Review of Twilight Zone: The Movie (1983) by Bill M — 18 Jul 2014

The 1983 big screen version of the popular cult 50's series "the twillight zone" is the definition of a "mixed bag", containing four wildly uneven tales of the unknown directed by four top mainstream filmakers who where at the hight of thier powers at the time, john landis (the blues brothers, an american werewolf in london) steven spielberg, joe dante (gremlins) and george miller (mad max) this probably should have been alot better than it was and is, but it's still sporadicly entertaining and very much worth watching overall.

First we have one of the films strongest bit's, a short opening segment starring dan akroyd and albert brookes driving down a dark highway that has a great punch line to it (which I wont spoil) this sets the tone nicely and gets things off to a great start.

"Time out" (john landis) 2 stars. then the film instantly takes a dip in momentum with the first of the main stories. A misguided story about a biggot who gets a serious taste of his own medicine when he is inexplicably catapulted across time, becoming a jew hunted by natzis, being seen as a black man and nearly killed by the ku klux klan, and as a viet kong in the vietnam war before finding himself trapped in the holocaust, it's way too dark and serious and instantly kills the spooky mood of fun set up by the opening, on top of that actor victor morrow and two vietnamese children where killed by a helicopter on set in one of the most notorious and grusome accidents in hollywood history and you can really see where they had to cut the story short as a result, in the end the horror behind the the making casts one hell of a black shadow over this part of the film.

"Kick the can" (steven spielberg) 1 star. Then we get to undoubtedly the worst part of the whole thing, a mawkish, syrupy and horrificaly sentimantal load of crap which has to be the single worst thing steven spielberg has ever put his name to (yes, including indiana jones 4) a tale of some elderly folk at a retirement home given a second chance at youth by "scatman crothers"! it's just unbearably awfull, soppy and contains the worst english accent by any american actor ever as deliverd by the (for some reason) peter panish young version of one of an elderly english thespian character, dick van dyke's "chimernie sweep" in mary poppins is oscar worthy in comparison. It's shocking that spielberg is actualy responsibal for this atrocity, and that he deliverd by a long way the weakest thing about this film.

"It's a good life" (joe dante) 3 stars. Things were looking very bleak after the glowing, sceaky clean hell of the previous story, and the film as a whole seems on some doomed downward trend but then things pick up a fair bit with this typicaly meschevious, inventively macabre story from joe dante, about a young woman trapped in a house straight out of a cartoon from hell with a boy who can bring to life anything he imagines, including evil loony toons characters come to life, from the twisted set desighn to the wonderfully realised live action cartoon monsters this is all very lively and entertainingly demented, giving the film a much needed boosts, a stand out is a scene where a hapless girl is transported to the cartoon world and is subsequently eaten by it's animated inhabitents. Alas it feels too little too late to truly save the film as a whole. But then....

"NIghtmare at 20'000 feet" (george millar) 5 stars. Right at the finnish line george millars tale saves the whole, a supremly well realised, tense and suspensfull story of a man (30 rock's from the suns johnathen lithgow) on an overnight plane journey who is terrified of flying and see's a monster that no one else can tearing away at the wing, realising it's up to him alone to stop it before the plane crashes. It's fun, frightening and nail biting and even has a great monster and a superbly unhinged performance from lithgow, this is really what the entire film should have been like, if that were the case we'd be looking at a great film, as it is twillight zone the movie is a massively hit and miss ride but one worth taking nonetheless, heres hopeing hollywood re enters the twillight zone again sometime, and gives us something closer to the unrestrained piece of wholely mad and inventively fun mainstream entertainment this could have been.