Main cast: Jerry O’Connell (Andy), Amy Jo Johnson (Sarah), Randy Quaid (Michael Doyle), Susan Gibney (Natalie Doyle), and Henry Rollins (The Host)
Directors: Yves Simoneau and Jefery Levy
I’m quite pleasantly surprised by the caliber of the people that show up on Night Visions. Oh, I know, the Pink Power Ranger and that dude from Sliders may not be A-list people, but they are a notch better in terms of star power than some random fellow that respond to an ad pasted on the board of the neighborhood 7-11.
Rest Stop sees four college students, of which Sarah is one of them, picking up hitchhiker Andy on their way to star in their own Wrong Turn story.
They stop at a rest stop in the middle of the wilderness, where there are some hobo-like folks that set up stalls around the rest stop. These nimrods act like classic asshole tourists to these people, conveniently forgetting that they are outnumbered and there are nobody around that will care should these imbeciles go missing.
I’m sure these kids will be alright, though!
This one is pretty suspenseful with a genuinely chilling development towards the end, but at the same time, I can’t help feeling bad for Sarah. This is mostly due to Amy Jo Johnson going beyond the call of duty to make Sarah a sympathetic character in some way.
Jerry O’Connell plays a creepy guy pretty well too, so all in all, this is a solid, if not exactly groundbreaking, segment.
Next is After Life, Michael Doyle is all prepped and ready to be sent to the church for his closed coffin funeral when the guy comes back to life.
His wife Natalie and his daughter Kaitlin are thrilled. With him back and seemingly alive and healthy, it is easy to accept the possibility that Michael was in a coma after his heart stopped and the bloke luckily came to before he got cremated.
However, this is Night Visions, not a feel-good Hallmark show, so it’s not long before they realize that there is something really not right with this resurrected version of Michael…
This segment is very solid. It’s both terrifying and heartbreaking, mostly because Randy Quaid delivers some of the most disturbing lines and facial expressions with a nonchalance that feels so normal and hence chilling to the bone indeed.
It’s even scarier to realize how easy it is to empathize with Michael, whose brief stay in the afterlife is apparently so moving and profound that he wants nothing more than to go back to it, this time bringing his family along with him!
I know, getting Randy Quaid to play cray cray is like asking a goldfish to swim in a bowl, but still, this is a great segment that can hit the feels in most unexpected ways.
All in all, this episode is definitely one of the better ones in this show so far.
