The Hunters
"A beautiful summer day, full of adventure for a young boy. On the surface, a field like any other, soon to be covered with neatly arranged family homes. But today, this curious boy is about to discover a terrifying secret, that could only be shared within the confines — of the Twilight Zone."
While hiking through a field that's soon to become a housing district, a young Boy Scout named Skeeter accidentally falls into an underground cave. The boy and Sheriff Roy (Michael Hogan), who he tells about his discovery, soon find out that the cave has primitive paintings on the walls. The archeological team of the local university, led by Dr. Klein (Louise Fletcher), soon set up an excavation site surrounding the cave, citing it as the 12,000-year-old den for a long-lost tribe of prehistoric hunters. When the carcasses of local livestock begin appearing near the mouth of the cave and Roy is called to investigate, he and Klein believe that the corpses are a plot by James Hilsen (Les Carlson), the real estate developer in charge of the housing project the cave is housed under, to scare the survey team away from the site so he can get back to work. What they don't know, however, is that the cave's inhabitants didn't necessarily die out.
Tropes
- Accidental Discovery: A prehistoric cave, undisturbed for 12,000 years, is discovered after Skeeter accidentally falls through the earth above it. Dr. Klein later notes how fortunate the kid is, as he's uncovered what she describes as one of the most important archaeological discoveries of the century.
- Bittersweet Ending: Dr. Klein is killed by the ghosts of the hunters, but Roy manages to defeat them by washing their paintings off their walls.
- Contemporary Caveman: The prehistoric hunters' ghosts have been residing within their old paintings for 12,000 years, and they manage to manifest in the 20th century when Roy, Klein, and the survey team disturb their cave.
- Creepy Changing Painting: Throughout the episode, Dr. Klein studies the paintings found on the walls of the cave. She assures Roy that she can tell they're genuine because of her extensive experience in the area. After a week, she notices that one of them has changed, a figure previously on the right of a ceremonial altar now being on the left. That night, Dr. Klein realizes that all of the figures have disappeared from the walls, having entered the real world, where one of them kills her with a spear. When Roy enters and discovers her body, he sees that the figures have started moving on the walls before his eyes. Dr. Klein's body disappears from the cave and a figure representing her appears on one of the walls, being dragged away as a trophy. In order to stop the ghostly hunters before they kill again, the sheriff washes the figures away, erasing the hunters just as one of them throws a spear at him.
- Dead Animal Warning: A mutilated sheep carcass is found outside the entrance to the prehistoric cave at one point. Dr. Klein believes that the culprit is James, whose housing development was delayed by the discovery of the cave, in order to intimidate her and the rest of the archaeological team. However, it turns out that the sheep and other livestock like it were killed by the ghosts of the hunters depicted on the cave painting.
- Decoy Protagonist: Skeeter, the Boy Scout who originally finds the cave, has about five minutes of screentime. Dr. Klein takes the role of protagonist for the rest of the episode's first act, but after the animal carcasses begin turning up, Sheriff Roy shares center stage with her, ultimately becoming the hero when she's killed by the hunters.
- Failed a Spot Check: Dr. Klein prepares to spend the night in the cave to catch whoever might be disturbing the paintings. She unfortunately didn't realize that the culprits weren't coming from outside the cave.
- Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: One of the prehistoric ghosts impales Dr. Klein with a spear. Roy discovers her body lying face down with the spear still in her back, and when he turns back to the paintings, she disappears from the cave and into said paintings, being taken as a trophy.
- Nothing Is Scarier: As the hunters' ghosts emerge from their paintings, they surround Dr. Klein without being seen, only letting their footsteps and grunting signal that they could be anywhere. After she's speared in the back, Roy sees the figures in the paintings begin moving and hears the same noises all around him.
- Our Ghosts Are Different: The ghosts of the hunters inhabit the paintings they created on the walls of a 12,000-year-old cave. Every night, they leave the paintings and enter the living world to kill animals belonging to the local farmers for food, before they go back in the paintings before morning, though their positions often change. After killing Dr. Klein, they are able to take her corpse back into the paintings with them as a trophy. Roy is able to seemingly destroy them when he washes away all of the paintings.
- Red Herring: Dr. Klein is convinced that artifacts being moved around and the dead sheep placed in front of the cave is the work of James Hilsen, a housing mogul who is frustrated that the discovery of the cave is halting his development project, as a tactic to scare the archaeological team into leaving. It's later discovered that the ghosts of the cave's original inhabitants are the ones responsible, emerging from the paintings on the walls every night to hunt the local livestock for food.
- Sealed Evil in a Can: The prehistoric hunters' ghosts are housed within the paintings they created on the walls of their cave by day, but at night they emerge to slaughter the local farm animals for food.
- Small Role, Big Impact: Skeeter, who falls through the earth and discovers the cave, and disappears shortly after the Time Skip.
- Time Skip: The episode skips ahead one week after Roy and Skeeter investigate the cave, where Klein and her team are excavating it.
- Weaksauce Weakness: The fact that the ghosts inhabit paintings acts as their downfall, as Roy is easily able to stop them by washing the paintings away with a wet brush.
"Time is the invincible enemy of mortal flesh, or so modern man believes. But somewhere in the dark past, a few of our distant ancestors discovered a way to bridge the millenia. It's a secret that was buried 12,000 years ago, and rediscovered for a brief moment — in the Twilight Zone."
