Flight of the Living Dead: Outbreak on a Plane (2007)
Director: Scott Thomas
Writers: Sidney Iwanter,
Mark Onspaugh
Partial Cast:
David Chisum,
Kristen Kerr,
Kevin J. O'Connor,
Richard Tyson,
Erick Avari
As a lover of horror movies, in particular, the zombie movie, I have to sit through a lot of dreck in my pursuit to find any good, B-grade zombie films. When you fist here the premise behind this film, a zombie outbreak on a plane, you will either roll your eyes at the stupidity, immediately think
Snakes on a Plane cash-in, or both. But if you are a zombie movie lover, you really owe it to yourself to check this movie out. While it is low-budget, the cast and crew hide it well and have created an extremely entertaining, gory movie full of everything you would expect from a film of this title. In other words, it will not let you down.
First, let's clear one thing up. This movie was in development before Snakes on a Plane. The only thing they share is the plot-holed, ridiculous plot premise. Besides, even with a lower budget and production values, Flight of the Dead is much, much better. Originally titled "Plane Dead", the title was changed at Montreal's 2007 Fantasia festival. The synopsis of the film is that 3 rogue scientists have a secret experiment stowed away on a commercial passenger plane headed to Paris. In storage, under the watchful eye of an armed guard, is a container whose contents consists of a human infected with a new virus. This virus kills you, and then re-animates you. Once re-animated, the subject is turned into a yellow-eyed, extremely pissed off zombie intent on eating any other living thing it can find. The movie follows what happens when the container is opened by accident and the passengers on the plane are subjected to the virus as the plane flies into a nasty storm. These passengers include a cop and his prisoner, a group of dumb teen-agers, a nun, an air marshal and a Tiger Woods type golf pro. They are made up of relatively unknowns, but there are a few veterans most viewers will recognize such as Kevin J. O'Connor, Erick Avari, and Richard Tyson.
CGI is used throughout the film, and while it is not Jurassic Park caliber, it is nowhere near as bad as what you may find playing on the Sci-Fi Channel. The zombies themselves are a cross between the infected in
28-Days Later and the zombies in
House of the Dead 2. The effects used on them basically consists of yellow contacts, a purple-veined hue and a mouth full of blood. They are also the fast kind of zombie who can run, jump, hiss, growl climb, coordinate and think. They chase the passengers relentlessly through every inch of the plane, including the air ducts.
Optic Nerve Studios provides a ton of gore in the form of various gunshots, bite wounds, decapitations and some highlights involving an umbrella being speared through a zombies mouth, and then opened. A great, splattery headshot near the end of the film, and some pretty clever camera work including watching a man being eaten by zombies through his own eyeglasses.
Being a low-budget zombie film on a plane, the movie does suffer from plotholes (more guns are fired in this plane than in some war films) and some writing that has dialog keeping the film grounded around the cheesy mark, but it is all easily overlooked as this film doesn't ever attempt to be anything more than it is. Because of this fact, and the enthusiasm of the cast, the movie comes out a step above what one might expect from a direct-to-video release. Director Scott Thomas has delivered a fast-paced, entertaining zombie film that I would recommend to anyone who is a fan of B-movies or zombies in general. It wont disappoint.
Besides, where else are you going to watch a zombie who has been strapped into his seat throughout the entire movie, take out a fighter jet?
Links
Official Site |
Trailer |
IMDB |
Wikipedia
Screenshots
August 7th, 2007, 09:47 AM
Flight of the Living Dead: Outbreak on a Plane (2007)
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