The opening to Cliffhanger is meant to be a harrowing experience. We're meant to feel enormous sorrow and pity as an innocent woman plunges to her horrible death. But how can we experience any kind of horror when Frank, a helicopter pilot played by Ralph Waite out of The Waltons, is in the background cackling with laughter? Just watch him. His eyes sparkle when Stallone tells the distressed woman that she's not doing to die. And he collapses in near hysterics when she falls but a few seconds later, obviously finding some kind of sick humour at the thought of the girl being smashed to pieces on the rocks, thousands of feet below. Contrast this with Michael Rooker's overacting – he almost faints as if he’s in a Jane Austen novel when he sees the girl plummet – and you have a scene that is tailor-made for chortles rather than gasps.

But to be fair to Stallone and the girl, they carry themselves pretty well in the scene. The girl pleads and pleads, and Stallone gamely hangs on. And the situation itself is excellent – huge drop, cracked harness, burly, lazy-mouthed actor trying to hang on to a hysterical woman who won’t shut the fuck up. But whenever I watch it, I can only see Frank's huge grin, his glowing eyes and him hooting in the background as Michael Rooker’s world falls apart. What exactly does Frank find so funny? Is he an evil old buzzard or has senility stalked its way into his spongy old brain? In his advanced years, does he think that the woman will be caught by kittens and rocketed to Valhalla in a chariot driven by mohawked-squirrels wearing diamond-encrusted strap-ons that spurt single-malt whisky? Or does he just not give a shit? Who the fuck knows...

However, as inappropriate as it is, Frank’s laughter isn’t entirely out of place. Nope, laughter is a common reaction when watching Cliffhanger. This isn’t to say that I dislike the film. It's a very enjoyable B-grade action movie. But it can't transcend the clichés of the genre.

One of the clichés the film adheres to is that the villain must be English. Well, at least I think he is. John Lithgow plays the main baddie and puts on an accent of some sort. But it's an amusing performance. His best bit has to be when he gets Stallone to climb up a rockface to get his money. "You, stay,” he says to the dribbling Rooker. And then to Stallone: “You, fetch." The joy is in his exaggerated enunciation. ‘Fetch’ somehow seems to have acquired an additional five syllables. Another funny bit is when Stallone throws Lithgow's money into the helicopter's rotors. "Damn you, Walker!" he screams like he's split a fingernail.

But there are other English villains. The first is Caroline Goodall who comes across as a low-rent Emma Thompson. But much more amusing is Craig Fairbrass (Dan out of EastEnders). His performance is atrocious. All he does is shout and swear. And he does it in a thick Cockney accent. “Fack this! Fack that!”

Fairbrass is immortalised in the scene where the drooling Michael Rooker goads him into beating him up. The Cockney is about as bright as a puddle of oil and forgoes a quick kill in favour of a prolonged pummeling. It turns out that Fairbrass' character is an ex-footballer. I guess this shouldn't be too surprising when his dialogue consists of lines like: "Yeah? And you're a loudmouth punk slag who's about to die." The only people I know who talk like that are West Ham fans.

But Fairbrass proceeds to give Rooker a surreal football-themed kicking, complete with running commentary – he even runs up to take a penalty. Is this how Hollywood sees the English? We're either effete brigands or beer-swilling hooligans. Actually, thinking about it, it's quite an accurate observation. Well done Renny Harlin. In your world of back-swimming sharks and flying Indy cars, you managed to find a single truth.

However, my favourite villain of all is played by Leon (he's so cool he doesn't even have a surname). He’s a tough Lennox Lewis-looking-like-motherfucker who eschews Fairbrass' shouty brand of villainy and instead tries to be quietly intimidating. This would be great but his line delivery is atrocious. He has no timing and seems incapable of emphasizing the right words. Where Lithgow can stretch and bend and slather layers of wonderful ham on his dialogue, Leon can only make his words sound like leaden mouth farts.

