Twilight Zone: The Movie *** (1983, Dan Aykroyd, Albert Brooks, Vic Morrow, John Lithgow, Scatman Crothers, Kathleen Quinlan) – Classic Movie Review 8238

The 1983 horror and science fiction movie Twilight Zone: The Movie is a compendium of four weird stories in a homage to creator Rod Serling’s cult Fifties/ Sixties TV series The Twilight Zone (1959–1964), directed by four of the Eighties most interesting film-makers, John Landis, Steven Spielberg, Joe Dante and George Miller, remaking three episodes of the series, plus one original segment, story one Time Out.

Given this talent, it is a slight let-down, but it is fairly enjoyable nonetheless, particularly the creepy Miller tale (Nightmare at 20,000 Feet) of a nervy plane passenger (John Lithgow as John Valentine) who believes that he sees someone trying to sabotage the wing of his jet and sees a gremlin on the wing. Exterior footage of the airplane is of the Global Airways Boeing 707 from Skyjacked (1972), with added storm effects.

The best you can say about the segment two yarn Kick the Can with Scatman Crothers as Mr Bloom teaching oldies to be young is that it could not come from anyone but Spielberg. The music for Kick the Can was originally written as the theme for Norman Bates in Psycho II (1983).

Dante’s piece It’s a Good Life is more intriguing: Kathleen Quinlan plays Helen Foley, who meets a child who can realise every wish.

Tragically actor Vic Morrow (who plays Bill Connor) was killed while making the Landis segment Time Out about a persecuting bigot who is in turn persecuted. On 23 July 1982, Morrow, Renee Chen and My-ca Dinh Le were killed on set when a helicopter crashed on them during the filming of a Vietnam battle sequence.

Landis’s segments (segment one and the prologue with Dan Aykroyd and Albert Brooks) were the first to be filmed, with helicopter crash overshadowing the whole project, and the remaining segments were completed in the order of It’s a Good Life, Nightmare at 20,000 Feet and Kick the Can.

Among the many others in the casts are Bill Quinn, Kevin McCarthy, Selma Diamond, Jeremy Licht, William Schallert, Abbe Lane and Billy Mumy.

© Derek Winnert 2019 Classic Movie Review 8238

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