I didn’t wake up today planning to think about Vic Morrow. YouTube was playing in the background; Planet CHH and Born 2 Be Rad were talking about Masters of Horror collections, when they brought up the Twilight Zone: The Movie tragedy. That story has haunted me since I was a kid.
Vic Morrow was filming a sequence where his character was escaping from a burning Vietnamese village, carrying two children, Myca Dinh Le and Renee Shin Yi Chen, through knee deep water as explosions erupted around them. A helicopter hovered close above for the shot. Then everything went wrong.
When I was young, my uncle told me this story right after I’d said I wanted to make action movies when I grew up. Maybe he wanted to teach me about responsibility, but it did more than that, it broke the illusion of movie safety. Up to that point, the word decapitation was something out of horror movies, not something that could happen on a movie set. Learning about Morrow’s death cracked something open in my brain.
For a long time, I hated John Landis for it. I loved his movies, but it made me feel guilty, like I was betraying Morrow’s memory by enjoying them. Later on in college, I read Lloyd Kaufman’s Make Your Own Damn Movie, and he talked about that same tragedy. Kaufman didn’t blame Landis as much as he blamed Spielberg, though, to be honest, it felt more like a personal vendetta than fact. Either way, that pushed me to find out what really happened.
Here’s, more or less, what I found, for anyone unfamiliar, or in need of a refresher. From Wikipedia:
“The night scene called for Morrow’s character to carry the two children out of a deserted village and across a shallow river while being pursued by American soldiers in a hovering helicopter. The helicopter was piloted by Vietnam War veteran Dorcey Wingo. During the filming, Wingo stationed his helicopter 25 ft (8 m) from the ground, while hovering near a large mortar effect; he then turned the aircraft 180 degrees to the left for the next camera shot. The effect was detonated while the helicopter’s tail rotor was still above it, the metal lid on top of the mortar striking the tail rotor, causing the rotor to fail and detach from the tail. The low flying helicopter spun out of control. At the same time, Morrow dropped Chen into the water. He was reaching out to grab her when the helicopter fell on top of him and the two children… all three died almost instantly.”
There’s more. Multiple witnesses claimed to have heard Landis shouting over the radio, “Lower, lower!” and even speculating aloud that they “might lose the helicopter.”
From The Times (June 1, 1987):
“Mr. Landis, aged 36, who personally thanked the jury for acquitting him, said: ‘A truly terrible, tragic accident happened on the set that has changed my life. I’m very relieved but I feel very sorry for the families of the children.’”
Landis and four others, producer George Folsey, production manager Dan Allingham, special effects coordinator Paul Stewart, and pilot Dorcey Wingo, were all acquitted as well.
And then came one of the ugliest comments from the trial. From Wingo himself, during cross examination:
“Morrow had over five seconds between the time the sound of the helicopter changed and that impact.”
Think about that. Five seconds. As if that somehow made it his fault.
I don’t hate John Landis anymore. I haven’t for a long time. But it still feels like he got away with something he shouldn’t have, not necessarily murder, but a complete disregard for safety and human life in the name of art.
Still, I didn’t write this to reopen wounds. I wrote this because Vic Morrow deserves to be remembered, not just for the way he died, but for the work he left behind.
He’s got some hidden gems in his filmography that horror fans should absolutely revisit:
- Curse of the Black Widow (1977) — A made for TV movie that has no right being as good as it is.
- The Evictors (1979) — The epitome of Southern Gothic horror, dripping with atmosphere and slow burn tension.
- Humanoids from the Deep (1980) — A sleazy, Lovecraftian riff on The Shadow Over Innsmouth that’s every bit as wild as it sounds.
- The Last Shark (1981) — A shameless Jaws ripoff so bold that Universal sued to get it pulled from theaters.
Vic Morrow wasn’t a household name like some of his peers, but he brought a gravity and grit to every role. You believed him. He felt real. And even if Hollywood didn’t always treat him that way, those who remember him, really remember him and know the truth:
He gave everything to his craft. And he paid the highest price for it.
Rest in peace, Vic Morrow, Myca Dinh Le, and Renee Shin-Yi Chen.
You’ll never be forgotten.
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