Twilight Zone: The Movie
Dir: John Landis, Joe Dante, Steven Spielberg, George Miller
1983
***
Twilight Zone: The Movie is film that is probably remembered for all the wrong reasons, or at least not for the reasons the makers would have hoped for. Twilight Zone: The Movie is compiled by 4 different stories, the same format used in the original TV series. First off, I always found the original TV series to be far more creepy, certainly more terrifying when watching them as a small child. It's future shock film/alternative story telling at it's best. The film really is a 80s homage and there is nothing quite like an 80s homage (there's nothing quite like an 80s version of anything really, it's probably the most iconic decade when it comes to film). Joe Dante's film is not great. It's more along the lines of Explorers rather than than Inner Space. George Miller's film is pretty good but watching John Lithgow scream and sweat in equal measure for 20 minutes straight becomes quite tiresome. Steven Spielberg's film is pure schmaltz, if it weren't for the presents of the ever lovable Scatman Crothers I would have thought they'd of axed it, Spielberg could have done much better at the time. The first film and by far the best is the one everyone remembers. John Landis's entry starred Vic Morrow as a bigot who is transported back to Nazi Germany, the Vietnam war and to a Klu Klux Klan hanging. It's the sort of story that made Twilight Zone so popular in the first place. However, it is unforgivable that John Landis was not held responsible for the accidental death of Morrow and the two child actors who died in the filming. He has always been remorseful on the subject, being quoted as saying "I live with the "Twilight Zone" every day of my life." in a 1991 interview but he still should have been charged. Half of me thinks that the film should never had been aired but at the same time it would have been a shame as Vic Morrow's last performance is great and his is a great film. It's a delicate situation really, it's an okay film but those 3 horrific deaths will always linger alongside it and I can't help but think it's probably a film that everyone involved with would like to forget in many respects.