Review of Twilight Zone: The Movie (1983) by Don R — 04 Jul 2008

I decided to go back in time and visit the 80's for one of the few horror films from the 80's that I've never seen before. Being a huge fan of 80's horror, I know that everyone and anyone saw this movie back in the day, as I've heard stories from relatives about it. But I've never actually taken the time to sit down and watch it, as I did today.

What I can say is that the opening is amazing and terrifying. It came out of left field.

The rest of the film to me seemed like a complete waste. The first story, albeit a good story, felt out of place to me in the twilight zone. Racism is still a problem twenty five years later, and we have much better whole movies (like Crash) that deal with it.

Segment two is the weakest, which surprised me being it came from Steven Spielberg. It was interesting and heartwarming, but heartwarming isn't what I expect from the zone.

The third story intrigued me but fell flat at the same time.

It's the final story with John Lithgow, Nightmare at 40000 feet, that really was good. Sure by today's standards the monster on the plan was pretty lame looking, but I put myself in the shoes of a 15 year old kid in 1983, and that is pretty terrifying.

And closing out the movie with Dan Aykroyd's crazy character was a real charmer.

Good scares at times, but kind of falls flat for me.