Twilight Zone: The Movie

MOVIE #1,889 • ZERO • 08.15.24 This is the anthology film where — during John Landis’s opening segment — lead actor Vic Morrow and child extras Renee Shin-Yi Chen and Myca Dinh Le were killed by a helicopter filming a dangerous stunt. You can read all about this horrible tragedy here. Landis (and others) were acquitted of manslaughter. The question whether it was ethical to release this at all is definitely valid, but that it didn’t even put a dent in Landis’s career is inexplicable. That this segment is bland and pandering is even more salt on the wounds. Three people lost their lives over that?! I try to stay off the high horse, but this alone warrants a score of ZERO for the project overall. But I’m here because of Joe Dante’s involvement so let’s get right to that.

Dante’s third segment is easily the best (though George Miller’s closing remake of perhaps the TV Twilight Zone’s most famous episode, "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet” — the one with the monster on the wing of the plane — is a close second). The tone of Dante’s short is wonderful and all these actors — including Dante staples Kevin McCarthy and, of course, Dick Miller) — are locked into the same, weird wavelength. It’s visually spectacular…





Also of note: the second segment directed by *checks notes* Steven Spielberg has to rank among the worst and/or least inspired efforts of the esteemed filmmaker’s career. It’s a harmless interlude but SO boring. They honestly should have repackaged this somehow with just Miller and Dante’s films, both out of respect for the dead (duh) AND because they’re the only things worth watching here...

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CHRONOLOGICALLY
⫷ MOVIE #1,888 - (YOU ARE HERE) - MOVIE #1,890 ⫸

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Twilight Zone: The Movie is a 1983 American science fiction anthology film produced by Steven Spielberg and John Landis. Based on Rod Serling's 1959–1964 television series of the same name, the film features four stories directed by Landis, Spielberg, Joe Dante, and George Miller. Landis' segment is an original story created for the film, while the segments by Spielberg, Dante, and Miller are remakes of episodes from the original series. The film's cast includes Dan Aykroyd, Albert Brooks, Scatman Crothers, John Lithgow, Vic Morrow, and Kathleen Quinlan. Original series cast members Burgess Meredith, Patricia Barry, Peter Brocco, Murray Matheson, Kevin McCarthy, Bill Mumy, and William Schallert also appear in the film, with Meredith assuming Serling's role as narrator. It was released on June 24, 1983.