One interesting thing about “Jess-Belle” is its relaxed pace, the ways in which it draws scenes out naturally. Where most of the show’s hour-long episodes drag on to hit the runtime, “Jess-Belle” uses its Southern horror atmosphere beautifully, thanks to both Earl Hamner, Jr.’s script and the direction of Buzz Kulik, who uses smoky dissolves to convey the character’s transformations.
Much like Hamner and producer Herbert Hirschman, Kulik fell in love with the script. He noted that Hamner “had such a good ear for these people … they all rang true.” Leaning into the desperation of Jess-Belle as she becomes gradually more inhuman, Kulik extracts all the atmosphere he can out of the interactions. Scenes are played quietly, and the scenes with the witch Granny Hart (Jeanette Nolan), in which the tragedy of Jess-Belle’s situation really sets in, are especially effective.
“Jess-Belle” is also one of the few “Twilight Zone” episodes to get into monster movie territory. While the show mostly leaned towards a more sophisticated and ironic sense of horror, this one fully lays out the danger of the situation. When the leopard is killed a little over halfway through the episode, you wonder how they’ll fill up the rest of it. But they do, in one of the more frightening acts in the show’s history.
“Jess-Belle” may be too personal to the writer, and too unlike the rest of the show to be listed among its most relevant episodes. But for an anthology show, and especially for one of the most troubled productions in the show’s history, it’s incredibly distinctive.