Twilight Zone: The Movie is a 1983 American science fiction horror anthology film produced by Steven Spielberg and John Landis. Based on Rod Serling's 1959–1964 television series of the same name, the film features four stories directed by Landis, Spielberg, Joe Dante, and George Miller. Landis' segment is an original story created for the film, while the segments by Spielberg, Dante, and Miller are remakes of episodes from the original series. The film's cast includes Dan Aykroyd, Albert Brooks, Scatman Crothers, John Lithgow, Vic Morrow, and Kathleen Quinlan. Original series cast members Burgess Meredith, Patricia Barry, Peter Brocco, Murray Matheson, Kevin McCarthy, Bill Mumy, and William Schallert also appear in the film, with Meredith assuming Serling's role as narrator.
The film's production achieved notoriety when Morrow and two illegally-hired child actors were killed in a stunt helicopter crash during filming of Landis' segment. The deaths led to several years of legal action; although no individuals were found to be criminally liable, new procedures and safety standards were imposed in the filmmaking industry. Upon release, the film received mixed reviews, with praise directed at Dante and Miller's segments, but criticism towards the segments by Landis and Spielberg. Despite the controversy and mixed reception, it was a commercial success, grossing $42 million on a $10 million budget.
Plot[]
Prologue[]
This segment was written and directed by John Landis. Two men are in a car driving along a country road late at night. The conversation turns to what episodes of The Twilight Zone they found most scary. The passenger then asks, "Do you want to see something really scary?" and says to pull over. He transforms into a monster and devours the driver.
Segment one[]
The first segment is a partial reworking, but not a full remake, of the episode "A Quality of Mercy". This segment was also written and directed by John Landis.
Bill Connor is bitter after being passed over for a promotion in favor of a Jewish co-worker. Drinking in a bar after work with his friends, Bill utters slurs towards Jewish, black and Asian people. A black man sitting nearby asks him to stop. Bill leaves the bar angrily, and finds himself in Nazi-occupied France during World War II. A pair of SS officers patrolling the streets interrogate him. Bill can't answer satisfactorily since he doesn't speak German. A chase ensues, and Bill ends up on the ledge of a building, where he is shot at by the officers.
He falls from the ledge and lands in rural Alabama during the 1950s, where a group of Ku Klux Klansmen see him as an African-American man who they are about to lynch. Bill tells them he is white, to no avail. While trying to escape, he jumps into a lake and surfaces in a jungle during the Vietnam War, being fired at by American soldiers, one of whom throws a grenade. Instead of killing him, the grenade launches him into occupied France again. There he is captured by the SS officers and put into an enclosed railroad freight car, along with Jewish prisoners bound for a concentration camp. Bill sees the bar with his friends standing outside, looking for him. He screams for help, but they can't see or hear him or the train as it pulls away.
Segment two[]
The second segment is a remake of the episode "Kick the Can". This segment was directed by Steven Spielberg, from a screenplay by George Clayton Johnson, Richard Matheson, and Melissa Mathison (credited as Josh Rogan), and a story by Johnson.
An old man named Mr. Bloom has just moved into Sunnyvale Retirement Home. He listens to the other elders reminisce about the joys they experienced in their youth. Bloom insists that being elderly should not, and need not, prevent them from enjoying life. He invites them to join him, later that night, for a game of kick the can. Leo Conroy objects, saying that they cannot engage in physical activity because they are all elderly.
While Mr. Conroy sleeps, Mr. Bloom gathers the rest of the residents outside and plays the game, during which they are transformed into childhood versions of themselves. They are ecstatic to be young again, engaging in activities they enjoyed long ago, but their thoughts soon turn to practical matters such as where they will spend the night, since they will no longer be welcomed in the retirement home, and their families will not recognize them. They ask to be their true age again, and Mr. Bloom grants their wish, satisfied that, as with himself, their minds will remain young. Leo Conroy wakes up and notices that one resident, Mr. Agee, has opted to remain young. Conroy asks for Agee to take him along, but Agee tells him that such is impossible.
The next morning, Mr. Bloom finds Conroy kicking a can around the yard – having changed his outlook on life; Bloom breaks the fourth wall to assure the audience that "He'll get it." Bloom then departs from Sunnyvale for another retirement home, in order to spread his good-natured magic among other senior citizens.
