this movie was a fever dream for me. all i remember is people on a plane and a girls head wrapped up, then i remember people in an airport and one dude shoots another and the bullet does nothing. 2 very odd bits to remember
Plane flew through the Aurora Borealis and was something like a second or a second and a half behind the actual flow of time. The langoliers ate the past so the future/present could happen. Loved the tv miniseries when I was a kid
Aurora borealis, at this time of year, at this time of day, in this part of the country, localized ENTIRELY within a pocket timespace outside of conventional existence? Langoliers: Yes!
This is a film that could use a remake, with modern graphics, but no other changes. It's a BRILLIANT story, and actually scary. It is exceedingly rare that horror lives up to its name in even the faintest of ways for me.
The creepy sci-fi suspense of the first 90% was SO GOOD. But it really needs a change of ending, the monsters were so jarringly bad it was easy to forget all the quality setup before that point. A collapsing void of nothingness, a marching wave of petrification locking things in time forever, anything else. Say the *people* stuck here are The Langoliers if there's any need to justify the title.
@@jbutler8585the langoliers themselves won’t ever look very scary on film. The concept of them is what is scary and it really only works when you are reading compared to watching. An emotionless, likely mindless creature that only does one thing: eat the fabric of that reality. The reality of the past. For the passengers that accidentally slip into that reality, that would be a horrifying thing to comprehend. Seeing it as a viewer? Meh, not quite as much. That’s why I think majority King’s stories don’t make good movies. As a reader you tend to put yourself in the shoes of the character and it’s more real for you, viewing it just doesn’t equate. One of the scariest parts in IT for me is when Ben sees mummy pennywise on the frozen water and he lets go of balloons that float toward Ben against the wind. Seeing that on screen wouldn’t be scary; but for me at least, putting myself in his shoes while reading and imagining I’m seeing that as him would make me shit a brick
Mostly agree. My only change would be that it could be made longer. WAY longer. Maybe even an entire season. The characters have tremendous depth and dimensionality that begs to be explored. Maybe even some more of the luminal world.
@@thejake267 I think the Langoliers could be redesigned to look less goofy while maintaining the core concept of beings that eat reality. Maybe something more abstract, like instead of literal mouths they could be balls of pure nothingness, visible only from the void they leave in their wake.
Langoliers was the backrooms before the backrooms/liminal areas were a thing. I saw this movie as a kid like six years old maybe. It has stuck with me my entire life. The short story, like the movie, the langoliers aren't the fear, they're a part of the stories for all of five minutes, it's the empty spaces you expect to occupied. It's walking into a room expecting someone to be there, you know they're there, but they aren't, you know something is wrong, you can't prove it, it just is and it's wrong. And you're alone and there is nothing you can do about it.
This. I had a real life "Langoliers" moment about 15 years ago. I was supposed to meet my parents at a mall a few towns over. I got there a few minutes before them and went inside to wait. My mom called and said they were here. This was confusing for me though. There were no people inside. None. Most of the lights weren't even on. On the phone, my mom said they were outside a particular shoe store. I walked over to it but they weren't there. It was chilling. About 30 seconds later we realized I was at a different mall, one that was mostly derelict and about 2 miles from the one my parents went to. Man, that freaked me out though. The layout of the stores was even the same between the two. GRACIOUS.
...before the backrooms, yes, but not before the concept of liminality - that one came about in the early '60s... at least in a formal, written down way. The experience of liminality seems such a general, common thing that I'd assume it already existed as this nameless, vague "something" before then, tho.
I think the New Outer Limits did something like this, where a couple get ahead of time and watch as everything is being built by robots(?). It would have been funny to see the people in The Langoliers arrive ahead of time and see blue people running around doing last minute adjustments but just for a second, and they have the feeling of being watched.
Yes most excellent. It is pure quality Descending into absolute trash when film is in the air. It's so bad that part of the film That it is actually genius 🥰💝😎
10:43 "Time is like a predator; it's stalking you. Oh, you can try and outrun it with doctors, medicines, new technologies. But in the end, time is going to hunt you down... and make the kill." - Dr. Soren, Star Trek Generations
This had the best build up, the sound of the Langoliers. Dinah being the only to kinda hear it, to her hearing it well, to the others barely hearing hearing, to everyone hearing it.
This movie was so bad but I love every minute of it. The goofy looking Langoliers, the hammy acting, and a plot that has terrifying implications. I love it so so much.
It was nice seeing Chris Collett in movies again. I also saw him as a genius student in "The Manhattan project" with John Lithgow. He plays a student who is basically Albert Einstein. He decides to expose the local energy plant in his town by snitching a bottle of plutonium and using it in his science fair project: which is a fully operational nuclear bomb!
Definitely has the hallmarks of a typical King story. A character having possible psychic powers, a place between worlds filled with cosmic horrors. ( two elements which become important in his larger dark tower mythos) the thing that dose surprise me is how much of were they end up is similar to the modern backrooms which I find interesting.
You forgot that they had to be asleep to make it through. They almost forgot too, turning away and realizing that someone had to stay awake to turn the O2 back on so the others would wake up on the other side.
