Reminder: Max Landis' Father, John Landis, Is Also Terrible

http://www.pajiba.com/celebrities_are_better_than_you/john-landis-feud-with-eddie-murphy-over-twilight-zone-movie-deaths.php

People have been saying for years that the only reason that Max Landis — accused of emotional and sexual abuse by eight women yesterday and dropped by his management today — even had a career to begin was because of his last name. Max is the son of John Landis, best known for directing a string of successful movies in the late ’70s and early ’80s, including American Werewolf in London, Animal House, Blues Brothers, Trading Places, and ¡Three Amigos!, among others, before his career faded into oblivion long before Max Landis began steady work. While I’m sure that Max Landis’ last name got him in the door, I’m not entirely sure that his father had enough pull left in Hollywood to get Max steady work. By the time that Max had written Chronicle, John was four years removed from directing an episode of Psych. The reality is, in the social media era, it’d be almost impossible for John Landis to work, because 35 years after the Twilight Zone movie, it’s the only thing people talk about online when the name of John Landis comes up.
Go ahead: Try and find an interview or a profile of Landis from the last decade, check the comments, and see how many times Twilight Zone was mentioned (often gruesome) In fact, go to Reddit, and see how many times it is mentioned in the context of Max Landis, so much so that a few years ago, Max Landis lashed out at Redditors:
Occasionally, just occasionally these days, the internet still makes me a little sick to my stomach. The fact that this accident, which claimed 3 lives and gave my father PTSD for my entire time of knowing him (I was born in 1985), is repeatedly retold with apocryphal elements and only cursory mention that there was a huge, well-prosecuted trial that ended in an ACQUITTAL based on YOU KNOW IT BEING AN ACTUAL FLUKE ACCIDENT and that being unequivocably proven in court is horrifying to me.
To be honest, Max Landis defending his father because of an acquittal is like O.J. Simpson’s kid saying that he didn’t murder their mother because a jury said so. There is nothing unequivocal about it. Yes, the incident oversaw by John Landis on the set of a Twilight Zone: The Movie that resulted in three deaths was an “accident,” but it was hardly a “fluke.” John Landis’ reckless disregard for the welfare of children, refusal to abide by child labor laws and his carelessness in planning for a stunt created the perfect storm of conditions for the accident.

In 1982, John Landis ignored child labor laws and hired a six and seven-year-old to work on a stunt scene involving helicopters and explosives that filmed around midnight. He didn’t ask for permission because he knew that permission would not be granted for two young children to work in the middle of the night around a bunch of explosives. In fact, he left casting agents out of the loop and asked the parents of the young children not to inform firefighters of their presence, and he hid the children from the fire safety officer. The parents of the children were reportedly never told there would be helicopters involved before Landis shot the scene.
The scene was dangerous to begin with, even without the presence of kids. It was so dangerous, in fact, that the last words Vic Morrow (the father of Jennifer Jason Leigh) said before the accident was, “I’ve got to be crazy to do this shot. I should’ve asked for a double.”
The scene involved lowering a helicopter over Vic Morrow and the two child actors, who were wading through a river. Explosive effects were designed to go off near the helicopter. How anyone could look at this situation and not believe it put the actors in extreme danger is beyond me, but — according to the mother of one of the child actors — Landis was yelling, “Lower! Lower!” to the helicopter pilot, who was apparently inexperienced and already skittish about this stunt. What happened next may have been an accident, but was a foreseeable one: An explosive went off, blew the tail rotor off the helicopter. The helicopter went into a tailspin. The helicopter blades decapitated Vic Morrow and one of the child actors, while the helicopter itself crushed the other child actor. All three died instantaneously.
Landis and the stunt coordinator were charged but ultimately acquitted of manslaughter. However, the families were awarded millions of dollars in separate civil lawsuits. Landis has never, so far as I have seen, sufficiently apologized for the incident and expressed appropriate remorse.
In fact, film critic Walter Chaw dug up this account on John Landis from Eddie Murphy in a Playboy interview many years ago, which essentially illustrates that not only was Landis not remorseful, he was hostile toward Eddie Murphy for not testifying in his defense during The Twilight Zone trial.