> > Twilight Zone: The Movie
Twilight Zone: The Movie Poster

Twilight Zone: The Movie

Genre: Horror/Suspense, Sci-Fi/Fantasy, Thriller
In Theaters:
3.5
Prologue The film starts with a driver (Albert Brooks) and his passenger (Dan Aykroyd) driving very late at night, singing along to Creedence Clearwater Revival's cover of "Midnight Special" on a cassette, which then breaks. The pair make a game between themselves about TV theme songs, then the conversation turns to what scares them. They begin to talk about their favorite episodes of The Twilight Zone. The passenger then asks the driver, "Do you want to see something really scary?" The driver is in doubt and after much reluctancy, the driver pulls over, and his friend turns away from him and back around, becoming a demonic, corpse-like monster, who then attacks the driver. The scene cuts to outside the car as the familiar Twilight Zone opening theme music and monologue begin, spoken by narrator Burgess Meredith, a veteran of the original TV series. “ You unlock this door with the key of imagination. Beyond it is another dimension. A dimension of sound. A dimension of sight. A dimension of mind. You're moving into a land of both shadow and substance of things and ideas. You've just crossed over into... The Twilight Zone. ” [edit] First segment “ You're about to meet an angry man: Mr. William Connor, who carries on his shoulder a chip the size of the national debt. This is a sour man, a lonely man, who's tired of waiting for the breaks that come to others, but never to him. Mr. William Connor, whose own blind hatred is about to catapult him into the darkest corner of the Twilight Zone. ” The only original segment was the first, directed by John Landis. It is loosely based on the original Twilight Zone episodes "A Quality of Mercy" and "Deaths-Head Revisited". Vic Morrow plays Bill Conner, an outspoken bigot who is bitter after being passed over for a promotion. Drinking in a bar after work with his friends, Bill makes prejudiced remarks and racial slurs towards Jews, blacks and Asians, attracting the attention of a group of black men sitting near them who, of course, strongly resent his racist comments. Bill leaves the bar very angry. When he walks outside, however, he is not in the parking lot. Instead, he finds himself in Vichy France during World War II. He is spotted by a pair of SS officers patrolling the streets, who see him as a Jewish man. After a chase around the city, Bill time travel jumps to the rural South during the 1950s, where the Ku Klux Klan sees him as an African American whom they are about to lynch. Bill is scared and confused and vehemently tries to tell them he's white. While trying to escape the Ku Klux Klan members, he time travels into the Vietnam War, where he is a Vietnamese man nearly blown to bits by U.S. soldiers. Bill has become the selected nationalities of the people against whom he was always prejudiced. The grenade thrown by the soldiers blasts him back to Vichy France, where he is captured by Nazi soldiers and put into an enclosed railroad freight car, along with other Jewish Holocaust prisoners, with no possibility of redemption or rescue, futilely screaming for help as the train pulls away, presumably to a concentration camp or death camp. [edit] Second segment “ It is sometimes said that where there is no hope, there is no life. Case in point: the residents of Sunnyvale Rest Home, where hope is just a memory. But hope just checked into Sunnyvale, disguised as an elderly optimist, who carries his magic in a shiny tin can. ” The second segment is directed by Steven Spielberg and is a remake of the episode "Kick the Can." Scatman Crothers plays an old man named Mr. Bloom who has just moved into his new home at Sunnyvale Retirement Home. Upon his arrival, he sits around kindly and smiles as he listens to the other elders reminisce about the joys they experienced in their days as youths. Mr. Bloom implies to them just because they're old doesn't mean they cannot enjoy life anymore and that feeling young and active has to do with your attitude not your age. He tells them that later that night, he will wake them and that they can join him in a game of "kick the can". All agree; however, a grumpy man named Leo Conroy who is fairly skeptical in his outlook on life disagrees, saying that now that they are all old they cannot engage in physical activity and play the games they once did as children. That night, Mr. Bloom gathers the rest of the optimistic residents outside and plays a game of kick the can. They are all ultimately transformed back into child versions of themselves. Although they are extremely ecstatic to be young again and engage in the activities they once enjoyed so long ago, they also realize that being young again means you not only experience the good aspects of life again but also the bad. They request to be old again, which Mr. Bloom grants to them. Leo Conroy witnesses one resident that still remains young and says that he wants to go with him before the boy runs off. Conroy realizes that he does not have to stop enjoying life because of his old age. The segment ends with Mr. Bloom leaving to another retirement home (which leaves the audience to presume that he repeats the process eternally), and Conroy is outside happily kicking a can around the yard, for he has learned being young at heart is what really matters. [edit] Third segment “ Portrait of a woman in transit. Helen Foley, age 27. Occupation: schoolteacher. Up until now, the pattern of her life has been one of unrelenting sameness, waiting for something different to happen. Helen Foley doesn't know it yet, but her waiting has just ended. ” The third segment, a variant of or sequel to the episode "It's a Good Life," is directed by Joe Dante. Kathleen Quinlan plays a mild-mannered school teacher named Helen Foley who is traveling to her new job. While visiting a bar for directions, she witnesses a young boy (Jeremy Licht) being accosted by a group of rowdy drunks for "accidentally" turning off the TV they were watching. Soon after, Helen decides to leave. Not paying attention, she backs into the boy with her car in the parking lot, damaging his bike. Helen offers the boy, Anthony, a ride home. They eventually get to Anthony's house, which is an immense home in the country. When Helen arrives, she meets some people whom Anthony tells her are his family, his Uncle Walt (Kevin McCarthy) and his sister Ethel (Nancy Cartwright). Also included in the family are Anthony's parents. Helen notices that the family seems extremely apprehensive, though she dismisses it. Anthony shows Helen around the house, including his sister's room; Anthony tells Helen that the girl is his "other" sister, who got involved in an accident. The camera pans down and the audience view that the girl has no mouth, unbeknownst to Helen. The family have dinner, which, as Helen realizes, is a meal made up of Anthony's favourite foods; mainly fast food, including a burger with peanut butter. During dinner, Ethel shouts at Anthony and her plate smashes on the ground, with no explanation. After satisfying her promise of taking Anthony home, Helen attempts to leave; she then discovers Anthony possesses unexplained powers that allow him to do practically anything he desires, including making cartoon characters appear in real life and making people disappear. Helen asks to leave, but Anthony insists that she see Uncle Walt's "act". Uncle Walt is unsure as to what to do with the hat that Anthony provides, and reluctantly pulls a white rabbit out of the hat. The family are relieved and applaud, only to see the rabbit become a demonic rabbit-monster before disappearing again. The people inform her they aren't his real family and that they were brought to the house under false pretense by Anthony, as she was. They also explain that they cannot leave. Helen finds a note on the floor that a family member has left, reading, "Help US! Anthony Is A Monster!". The note is shown to be from Ethel after a short investigation, and Anthony, using his mental powers, sends Ethel into the television set where she is killed by a large, frightening, somewhat dragon-like cartoon character. After the "family" has angered Anthony, he instantly makes them and the house disappear, leaving himself and Helen in a limbo-like state surrounded by literal nothingness. Helen promises Anthony that she will be his true friend if he agrees not to abuse his power anymore. Anthony agrees to use his powers for good, and he and Helen ride off together to her new home, surrounded by bright meadows filled with flowers.. [edit] Fourth segment “ What you're looking at could be the end of a particularly terrifying nightmare. It isn't. It's the beginning. Introducing Mr. John Valentine, air traveller. His destination: the Twilight Zone. ” The fourth segment is a remake of the episode "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet", and is directed by George Miller. John Lithgow plays the nervous and stressed-out airline passenger Mr. John Valentine. The story begins with flight attendants attempting to coax Mr. Valentine from the lavatory as he tries to recover from what seems to be a panic attack. Although not mentioned during the segment, it is most likely that Mr. Valentine is suffering from severe aviatophobia. He is repeatedly assured by the flight attendants that everything is going to be all right, but his nerves and antics disturb the surrounding passengers. As Mr. Valentine takes his seat, he notices a hideous gremlin on the wing of the plane and begins to spiral into severe panic. He watches as the creature wreaks havoc on the wing, losing more control each time he sees it do something new. Valentine finally snaps, grabs a hand gun from another passenger, an air marshal, shoots out the window (causing a breach in the pressurized cabin), and begins firing at the creature. This only serves to catch the attention of the gremlin, who rushes up to Valentine and promptly destroys the gun. After a tense moment, the gremlin grabs Valentine's face, then simply scolds him by wagging its finger in a "no, no" manner. The creature leaps into the sky as the airplane begins to make an emergency landing. As Valentine is wrapped in a straitjacket and carried off in an ambulance, the police, crew, and passengers begin to discuss the incident, writing off Valentine as insane. The aircraft maintenance crew soon arrives however, and everyone gathers to examine the massive amounts of unexplained damage to the plane's engines. [edit] Epilogue The end of the fourth segment connects with the prologue. Valentine is in an ambulance going to a hospital when the driver (played by Dan Aykroyd, from the opening) starts playing Creedence Clearwater Revival's "Midnight Special". The ambulance driver