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Post by dem on Mar 7, 2024 20:28:15 GMT
Robert Bloch - Twilight Zone: The Movie (Corgi, 1983/ Warner, 1983) Bill
Valentine
Helen
Bloom Blurb: You're travelling through another dimension, a dimension not only of sight and sound, but of mind; a journey into a wondrous land whose boundaries are that of imagination. Next stop * TWILIGHT ZONE: THE MOVIE
— where demonic tyrants of the past live again to terrorize a man who carries the seeds of their hate into the present... where evil perches on a plane wing taunting the psychic who dare not believe his eyes - and still hold on to his mind ... where the power to control the world rests in the fantasy-fraught imagination of a lonely child..... where the joys of eternal youth are offered to those who remember childhood and are not too old to dream...
*From introductions to THE TWILIGHT ZONE by Rod Serling
A FOUR-PART FANTASY NOVEL BY ROBERT BLOCH Author of the novel Psycho II
Segment 1: Written by JOHN LANDIS
Segment 2: Story by GEORGE CLAYTON JOHNSON Screenplay by GEORGE CLAYTON JOHNSON and RICHARD MATHESON and JOSH ROGAN
Segment 3: Screenplay by RICHARD MATHESON Based on a story by JEROME BIXBY
Segment 4: Screenplay by RICHARD MATHESON Based on a story by RICHARD MATHESON With a Psycho franchise underway, you wouldn't think he'd need the work. I guess Warners paid well. Bill: "Hitler had the right idea. You just kill all of them." Seething at losing out on promotion to a Jew, Bill Connor, travelling salesman, conspiracy theorist, embittered racist, etc. takes his grievance to a local bar for a night of spleen-venting versus blacks, Jews, Asians, civil rights lawyers, psychiatrists, Liberals, youngsters who say "Hey, man" .... "Don't you understand? I'm better than a Jew. I'm better than an African. I'm better than an Oriental. I'm an American, dammit! That's supposed to mean something!" Abandoned by his drinking buddies, Connor leaves the bar and steps into ... Nazi-occupied France circa 1940, where he's stopped by two S.S. officers who demand to see his ID; just as they suspected - a Jew! Screaming that it's all a mistake, the terrified salesman makes a break for it, taking a bullet in his arm. Bleeding and exhausted, he begs help from a young French mother - who promptly denounces him. Chased onto the roof, he loses his footing, and falls into .... the clutches of a turn of the century KKK lynch mob who take exception to his insisting he's white! As the good old boys prepare a noose, Connor shoves a Klansman against a burning cross, and jumps in a river to resurface in the Vietnamese jungle. An American patrol. Thank God! Except ... they open fire on him like he was a goddam gook! Another miracle escape as a hand grenade blasts him back to French rail yard (via a fleeting but nightmarish return to the Deep South) where a Nazi pins the Star of David to his chest before herding him inside a freight carriage bound for the death camp .... Valentine: Among the passengers aboard the 707, a self-medicating computer technician terrified of flying. As the plane hits turbulence, Valentine panics all comers with his insistence a silver-skinned, metal-eating gremlin is out there on the wing, systematically dismantling the plane. An engine blows. An undistinguished rewrite of Matheson's Nightmare at 20,000 Feet. Why didn't they stick with the original?
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Post by andydecker on Mar 8, 2024 11:55:03 GMT
An undistinguished rewrite of Matheson's Nightmare at 20,000 Feet. Why didn't they stick with the original? I just read a lot of Matheson for some project, und I only knew this movie version. Maybe I also saw the tv version of this, I have a faint recollection of Shatner overacting, but am not sure. I was surprised how much better the original story is. A lot of the fun comes from its ambivalence. The reader never finds out if Wilson really sees this man on the wing or if he is just suffers a breakdown, suicidal as he is from the start. Also today it reads like some quaint sf, from the belching propellors to the smoking, not to mention the gun in the bag. The movie got rid of the subtlety. At least Matheson participated in this version, so I guess it is okay in a commercial way. Not much of a fan of the movie, but I have a soft spot for "Bill". Subtle as a sledge hammer, but it is a nice fantasy. |
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Post by dem on Mar 8, 2024 12:37:31 GMT
I think the tie-in would work better if it kept Bloch's Bill, dropped Valentine and Helen in favour of the Matheson and Bixby originals, and pretended the episode in the old folks home never existed. Pad out the remaining pages with stories by series writers Charles Beaumont, Harlan Ellison ™ PLC, Ray Bradbury and/ or Rod Serling himself.
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Post by jimrnemeth on Mar 9, 2024 14:02:23 GMT
I think the tie-in would work better if it kept Bloch's Bill, dropped Valentine and Helen in favour of the Matheson and Bixby originals, and pretended the episode in the old folks home never existed. Pad out the remaining pages with stories by series writers Charles Beaumont, Harlan Ellison ™ PLC, Ray Bradbury and/ or Rod Serling himself. (Sadly) Bloch was contracted to stick strictly to the film. |
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