Flight of the Living Dead: Outbreak on a Plane (2007) Review

"Flight of the Living Dead: Outbreak on a Plane" American DVD Cover

Director: Scott Thomas
Writer: Sidney Iwanter, Mark Onspaugh, Scott Thomas
Producer: David Shoshan
Cast: David Chisum, Kristen Kerr, Kevin J. O’Connor, Derek Webster, Dale Midkiff, Erick Avari, Richard Tyson
Running Time: 94 min.

By JJ Hatfield

In the mood for a scary flick instead of watching some of my perennial favorites I decided to catch up on some films I have purposely passed by. Flight Of The Living Dead happened to be one of those films. After watching approximately nine minutes I wished I had continued to pass this one by.

I had hoped that this might be one of those movies that is so bad it’s actually entertaining. However this was not to be. Flight of the Living Dead is not entertaining it is simply bad. How bad? Well let me tell you about the plot. Some sort of scientists and/or military creators of bigger and better weapons of nasty war toys devised an evil potion that had the potential to keep the enemy continually attacking their own or allow the good guys to fight on even after death. In other words zombies. Nifty, huh? Remember though this is a bad movie. And like all bad movies the writers launch into utter stupidity in a futile attempt to keep the audience engaged. Which brings us back to the plot. Someone sneaks an infected subject aboard an airplane bound for Paris. Paris, France. As the writers would have it during some turbulence shit happens and the infection starts to spread to the hapless unaware passengers aboard the plane.

As anyone familiar with zombies knows having them on board your plane flying at 35,000 feet is a bit more problematic than if you were on terra firma. And these are not typical zombies these are supercharged horrors that move quickly and easily over all obstacles. These are also not your typical passengers. They are slow dolts who seem to want to become victims of the zombies. Men and women, girls and boys, people from different cultures and different beliefs are all equal in their ineptitude. The passengers also share other similarities. They are unattractive physically and mentally. They also have in common wearing ugly apparel. And did I mention they are all idiots? For example when dealing with the evil zombie’s victims tend to stand or sit and scream or look  terrified instead of oh, I don’t know perhaps trying to fight or run away, at least as much as possible on a 747. When someone does fight back they do so with such tools such as explosives, handguns, machine guns and a couple of golf clubs. Now while it would take some pretty extreme effort to damage the shell of an aircraft with golf clubs the same cannot be said for explosives and guns. The basic principles of aerodynamics hint that piercing the skin of an aircraft while flying at high altitude would create a significant hazard to both passengers and craft. Nevertheless the fools merrily fire away at approaching zombies without a thought of merrily causing the aircraft to crash. Gunfire pierces the air but miraculously does not pierce the plane. No matter how many shots were fired only zombies and those who are about to become zombies are hit.

Unfortunately there are more problems with Flight of the Living Dead. Idiot behavior with guns and golf clubs has been covered but alas that is only the beginning. Not only do the zombies behave as if they are on speed and impossible to take out even if you take off most of their zombie bodies they simply do not look good. I don’t mean they look gross in fact just the opposite-they don’t look convincing at all. The makeup is shoddy the blood looks like cough syrup and they don’t look dead. This all makes for some pretty sad looking undead creatures. So much for the zombies.

The other glaring problem with Flight of the Living Dead is the wretched acting by all concerned. There are two or three who could be accused of over-acting but for the most part no one seems to care. Given the script this is completely understandable. However the so-called actors did know what they were getting into with Flight of the Living Dead. Unless a close family member or friend needed life saving surgery whatever salary was garnered wasn’t worth it. I predict the actors will not be seen in any grand production in the near future. So save your time and avoid a painful experience by avoiding this movie. If you really want to see a laugh out loud pseudo-scary flick they aren’t that hard to find… but then that’s another review.

JJ Hatfield’s Rating: 1/10