By Geno McGahee
“You want to get inside of me. Make me a part of you.” – John (Michael Sarrazin)
John Colt (Michael Sarrazin) has no interest in getting blown. None whatsoever. He is an expert when it comes to the weather and has dedicated himself to exploring it. Unfortunately, he has come face to face during a mountain climbing expedition with an evil wind and this wind now haunts him. Ray Bradbury may have been smoking something when he wrote this or just ran out of ideas, but I wanted to know how hard this guy got blown. So, I watched it through. Perhaps Ray Bradbury was being blown when he wrote this. I bet he was. I know he mentions a question at the beginning of every show. “Where do you get your ideas,” they ask. Not me. I figured this one out.
The winds blow hard against the house and John does what he can to keep it out. He puts up wood doors on the windows, which also helps with zombie invasions. He calls his good buddy, Herb (Ray Hendwood) and remarkably wants to speak to his wife, Susan (Vivienne Labone). Was he nailing Herb’s wife? I don’t think so, but why would he ask for the wife? Herb does all the talking as Susan takes jabs at poor John throughout.
The wind gets stronger and it begins to take a toll on John. When he sees that the wind has destroyed some of his work, he gets furious. He throws things, kicks things and stomps around the house. This was relatable. When we get those strong gusts of wind and the trash cans are knocked over and garbage goes everywhere, I stomp around and blame the wind too. Fucking wind.
Even though Susan dismisses John’s pleas as nonsense, Herb is very concerned. He keeps calling John back, but John is losing his mind. He is walking around, maniacally laughing, and he even gets so out of control that he throws his phone through the window. When he realizes that he has destroyed his connection to Herb, he looks at the broken wire and screams “No” three or four times. The overacting of Sarrazin was something special.
With no other options (spoiler alert), John decides that he is not going to be haunted anymore. He is going to hang himself in his basement and take the power away from the wind. Now, I know that wind can be a pain in the ass if you are into badminton, but wouldn’t it be nice in the fall or spring? I think that John wasn’t thinking about the great 50% of the year that he would be experiencing from this haunting. Also, all the leaves in his yard were probably blown into the neighbor’s yard. That’s less work for him. He is definitely a half empty sort of guy.
After John kills himself, Herb starts getting haunted by the wind and hears John’s voice, laughing. Why was he laughing? Was this wind tickling his balls? Bradbury left that up to us to decide, I guess. In the end, THE WIND isn’t a great episode, but it’s a good one. Had it not been for the over the top performance of Sarrazin, this would have easily been a stinker. He kept this tale alive and that was not easy to do, considering that he had to act alone and work with mediocre material. I recommend this one, but there are certainly much better ones out there.
Rating: 6.5/10
