Sometimes I sit at my desk before a review trying to figure out how to nail my point of view in the first few sentences. A lot of the time I’ll sit and write and rewrite the first three sentences over and over trying to figure out how best to describe how I feel. Flight of the Living Dead was a tremendous challenge, trying to nail down how I feel about this film. Let’s look at it this way, this wasn’t the first Zombie movie I’d seen, nor the first horror movie I’d seen. Having come into the filming with a litany of preconceived notions and expectations I was not sure at all if I would like this movie. In the end the best way to describe my feelings are this, I had to go to the restroom from about 15 minutes into the movie, and the movie didn’t suck nearly enough to validate leaving to relieve myself. I hung in there, for almost the entire film dying inside while I enjoyed this awesome movie.
Why was Flight of the Living Dead so awesome? In short, the movie went the extra mile for me on so many different occasions. This movie could have been half as good and still been entertaining, the film gives you exactly what you need visually, and then backs that up with a great deal of smarts and storytelling. The story in of itself is a blend of the standard horror fare along with a set of unique development twists. The premise is what you would expect; the scientific community has come along to destroy mankind in order to save it. As opposed to the Romero films, Flight actually takes the time to try and explain where the zombies have come from, which I appreciated. You will be surprised to see that the government hasn’t been framed as the bad guy in this story (the big bad government is just too easy), and more importantly the government guys actually take what I would consider a realistic reaction to a plane full of undead creatures barreling toward a populated city.
The cast of the film was a who’s who of the horror film genre with guys like Richard Tyson leading the way for the horror alums. The whole gamut of archetypes were present, like the jocks, the married couple, and the nun. There were so many moments that I didn’t want to laugh at but just couldn’t help myself. The most impressive thing about the players in this movie is that there are no really annoying characters in the film. Kevin O’Conner played Frank, a man in custody being extradited to France and he annoyed most of the other characters in the film, all his scenes worked exactly how they should have, and he still didn’t bug me. There are few annoyingly weak characters even if they all don’t get involved in the action, there’s never a point where I thought, “Man, I wish this b*tch would just stop crying.” To go one better the film does a great job of making light of the futility of their situation, one of the funniest scenes in the film finds Kristen Kerr (imagine a more attractive Courtney Cox) playing a flight attendant that is barely managing to hold it together asking people to return to their seats even after everyone knows about the two chewed up bodies by her feet, the look on her face as she speaks into the P.A. is classic.
Now, I know what you’re thinking, the movie couldn’t have been that damn good. But, you know what? It was that good. It had everything you needed, zombie’s eating people, attractive women being eaten by said zombies, guys with guns shooting zombies, and finally splosions (that’s not a typo, it’s my word). On top of all that you actually get good acting (not really a requirement), a story that someone put some thought into, and true cinematic experience from one of the most unlikely premises since Free Willy (What? A movie about a boy and his whale? No… you come on!). The saddest thing is that this movie is a straight to DVD release, denying people the kind of drive-in experience that this movie was made for. Go out and get this DVD October 2nd and then send an email to New Line Cinema so that they know that fans of the genre will still go to the theatres when they make good horror movies like this one.
