · 21 April 2017]

The first episode involves a photographer who finds an ancient camera and proceeds to develop the pictures, releasing some bad people who had been hidden in the camera. The second is lightweight Irish junk with very little to recommend it. The third features Elliot Gould as a nasty food critic, who makes the mistake of writing bad reviews just to be cruel. His reviews can make or break a place, but he uses no objectivity, only his negative emotions. A series of fortune cookies are the real stars here.

"Still Life".

[fedor8 · 21 May 2022]

Between the actress with her awful fake nails and yet another Carradine nepotist with a whiny voice, I couldn't care too much about the Indians attacking.

These Amazon Indians somehow managed to get themselves overpowered by a Carradine. Somehow he managed to figure out that the camera makes the Indians disappear: a rather convenient, far-fetched plot-device.

"Still Life" teams Robert Carradine with his father John

[kevinolzak · 7/10 · 13 July 2020]

Opening story "Still Life" served as the last of three scripts contributed to this 80s version of Rod Serling's brainchild by the team of Gerrit Graham and Chris Hubbell, better known for performing in front of the camera, director Peter Medak an interesting talent who never escaped the confines of the small screen. In the lead as Daniel Arnold is Robert Carradine, a nice change from his emerging persona from the "Revenge of the Nerds" feature series, a dedicated photographer who purchases a trunk with old equipment housing a hidden bottom where an intact Kodak camera offers an irresistible opportunity to develop film of a completely unknown nature (exteriors filmed in Monrovia, California). Evidence of an Amazonian expedition to the village of the Curucai in January 1913 leads Martin to the doorstep of Prof. Alex Stottel (John Carradine), who reveals his own presence on the hazardous trek as a working lad of 13, relating the ways of the Curucai and how they would stalk by night imitating the wind, the photographer's life endangered by their superstitions: "to make an image of them such as a drawing was to steal their souls, their very selves." This knowledge is enough for Martin to return home in a panic, his wife Becky (Marilyn Jones) suddenly missing, the place now transformed into a death trap with one false step. The Curucai may have been inspired by the incredibly uninspired Universal turkey of 1956, "Curucu, Beast of the Amazon," which at least boasted on location shooting in Brazil but little else. John Carradine was of course a veteran of the memorable 1960 episode "The Howling Man," a frightening depiction of The Devil in his many guises, and had previously worked with Peter Medak on George Hamilton's "Zorro, the Gay Blade," a part sadly deleted prior to release. Not only was this his final appearance on network television but his last opposite son Robert, a well acted sequence together lasting 2 1/2 minutes.

Cursed Photos, An Odd Story, and A Karmic Fortune Cookie

[pepper_f · 8/10 · 3 January 2024]

"Still Life" was quite an okay episode. It involves a couple finding a couple of photographs and once they develop them, they realize that certain people in the pictures can come to life. Overall, it was quite an above-average episode but with an interesting premise.

"The Little People of Killany Woods" is a charming story with an Irish setting. The plot involves a man claiming he's seen little people in the woods at a bar and naturally, they don't believe him. One skeptic, however, is quite curious about the man's intentions and decides to follow him after he leaves the bar. This story is pretty well-done and it has a cute ending.

"The Misfortune Cookie" is the best story in this episode. It involves an easily-disappointed food critic visiting a Chinese restaurant and getting fortune cookies that seem to mysteriously come true. This one has a witty ending and in a way, is quite ironic for the protagonist. Overall, it's a great story with a clever twist.

In which Elliott Gould breathes life into the series

[Leofwine_draca · 5/10 · 1 April 2015]

THE LITTLE PEOPLE OF KILLANEY WOODS is one of those dumb comedy episodes of THE NEW TWILIGHT ZONE. It sees the drunken Irish members of a pub claiming to have seen leprechauns cavorting in the woods; when a gang gets together to go investigate they discover that the truth to the tale is extraterrestrial in origin. The episode is full of broad, over-laboured Irish accents and the humour is dreadful.

THE MISFORTUNE COOKIE is one of the more lively episodes of THE NEW TWILIGHT ZONE and it benefits greatly from a central performance by Elliott Gould. Gould plays a mean-spirited restaurant critic who soon sets his eyes on a Chinese restaurant; when he gives the place a scathing review he soon wishes he hasn't.

The story is a simple revenge-themed one, the usual format in which a horrid character ends up getting what they deserve. The production is fairly well done, but what makes it really special is Gould himself. He really gets into the spirit of the thing by playing a thoroughly slimy character; he seems to be having a ball and that rubs off on the viewer, too.