Halloween Horror Watch #15: Twilight Zone: The Movie

Twilight Zone: The Movie -- John Landis, Steven Spielberg, Joe Dante, George Miller



What we've got here is a murderer's row of late-'70s to '80s movie directors. I mentioned my love of Joe Dante before, but in 1983, all of these director's were aces. John Landis had a bunch of great comedies and one of the best werewolf movies ever under his belt. George Miller already made Mad Max and The Road Warrior. Even Spielberg was working just on the cusp of his turn to mindless fluff and sentimental drivel, though his segment, Kick the Can, is just that and is easily the worst of the bunch (and features a magical negro to boot!).

John Landis' short is mired in the tragedy that left his star, Vic Morrow, and two little girls dead. I'd developed a great appreciation of Landis' work by the time I learned of this incident and still find it hard to rationalize my love of many of his films with his irresponsibility and dickish behavior in the aftermath (of course, Steven Spielberg was also a producer of Twilight Zone and should also be held accountable, at least for the hiring of the two girls against California law). It's hard not to watch the segment and think about the history.

George Miller tackles Nightmare at 20,000 Feet with John Lithgow in the William Shatner role. It's about on par with the television episode with some amped up camera work. The greatest improvement is that of the gremlin on the wing. The gremlin in the show looks like some fuzzy bear-man:

Whereas the movie is much creepier*:

There's also a really cool, quick image of Lithgow's eyes bulging out of his head. Fun stuff.

My favorite segment, obviously, is Joe Dante's. He is unleashed in It's a Good Life. The material is familiar, but he makes it his own and turning in a live-action cartoon. Kevin McCarthy and Dick Miller appear, there are amazing sets and puppets, and an insanely creepy sickly girl with no mouth. If one were to distill Joe Dante into a 20ish minute review, one could simply show this. It's awesome.

There's also a cute, if overlong, prologue with Dan Ackroyd and Albert Brook (the must have been given leeway to riff) that has a payoff at the end of 20,000 Feet.

I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that Richard Matheson wrote or had a hand in writing most of these segments because he is the best. Also, score by Jerry Goldsmith (both men worked on the original series)!

*There's something weird going on with the formatting of these pictures.

Book Recommendation: Monsters in the Movies

John Landis has made a few of the most purely entertaining movies ever in several genres. An American American Werewolf in London, The Blues Brothers, Three Amigos, etc. He's also responsible for overseeing a shoot that ended in the deaths of two child extras and Vic Morrow (someone wrote a book about it). I'm not going to lie that learning about this and his flippant responses soured me a bit on the man who is incredibly interesting to listen to when he talks about movies but can seem like kind of a dick (unlike Joe Dante, who seems like the coolest guy on earth). I've learned to separate the man from his movies (as I'm sure most Roman Polanski fans have done).

Fortunately, Monsters in the Movies is all Landis talking about movies, horror movies at that! So it's right in my wheelhouse for enjoying the man and the material. The book is filled with hundreds of fantastic images be they promotional material or scenes from the movies. And the book is exhaustive! From Georges Melies to Mega Shark vs Giant Octopus, it covers basically everything. It also features interviews with some of the greatest people to work in horror: David Cronenberg, Joe Dante, Sam Raimi, Ray Harryhausen, Rick Baker, and so on. There are fun observations (I love the collage of the Monster Carry), acknowledgement of tropes (i.e. Scary Kids), and details the evolution of some icons (Godzilla and King Kong).

Normally, I hate reference books, but this one has enough commentary and visual stimulation that it practically forces me to pick it up. And at 10"x12", that's a feat.