I think what happens to the people that disappear is they slip into Todash space. Todash is a concept from the Dark Tower which is the place in between worlds like the empty space of a wall cavity. It's also generally assumed that the creatures we see in The Mist are the natural denizens of Todash space, so it's not somewhere you want to be.
@@bloodysweetzombiegirlI always did wonder what was in that trunk... But I thought the Buick 8 was losing power as the story progressed and had completely shut down by the end, unless I'm remembering wrong. Although, ig it's not impossible that it was taken and possibly overcharged to create a larger or more stable gate and that would explain some things about The Mist... hmmm
Holy crap! This movie does exist! No one I know has ever heard of it…so I thought I fever dreamed it one night as I watched it once when I stayed home from school sick.
Saw this when I was a kid in the mid 90s I think and for the longest time I didn't even know the name of the movie. It was just the one where the blobs with teeth are everything and some people on a plane were trying to get away from them. Glad I finally got a name for this
I just love how many people have this exact story, including me. It really adds to the feel of the movie. Plus it really fits into the Stephen King world.
I absolutley loooooved this mini series. Watched it when it first aired with my dad who enjoyed the book. And of course it stated one of my favorite actors as a kid, Bronson Pinchot, from Perfext strangers (my favorite show as a kid!!). And of course Dean Stockwell from Quantum Leap. Good memories, thank you Eck!!!!! I’d all but forgotten about those days!
I grew up in Maine and I remember seeing Dean Stockwell at the Bangor Mall when he was filming this. It was pretty huge seeing a celebrity around there!
Dean was always great to watch in anything he was in, it sad he's retired now, but he deserves it after a lifetime of hard work that resulted in great performances. He at least finished it off on a very high note as John Cavil on the BSG remake.
@@endymallorn Al is Great as well, very underrated actor, always stands out and everything he does. Did a great job In this movie as well, and actually he's the main villain of the story and the langoliers are more of us plot device and always show up at the end of the movie.
Holy shit i have been wracking my brain trying to figure out what the name of this movie was for the last few years. Every so often this will pop up into my head and be my brain worm for a day or two. This freaked me the hell out when I watched this. Thank you for this!!!
this is such a cool idea. stephen camped it up with making the universe fun liminal and having the monsters be kinda silly and escapable and stuff, but just the concept, that the eternal universe is real, we all exist in a sort of reality crystal where everything already exists, but in our part of the universe, some creature eats the past, and so a plank seconds behind you is an annhilating eldritch force, always trying to catch up and eat the present, the conscious you, and its destroying our past, which could have adverse effects of causality or something. its a cool concept.
IDK if anyone here watches Phineas and Ferb, but the creators explicitly said that along with Groundhog Day (cuz time keeps looping), the show's original series finale is actually inspired by The Langoliers. And honestly, I can see it. Literal rips in time eating things away, things going missing leaving the world feeling emptier, literal zones outside of time that feel unnatural and dead.
Definitely seared itself into my subconscious after I read the book as a young teenager. Toomey’s last line always haunts me, “How can they run so fast? They have no le”
Have you read the book? It's a bit long but a fun read and the horror never stops. It's part of a 4-story series from his novel collection "Four past midnight." They also made a movie called "Secret Window" starring Johnny Depp and John Tuturro. This is also in the collection along with The library policeman and the Sun Dog. I wish they would make Sun dog. A teen gets a Polaroid camera for his birthday. The pictures come out the same no matter what he points it at. He soon sees a dog appear and wonders if he should continue taking pictures or destroy the camera.
I saw "The Langoliers" and immediately recalled a TV episode with a similar plot (so similar that it might have been a prototype King story). The narrator woke up, and found out that workers in identical jumpsuits were taking down the day's "set" and building another. He went around a corner to find nothingness (because no one was scheduled to be there that day). A worker told him he was out of sync, so he waited for the present to catch up with him. It was in color so that rules out "Twilight Zone."
This started bugging me, so I started looking. It turns out this WAS a Twilight Zone story, but not from the original B&W series; rather the 1985 remake (color) series. It was called "A Matter of Minutes," and was based upon "Yesterday Was Monday," a short story by Theodore Sturgeon, first published in 1941. The premise is that time itself is a play with every day a new scene. The actor wakes up in the wrong day and has to get back to where he was supposed to be.
This mini-series was scary as hell as a kid and even today it still is, what's great about it that the Langoliers don't show up until the end. Most of the rest of the mini-series is slow burn setup for their appearance and its about mostly about the passengers learning about the world left behind in time and its eeriness. Why that works is that it makes the Langoliers arrival even more scary. What's interesting is that the Langoliers are not real threat to the passengers, but a sociopathic corporate executive who suffers a mental breakdown and harass and menaces the others while they are trying to escape.
That reminds me of a Stephen King quote "Eventually you have to show them the bear". Mini-series of Stephen King stories/novels was one of the best things about the 90s. This, IT, The Stand, Tommyknockers...
I remember seeing this movie as a kid, never forgot it. Whenever I'm in a place that seems "empty" I think back to it. I get that vibe a lot when I'm wayyy out in the country working on grain bins. Utter silence, no one else around, yet surrounded by massive barns and a home. I don't know it's different then when you're in the woods alone. Or when you're inside of a large building when no one else is. Like at my old job when I used to clock in early and be the first person in the factory. Just an absolutely massive quiet space where there's supposed to be sound and a hundred people.
