Twilight Zone: The Movie (1983) - 3/10

I’ve watched all the original run of The Twilight Zone and question the need for this anthology film that takes three episodes (including two of my favourites) and remakes them, with one additional new story to round out the package. Is (or was) this just a cash in, was it a tester to see if there was appetite for the 1985 reboot and most importantly, is it any good? Well it starts well, with a prelude featuring Albert Brooks and Dan Aykroyd in a car at night. Part One, ‘Time Out’, then finds Bill Connor (Vic Morrow), walk into a bar, spout a load of antisemitic and racist crap, only to step out and find himself mistaken as a Jew in Nazi Germany, a black man in the KKK loving Deep South and being shot at by the US Army in Vietnam. The execution is clunky, but the moral solid. Next up, in ‘Kick the Can’, Leo Conroy (Bill Quinn) is stuck in an old folks home and is miserable. Mr Bloom (Scatman Crothers) though, well he has other ideas about breathing some life back into the inhabitants. This is the only new story and sadly it’s pretty unwatchable fluff. ‘It’s a Good Life’ is a Twilight Zone classic, it’s simple and cuts to the chase with a spoilt young boy who rules a town through fear. Here though, Anthony (Jeremy Licht), said boy does so only over his family and a young woman, Helen (Kathleen Quinlan), who’s given him a lift home. Accept they’re not his real family. It’s not as good as its inspiration, but there are some good 80s effects. To then the main reason I’m giving this a go, the finale, Nightmare at 20,000 Feet with John Lithgow as the nervous flyer onboard a plane. Once again it’s overblown and clunky compared to the original and Lithgow, good as he is, is no William Shatner. But what of the gremlin? Looking out the window, he sees the monster trying to damage the engine. Where time is taken to slowly build the tension in 1963, 20 years later it goes straight for the accelerator and loses all the joy of the set-up. The monster is typical 80s fodder, flashes of bulging eyes and wild hair, with a constantly shaking camera and a choppy edit, it’s still quite effective though. Its big mistake is going too far, showing the monster too much, having the turbulence and the storm terrifying all the passengers. It’s all a mess. The whole thing is. Crazy that John Landis and Steven Spielberg were responsible. They really should’ve known better.

3/10