Eerie shadow lights
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | Eerie shadow lights |
| Original title | Twilight Zone: The Movie |
| Country of production | United States |
| original language | English , German , French , Vietnamese |
| Publishing year | 1983 |
| length | 101 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 12 |
| Rod | |
| Director |
John Landis (prologue and episode 1), Steven Spielberg (episode 2), Joe Dante (episode 3), George Miller (episode 4) |
| script |
John Landis (prologue and episode 1), George Clayton Johnson (episode 2), Melissa Mathison (episode 2), Jerome Bixby (original story episode 2), Richard Matheson (episode 2 + 3 + 4) |
| production |
John Landis , Steven Spielberg , Kathleen Kennedy (episode 2), Michael Finnell (episode 3), Jon Davison (episode 3) |
| music | Jerry Goldsmith |
| camera |
Stevan Larner (prologue and episode 1), Allen Daviau (episode 2 + 4), John Hora (episode 3) |
| cut |
Malcolm Campbell (prologue and episode 1), Michael Kahn (episode 2), Tina Hirsch (episode 3), Howard E. Smith (episode 4) |
| occupation | |
| |
Eerie shadow lights (Original title: Twilight Zone: The Movie ) is an episode film with fantasy and horror elements from 1983. The film is based on the television series Twilight Zone .
action
Prologue : Two people drive down a lonely country road in a car in the dark night and listen to music. When Title The Midnight Special by Creedence Clearwater Revival both sing together. When the music cassette no longer works due to a band salad and radio reception is not possible, they both think about how to pass the time. You begin to guess the associated TV programs from the melodies played. They also come across the TV series Twilight Zone . The passenger now asks the driver if he wants to see something really scary, but he would have to stop for a moment. The driver agrees, and shortly after they stop, the passenger turns into a monster and attacks the driver.
First episode (“Time Out”): Bill Connor enters a bar where he meets two friends. He is bitter that he was not promoted, but a Jewish colleague. He makes racist remarks and loudly expresses his hatred of Jews, Arabs, Asians and blacks. In a rage, he leaves the bar again through the front door. Here, however, he finds himself in a completely different area and time. Apparently he is now in Nazi-occupied France during World War II . He is picked up by two Germans in SS uniform who are surprised at his strange appearance and clothing. You address him first in German, then in French, but Conner doesn't understand a word. He escapes into a house, where he is reported by the residents to the search troops, who then storm the apartment. He escapes through the window onto a ledge on the outside wall. With more Nazis arriving, he got stuck and was shot at when he lost his balance and fell from the ledge. Once on the ground, he is apparently in the southern United States during the 1940s and is picked up by a white-hooded group, the Ku Klux Klan . The leader insults him as a "nigger" and demands that they hang him up on the nearest tree immediately. He manages to escape, but the men stay on his heels. When he comes to a lake, he jumps into it and goes underground. When he appears again, he finds himself in a Vietnamese jungle during the Vietnam War . A group of American soldiers thinks he is a Viet Cong . They open fire and throw a hand grenade at him. The explosion throws him out of the jungle against a wall of a Nazi building. He is picked up, given a Jewish star and thrown into a train carriage. When he looks out of the train, he sees the restaurant he visited earlier and his two acquaintances who are standing in front of it. He tries to call out to them, but they cannot hear him, and the train departs.
Second episode ("Kick the Can"): In the "Sunnyvale" retirement home, Mr. Bloom turns some old residents into young children. They first enjoy their physical youth, but then want to be transformed back and remain young in spirit in the future. Mr. Bloom then makes his way to the nearest old people's home.
Third episode ("It's a Good Life"): The 27-year-old teacher Helen Foley gets lost on her way and asks for directions in a diner . As she continues she runs into a little boy on his bike. The young Anthony remains unharmed, but his bike is damaged, and so Helen offers the boy to drive him home in the car. Four people live in a remote house, whom he introduces to Helen as his sister, his uncle and both of his parents. It turns out that the four people are actually not his family, but people who Anthony is imprisoned in the house. He has the power to be able to wish for anything he wants. Helen explains to him that she wants to help him control his power and they continue together.
Fourth episode ("Nightmare at 20,000 Feet"): John Valentine, who is afraid of flying, flies in a passenger plane and suddenly sees a creature on the wing that is tampering with the engine. When he sees the creature begin to destroy the aircraft, he snatches the pistol from a flight security attendant and begins to shoot the creature through the window. However, the creature can destroy the gun. The pressure drop through the broken window forces the plane to make an emergency landing, and Valentine is immediately put in a straitjacket on the ground .
Epilog : John Valentine is put in an ambulance and taken away. The ambulance driver inserts a tape and the famous The Midnight Special from Creedence Clearwater Revival sounds . The driver turns out to be the co-driver from the prologue. He asks Valentine if he wants to see something scary.
background
- The voice of the narrator is originally from Burgess Meredith , who is not mentioned in the credits. In the German version you can hear the voice of Ernst Wilhelm Borchert .
- Andy House, the second assistant director of the first episode, had his name replaced with the pseudonym Alan Smithee due to the accident during the shooting .
- The film was shot in various locations in California , with the interior shooting at Warner Brothers Studios in Burbank .
- Production costs were estimated at $ 10 million. US cinemas grossed around 29.5 million US dollars.
- It was released in the US on June 24, 1983, and in Germany on January 20, 1984.
Deadly accident
While filming the first episode under director John Landis, there was an accident in Valencia , California on July 23, 1982 at around 2:20 a.m. ( UTC − 7 ), in which the main actor Vic Morrow and two child actors - a six-year-old girl (Renee Shin- Yi Chen) and a seven-year-old boy (Myca Dinh Le) - died: Morrow was supposed to cross an artificial river with both children in his arms against the backdrop of a Vietnamese village, while he was being chased by a US helicopter ( Bell UH-1 B) should be, while pyrotechnic effects created explosions to simulate artillery fire on the village. The helicopter flew very low (around eight meters) and was hit by explosions that destroyed the tail rotor and caused the aircraft to spin uncontrollably. The helicopter crashed on the cast, with Morrow and the boy being beheaded by the main rotor and the girl being pierced by a skid. All three people on the ground were killed immediately, the six occupants of the helicopter suffered only minor injuries in the crash.
Reviews
Lexicon of International Film : Four stories of different styles and quality, located on the border between fiction and reality. The idea for the episode film was borrowed from a very successful television series in the USA in the early 1960s, in which small horror and fantasy stories were converted into short films. Only John Landis used an original story, the other three are based on the "Twilight Zone" stories "Kick the Can" (1962), "It's a Good Life" (1961) and "Nightmare at 10,000 Feet" (1963). Located somewhere between horror and fairy tales, suspense and poetry, the amusement is greater than the horror of the rather harmless horror stories, of which the George Miller episode has the most intense effect.
Awards
- At the 1984 Saturn Awards , John Lithgow won a Best Supporting Actor award. Scatman Crothers were also nominated for Best Supporting Actor and the film was nominated for Best Horror Film .
- Jeremy Licht was nominated for a Young Artist Award in 1984 for Best Young Supporting Actor in a Feature Film and Christina Nigra for Best Young Supporting Actress in a Feature Film.
- At the Portuguese film festival Fantasporto in 1984, the film was nominated for an International Fantasy Film Award .
Individual evidence
- ↑ NTSB Report No. AAR-84-14, adopted 10/30/1984 PDF file (3 MB, English)
- ↑ Eerie shadow lights. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed May 22, 2017 .
Web links
- Twilight Zone in the Internet Movie Database (English)