Review of Twilight Zone: The Movie (1983) by Tibor B — 24 Apr 2013

A pretty poor stab at a freaky portmanteau movie under the Twilight Zone banner, with some big name 80s directors involved. John Landis kicks off with a fairly simple minded chase sequence showing a bitter bigot get some comeuppance being put in the shoes of people suffering real persecution in recent history.

Spielberg contributes a fairly nauseating tale as Scatman Crothers magically makes the inhabitants of an old people's home into children again. Joe Dante improves things slightly with a rather madcap section of a young boy whose telekinesis powers are jumbled and badly influenced by over-exposure to Looney tunes cartoons.

The final scene is perhaps the best known, with George "Mad Max" Miller directing a hysterical John Lithgow as he sees a real "gremlin" sabotage the airliner he's on. It's bookended by a pretty dumb Dan Aykroyd scare gag.

It's all a rather weak, mixed bag that seems to have been someone's misjudged vanity project.