NIGHTMARE AT 20,000 FEET - Ranked

Can't blame him for trying.

There isn't a better horror set up than the one found in Richard Matheson's short story "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet." There are spine-tinglers like "The Tell-Tale Heart," "The Lottery", and "The Monkey's Paw" that come close - but none bury themselves in your core quite like "Nightmare." The premise is simple: A passenger spots a gremlin on the wing of an airplane mid-flight, can't convince anyone else it's there, and must decide whether to take action or not when the monster starts tearing the plane apart. What's less simple is the thematic range the story covers. For starters, it contains all three styles of conflict: Man vs. Nature (the gremlin on the wing of the plane), Man vs. Man (the passengers and crew who don't believe the protagonist) and Man vs. Self (the protagonist questions their own sanity throughout). It's a paranoid thriller that plays off of a widespread phobia (according to a National Institute of Health article that I did not read up to 40% of travellers have some fear of flying), and the story captures isolation, claustrophobia, and desperation in such an acutely relatable way. Whether you believe what's happening or not, you sympathize with the passenger, and you're scared for him and everyone else onboard.

If you've never read the story or seen any of its filmed adaptations, you've no doubt run across reference to it some way or another. It's a classic work that has been sited, parodied and ripped off hundreds of times over the past 60 years. I read the story last week and decided to track down the various filmed adaptations. Naturally, this has led to the following ranked list. You could knock them all out in an afternoon (including reading the original) if you wanted. But if you had to choose one, which should it be? Let's break them down from best to worst.

5. "Nightmare at 30,000 Feet", The Twilight Zone (2019)

More homage than adaptation, this version adds 10,000 feet to the title and subtracts any sense of tension. Claustrophobia is replaced with a sense of the supernatural, which immediately diminishes one layer of the suspense. Fisheye lenses and dramatic angles present both the airport and the plane as alien spaces before our hero(?), Justin Sanderson, a journalist played by Adam Scott, finds an mp3 player in his seat pocket containing a podcast that seems to be predicting that the very flight he's on is going to crash. Sanderson becomes a general nuisance - and then a danger - to the other passengers, inexplicably motivated by what he's hearing on the podcast. I had to watch a behind-the-scenes feature to learn that this was designed as a moral fable on intolerance, but that doesn't resonate through most of the story. It's a bold swing, but a bigger miss, straying when it could be modernizing and confounding when it should be subverting. I'd skip it.

4. The Short Story (1961)

The original story's main character, Robert Wilson, was little more than a tired, cynical traveler. He doesn't like flying, but that's the extent of the baggage he brings to the situation. Well, that and a gun, which I guess you could just have on planes back then? Despite the firearm, he's a level-headed version of the character who grapples with the knowledge that everyone thinks he's having a breakdown and the obligation to stop the gremlin from tearing the plane apart. He does eventually take action, but when all is said and done it's up to the reader to decide if the creature was real or if he was hallucinating. It's an effective short, and it's easy to see why Rod Sterling had it adapted so quickly. It lays a fertile foundation for the imagination.

3. The original Twilight Zone episode (1963)

One of the most famous episodes of the original series, this Season 5 episode was adapted by Matheson and directed by Richard Donner (Superman, The Goonies, Lethal Weapon). William Shatner stars as Wilson, playing him vulnerable and desperate. While this first adaptation remains true to the story, it adds a wife (Christine White) who is travelling with him, and gives Wilson a history with mental illness. In fact, the last time he was on a plane he had a psychotic episode. So even though we see the gremlin here (looking like something Shatner would go toe-to-toe with a few years later in Star Trek), there is doubt about whether this is happening or not. It's not the scariest thing to witness today, but Shatner's performance is convincing and the story moves along at a good pace.

2. "Terror at 5 1/2 Feet," The Simpsons (1993)

When you're a story this iconic, you're going to be parodied. A lot. Saturday Night Live has done it twice, including this sketch from 2010. But there's no greater honor for a horror story than to be retold by The Simpsons in a "Treehouse of Horror" episode. This spoof finds a gremlin attacking a Springfield Elementary school bus, with only Bart as witness. As he attempts to warn his classmates, Otto the bus driver, and Principal Skinner, he is teased, ostracized, and eventually tied up. It's a surprisingly straightforward adaptation, borrowing primarily the movie version, while peppering in plenty of Simpsons-quality jokes (an AMC Gremlin is destroyed with Hans Moleman inside). It's an excellent way to spend eight minutes.

1. Twilight Zone: The Movie (1983)

Is there anyone better suited to adapt this story than George Miller? Probably not. Miller was fresh off The Road Warrior when he was recruited to make the final segment of Twilight Zone: The Movie. I don't even want to write anything about it. Just go watch it! Matheson did his third pass on the story, and it feels tailored to Miller's strengths. John Lithgow is doing some big, sweaty play-to-the-back-of-the-room acting. The gremlin has some of that sped-up Mad Max menace (and has a sort of Immortan Joe vibe). And the tension is off the charts. It starts at 100 and never lets up. The climax is visceral and crazed and makes every other version look like Sesame Street. It's not only a great adaptation, but it's one of Miller's best works. This is the ultimate "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet."