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Flight of the Living Dead

A Review by Nick Peron

New Line Cinema. When one thinks about New Line Cinema you can't really come up with a lot of bad things to say about them -- or at least the movies they review. I'm sure there are some people who might wish to curse them for being screwed out of a Toxic Crusaders movie... But otherwise, you can take a look at them and not feel too much hate. They were the little movie studio that could, and proved that a pissant little independant film studio can be horribly transformed into a big corporate studio, just like all the other Warner Brotherses, and Paramountseses out there.... If you can decently whore out your most popular franchise. The people at New Line certainly don't forget their independant roots, or that they were the "movie studio that Freddy built" (as they say) and while they have gone on and created million dollar budget films like the Lord of the Rings trilogy and the Blade movie franchise, they still have a bit of the independant cut. Granted, they aren't some of the more low budget fare that we all know and love, you can see the influences that are there. Movies like Be Kind Rewind , and Gummo , are perfect examples.

When it comes to their horror fare though? Well, it is the house that Freddy built, so any splatter film that's coming out with the New Line stamp on it is going to have to measure up to their monolithic character. Which brings us to the movie I am about to review today, Flight of the Living Dead.

Make no mistakes, this isn't another chapter in the epic George Romero zombie films, this is just a movie that executed a semi clever play-on-words and made a movie around it. I myself am going to take a cue from this idea, and please look forward to my future zombie epics: Right of the Living Dead, Fight of the Living Dead, and Bright of the Living Dead. All of which will involved a smoking monkey named Co-Co, and a cast of jive-talking black people in fat suits fighting zombies with their explosive flatulence and a weed wacker. Oh, and it will also contribute to the whole zombie mythos by being the only series of zombie movies that will feature zombies that can juggle, play tiddly-winks, and quickly hide their porno whenever their zombie-mothers enter in the room while they're masturbating. But I'm getting ahead of myself... Let's get back to talking about Flight of the Living Dead.

The first tag line you have to notice on this one is that it's sub-titled "Outbreak on a Plane".... Oh see, I get it now. Obviously since New Line Cinema released Snakes on a Plane a year earlier, they decided to take the whole "Something horrible happens on an airplane" and roll with it. Why the fuck not right? Because since Snakes on a Plane came out, people are apparently demanding movies about impossibly terrible things happening on commercial transportation systems. While Flight of the Living Dead is probably not as bad as Asylum Film's Snakes on a Train (Which I will review at some point children, please be patient, you have to pick your battles one at a time) it's certainly lacking in the creativity department.

It's another horror movie filled with cast members who you're never going to remember their names, or probably see ever again. All the women in the film are impossibly attractive, like taking a flight on a plane to Europe involves looking like a cross between a Pop-Princess between gigs and a super-model. There's the two couples who are secretly cheating on each other, there's the token black person who is "doing really well" -- this time they decided instead of making him a rapper (Which is always the old staple) he is a golf pro (kind of like Tiger Woods), there's the cop escorting the dangerious criminal, oh and let's not forget the source of the zombies being in the cargo hold.

The plot is almost a direct rip-off of Snakes on a Plane in terms of the type of characters that were used, right down to a cop escourting someone to their destination. The other plot point that doesn't make much sense is that a commercial company that has made a zombie plague, has their only working test subject stored in cargo, and are transporting it on a commercial airliner. There's a sub plot involving a bunch a guys in rented army uniforms in a room that's "supposed" to be in the Pentagon talking about stopping them from transporting the zombies... Anyway... Why are they transporting a zombie contaigen on a commercial airliner? Honestly? Granted, it would have made for a less interesting film, but if it really was a big corporation behind it all they could have bought their own plane and transported it out of the country. But no, they went with this...

So what happens is that the experiment (which is a zombie of one of the scientists wives... What better way to say I love you than the gift of a zombie bacterium) get's free and slowly and surely people all over the plane get turned into zombies. It utilizes the same tired tactics that Snakes on the Plane used as devices to give the audience a good scare: 1.) That our characters are trapped on a plane at 40,000 feet and can't getaway and 2.) If this is structurally accurate or not, there are lots of places on a plane where something that wants to get you can hide.

However, it doesn't look like any sort of research into the actual construction of an airplane went into this movie. With Snakes the situation made more sense because the type of aircraft they used. They used a Boeng 747-400, which is a airplane that essentially has two floors, and a lot of room and crawling spaces. Plus the films subject terrors were snakes, so the idea of snakes being able to get all over an airplane is something you can logically believe. The aircraft used in Flight of the Living Dead is simply a Boeing 747 jumbo jet. The subjects are fully grown humans that have a habbit of eating people. There is not a whole lot of places you can hide these characters out. But apparently, this is the only 747 airplane that has a huge cargo-hold that is wonderfully lit and kind of looks like a utility basement.

The other thing that shows that whoever made this move didn't give it much thought is the fact that there are characters shooting guns in the airplane. And not just hand guns, but automatic weapons. That is crazy dangerious and stupid, unless all your characters are crack-shots, you are at risk of punching a hole in the plane and depressurizing the cabin, which would cause massive damage to the plane and suck your entire cast of intrepid little survivors out into the wild blue yonder. At least with Snakes on a Plane they addressed that little point.

So as you guessed it, the plot is very weak, so what about the special effects? Well, there's the really obvious CGI airplane, and the zombie effects themselves. The film was mostly content with showing blood caked zombies, bite marks and bullet wounds, it wasn't until later that they get mangled enough to look passingly interesting. Like a lot of semi-big budget horror films, I think the creators relied too heavily on post-production special effects to make convincing gore effects. Which at the end of the day, always makes it come out looking fakey. For example, the scene where the head of the corporation responsible for the whole zombies-on-a-plane thing gets turned into a zombie himself, he gets his face ripped open so it looks like a god-awful grin. That's done with make-up effects, and that was a neat effect. It's believable, and with the actor they used, it really looks kind of creepy. What they do later however, is show the character getting hacked up in the planes wing turbine. All of that is done with CGI and special effects, and combined with their lack of understanding of what would happen if you tossed your standard human into a jet turbine, it looks horrible.

Granted, it's cheaper than getting an actual real airplane and tossing a fake body into it, but the other thing is is that it shows far too much and doesn't leave a lot to the imagination. On top of that, it's not a very good depiction of death by turbine. You want to go and see a good one? Go out and watch Die Hard 2 , that has a great scene where a guy is thrown in a jet turbine.

So the movie ends with our heroes seemingly vanquishing all the zombies with a handful of guns, and a golf club, and crashing the plane in the desert (and somehow not causing it to explose or turn into a horrible horrible wreck like most airplane crashes where the plane is attempted to be landed by a real pilot) and they stumble off in hopes of finding help. Of course, the movie decides to end on a plot twist, where --- SURPRISE! The zombies are still alive. Shocked? I know I was.

Perhaps I'm being to harsh on this film, because if you believe what's said on the internet (and if that's true, then you think that's female ejaculate instead of pee) this movie is supposed to be a parody of Snakes on a Plane and it's various knock-offs and imitators. Perhaps that's what rackles me the most. Them making a parody, that's essentially the same as the rip-offs and imitations. We get it,you can do the same thing as well. But why waste your time and energy on such a project? If you're going to do a pardoy or make a mockery of these films, I would figure you'd put a little more into it so that it would stand out over the others and people would get that it's a parody. I had to go on the internet and find that out. Your audience shouldn't have to do that to figure out your intention.

The other thing that really pisses me off I guess is the fact that this is another lazy zombie movie. Ever since Romero became recognized for the genius he is, everyone is coming out of the woodwork with zombie movies because that's the "cool thing to do". In fact, the 2000's are to zombie movies as the 90's were to vampire movies. But there is a major flaw with these zombie movies: They will never be any good because they don't have a good story. It's all the same recycled ideas over and over, with nothing new to add. They focus on the gore effects instead of the plot (and in some cases, that works even more against them due to budget constraints) As somebody in the viewing audience, if I wanted to watch hour after hour of people pretending to eat other people (And most time unconvincingly) I'd... I'd... Look for it on the internet. Yeah.. Okay, I got nothing here... But seriously, if you ever want to make a good zombie movie, I don't care if your inspired by Romero, Dan O'Brien, Lucio Fulci, or the assholes who did 28 Days Later ...It's not the gore or the zombies that make for a good zombie movie: It's the story. The gore is a plot device, and yes, it's required in a zombie movie -- but it should never be the central focus.

In conclusion, Flight of the Living Dead is kind of like taking a shit in an airplane bathroom. You have the reliefe of releasing your bowels, but the seat's cold, it's cramped, people are constantly knocking at the door, and the flushing mechanism is a frightening pressure suction that could probably take your hand off if it could reach.

Most Items We Have Reviewed and Commented On Are Available Through Amazon.com. If you want to pick them up for yourself, please don't hesitate to do so through this link below, proceeds on any sales will go towards the operation of this website:


		Flight of the Living Dead A Review by Nick Peron New Line Cinema. When one thinks about New Line Cinema you can't really come up with a lot of bad things to say about them -- or at least the movies they review. I'm sure there are some people who might wish to curse them for being screwed out of a Toxic Crusaders movie... But otherwise, you can take a look at them and not feel too much hate. They were the little movie studio that could, and proved that a pissant little independant film studio can be horribly transformed into a big corporate studio, just like all the other Warner Brotherses, and Paramountseses out there.... If you can decently whore out your most popular franchise. The people at New Line certainly don't forget their independant roots, or that they were the "movie studio that Freddy built" (as they say) and while they have gone on and created million dollar budget films like the Lord of the Rings trilogy and the Blade movie franchise, they still have a bit of the independant cut. Granted, they aren't some of the more low budget fare that we all know and love, you can see the influences that are there. Movies like Be Kind Rewind , and Gummo , are perfect examples. When it comes to their horror fare though? Well, it is the house that Freddy built, so any splatter film that's coming out with the New Line stamp on it is going to have to measure up to their monolithic character. Which brings us to the movie I am about to review today, Flight of the Living Dead. Make no mistakes, this isn't another chapter in the epic George Romero zombie films, this is just a movie that executed a semi clever play-on-words and made a movie around it. I myself am going to take a cue from this idea, and please look forward to my future zombie epics: Right of the Living Dead, Fight of the Living Dead, and Bright of the Living Dead. All of which will involved a smoking monkey named Co-Co, and a cast of jive-talking black people in fat suits fighting zombies with their explosive flatulence and a weed wacker. Oh, and it will also contribute to the whole zombie mythos by being the only series of zombie movies that will feature zombies that can juggle, play tiddly-winks, and quickly hide their porno whenever their zombie-mothers enter in the room while they're masturbating. But I'm getting ahead of myself... Let's get back to talking about Flight of the Living Dead. The first tag line you have to notice on this one is that it's sub-titled "Outbreak on a Plane".... Oh see, I get it now. Obviously since New Line Cinema released Snakes on a Plane a year earlier, they decided to take the whole "Something horrible happens on an airplane" and roll with it. Why the fuck not right? Because since Snakes on a Plane came out, people are apparently demanding movies about impossibly terrible things happening on commercial transportation systems. While Flight of the Living Dead is probably not as bad as Asylum Film's Snakes on a Train (Which I will review at some point children, please be patient, you have to pick your battles one at a time) it's certainly lacking in the creativity department. It's another horror movie filled with cast members who you're never going to remember their names, or probably see ever again. All the women in the film are impossibly attractive, like taking a flight on a plane to Europe involves looking like a cross between a Pop-Princess between gigs and a super-model. There's the two couples who are secretly cheating on each other, there's the token black person who is "doing really well" -- this time they decided instead of making him a rapper (Which is always the old staple) he is a golf pro (kind of like Tiger Woods), there's the cop escorting the dangerious criminal, oh and let's not forget the source of the zombies being in the cargo hold. The plot is almost a direct rip-off of Snakes on a Plane in terms of the type of characters that were used, right down to a cop escourting someone to their destination. The other plot point that doesn't make much sense is that a commercial company that has made a zombie plague, has their only working test subject stored in cargo, and are transporting it on a commercial airliner. There's a sub plot involving a bunch a guys in rented army uniforms in a room that's "supposed" to be in the Pentagon talking about stopping them from transporting the zombies... Anyway... Why are they transporting a zombie contaigen on a commercial airliner? Honestly? Granted, it would have made for a less interesting film, but if it really was a big corporation behind it all they could have bought their own plane and transported it out of the country. But no, they went with this... So what happens is that the experiment (which is a zombie of one of the scientists wives... What better way to say I love you than the gift of a zombie bacterium) get's free and slowly and surely people all over the plane get turned into zombies. It utilizes the same tired tactics that Snakes on the Plane used as devices to give the audience a good scare: 1.) That our characters are trapped on a plane at 40,000 feet and can't getaway and 2.) If this is structurally accurate or not, there are lots of places on a plane where something that wants to get you can hide. However, it doesn't look like any sort of research into the actual construction of an airplane went into this movie. With Snakes the situation made more sense because the type of aircraft they used. They used a Boeng 747-400, which is a airplane that essentially has two floors, and a lot