This TV movie got me into King's writing. It was just SO different and really struck a chord with me as a child. To this day, it's still one of the most memorable TV movies I remember ever watching and, as a book, it's even more fun.
I can't believe they showed the entities as flying teeth. In the book it clearly stated that they were invisible. Nick told Brian in the book that they seemed to defy visual inspection. They simply moved as invisible things, swallowing up whatever was in their way.
Firstly, cool coverage of a different topic! Secondly, about a week after I last watched this, I was standing in line for a flight and there was the usual delay getting through security and the guy ahead of me looked at me and said “I swear to god if this line doesn’t move faster,” and no joke, he looked like the bad guy from this film and I thought if this guy starts shredding paper, I’m out, don’t want to be in a Stephen king novel today!
When I was a kid the tv movie aired in the uk on a school night. I watched this with my dad and he allowed me to stay awake an extra hour before bed as it was a school night. The acting is really stiff and the effects are abysmal. But I’ll never forget that night and how glued to the tv I was. Thanks so much for covering this. You gave me a massive warm nostalgia hit tonight ❤
Craig Toomy (the obnoxious jackass in the suit) justifies his terrible behaviour by recalling how his abusive father told him the story of the langoliers saying they hunt down and eat lazy little boys. Then near the end when they're getting ready to take off, a woman in the party observes, "They just wanted to eat Mr. Toomy, and everywhere Mr. Toomy has been..." Scared the shit out of 12-year old me watching it for the first time, but I still love this movie!
I've never been into horror as a genre, especially gore, but as a kid I remember seeing the movie of this on TV once when I was 10-12 or so. I don't even remember most of it, but getting unsynched back behind the universe in time and seeing the cleaners that clear out what is left in the wake of reality was just interesting as a concept to me. Not "scary/horror", just...psychological and almost scientific/physics, which has been a hallmark of my life since. I don't find it surprising that you liked it as well. : )
Loved the movie as a kid. More often than not it would be on TV in the afternoon. Most impressive as we are talking about Brazilian TV almost three decades ago. Nostalgia.
Legitimately one of my favorite miniseries, I was like 6 years old when I first saw it and had a monstrous headache, and yet I was compelled by what was going on all the way through. Not to mention the meatballs with sawblades didn't look too bad back then. Really like the mentioning of "liminality" this is basically the first "liminal space" series I had ever seen.
I loved the movie. Back in the 90’s when they would show Stephen king movies on channel 5 over the course of a few days . Everyone would be talking about it the next day at school. What a time.
What a pleasant surprise! This was one of those stories that stuck with me, The Langoliers was one of those ideas that are terrifying not because of themselves, but what they represent, and the story has only gotten a stronger hold on me as my own past accumulates...
When I was a kid IT was the scariest Stephen King story. Now as an adult, I haven't even read or seen The Langoliers yet, and the premise is already giving me the creeps way more than Pennywise ever did. I can't wait to read this one. The film's 1995 CGI is just plain goofy though. The titular monsters look more like one of the CGI sequences from The Lawnmower Man than eldritch timeline-eaters.
Read this in middle school on a family trip - as you say sometimes these family things are boring with a lot of down time. This story was amazing. One of my favorites.
This story has a special place in my past, too. We used to take a vacation to to ocean every summer. It's only a four-hour drive, but to kids, that's an eternity. Once, on our way back, we put on the Langoliers book on tape. It was a really interesting idea and an engaging story. There was a line in the story about the passengers seeing "colors never seen before" during their warp sequence, and we were joking about how that might be depicted in the TV movie. Of course, it wasn't.
I always tell people about Langoliers as a great example of very early liminal space horror, and nobody seems to have ever heard of it. Glad to have come across this video!
This was so nostalgic. I watched this as part of a 2 night Steven King special with langoliers and the shining on a local Bangor Maine station when I was about 8 years old! Actually one of the most memorable movies I've ever watched
This show wrecked havok on my childhood undiagnosed ocd. I couldnt look at a clock for months if not years afterward. Rewatching it as an adult had me dying on the floor laughing though LMAOOOO 😭
I have found that not many people now days even remember this movie! It is COMPLETELY an under rated movie today! It is one of my favorite movie and book!
Saw this as a kid, too. Felt so surreal. It's like a dream that i experienced with the characters in the movie itself. Like something that was real, but nobody would believe me if i tried to tell them. That's how this movie makes you feel.
Love this film, a bit weird in parts but that’s SK for you. Just loved the whole mystery of it. Your right Eck, this has the vibe of the backrooms, the mundane everyday spaces usually busy and full of people and noise, empty and deserted. Major twist on time travel as well, that the past is empty of because everyone has moved into the present!
Holy cow I saw the second half of this movie on TV one night when I was a kid and had no idea what it was. It's lived rent free in my head for decades! Mystery solved!
Stephen King is obviously one of the most famous horror writers in history, BUT his skill at Cosmic-Horror/Sci-fi is criminally underrated, because THIS is cosmic horror done absolutely right, almost perfectly
King has another novel about time travel, 11-22-63. It's mostly a historical fiction adventure with some mystery and conspiracy thriller elements, but in the last act it ramps up into sci fi horror along similar lines to this story. It's just about possible to stitch the two stories together, as mucking about with time in 11-22-63 is clearly doing something physically disastrous to the planet but it's never made explicit how.
