5 anthology horror films you should seek out this Halloween

Twilight Zone: The Movie (1983)

In 1959 CBS debuted Rod Serling’s The Twilight Zone, a television show aimed at telling morality tales and supernatural stories, usually with an eye towards looking at technology or other grander issues. The series ended in 1964 and several attempts to bring the show back yielded diminishing returns. But in 1983 Hollywood decided to take a chance on putting the series on the big-screen. The film attributed several directorial titans — Steven Spielberg, John Landis, George Miller, and Joe Dante — to adapt four individual episodes of the show with an eye towards going further with the effects and horror.

Three of the stories are adapted directly from previous Twilight Zone episodes. “Kick the Can” follows a group of elderly folks who transform back into their childhood selves during the titular game. Directed by Steven Spielberg, it’s treacly and not necessarily scary. The other two, “It’s a Good Life” and “Nightmare at 20,000 Feet,” are definitely more frightening than their 1960s counterparts, and both rely on increased special effects.

Twilight Zone: The Movie was a mixed bag tainted by tragedy during production. During the making of John Landis’ installment, a tragic accident claimed the lives of actor Vic Morrow and two child actors. The entire legal battle threatened to derail the film and completely changed Spielberg’s original idea for his short, which would have been darker. The finished feature is worth a watch just because of its connections to the original show and its infamous history.

Rent on Amazon, YouTube, and Google Play.