Big chunks of today have been eaten up by preparation, including finding more 3-D glasses (the answer: Robert Rodriguez saves the day. Between Spy Kids 3-D and The Adventures of Shark Boy and Lava Girl, there are now thirteen pairs of glasses, which should be plenty, as well as appropriate), but since things have settled down, I decided to watch Twilight Zone: The Movie while everyone is still at work.
Well, most of Twilight Zone: The Movie; I've never been fond of Steven Spielberg's "Kick the Can" or the Rod Serling moralizing at its worst that is the Vic Morrow segment (and believe me, had things not happened the way they did it would've ended with Morrow learning his lesson), so I stuck with the Prologue, Joe Dante's "It's a Good Life" and George Miller's "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet".
The prologue does seem a bit out of place for The Twilight Zone; it's really more the kind of thing you'd see on Tales from the Crypt, but it pays off in such a great way later in the movie I can't fault it for being too dark.
Speaking of too dark, Joe Dante strips all of the dread from the original "It's a Good Life" and replaces it with truly nightmarish imagery, particularly what happens to both of Anthony's "sisters". When I was younger the mouthless girl scared the hell out of me, but it was nothing compared to Ethel being eaten in the cartoon. Jesus. The short is packed with references to the original show and the Warner Brothers cartoons Dante loves so much, but with the sensibility he brought to The Howling, and it's still kind of creepy. Still, I love the art direction in the house and several lighting cues predate Creepshow, which used them to a similar effect.
George Miller, on the other hand, takes everything that worked about the original and magnifies it, most importantly by scaling back the gremlin. If there's anyone that can go unhinged like Shatner did, it's John Lithgow, and he's a sweaty, bug eyed, disheveled mess throughout. But you believe him, even when he's sure he's losing it, and the way that events work in his favor are actually more logical than in the original episode. If you ever wondered where the Simpsons got their gremlin from in Treehouse of Horror, it's from the movie, and not the show. But that ending! First the slow reveal that he wasn't crazy, compounded with the ambulance gut punch really ties everything together, and sets up the more cynical anthology shows that followed in the movie's wake.
Twilight Zone: The Movie may not be perfect from beginning to end, but damn if it doesn't pick up some speed in the second half and never lets go.
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