This is one movie I would love to see be remade or even a television series special. This movie scared me so much as a kid that I avoided rewatching it for most of my life.
When I was a kid, my mom mentioned this movie to me and I became obsessed trying to find clips of it on RUclips 😂 I got the basic idea and thought it was pretty good, I think this was my introduction to horror and I’m glad it was
When I was a kid I couldn’t handle anything even remotely scary, but Langoliers and the Tommyknockers? Somehow they flew just under that radar. Spooky, but not scary.
Dude, I've had vague memories of this movie for years and could never remember enough details to find it. Thank you! I also totally forgot it was based on a Stephen King novella that I read at the library a while before I saw the movie.
This show was such an event in my house when it came out. I remember it was all anyone could talk about. And then i was afraid of getting eaten by langoliers for awhile lol
this movie was a fever dream for me. all i remember is people on a plane and a girls head wrapped up, then i remember people in an airport and one dude shoots another and the bullet does nothing. 2 very odd bits to remember
same, i remembe a black hole eating the plane or something
Plane flew through the Aurora Borealis and was something like a second or a second and a half behind the actual flow of time. The langoliers ate the past so the future/present could happen. Loved the tv miniseries when I was a kid
And a guy ripping papper.
I remember "The New People. We're the New People." Great dialogue there, Mr King...
How about "Craigee waggee"? 😉
"We finally discovered time travel and made our way back in time, but there was nobody there because they moved forward with it"
Aurora borealis, at this time of year, at this time of day, in this part of the country, localized ENTIRELY within a pocket timespace outside of conventional existence?
Langoliers: Yes!
Gold😆
May I see it?
@ … No.
@@WillFredward7167SEYMOUR! THE LANGOLIERS ARE ON FIRE!
@ 😂
This is a film that could use a remake, with modern graphics, but no other changes. It's a BRILLIANT story, and actually scary. It is exceedingly rare that horror lives up to its name in even the faintest of ways for me.
The creepy sci-fi suspense of the first 90% was SO GOOD. But it really needs a change of ending, the monsters were so jarringly bad it was easy to forget all the quality setup before that point. A collapsing void of nothingness, a marching wave of petrification locking things in time forever, anything else. Say the *people* stuck here are The Langoliers if there's any need to justify the title.
@@jbutler8585the langoliers themselves won’t ever look very scary on film. The concept of them is what is scary and it really only works when you are reading compared to watching. An emotionless, likely mindless creature that only does one thing: eat the fabric of that reality. The reality of the past. For the passengers that accidentally slip into that reality, that would be a horrifying thing to comprehend. Seeing it as a viewer? Meh, not quite as much.
That’s why I think majority King’s stories don’t make good movies. As a reader you tend to put yourself in the shoes of the character and it’s more real for you, viewing it just doesn’t equate. One of the scariest parts in IT for me is when Ben sees mummy pennywise on the frozen water and he lets go of balloons that float toward Ben against the wind. Seeing that on screen wouldn’t be scary; but for me at least, putting myself in his shoes while reading and imagining I’m seeing that as him would make me shit a brick
Mostly agree. My only change would be that it could be made longer. WAY longer. Maybe even an entire season. The characters have tremendous depth and dimensionality that begs to be explored. Maybe even some more of the luminal world.
@@thejake267 I think the Langoliers could be redesigned to look less goofy while maintaining the core concept of beings that eat reality. Maybe something more abstract, like instead of literal mouths they could be balls of pure nothingness, visible only from the void they leave in their wake.
True. Almost all horror movies are just tired tropes at this point.
Langoliers was the backrooms before the backrooms/liminal areas were a thing. I saw this movie as a kid like six years old maybe. It has stuck with me my entire life. The short story, like the movie, the langoliers aren't the fear, they're a part of the stories for all of five minutes, it's the empty spaces you expect to occupied. It's walking into a room expecting someone to be there, you know they're there, but they aren't, you know something is wrong, you can't prove it, it just is and it's wrong. And you're alone and there is nothing you can do about it.
This. I had a real life "Langoliers" moment about 15 years ago. I was supposed to meet my parents at a mall a few towns over. I got there a few minutes before them and went inside to wait. My mom called and said they were here. This was confusing for me though. There were no people inside. None. Most of the lights weren't even on. On the phone, my mom said they were outside a particular shoe store. I walked over to it but they weren't there. It was chilling. About 30 seconds later we realized I was at a different mall, one that was mostly derelict and about 2 miles from the one my parents went to. Man, that freaked me out though. The layout of the stores was even the same between the two. GRACIOUS.
The Langoliers are in Rick and Morty
It really is! 😁
...before the backrooms, yes, but not before the concept of liminality - that one came about in the early '60s... at least in a formal, written down way.
The experience of liminality seems such a general, common thing that I'd assume it already existed as this nameless, vague "something" before then, tho.
Pretty interesting that this video mentions house of leaves which is even more blatantly the backrooms before the backrooms.
The langoliers were the first monster that made me know real fear when I was a kid.
