Movies you might have missed: Twilight Zone

A theatrical adaptation of The Twilight Zone television series is soon to open at the Almeida Theatre in London. Rod Serling’s programme, which aired on CBS between 1959 and 1964, is widely regarded as one of television’s crowning achievements and it is little wonder that the anthology series has spawned a number of imitators and adaptations. In 1983, Twilight Zone: The Movie was released with segments directed by John Landis, Steven Spielberg, Joe Dante and George Miller and yet the merits of the project have been largely overshadowed by a tragedy that took place during shooting.

As is often the case with anthology films, this is a mixed bag. The prologue, starring comedians Albert Brooks and Dan Aykroyd, is a miniature gem: a truck driver and hitchhiker sing along to a Creedence cassette before things take a turn for the macabre.

Landis directed that section as well as the story that follows, a dark tale of a racist man (Vic Morrow) who finds himself transported back to Nazi-occupied France, the rural South during a lynching and the Vietnam War, in each instance discovering he is in the shoes of the persecuted minority. It is a bleak morality tale with the darkest of conclusions but the reality was even more distressing: Morrow and two child actors were killed filming a more upbeat coda after a stunt helicopter crashed.

Spielberg’s segment, involving the residents of a retirement home being transformed into childhood versions of themselves, is a little too saccharine, while Dante, a year before making Gremlins, is responsible for a surreal, cartoonish fantasy that evokes the best work of Tim Burton. The film concludes with a remake of one of the most famous episodes of the original series directed by Miller (best known for the Mad Max series) in which John Lithgow plays an airline passenger who notices a hideous creature on the wing of the plane. It is a claustrophobic and terrifying descent in every sense of the word.

This is far from a perfect film and the high-profile legal case that followed the deaths on set ensured a terrible kind of infamy. Despite this, some of the direction and acting on show here is of the highest calibre and it is a pleasure to see filmmakers like Dante and Miller hit their stride so early in their careers. Above all, one is reminded of the genius of the source material, a blessing and a curse for both this adaptation and the new play.