Nightmare at 20K: Demon Drug

The final 'vignette' of this rather entertaining American film is an adaptation of an episode from the TV series titled "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet" (10/11/1963) and starring William Shatner (as the John Lithgow character --- different name though --- Robert Wilson/John Valentine).

In this vignette, an uncomfortable airplane passenger (Valentine) thinks he's hallucinating and seeing a silhouette of a strange demonic creature doing odd mischief on the airplane-engine on the wing of the plane and then has to decide if he should take some kind of heroic action.

This vignette is about claustrophobia and how the mind may create an experience that may not be real but which (terrifyingly enough!) *feels* real.

You go up on an airplane (even though you're not comfortable with air-travel), and you discover either:

1. an attractive passenger/flight attendant whom you fall in love with
2. a demonic creature who lures you into a foolish or dangerous deed

This "Two roads diverged in a wood" (famous Robert Frost poem extract) stylized thematic vignette is a great mini-treatise on risk and reward.

In fact, this final vignette from Twilight Zone: The Movie makes me think of 'the privacy of the human mind.'

Incidentally, since there's a topic about this on this board, the Lithgow version is superior (as compared to the Shatner version from the Serling TV series), since it does a better job of capturing the visceral terror associated with alienation.



{paraphrased}

====

VALENTINE: I'm telling you, there's a 'creature' tearing at the engine!
STEWARD: You're just hallucinating, since you're anxious about the flight.
VALENTINE: I know what I saw!
STEWARD: What you say you saw is simply preposterous, sir.
VALENTINE: Why preposterous? There are mysteries out there!!
STEWARD: I concede that possibility, but you seem hysterical, sir.
VALENTINE: I suppose if I saw a beautiful woman, you'd be thrilled.
STEWARD: I don't doubt you sir; I'm simply concerned about your sanity.
VALENTINE: I'm a religious and patriotic American man!
STEWARD: You're having a 'nightmare at 20,000 feet.'

====



😷

Nightmare at 20,000 Feet (Wikipedia):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nightmare_at_20,000_Feet