Now as an adult I fear them because of what they represent.
I think the New Outer Limits did something like this, where a couple get ahead of time and watch as everything is being built by robots(?). It would have been funny to see the people in The Langoliers arrive ahead of time and see blue people running around doing last minute adjustments but just for a second, and they have the feeling of being watched.
Time catches us all.
yes i loved this growing up in the 90s, def among my fav king movies
As a kid, The Langoliers was that show I fondly remembered as that movie where Balkie Went Bonkers.
@@Folker46590I’m a big fan of outer limits and can’t recall the episode
The empty 90s airport trapped in time feels like a Garry's mod map. So comfortable.
Tbh, the real Bangor Airport is a liminal space of sorts. I imagine it's a weird place to be diverted, though not as bad as Gander.
Yes most excellent.
It is pure quality Descending into absolute trash when film is in the air.
It's so bad that part of the film That it is actually genius 🥰💝😎
10:43 "Time is like a predator; it's stalking you. Oh, you can try and outrun it with doctors, medicines, new technologies. But in the end, time is going to hunt you down... and make the kill." - Dr. Soren, Star Trek Generations
I prefer to think of Time as more of a companion
@rudeboyjohn3483 "Speak for yourself, sir. I plan to live forever."
And then Q walks and asks "Are you sure about that?"
I thought it was a fire in which we all burn.
Nah I go to the gym.
This had the best build up, the sound of the Langoliers.
Dinah being the only to kinda hear it, to her hearing it well, to the others barely hearing hearing, to everyone hearing it.
This movie was so bad but I love every minute of it. The goofy looking Langoliers, the hammy acting, and a plot that has terrifying implications. I love it so so much.
same, its one of those classic b movies that just grips tight haha
When it first aired it was received as an achievement. But now it does come across exactly as you describe it. Some things just don't age well.
It was nice seeing Chris Collett in movies again. I also saw him as a genius student in "The Manhattan project" with John Lithgow. He plays a student who is basically Albert Einstein. He decides to expose the local energy plant in his town by snitching a bottle of plutonium and using it in his science fair project: which is a fully operational nuclear bomb!
The end was rather anticlimactic for me. They sync up with time and skippety-do-dah away like they were in the middle of the lunch rush.
Bronson is a national treasure.
The Langoliers creatures obviously inspired the Time Cop aliens in "Rick and Morty".
Beat me to it😂
Seems more like a direct reference if that's what you meant
I was thinking that just from the thumbnail 😂
And the Loom from Star Trek: Prodigy.
I'm afraid of snakes...🐍
Definitely has the hallmarks of a typical King story. A character having possible psychic powers, a place between worlds filled with cosmic horrors. ( two elements which become important in his larger dark tower mythos) the thing that dose surprise me is how much of were they end up is similar to the modern backrooms which I find interesting.
You forgot that they had to be asleep to make it through. They almost forgot too, turning away and realizing that someone had to stay awake to turn the O2 back on so the others would wake up on the other side.
Like The Jaunt, in a way
I think what happens to the people that disappear is they slip into Todash space. Todash is a concept from the Dark Tower which is the place in between worlds like the empty space of a wall cavity. It's also generally assumed that the creatures we see in The Mist are the natural denizens of Todash space, so it's not somewhere you want to be.
Oh, yes, The Mist sure foreshadowed, if not inspired, Half-Life and Multiverse Theory.
I often wonder if the Mist came when the soldiers found and opened the trunk of the Buick 8.
@@UniversalCipherNah, science fiction has been discussing those concepts much longer than King.
everyone is subject to the beams and servant to The Dark Tower
@@bloodysweetzombiegirlI always did wonder what was in that trunk... But I thought the Buick 8 was losing power as the story progressed and had completely shut down by the end, unless I'm remembering wrong. Although, ig it's not impossible that it was taken and possibly overcharged to create a larger or more stable gate and that would explain some things about The Mist... hmmm
This was always my favorite King story/made for TV movie. Absolutely mental world building
Holy crap! This movie does exist! No one I know has ever heard of it…so I thought I fever dreamed it one night as I watched it once when I stayed home from school sick.
That's weird. Even my aunt has heard of "The Langoliers," and she hasn't heard of much of anything. 🤔
Saw this when I was a kid in the mid 90s I think and for the longest time I didn't even know the name of the movie. It was just the one where the blobs with teeth are everything and some people on a plane were trying to get away from them. Glad I finally got a name for this
I feel old 😂
I just love how many people have this exact story, including me. It really adds to the feel of the movie. Plus it really fits into the Stephen King world.
Same I remember this movie but couldn't never remember the name and nobody knew what I meant but thankfully after yrs I finally found it 🙏🙏🙏
The Langoliers has been one of my favourites since I was a kid. How surpsied and pleased I was to see you had made this video!
I absolutley loooooved this mini series. Watched it when it first aired with my dad who enjoyed the book. And of course it stated one of my favorite actors as a kid, Bronson Pinchot, from Perfext strangers (my favorite show as a kid!!). And of course Dean Stockwell from Quantum Leap. Good memories, thank you Eck!!!!! I’d all but forgotten about those days!
"Don't be ridiculous"
I grew up in Maine and I remember seeing Dean Stockwell at the Bangor Mall when he was filming this. It was pretty huge seeing a celebrity around there!
Dean was always great to watch in anything he was in, it sad he's retired now, but he deserves it after a lifetime of hard work that resulted in great performances. He at least finished it off on a very high note as John Cavil on the BSG remake.
Seeing Al acting like he was actually there. I envy you.
@@endymallorn Al is Great as well, very underrated actor, always stands out and everything he does. Did a great job In this movie as well, and actually he's the main villain of the story and the langoliers are more of us plot device and always show up at the end of the movie.
@@cane6074Didn't he pass away?
@@graciegj63 nope he simply retired.
Holy shit i have been wracking my brain trying to figure out what the name of this movie was for the last few years. Every so often this will pop up into my head and be my brain worm for a day or two. This freaked me the hell out when I watched this. Thank you for this!!!
Explains why we never see time travelers.
@@jtjames79 "Oi there! You got a loisence for that time travel?"
FYI the entire movie is available for free here on RUclips
this is such a cool idea. stephen camped it up with making the universe fun liminal and having the monsters be kinda silly and escapable and stuff, but just the concept, that the eternal universe is real, we all exist in a sort of reality crystal where everything already exists, but in our part of the universe, some creature eats the past, and so a plank seconds behind you is an annhilating eldritch force, always trying to catch up and eat the present, the conscious you, and its destroying our past, which could have adverse effects of causality or something. its a cool concept.
Finally. Mystery solved. I remember seeing part of this on tv when I was younger. Scared the crap out of me and I've always wondered what show it was.
Same I could never figure out the shows name just that is we it when I was young and it was WEIRD
IDK if anyone here watches Phineas and Ferb, but the creators explicitly said that along with Groundhog Day (cuz time keeps looping), the show's original series finale is actually inspired by The Langoliers. And honestly, I can see it. Literal rips in time eating things away, things going missing leaving the world feeling emptier, literal zones outside of time that feel unnatural and dead.
It’s crazy how much influence Steven King has on modern TV and culture.
The 2 time guardians in Rick and Morty seem inspired by them too
Definitely seared itself into my subconscious after I read the book as a young teenager. Toomey’s last line always haunts me, “How can they run so fast? They have no le”
This was the first Stephen King movie and story I was ever exposed to. It still sticks with me
Have you read the book? It's a bit long but a fun read and the horror never stops. It's part of a 4-story series from his novel collection "Four past midnight." They also made a movie called "Secret Window" starring Johnny Depp and John Tuturro. This is also in the collection along with The library policeman and the Sun Dog. I wish they would make Sun dog. A teen gets a Polaroid camera for his birthday. The pictures come out the same no matter what he points it at. He soon sees a dog appear and wonders if he should continue taking pictures or destroy the camera.
@largol33t1 I didn't but it seems like I should
I knew it. I didn't make this Pac-Man monster filled horror movie up. Lmao 😂
I saw "The Langoliers" and immediately recalled a TV episode with a similar plot (so similar that it might have been a prototype King story). The narrator woke up, and found out that workers in identical jumpsuits were taking down the day's "set" and building another. He went around a corner to find nothingness (because no one was scheduled to be there that day). A worker told him he was out of sync, so he waited for the present to catch up with him. It was in color so that rules out "Twilight Zone."
This started bugging me, so I started looking. It turns out this WAS a Twilight Zone story, but not from the original B&W series; rather the 1985 remake (color) series. It was called "A Matter of Minutes," and was based upon "Yesterday Was Monday," a short story by Theodore Sturgeon, first published in 1941. The premise is that time itself is a play with every day a new scene. The actor wakes up in the wrong day and has to get back to where he was supposed to be.
This mini-series was scary as hell as a kid and even today it still is, what's great about it that the Langoliers don't show up until the end. Most of the rest of the mini-series is slow burn setup for their appearance and its about mostly about the passengers learning about the world left behind in time and its eeriness. Why that works is that it makes the Langoliers arrival even more scary. What's interesting is that the Langoliers are not real threat to the passengers, but a sociopathic corporate executive who suffers a mental breakdown and harass and menaces the others while they are trying to escape.
Shit hits way too close to home
That reminds me of a Stephen King quote "Eventually you have to show them the bear". Mini-series of Stephen King stories/novels was one of the best things about the 90s. This, IT, The Stand, Tommyknockers...
“Scaring the little girl?!?”
LADY!
LADY!
We remember him so you don't have to
"What the HELL DO YOU KNOW ABOUT TIME??? ASK ME ABOUT TIME!!! ASK ME!!!"
_"The memory of a world. The shell of a world , slowly dying..."_
We need not imagine anymore.
I remember seeing this movie as a kid, never forgot it. Whenever I'm in a place that seems "empty" I think back to it. I get that vibe a lot when I'm wayyy out in the country working on grain bins. Utter silence, no one else around, yet surrounded by massive barns and a home. I don't know it's different then when you're in the woods alone. Or when you're inside of a large building when no one else is. Like at my old job when I used to clock in early and be the first person in the factory. Just an absolutely massive quiet space where there's supposed to be sound and a hundred people.
This might be one of the ones that got a better adaptation even for a basic channel. Great story.