Segment three[]
The third segment is a remake of the episode "It's a Good Life". This segment was directed by Joe Dante, from a screenplay by Richard Matheson, based on the short story by Jerome Bixby.
Helen Foley, traveling to a new job, visits a rural bar for directions. While talking to the owner, she witnesses a young boy, Anthony, being harassed by a local trying to watch a boxing match. Helen comes to the boy's defense. As Helen leaves the bar, she backs into Anthony with her car in the parking lot, damaging his bicycle. Helen offers Anthony a ride home.
When Helen arrives with Anthony at home, she meets his family: Uncle Walt, sister Ethel, and mother and father. Anthony's family are excessively welcoming. Anthony starts to show Helen around the house, while the family rifles through Helen's purse and coat. There is a television set in every room showing cartoons. She comes to the room of another sister, Sara. Helen calls out to the girl, who is in a wheelchair and watching television, and gets no response. Anthony explains that Sara had been in an accident; Helen is not able to see that the girl has no mouth.
Anthony announces that it is time for dinner, which consists of ice cream, candy apples, potato chips, and hamburgers topped with peanut butter. Confused at first at the family's unconventional diet, Helen thinks that this is a birthday dinner for Anthony. Ethel complains at the prospect of another birthday; Anthony glares at her, and her plate flies out of her hands. Helen attempts to leave, but Anthony urges Helen to stay and see Uncle Walt's "hat trick". A top hat appears on top of the television set. Uncle Walt is very nervous about what could be in the hat, but he pulls out an ordinary rabbit. Anthony insists on an encore, and a large, mutant rabbit springs from the hat. As Helen attempts to flee, she spills the contents of her purse, and Anthony finds a note inside stating "Help us! Anthony is a monster!" When the family points the finger at Ethel, she reveals to Helen that they are not Anthony's real relatives; Anthony brought them to his house to be his surrogate family after he killed his parents, and presumably he is doing the same with Helen. In punishment for writing the note, Anthony sends Ethel into the television set where she is pursued and eaten by a cartoon monster.
Helen attempts to escape only to have the door blocked by a giant eye. Anthony vents his frustration at everyone being afraid of him, summoning another cartoonish monster out of the television. When Helen tells him to "wish it away", he makes the entire house disappear, taking himself and Helen outside the physical plane of existence. Anthony says that he sent his "family" back where they came from, since they did not want to be with him. He cannot understand why everyone is unhappy with him, since he believes he provided for their every possible desire.
Helen offers to be Anthony's teacher and student, and help him find new uses for his power. After extracting a promise that she would never leave him, Anthony welcomes Helen's offer and makes her car reappear. As they drive through a barren landscape, meadows filled with bright flowers spring up alongside the road in the car's wake.
Segment four[]
The fourth segment is a remake of the episode "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet". This segment was directed by George Miller, and written by Richard Matheson.
While flying through a violent thunderstorm, airline passenger John Valentine is in a lavatory trying to recover from a panic attack due to a fear of flying. The flight attendants coax Valentine from the lavatory and back to his seat.
Valentine notices a hideous gremlin on the wing of the plane and spirals into another severe panic. He watches as the creature wreaks havoc on the wing, throwing debris into one of the plane's turbofan engines and causing a flameout. Valentine finally snaps and attempts to break the window with an oxygen canister, but is wrestled to the ground by another passenger, a sky marshal. Valentine takes the marshal's revolver, shoots out the window (causing a breach in the pressurized cabin), and begins firing at the gremlin. This catches the attention of the gremlin, who rushes up to Valentine and bites the gun in half. After they notice that the plane is landing, the gremlin grabs Valentine's face, then simply scolds him for spoiling its fun by wagging its finger in his face. The creature leaps into the sky and flies away as the airplane begins its emergency landing.
The police, crew, and passengers write off Valentine as insane. However, the aircraft maintenance crew arrives and finds the damage to the plane's engines complete with claw marks, while a straitjacketed Valentine is carried off in an ambulance. The ambulance driver is the car passenger from the prologue. The driver turns to Valentine and says "Heard you had a big scare up there, huh? Wanna see something really scary?"