But to give the guy his dues, it is noticeable that, unlike Fairbrass, he does excel once he gives in to his urge to shout. He has a great scene in a cave where he actually seems like a genuine threat - he stalks Stallone and his girl with menace, taunting impotent old whitey with his ultimate fear; his girl having a black dick thrust upon her (and her liking it!). But before Stallone’s girlfriend Jessie has to suffer this outrage, Stallone grabs Leon by the balls and gorilla presses him through a spike. It's a WWE sort of death…which unsurprisingly I dig a great deal. (Although the filmmakers did miss a trick by not having Stallone yell, ‘You get the point!’ before shish-kebabing the scary black man.)

Speaking of Stallone, how does he fair in this film? Well, I've never really had much of a problem with Sly as an actor. Yeah, technically he’s not too great and yes he sounds like a man who was born with his brain upside down, but he is capable of a good performance here and there - just watch Copland or Rocky Balboa. Sadly, Cliffhanger is not one of those films. He’s okay at the beginning, showing humour and charm, but after the accident it all goes downhill. His idea of being haunted is to mope about like a thirteen-year-old that's been told to stop using his father's credit card to download porn. It's so amateurish.

Thank Christ then for Stallone’s bulging biceps! It’s these puppies that are given the opportunity to shine. I mean, just take the scene where the villains order Stallone to climb the mountain to retrieve their money. They make him remove his jacket. I can't help but feel that this wasn't done to prove how evil the villains are, but to allow Sly to climb while flaunting his thick, muscular arms. We don't want those babies covered up, no sirree!

However, Stallone and his biceps look like Marlon Brando compared to the "Whoa, dude!" extreme sports enthusiasts that pop up. They're sort of like Bill and Ted but without the charm. In fact, I wasn't distraught that one of them died; I was distraught that one survived. But at least the death of the Kurt Cobain lookalike gives us a hilarious silent "No!" moment from the gurning Michael Rooker, who once again amazes me with his sincere cheese. But then later on we get to relive the hilarity, because Frank's death elicits another rib-tickling "No!" moment.

Hey, what can I say, the old buzzard had it coming. You ain't laughing now, are you?

Apart from the stellar final section, there isn’t a whole lot to recommend in Twilight Zone: The Movie. Two of the four short films are piss poor and one is merely okay.

However, the opening prologue is rather amusing. The film begins with two men driving along a deserted road at night. It’s unclear whether the men know each other, but they talk about TV shows and eventually begin to try and scare one another. The driver’s method is to turn the lights off on his car and drive blind. The passenger isn’t best pleased and then asks the driver if he wants to see something really scary. The driver pulls off the road and the passenger turns around. When he turns back he’s a blue demon.

I don’t know whether the above is meant to be scary, but it’s certainly funny. And it’s funny because Dan Akroyd plays the passenger. A less scary man I can’t imagine – he the cuddly, Pillsbury Dough Boy-like figure of the Ghostbusters films. So therefore, when he has the driver (incidentally played by Albert Brooks) stop the car, and when he holds his finger up as he hides his face, it’s amusing rather than threatening. What’s blubber-boy Akyroyd going to do? Hug the man to death? And as a demon he almost does this. But even though the moment with the demon is genuinely meant to be shocking and scary, it’s made somewhat laughable by the fact that the demon looks like it goes cross-eyed when it attacks the driver. The bonk-eyed demon from hell strikes!

Sadly most of the short films aren’t as entertaining as this prologue.

The first short, and the one that was responsible for beheading Vic Morrow and the killing of two children when a helicopter crashed into them, is a moribund affair. What we have is a bigot pissing and moaning about the fact that he was passed over for promotion by a Jewish man. Cue the joyless bastard insulting as many minorities as he can.

For his sins, the man is then transported back to Nazi Germany and he’s recognised not as the all-American, uber macho Yankee he sees himself as, and is instead given a yellow star to wear. He then tires to run away and is pursued by dirty fascists.

After this, he’s transported back to America and is almost lynched (a group of rednecks call him a nigger). However, the man manages to kick a hooded Klan member into a burning crucifix, once again proving why it’s stupid to walk around with a huge, burning stick. And after surviving this ordeal, the man is transported back to Vietnam and is almost killed by American soldiers as they call him a gook.