turns around and says, "Heard you had a big scare up there, huh? Wanna see something really scary?" The film then ends as the scene fades out to a starry night sky along with Rod Serling's opening monologue from the first season of The Twilight Zone. “ There is a fifth dimension, beyond that which is known to man. It is the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition, and it lies between the pit of man's fears and the summit of his knowledge. This is the dimension of imagination. It is an area which we call the Twilight Zone. ” [edit] Helicopter accident The making of the movie had consequences which overshadowed the film itself. During the filming of a segment directed by John Landis on July 23, 1982, actor Vic Morrow and child actors Myca Dinh Le (age 7) and Renee Shin-Yi Chen (age 6) died in an accident involving a helicopter being used on the set. Pyrotechnic explosions caused the low-flying helicopter to spin out of control and crash. The rotor blade decapitated Morrow and Le; Chen was crushed by the helicopter's skid. The helicopter's passengers suffered only minor injuries. The National Transportation Safety Board reported in October 1984: “ [T]he probable cause of the accident was the detonation of debris-laden high temperature special effects explosions too near a low flying helicopter leading to foreign object damage to one rotor blade and delamination due to heat to the other rotor blade, the separation of the helicopter's tail rotor assembly, and the uncontrolled descent of the helicopter. The proximity of the helicopter to the special effects explosions was due to the failure to establish direct communications and coordination between the pilot, who was in command of the helicopter operation, and the film director, who was in charge of the filming operation. ” The accident led to legal action against the filmmakers which lasted nearly a decade, and changed the regulations involving children working on movie sets at night and during special effects-heavy scenes. Hollywood also avoided helicopter-related stunts for many years, until the CGI revolution of the 1990s made it possible to use digital versions. As a result of the accident, one second assistant director had his name removed from the credits and replaced with the pseudonym Alan Smithee. The incident also ended the friendship between director Landis and producer Spielberg.

Director:

Steven Spielberg , Joe Dante , George Miller
Screenplay: , , Rod Serling , Jerome Bixby , Melissa Mathison , Robert Garland , George Clayton Johnson
Studio: Warner Bros. Pictures
DVD Release: 2007-10-09 00:00:00.0
Tagline: You're travelling through another dimension. A dimension, not only of sight and sound, but of mind. A journey into a wondrous land whose boundaries are that of imagination. Next stop, the Twilight Zone!
Trailers & Photos (1)
1 / 1
Synopsis
Prologue The film starts with a driver (Albert Brooks) and his passenger (Dan Aykroyd) driving very late at night, singing along to Creedence Clearwater Revival's cover of "Midnight Special" on a cassette, which then breaks. The pair make a game between themselves about TV theme songs, then the conversation turns to what scares them. They begin to talk about their favorite episodes of The Twilight Zone. The passenger then asks the driver, "Do you want to see something really scary?" The driver is in doubt and after much reluctancy, the driver pulls over, and his friend turns away from him and back around, becoming a demonic, corpse-like monster, who then attacks the driver. The scene cuts to outside the car as the familiar Twilight Zone opening theme music and monologue begin, spoken by narrator Burgess Meredith, a veteran of the original TV series. “ You unlock this door with the key of imagination. Beyond it is another dimension. A dimension of sound. A dimension of sight. A dimension of mind. You're moving into a land of both shadow and substance of things and ideas. You've just crossed over into... The Twilight Zone. ” [edit] First segment “ You're about to meet an angry man: Mr. William Connor, who carries on his shoulder a chip the size of the national debt. This is a sour man, a lonely man, who's tired of waiting for the breaks that come to others, but never to him. Mr. William Connor, whose own blind hatred is about to catapult him into the darkest corner of the Twilight Zone. ” The only original segment was the first, directed by John Landis. It is loosely based on the original Twilight Zone episodes "A Quality of Mercy" and "Deaths-Head Revisited". Vic Morrow plays Bill Conner, an outspoken bigot who is bitter after being passed over for a promotion. Drinking in a bar after work with his friends, Bill makes prejudiced remarks and racial slurs towards Jews, blacks and Asians, attracting the attention of a group of black men sitting near them who, of course, strongly resent his racist comments. Bill leaves the bar very angry. When he walks outside, however, he is not in the parking lot. Instead, he finds himself in Vichy France during World War II. He is spotted by a pair of SS officers patrolling the streets, who see him as a Jewish man. After a chase around the city, Bill time travel jumps to the rural South during the 1950s, where the Ku Klux Klan sees him as an African American whom they are about to lynch. Bill is scared and confused and vehemently tries to tell them he's white. While trying to escape the Ku Klux Klan members, he time travels into the Vietnam War, where he is a Vietnamese man nearly blown to bits by U.S. soldiers. Bill has become the selected nationalities of the people against whom he was always prejudiced. The grenade thrown by the soldiers blasts him back to Vichy France, where he is captured by Nazi soldiers and put into an enclosed railroad freight car, along with other Jewish Holocaust prisoners, with no possibility of redemption or rescue, futilely screaming for help as the train pulls away, presumably to a concentration camp or death camp. [edit] Second segment “ It is sometimes said that where there is no hope, there is no life. Case in point: the residents of Sunnyvale Rest Home, where hope is just a memory. But hope just checked into Sunnyvale, disguised as an elderly optimist, who carries his magic in a shiny tin can. ” The second segment is directed by Steven Spielberg and is a remake of the episode "Kick the Can." Scatman Crothers plays an old man named Mr. Bloom who has just moved into his new home at Sunnyvale Retirement Home. Upon his arrival, he sits around kindly and smiles as he listens to the other elders reminisce about the joys they experienced in their days as youths. Mr. Bloom implies to them just because they're old doesn't mean they cannot enjoy life anymore and that feeling young and active has to do with your attitude not your age. He tells them that later that night, he will wake them and that they can join him in a game of "kick the can". All agree; however, a grumpy man named Leo Conroy who is fairly skeptical in his outlook on life disagrees, saying that now that they are all old they cannot engage in physical activity and play the games they once did as children. That night, Mr. Bloom gathers the rest of the optimistic residents outside and plays a game of kick the can. They are all ultimately transformed back into child versions of themselves. Although they are extremely ecstatic to be young again and engage in the activities they once enjoyed so long ago, they also realize that being young again means you not only experience the good aspects of life again but also the bad. They request to be old again, which Mr. Bloom grants to them. Leo Conroy witnesses one resident that still remains young and says that he wants to go with him before the boy runs off. Conroy realizes that he does not have to stop enjoying life because of his old age. The segment ends with Mr. Bloom leaving to another retirement home (which leaves the audience to presume that he repeats the process eternally), and Conroy is outside happily kicking a can around the yard, for he has learned being young at heart is what really matters. [edit] Third segment “ Portrait of a woman in transit. Helen Foley, age 27. Occupation: schoolteacher. Up until now, the pattern of her life has been one of unrelenting sameness, waiting for something different to happen. Helen Foley doesn't know it yet, but her waiting has just ended. ” The third segment, a variant of or sequel to the episode "It's a Good Life," is directed by Joe Dante. Kathleen Quinlan plays a mild-mannered school teacher named Helen Foley who is traveling to her new job. While visiting a bar for directions, she witnesses a young boy (Jeremy Licht) being accosted by a group of rowdy drunks for "accidentally" turning off the TV they were watching. Soon after, Helen decides to leave. Not paying attention, she backs into the boy with her car in the parking lot, damaging his bike. Helen offers the boy, Anthony, a ride home. They eventually get to Anthony's house, which is an immense home in the country. When Helen arrives, she meets some people whom Anthony tells her are his family, his Uncle Walt (Kevin McCarthy) and his sister Ethel (Nancy Cartwright). Also included in the family are Anthony's parents. Helen notices that the family seems extremely apprehensive, though she dismisses it. Anthony shows Helen around the house, including his sister's room; Anthony tells Helen that the girl is his "other" sister, who got involved in an accident. The camera pans down and the audience view that the girl has no mouth, unbeknownst to Helen. The family have dinner, which, as Helen realizes, is a meal made up of Anthony's favourite foods; mainly fast food, including a burger with peanut butter. During dinner, Ethel shouts at Anthony and her plate smashes on the ground, with no explanation. After satisfying her promise of taking Anthony home, Helen attempts to leave; she then discovers Anthony possesses unexplained powers that allow him to do practically anything he desires, including making cartoon characters appear in real life and making people disappear. Helen asks to leave, but Anthony insists that she see Uncle Walt's "act". Uncle Walt is unsure as to what to do with the hat that Anthony provides, and reluctantly pulls a white rabbit out of the hat. The family are relieved and applaud, only to see the rabbit become a demonic rabbit-monster before disappearing again. The people inform her they aren't his real family and that they were brought to the house under false pretense by Anthony, as she was. They also explain that they cannot leave. Helen finds a note on the floor that a family member has left, reading, "Help US! Anthony Is A Monster!". The note is shown to be from Ethel after a short investigation, and Anthony, using his mental powers, sends Ethel into the