of room and crawling spaces. Plus the films subject terrors were snakes, so the idea of snakes being able to get all over an airplane is something you can logically believe. The aircraft used in Flight of the Living Dead is simply a Boeing 747 jumbo jet. The subjects are fully grown humans that have a habbit of eating people. There is not a whole lot of places you can hide these characters out. But apparently, this is the only 747 airplane that has a huge cargo-hold that is wonderfully lit and kind of looks like a utility basement. The other thing that shows that whoever made this move didn't give it much thought is the fact that there are characters shooting guns in the airplane. And not just hand guns, but automatic weapons. That is crazy dangerious and stupid, unless all your characters are crack-shots, you are at risk of punching a hole in the plane and depressurizing the cabin, which would cause massive damage to the plane and suck your entire cast of intrepid little survivors out into the wild blue yonder. At least with Snakes on a Plane they addressed that little point. So as you guessed it, the plot is very weak, so what about the special effects? Well, there's the really obvious CGI airplane, and the zombie effects themselves. The film was mostly content with showing blood caked zombies, bite marks and bullet wounds, it wasn't until later that they get mangled enough to look passingly interesting. Like a lot of semi-big budget horror films, I think the creators relied too heavily on post-production special effects to make convincing gore effects. Which at the end of the day, always makes it come out looking fakey. For example, the scene where the head of the corporation responsible for the whole zombies-on-a-plane thing gets turned into a zombie himself, he gets his face ripped open so it looks like a god-awful grin. That's done with make-up effects, and that was a neat effect. It's believable, and with the actor they used, it really looks kind of creepy. What they do later however, is show the character getting hacked up in the planes wing turbine. All of that is done with CGI and special effects, and combined with their lack of understanding of what would happen if you tossed your standard human into a jet turbine, it looks horrible. Granted, it's cheaper than getting an actual real airplane and tossing a fake body into it, but the other thing is is that it shows far too much and doesn't leave a lot to the imagination. On top of that, it's not a very good depiction of death by turbine. You want to go and see a good one? Go out and watch Die Hard 2 , that has a great scene where a guy is thrown in a jet turbine. So the movie ends with our heroes seemingly vanquishing all the zombies with a handful of guns, and a golf club, and crashing the plane in the desert (and somehow not causing it to explose or turn into a horrible horrible wreck like most airplane crashes where the plane is attempted to be landed by a real pilot) and they stumble off in hopes of finding help. Of course, the movie decides to end on a plot twist, where --- SURPRISE! The zombies are still alive. Shocked? I know I was. Perhaps I'm being to harsh on this film, because if you believe what's said on the internet (and if that's true, then you think that's female ejaculate instead of pee) this movie is supposed to be a parody of Snakes on a Plane and it's various knock-offs and imitators. Perhaps that's what rackles me the most. Them making a parody, that's essentially the same as the rip-offs and imitations. We get it,you can do the same thing as well. But why waste your time and energy on such a project? If you're going to do a pardoy or make a mockery of these films, I would figure you'd put a little more into it so that it would stand out over the others and people would get that it's a parody. I had to go on the internet and find that out. Your audience shouldn't have to do that to figure out your intention. The other thing that really pisses me off I guess is the fact that this is another lazy zombie movie. Ever since Romero became recognized for the genius he is, everyone is coming out of the woodwork with zombie movies because that's the "cool thing to do". In fact, the 2000's are to zombie movies as the 90's were to vampire movies. But there is a major flaw with these zombie movies: They will never be any good because they don't have a good story. It's all the same recycled ideas over and over, with nothing new to add. They focus on the gore effects instead of the plot (and in some cases, that works even more against them due to budget constraints) As somebody in the viewing audience, if I wanted to watch hour after hour of people pretending to eat other people (And most time unconvincingly) I'd... I'd... Look for it on the internet. Yeah.. Okay, I got nothing here... But seriously, if you ever want to make a good zombie movie, I don't care if your inspired by Romero, Dan O'Brien, Lucio Fulci, or the assholes who did 28 Days Later ...It's not the gore or the zombies that make for a good zombie movie: It's the story. The gore is a plot device, and yes, it's required in a zombie movie -- but it should never be the central focus. In conclusion, Flight of the Living Dead is kind of like taking a shit in an airplane bathroom. You have the reliefe of releasing your bowels, but the seat's cold, it's cramped, people are constantly knocking at the door, and the flushing mechanism is a frightening pressure suction that could probably take your hand off if it could reach.
		Most Items We Have Reviewed and Commented On Are Available Through Amazon.com. If you want to pick them up for yourself, please don't hesitate to do so through this link below, proceeds on any sales will go towards the operation of this website: