5. Magic Ripped Off “Caesar and Me”
“Caesar and Me“ concerns a dummy who convinces a ventriloquist to be a criminal for no adequately explained reason. Honestly, it’s not really a great Twilight Zone episode. That is OK though because, on the list of movies where Anthony Hopkins kills people, 1978’s Magic is not exactly Silence of the Lambs. Again, Magic concerns a ventriloquist who ends up being convinced by his own dummy to commit a crime. In “Caesar,” the crime is really nothing more than petty larceny, whereas Magic concerns murder. Unfortunately, the ultimate murder by both may very well be the concept itself, which neither manages to do particularly well.
4. Poltergeist Ripped Off “Little Girl Lost”
Poltergeist producer and co-writer Steven Spielberg has a long history with the Twilight Zone. One of Spielberg’s first jobs directing was a segment on Rod Serling’s original pilot of the television series Night Gallery. Spielberg also directed one of the segments of Twilight Zone: The Movie. So obviously, Spielberg would be familiar with the classic episode “Little Girl Lost.” In it, a girl gets lost in the fifth dimension and has to be pulled out by her family, while the family is still tethered to our dimension. In Poltergeist, a little girl again gets trapped in a spirit world which the family’s house just happens to be a gateway to. She is eventually pulled out by her family, who is also tethered to our real world.
3. Real Steel Ripped Off “Steel”
It is really hard to argue that “Steel” and Real Steel are not related when both the movie and the Twilight Zone episode have to credit the same short story. The short story in question is the 1956 story Steel, written by frequent Twilight Zone writer Richard Matheson. The Twilight Zone episode is more closely related to the original short story, featuring a former boxer who stands in for the broken robot. In the movie Real Steel, the character is still fighting, but there is a robot mimicking his movements in the ring. Of course, the robots in Real Steel look more like robots and the boxers in Steel are just men (and one of them happens to be playing a robot.)
2. Cube Ripped Off “Five Characters In Search of an Exit”
The Twilight Zone episode “Five Characters in Search of an Exit“ brings us to five differently costumed characters with no memory of where they are, or how they ended up where they are trapped together. In the 1997 movie Cube, there are similar characters who wake up in a cube with no idea how they got there. In “Five Characters,” the twist is that all of the characters are actually toys trapped in a good will bin. In Cube, the people are selected by a seemingly faceless corporation to stress test a new type of prison to see if can be escaped from. The creepily sterile surroundings, the diverse cast of characters, and the unsuccessful attempts to escape all seem to come from the same place however. The initial scene, as well as the unknown nature of the surrounding as a backdrop, have been pointed out as a similarity by many.
1. Child’s Play Ripped Off “Living Doll”
The Twilight Zone episode “Living Doll“ is never actually credited in the 1988 horror film Child’s Play, but it is an undeniable influence. The doll Talky Tina can creep anyone out through quoting her lines to almost anyone who has seen the episode. Likewise “Good Guy” Chucky, who happens to possess the soul of a serial killer, is also quotable as well. In addition, he possesses many of the same traits as Talky Tina (including being able to go back to Nice Mode quickly.) Talky Tina and Chucky are both almost completely indestructible by normal means — Tina had her head crushed in a vice grip and came back just fine, and Chucky had to be destroyed literally piece by piece and still managed to come back repeatedly.
12 Comments
Interesting that you have Galaxy Quest right after Liar Liar. The trailer for Galaxy Quest used part of the soundtrack from Liar Liar.
Another one to add to the list: the Saw movie totally ripped of “The Jeopardy Room”.
Insidious – Little Girl Lost
AI Artificial Intelligence – I Sing the Body Electric (and Pinnochio)
Truman Show is ripped off an episode
Can it really be called “ripping off” when some of these credit the original authors?
Some of these seem to be a little far fetched or just common concepts to claim that they were “ripped off”.
The living dummy concept was used in the earlier and superior “Zone” episode, “The Dummy”, where Cliff Robertson and his dummy switch places in the end. In fact, quite a few movies haves used the idea, especially the Ben Hecht-based “The Great Gabbo” and the famed ventriloquist episode of the British classic “Dead of Night”. The Danny Kaye spy spoof “Knock On Wood” partly spoofed the concept.
However, the Dummy episode with Cliff Robertson was specifically an example of the Dummy working to improve the Ventriloquist’s life, much like the Nervous Man in a Four Dollar room. To get the intent of the Dummy actually being mailicious just for the sake of maliciousness you have to use Caesar and Me because it is closer to the manner of Magic.
What about “The Box” You know, push a button, someone dies, you get a million dollars. Movie starred Cameron Diaz (yummy)
I think that one was redone more than once. Wasn’t a remake done in the 80’s?
“The Box” is based on a short story by Richard Matheson, a regular writer for the Twilight Zone
kinda hard to think of any modern sci-fi or horror movie that wasn’t in one way or another influenced by Rod Serling’s awesome awesome show.