Sunday, December 16, 2007

Flight of the Living Dead (seriously)

Seriously, I'm not joking. The movie is called Flight of the Living Dead. And yes Plane+Zombies does not equal Awesome. That was a blatant lie on my part, but you knew that. This is of course also assuming that someone actually read my last post and is now faithfully reading this one. Trust me I'm not naive enough to believe any of that. Anyway, whether I'm talking to myself or not I'm going to start the review now. Enjoy!
Once the gloriously titled DVD has been put in the machine it greets you with... nothing, no company names, no previews, just the greatest main menus I have ever seen.
You get a cardboard cutout looking plane twirling towards you (yes it twirls) until it runs into the screen. Then you hear some stereo typical horror type music accompanied by poorly edited pieces of the movie playing in the windshield of the plane. As if this poorly mashed together pile of shitty action clips is happening inside the cardboard plane. Clever illusion numb nuts! And as I'm writing this I've also noticed it all loops. Not just the scenes in the window, the whole Fucking thing! so every thirty seconds I get the joy of watching the piece of shit plane careening towards me with anticipation that I'm going to have to hear that god awful music ALL OVER AGAIN! So now I'll start it again(since I watched it yesterday as well).
Hey I finally get to see who made it...sweet. Wait, their playing a little piano number that actually sounds good. It actually has a kind of creepy vibe to it. Maybe I spoke to soon, maybe this movie will be decent...maybe not. They abruptly switch to some uninspired light rock just as I was really getting into the piano. Nice, they have managed to instantly piss me off! Then we see the final nail in the movie's coffin (pun quite intended). An overly elaborate C.G title sequence. In a movie like this that is bad. It means they spent all their money on a flashy title to try and hook the viewer because they know the movie can't. And I'm serious this title sequence probably cost more to make then the movie.
Now let's talk about the characters (if you can call them characters. Their all stereotypical horror movie fodder, who's only purpose is to die horribly (hopefully soon). We have three stewardesses (one is the stereotypical slut. There is a famous guy, who in this case is a golfer. Note the putter he's always holding, that way we remember he's a golfer and this also gives him an instant weapon against the undead(why did they let him take it on the plane, WTF). Then you have the group of teenagers(a staple in every horror movie). It consists of two sluts and to jackass surfer dudes. By the way they really are surfers that's why their on this trip, apparently Paris is a great spot for surfing, something I actually looked up. You learn something new everyday. I probably should have mentioned their destination sooner but it never matters anyway, so I don't care. we also have the evil doctors and (oh my god) a detective handcuffed to a prisoner. Apparently every plane has a cop transporting a convict. There are more but I'm not going to bother mentioning them. Actually we meet almost everyone on the plane, this is possible because it is freaking empty (they must have had a hard time finding extras).
The story is ridiculous so I'll sum it up quick. The evil doctors lead by Bald evil doctor have brought not just a zombie virus but an actual zombie onto the plane. Something goes wrong with stasis and it wakes up. Then a guard armed with a sub-machine gun shoots the shit out of it (some how no one hears this). then it disappears(so scary), shouldn't it be dead? Then after a thrilling and suspenseful wait were nothing really happens the zombie flies(quite literally) back on the screen and kills the guard. This is the main problem I have with the zombies, they are basically super human. Their way faster and stronger than normal human and rip through the plane to get to their victims. What ensues is your run of the mill zombie sense where people die, turn to zombies, then get killed again by the heroes. Nothing new and it's all done in a very basic manner than has no originality. Though one thing puzzles me. Where the fuck do the zombies keep disappearing too? Planes aren't big enough to hide the endless hordes of zombies that appear in this movie. I fact there are more zombies then there ever was passengers(I'll get to that later). There is actually way to much to bitch about so I'll just finish this plot summery with this. the story is shit, the characters are flat and uninteresting, everyone has a pointless back story and there are only two characters I liked; the convict who was actually kind of funny and a zombie who spent the entire movie stuck in his chair. I actually felt bad for him , he was so pathetic. He couldn't figure out how to get his seat belt off and kept trying in vain to catch people as they ran by him (poor zombie).
As far as techniques and art direction goes this movie looks like shit. The film has a really poor quality that I wasn't expecting after the oh so beautiful intro. There are also so serious problems with makeup and CG work. Some of the special effects look completely ASS and they reuse their zombie extras over and over again making the zombies seem invincible.
Basically this movie isn't worth watch unless you catch it on t.v and watch it for a laugh. However it's also harmless and never really tries to be good anyway.
So it gets a grade of D.

I expect no one is going to see it so I'll give you the highlights of the movie in a section I will call...
Nightmare's Top Three

#3:
The Golfer hits a Zombie in the head with his putter. This hit has so much force it knocks the zombie's head off and sends it flying across the plane.

#2: The golfers wife stabs a zombie through the head with an umbrella. And in a real fuck you moment she opens up the umbrella which unfurls behind the zombie's head. Just sweet.

#1: A jet fires a missile at the plane which causes the side of the plane to open up. this launches a bunch of zombies out into the sky, including my favorite character "stuck in seat zombie". Him and his chair of death fly into the jet, blowing it up! He finally killed someone, woot woot!

This movie would have been much better if it just admitted it was a rip off and had someone scream

I HAVE HAD IT WITH THESE MOTHERFUCKING ZOMBIES ON THIS MOTHERFUCKING PLANE!!!

5 comments:

Gurn said...

Sounds like another B-movie I need to buy to add to my collection :) I suggest you try and find "Snakes on a Train" as this is truly a horrifying spectacle.. or is the world I'm looking for debacle? ;)

Nightmare said...

Your kidding...Snakes on a Train?! If this movie truly exists you are right, I must find it! Thanks for the comment, Teh Nightmare appreciates feedback.

Gurn said...

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0843873/

Nightmare said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Nightmare said...

I'll start looking for it ASAP, thanks again man.