This TV movie got me into King's writing. It was just SO different and really struck a chord with me as a child. To this day, it's still one of the most memorable TV movies I remember ever watching and, as a book, it's even more fun.
WOW! This is a movie I watched when I was younger, you just unlocked a memory!
Saw this movie about 15 years ago, alone, late at night. This movie gave me a intoxicating feeling of dread i cant explain
Did not expect you to cover this.
A surprise to be sure, but a welcome one.
Thank you for that chancellor palpatine.
I can't believe they showed the entities as flying teeth. In the book it clearly stated that they were invisible. Nick told Brian in the book that they seemed to defy visual inspection. They simply moved as invisible things, swallowing up whatever was in their way.
Firstly, cool coverage of a different topic! Secondly, about a week after I last watched this, I was standing in line for a flight and there was the usual delay getting through security and the guy ahead of me looked at me and said “I swear to god if this line doesn’t move faster,” and no joke, he looked like the bad guy from this film and I thought if this guy starts shredding paper, I’m out, don’t want to be in a Stephen king novel today!
When I was a kid the tv movie aired in the uk on a school night. I watched this with my dad and he allowed me to stay awake an extra hour before bed as it was a school night. The acting is really stiff and the effects are abysmal. But I’ll never forget that night and how glued to the tv I was. Thanks so much for covering this. You gave me a massive warm nostalgia hit tonight ❤
I don't emember any of the characters names, except for Craig Toomy. Such a memorable performance! Nobody tears tissues quite like that guy.
Bronson is a national treasure . This and Balki Bartokimus from perfect strangers
My cousin (Christopher Cooke) played the young Craig Toomy.
Craig Toomy (the obnoxious jackass in the suit) justifies his terrible behaviour by recalling how his abusive father told him the story of the langoliers saying they hunt down and eat lazy little boys. Then near the end when they're getting ready to take off, a woman in the party observes, "They just wanted to eat Mr. Toomy, and everywhere Mr. Toomy has been..."
Scared the shit out of 12-year old me watching it for the first time, but I still love this movie!
I've never been into horror as a genre, especially gore, but as a kid I remember seeing the movie of this on TV once when I was 10-12 or so. I don't even remember most of it, but getting unsynched back behind the universe in time and seeing the cleaners that clear out what is left in the wake of reality was just interesting as a concept to me. Not "scary/horror", just...psychological and almost scientific/physics, which has been a hallmark of my life since. I don't find it surprising that you liked it as well. : )
Loved the movie as a kid. More often than not it would be on TV in the afternoon. Most impressive as we are talking about Brazilian TV almost three decades ago.
Nostalgia.
This and Tremors were the two monstery/horror movies that stuck with me when I was a kid
Legitimately one of my favorite miniseries, I was like 6 years old when I first saw it and had a monstrous headache, and yet I was compelled by what was going on all the way through.
Not to mention the meatballs with sawblades didn't look too bad back then.
Really like the mentioning of "liminality" this is basically the first "liminal space" series I had ever seen.
Aurora borealis? At this time of the year, in this part of the country, localised entirely in your kitchen? Can i see?
No.
We actually watched this in middle school back in 1998. It was years until I watched it again. A real treasure of a movie!
I loved the movie. Back in the 90’s when they would show Stephen king movies on channel 5 over the course of a few days . Everyone would be talking about it the next day at school. What a time.
I remember this movie absolutely terrorized me when I was a small kid.
I take it the book says its a Boeing 767 as the jet in the TV movie is a Lockheed L-1011 Tristar.
Tisim facts
Name checks out
Carry on, fellow autist
bet they used the Tri-Star as they have a reputation for being spooky... IYKYK
What a pleasant surprise! This was one of those stories that stuck with me, The Langoliers was one of those ideas that are terrifying not because of themselves, but what they represent, and the story has only gotten a stronger hold on me as my own past accumulates...
Ecks is covering the Langoliers?!? Now I've seen everything.
You have unlocked a memory for me. I remember spending so much time trying to find this movie.
When I was a kid IT was the scariest Stephen King story. Now as an adult, I haven't even read or seen The Langoliers yet, and the premise is already giving me the creeps way more than Pennywise ever did. I can't wait to read this one.
The film's 1995 CGI is just plain goofy though. The titular monsters look more like one of the CGI sequences from The Lawnmower Man than eldritch timeline-eaters.
Read this in middle school on a family trip - as you say sometimes these family things are boring with a lot of down time. This story was amazing. One of my favorites.
Ohhhh yussssss. Honestly? Eck explaining sci fi that is NOT Star Wars is ironically my favorite part of this channel. That Childhoods end video? PEAK
"& More" is cool too!
Langoliers content is so rare. I love this movie, especially in the first half. Bad CGI be darned.
Lol mr toomey is great! That actor hammed it up more than anyone else and he deserves an Oscar
This along with Dagon were horror movies i saw on tv as a kid that always stuck with me, having really haunting imagery and unsettling implications.
Not gonna lie, this movie scared the crap out of me as a kid.
This story has a special place in my past, too.
We used to take a vacation to to ocean every summer. It's only a four-hour drive, but to kids, that's an eternity.
Once, on our way back, we put on the Langoliers book on tape. It was a really interesting idea and an engaging story.