television set where she is killed by a large, frightening, somewhat dragon-like cartoon character. After the "family" has angered Anthony, he instantly makes them and the house disappear, leaving himself and Helen in a limbo-like state surrounded by literal nothingness. Helen promises Anthony that she will be his true friend if he agrees not to abuse his power anymore. Anthony agrees to use his powers for good, and he and Helen ride off together to her new home, surrounded by bright meadows filled with flowers.. [edit] Fourth segment “ What you're looking at could be the end of a particularly terrifying nightmare. It isn't. It's the beginning. Introducing Mr. John Valentine, air traveller. His destination: the Twilight Zone. ” The fourth segment is a remake of the episode "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet", and is directed by George Miller. John Lithgow plays the nervous and stressed-out airline passenger Mr. John Valentine. The story begins with flight attendants attempting to coax Mr. Valentine from the lavatory as he tries to recover from what seems to be a panic attack. Although not mentioned during the segment, it is most likely that Mr. Valentine is suffering from severe aviatophobia. He is repeatedly assured by the flight attendants that everything is going to be all right, but his nerves and antics disturb the surrounding passengers. As Mr. Valentine takes his seat, he notices a hideous gremlin on the wing of the plane and begins to spiral into severe panic. He watches as the creature wreaks havoc on the wing, losing more control each time he sees it do something new. Valentine finally snaps, grabs a hand gun from another passenger, an air marshal, shoots out the window (causing a breach in the pressurized cabin), and begins firing at the creature. This only serves to catch the attention of the gremlin, who rushes up to Valentine and promptly destroys the gun. After a tense moment, the gremlin grabs Valentine's face, then simply scolds him by wagging its finger in a "no, no" manner. The creature leaps into the sky as the airplane begins to make an emergency landing. As Valentine is wrapped in a straitjacket and carried off in an ambulance, the police, crew, and passengers begin to discuss the incident, writing off Valentine as insane. The aircraft maintenance crew soon arrives however, and everyone gathers to examine the massive amounts of unexplained damage to the plane's engines. [edit] Epilogue The end of the fourth segment connects with the prologue. Valentine is in an ambulance going to a hospital when the driver (played by Dan Aykroyd, from the opening) starts playing Creedence Clearwater Revival's "Midnight Special". The ambulance driver turns around and says, "Heard you had a big scare up there, huh? Wanna see something really scary?" The film then ends as the scene fades out to a starry night sky along with Rod Serling's opening monologue from the first season of The Twilight Zone. “ There is a fifth dimension, beyond that which is known to man. It is the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition, and it lies between the pit of man's fears and the summit of his knowledge. This is the dimension of imagination. It is an area which we call the Twilight Zone. ” [edit] Helicopter accident The making of the movie had consequences which overshadowed the film itself. During the filming of a segment directed by John Landis on July 23, 1982, actor Vic Morrow and child actors Myca Dinh Le (age 7) and Renee Shin-Yi Chen (age 6) died in an accident involving a helicopter being used on the set. Pyrotechnic explosions caused the low-flying helicopter to spin out of control and crash. The rotor blade decapitated Morrow and Le; Chen was crushed by the helicopter's skid. The helicopter's passengers suffered only minor injuries. The National Transportation Safety Board reported in October 1984: “ [T]he probable cause of the accident was the detonation of debris-laden high temperature special effects explosions too near a low flying helicopter leading to foreign object damage to one rotor blade and delamination due to heat to the other rotor blade, the separation of the helicopter's tail rotor assembly, and the uncontrolled descent of the helicopter. The proximity of the helicopter to the special effects explosions was due to the failure to establish direct communications and coordination between the pilot, who was in command of the helicopter operation, and the film director, who was in charge of the filming operation. ” The accident led to legal action against the filmmakers which lasted nearly a decade, and changed the regulations involving children working on movie sets at night and during special effects-heavy scenes. Hollywood also avoided helicopter-related stunts for many years, until the CGI revolution of the 1990s made it possible to use digital versions. As a result of the accident, one second assistant director had his name removed from the credits and replaced with the pseudonym Alan Smithee. The incident also ended the friendship between director Landis and producer Spielberg.
editor-ajax-loader
a4
a4
Reply Report Delete Edit
Choose Your Language
Interface Language
This changes the interface language of the site. It won't change the language of the site content.
Content Language
This changes the content language of the site. It won't change your interface language.
editor-ajax-loader