(1983)
written by Rod Serling, John Landis, George Clayton Johnson,
Richard Matheson, Melissa Matheson, Jerome Bixby, &
directed by John Landis, Joe Dante, George Miller, &
reviewed by Adam Armstrong
7.9.09
You wanna see something
really scary?
A driver (Albert Brooks) and a hitchhiker (Dan Aykroyd) play a game trying to scare one another with
deadly results. A man (Vic Morrow) who is tired of minorities taking away all of
the good things in his life becomes each type of minority at the worst time in
history, including the Holocaust. A group of people in a retirement home find out that you are truly as young as you feel. A teacher
(Kathleen Quinlan) tries to relate to a child (Jeremy Licht) who is omnipotent. And a man (John Lithgow) who is terrified to fly learns that there is something on
the wing of his plane that is truly terrifying.
When I was but a wee tot, my grandparents had me
watch this with them. I had nightmares for years. Watching it now (in the
middle of the night alone), it wasn’t quite as scary. The prologue is still
kind of freaky as is the last two pieces. The first piece is odd knowing the
Vic Marrow died filming it, a concept that I couldn’t get my head around 20
years ago. And the second piece, the Spielberg piece, is largely forgettable.
As true horror fans we should be familiar with the original series but this big
budget, star studded film didn’t have the heart and the sheer joy of scaring
people in it. Still, I think it is something you should all watch.
3 out of 5