Twilight Zone: The Movie (1983)
Starring Dan Aykroyd, John Lithgow, Vic Morrow
Written by John Landis, George Clayton Johnson, Jerome Bixby, Richard Matheson
Directed by John Landis, Steven Spielberg, George Miller, Joe Dante


If there was no Twilight Zone, there would be no M. Night Shyamalan. There wouldn’t be a lot of things actually. The Twilight Zone series that originated in 1959 from the mind of Rod Serling has been revived in the 80s and even at the beginning of the new millennium, proving that the show was truly a phenomenon. It’s unique blend of horror, fantasy, sci-fi, and thrills is one that will have audiences captivated forever. In 1983, four of Hollywood’s most prolific directors decided to bring four stories from the series to the big screen.

The film starts out with a very well-crafted (Shyamalan would be salivating) prologue involving two buddies on a road trip. It starts out comical and typical, but in the Twilight Zone you know how that always ends. A great beginning to the film.

The first segment is brought to us by John Landis, the man behind Michael Jackson’s Thriller video and An American Werewolf in London. The story is about a man who blames all “non-American” people like Jews, Orientals, and Blacks for all his problems. He is very vocal about this and soon finds himself being transported into the shoes of some of these people during some of society’s ugliest eras. He is a Jew in Nazi Germany, he is Vietnamese during the Vietnam war, and he is captured by the KKK who only see him as black. The story is like a moral lesson with bite.

The second segment is full of fantasy and with just the mention of the word, “fantasy”, you can probably guess that it is presented to us by Mr.Fantasy himself, Steven Spielberg. It is an inspiring tale about a group of seniors who literally become young again and remember what it was like to be full of hope and laughter. A little sappy and could have been excluded, but is like a nice intermission to the other three stories.

Joe Dante of Gremlins fame brings us a story of a boy who is in a sense like a gremlin. He tells the tale of a boy who can wish for anything and have it be a reality. Just imagine what it was like being a child and all the things you wished for and then imagine spending a night with yourself as an adult now. Now imagine pissing off yourself. Scary stuff, eh?

Finally, Mad Max’s George Miller bring us probably the most definitive story in the Twilight Zone film. The story involves a paranoid and claustrophobic airline passenger who has a hard enough time flying without having to deal with the fact that he thinks he sees a Gremlin-like monster hanging out on the wing of the plane trying to rip the engines off. Scary, funny, thrilling, relatable -- the perfect Twilight Zone story. For all you Simpsons fans out there, you will recognize this story as the one the Simpsons parodied with Bart on the school bus on one of their annual Halloween specials.

The Twilight Zone series was scary because it was able to reach into our subconscious and pluck out our deepest and darkest insecurities and expose them. The show scares the hell out of us and shocks us because deep down in all of us we possess a very scary and dark side. Twilight Zone: The Movie does the same.


THE RUNDOWN:

The Good: A great horror, fantasy, sci-fi, thriller that honours the original Twilight Zone TV series.

The Bad: The film could have done without the sappy Spielberg segment.

The Law: Watch Twilight Zone: The Movie and then go check out episodes from the original series.