There was a line in the story about the passengers seeing "colors never seen before" during their warp sequence, and we were joking about how that might be depicted in the TV movie. Of course, it wasn't.
This was actually the first Steven king movie I watched and I absolutely loved it
I always tell people about Langoliers as a great example of very early liminal space horror, and nobody seems to have ever heard of it. Glad to have come across this video!
4:58 DeBark the airplane 🐶
disembark, iirc
Yeah, for when you are a "part" of the party, then you depart from it. Only they were removing bark from the planes wings that builds up over time
This was so nostalgic. I watched this as part of a 2 night Steven King special with langoliers and the shining on a local Bangor Maine station when I was about 8 years old! Actually one of the most memorable movies I've ever watched
Of all the horrors I seen a kid this movie absolutely freaked me out for some reason lol
This show wrecked havok on my childhood undiagnosed ocd. I couldnt look at a clock for months if not years afterward.
Rewatching it as an adult had me dying on the floor laughing though LMAOOOO 😭
I loved this story in Four Past Midnight. The TV movie was great too but dang the written word paints on a better canvas.
4 past midnight is still one of my favorites he's written, nightmares and dreamscapes is a close tie
I have found that not many people now days even remember this movie! It is COMPLETELY an under rated movie today! It is one of my favorite movie and book!
Time cops from rick and morty
After about seventy five billion , extra years worth of out of space time evolution
No
Please watch a better show
Saw this as a kid, too. Felt so surreal. It's like a dream that i experienced with the characters in the movie itself. Like something that was real, but nobody would believe me if i tried to tell them. That's how this movie makes you feel.
I watched this when it originally aired on TV... I was mainly here for Balki from Perfect Strangers, with no idea what the book was about.
Here for the Balki jokes. Staying for the Pac Man jokes.
Love this film, a bit weird in parts but that’s SK for you. Just loved the whole mystery of it. Your right Eck, this has the vibe of the backrooms, the mundane everyday spaces usually busy and full of people and noise, empty and deserted. Major twist on time travel as well, that the past is empty of because everyone has moved into the present!
6:30 ah- *arora borealis!*
At this time of year?
@@BenWard29At this latitude...
Localized right here in your kitchen?
@@Tb0ne9921yes
“Oh, see, you broke time, and you thought you could just stick it back together with this?”
I never got why no clothes were left behind, though.
Holy cow I saw the second half of this movie on TV one night when I was a kid and had no idea what it was. It's lived rent free in my head for decades! Mystery solved!
I really liked the Nostalgia Critic episode covering this film for a while.
You had me at Willam Defoe reading thea audiobook.
Oh neat it's on Spotify
I like it only cause it features my beloved TriStar
I'm reading the Langoliers for the first time in 20-25 years. I am struck at how well it is structured and written. A very underrated book.
Stephen King is obviously one of the most famous horror writers in history, BUT his skill at Cosmic-Horror/Sci-fi is criminally underrated, because THIS is cosmic horror done absolutely right, almost perfectly
I remember catching this movie on TV as a kid and was so obsessed with it. Caught a rerun and absolutely loved it!
Early concept of Toadish space. I love how much of his works tie into each other
saw this film as a kid and it completely mesmerized me. the story was so special and unique.
Finding out about this story has just simultaneously explained so so many references in other media that previously went over my head
The langolers were like the back rooms before the back rooms. I've always loved this story.
My dad told me and my brother this story as a bedtime story when I was like 8 or so and it's stuck with me my whole life
King has another novel about time travel, 11-22-63. It's mostly a historical fiction adventure with some mystery and conspiracy thriller elements, but in the last act it ramps up into sci fi horror along similar lines to this story. It's just about possible to stitch the two stories together, as mucking about with time in 11-22-63 is clearly doing something physically disastrous to the planet but it's never made explicit how.
This is one movie I would love to see be remade or even a television series special. This movie scared me so much as a kid that I avoided rewatching it for most of my life.
When I was a kid, my mom mentioned this movie to me and I became obsessed trying to find clips of it on RUclips 😂 I got the basic idea and thought it was pretty good, I think this was my introduction to horror and I’m glad it was
One of those movies I remember from childhood but never heard about from others so I kinda forgot. Glad to see it's still popular.
When I was a kid I couldn’t handle anything even remotely scary, but Langoliers and the Tommyknockers? Somehow they flew just under that radar. Spooky, but not scary.
The Langoliers has always been among my favourite of King's work. Good to see others loved it too.
*The time keepers from Rick and Morty were based off these guys.*
Such a trip only knowing eck for his hockey content for the longest time then suddenly finding he does video essays on cult classics too
i had mostly forgot about it but i've seen it and it was so good. mr.king's movies were/are often so freaking good
I watched this movie as a young teenager some 30 years ago and I loved it. It was so tense without being outright scary. I should rewatch it.
Dude, I've had vague memories of this movie for years and could never remember enough details to find it. Thank you! I also totally forgot it was based on a Stephen King novella that I read at the library a while before I saw the movie.
This show was such an event in my house when it came out. I remember it was all anyone could talk about. And then i was afraid of getting eaten by langoliers for awhile lol
Now those testicles from rick & morty make so much more sense & now the jokes are even funnier holy shit.