1983’s Twilight Zone: The Movie is a generally acclaimed anthology film, but sadly, a tragic accident during production forever mars its legacy. Running from 1959 to 1964, and created by Rod Serling, The Twilight Zone has been and remains an extremely influential program in TV history. While the popularity of anthology shows ebbs and flows over time, The Twilight Zone is clearly the most well-regarded entry into the TV genre. Its best episodes hold up just as well today as they ever did too.
For evidence of just how iconic The Twilight Zone concept became, one need look no further than the fact that it’s spawned not one, not two, but three separate revival series. The first, and arguably most successful of these revivals came in 1985. However, it’s quite likely that revival might not have happened when it did were it not for the success of Twilight Zone: The Movie. While not a massive hit, the movie still made enough money and drew enough attention to make CBS realize that there was still an audience for adventures in the fifth dimension.
Yet, while Twilight Zone: The Movie has hardly become a hated film in the decades since its release, the rise of the internet led to more and more people becoming aware of the real life horror story that took place during its production. Here’s what happened.
Twilight Zone: The Movie’s Real On-Set Tragedy Explained
Twilight Zone: The Movie consists of four stories, plus a prologue featuring Dan Aykroyd and Albert Brooks. The film’s most famous story is probably its remake of “Nightmare at 20,000 Feet” starring John Lithgow, but its first story is “Time Out,” starring Vic Morrow. Morrow had been acting for decades by that point, playing nearly 100 roles in both films and TV shows over the course of his long career. Unfortunately, Twilight Zone: The Movie would be his last project. In “Time Out,” Morrow plays a racist man thrust into the past, and forced to live out life-threatening racist scenarios from the point of view of persecuted minorities. Morrow’s character ultimately suffers a terrible fate, seemingly on his way to a Nazi concentration camp.
However, “Time Out” was not meant to end this way. Instead, Morrow’s character was written to rescue two Vietnamese children (played by Myca Dinh Le and Renee Shin-Yi Chen) from an attacking U.S. helicopter in the middle of the Vietnam War, redeeming himself and changing his ways. But during the filming of this scene, the helicopter was flying what the National Transportation Safety Board later determined was too close to the set, and the force and blinding flash of explosion effects used proved too much for the pilot and the aircraft itself, leading to it spinning out of control and landing directly on top of Morrow, Le, and Chen. All three will killed instantly.
Director of the “Time Out” segment, John Landis, was one of four crew members tried and ultimately acquitted of manslaughter as a result of the tragic incident, although that didn’t stop multiple further civil lawsuits from happening. It would turn out later that Landis had been illegally paying Le and Chen under the table to circumvent child labor laws in California. Several other people on set when the accident happened have said that Landis urged the helicopter to be brought in lower and lower, despite warnings it might be unsafe. However, it’s important to note that Landis has never been ruled legally responsible for the accident. It did lead to the end of his friendship with Steven Spielberg, who produced Twilight Zone: The Movie alongside Landis and directed the segment “Kick the Can.” Additionally, the tragedy led to newly expanded safety rules being implemented relating to the use of aircraft on movie sets.