The final moments see the man transported to a concentration camp by Nazis. Mmm. I wonder what the moral of this story could be? Is it saying that racism is, you know, bad?

The second film, directed by Steven Spielberg, is even worse than the first. Indeed it’s hardly even worth mentioning. Basically what happens is that a magic black man turns a bunch of old codgers into children and we learn that no matter how old you are, you should always stay young at heart. But there can be no feelgood glow when the child actors are so overbearingly precious. It’s like a horrible test run for Hook. And plus it feels incredibly out of place when spliced into the middle of all of these dark, nasty tales. It’s like being punched by a couple of right hooks (Demons! Nazis!) and then someone baking you a cake that makes you puke all over yourself. It’s just wrong.

Things improve somewhat with the third film, but it still didn’t quite do it for me. A schoolteacher almost runs over a child and then drives him home to take him back to his family. However, when we get to his house, we realise something is wrong. The family (which proves not to be his family at all – he ‘collects’ people) behave weirdly and there seem to be far too many televisions playing cartoons.

Over time we find out that the child can make all of his wishes come true. And seeing as he’s a pre-pubescent, he mostly wants to make people cook him burgers and tell him how great he is. Of course, though, for everyone else, this is hell. They live in terror. They’re always frightened of displeasing their ‘son’.

And while this story is fun, the attempts to round out the character of the child fall flat. He’s sad that his wishes don’t make him happy like wishes are supposed to. Oh boo-hoo, I feel so sorry for someone who transports people into cartoons and has them eaten by weird cartoon characters. Yes, I can feel your plight.

And while there are some pleasingly nasty shocks, the end is kind of ridiculous. The teacher decides to become a real mother to the boy and he promises to no longer use his powers for evil – she’ll look after him and give him a proper life. Yeah, right, good thinking lady. You just know that he’ll fall off the wagon. I mean, say he’s okay for a couple of years. Sounds okay, doesn’t it? But then the teenage years will hit and bad things will happen. Just think about it. Say there’s a girl in school that he likes but then she turns him down. Is he really going to accept that? I don’t think so. He’ll do something hideous to her. Or even if he has a girlfriend but she wont perform an act that he desperately wants. For example, say he wants her to perform oral sex on him but she doesn’t like it. He’ll probably go and have her mouth turned into a vagina and have her transported into a maximum security prison. Or alternatively, unbeknownst to her, he’ll have her clitoris transported into her heart. The only time the woman will have a clitoral orgasm will be when she has a massive coronary.

Thankfully the fourth film comes along and blows everything else out of the water. It’s a remake of the Twilight Zone story that had William Shatner terrorized by a fat Yeti on the wing of a plane (a fat Yeti that looked like the man in a bear suit in The Shining - the one that was sucking that ghost dude's cock). Here, though, you have a nasty, evil looking gremlin.

The success of the story lies in the everyday fear that drives it. Even if you’re not frightened of flying, you can relate in some way. I’m sure most people have had their moments on flights when they’ve been scared – whether it be turbulence or a jittery landing. So unlike the demons, the scary boy and the Nazis (unless you lived through the Second World War), you finally have a story that can easily resonate.

Plus there’s no annoying moralising. This isn’t a plea to stop being a bigot, or to stay young at heart, or to be nice – it’s just a good, honest story about a gremlin.

And the gremlin anyway is just a visualisation of the fear that something will happen to the engines or the plane itself. It’s a normal fear made flesh.

And most of the time the gremlin looks very cool. It looks particularly creepy when seen from a distance. But things kind of fall apart when it interacts with John Lithgow. At the end there’s a ridiculous moment when Lithgow shoots through the plane window and man and monster fight at thousands of feet in the air. It’s the only wrong step in an otherwise excellent piece of filmmaking.

Lots of credit must be given to the director and the star. The film is jittery and anxious, and Lithgow’s performance is marvellous. And it’s kind of galling that the director of Mad Max and Babe: Pig in the City could so easily blow Spielberg off the screen. But he does so with ease.