We have covered some shit on this blog. Some absolute, toe-curlingly appalling bollocks that somebody had the audacity to try and charge money for. Like Race 3, or Alone in the Dark for example. And then there is Dixie & Kenny which is, objectively, the worst thing I think I've ever endured and the only movie I genuinely couldn't finish. In contrast; Almighty Thor, an Asylum movie, which was just a pan splattering mess from beginning to end was actually a masterpiece, but where the latter differs from the aforementioned is that Whingey Thor - whilst obviously a quick cash grab is now basically watchable for free thanks to it's flimsy licencing laws and that's what FTW Week, todays segment is all about: those festering, repungant turds in the dark, mouldy corners of the cinema world that everybody just sort of avoids and pretends they don't exist. That being said FTW has given us some absolute gems; The Phoenix Project was a movie I genuinely enjoyed and would voluntarily watch again, Caller ID: Entity was... not great but at least mildly interesting, and Killer Robots Crash & Burn was just so incredibly batshit insane that it was strangely impressive. Like admiring a massive lump on your face that you got when you stupidly thought you could jump from the bedroom window into a paddling pool with a strange sense of accomplishment. Where am I going with this? This weeks pick: Flight 666 is the latest movie to join the feature and whilst I've covered an Airplane disaster movie before now, I'm sort of going into this with a bit of a sense of trepidation, because this was one of the first FTW movies I recognized when scouring through my source list, as it's available (post edit: or was) on a handful of TV streaming platforms. It's an Asylum movie, so go figure, but that must mean it's either so incredibly terrible they bung it on there in a: 'can you believe you are watching this trash' kind of angle, or it's genuinely acceptable enough that they are willing to host it alongside cinematic leviathan's like: The Terminator 2, Pretty Woman and Love, Actually.
We are onboard Flight Pan US 57 as it flies through some particularly bad weather, as we are introduced to an Army Ranger guy who doesn't tell us his name, and an ex Air Marshall, Thad (Jose Rosete) both of which I'm sure won't be important later... and couple Bran (Shamar Phillipe) and Danika (Clarissa Thibeaux), when one of the passengers, Devon (Justin Hoffmiester) who looks a bit like a young Chester Bennington starts freaking out claiming he saw a ghost outside on the wing. As blonde Flight Attendant Alice (Liz Fenning) tries to calm the rest of the passengers down, Devon freaks out even more when he sees the same woman in the bathroom mirror. Tackled to the ground by Thad with Alice's help they manage to sedate him, and everyone manages to calm down a bit whilst Bran and Danika freak each other out with ghost stories... and then the peace is broken again when the passenger next to our Army guy, who's name I genuinely don't know yet... starts chucking up maggot infested vomit after snacking on an in-flight salad... lovely! Turns out all the food is rotten, but that's the least of their worries when, without warning the entire plane loses power. As Captain Hanstock (Joseph Michael Harris) and First Mate Ryan (Greg Furman) manage to bring the plane back under control and restore power, discovering they now have no communications, one of the passengers, Anna (Renée Willett) retreats to the bathroom with a nosebleed when she begins to hallucinate and freak out. Prying open the door with... a pry-bar (not something you usually get on planes for reasons I'm sure you can imagine...) Thad and Alice manage to free her and she whimpers about seeing the ghost of a pregnant lady whilst Thad looks on indignantly. Danika starts panicking but Bran manages to calm her down as, spookily the word "MURDER" is drawn on the window behind them... OOOH! Danika puts some music on but only has to switch it off when she starts hearing voices and hallucinating that her ears are bleeding. Meanwhile Alice is inspecting the bathroom mirror and suddenly gets a rush of anger, bursting into the cockpit and demanding they sort the plane out. Just as Captain Hanstock is scolding her, he begins to hallucinate, seeing shapes outside the window he thinks are birds, or people, before managing to regain his composure. Back in the cabin, something comes over Danika and she makes her way to the same bathroom, also seeing a face in the mirror. Making her way back to her seat, she opens the carry-on store above when she is grabbed by a dead woman inside the store and has the same hallucinations as Alice earlier; in a cargo hold with the ghost of a dead woman and child. As she awakes back in the cabin, and as she describes what she saw, with Alice believing her and herself beginning to become suspicious, the rest of the crew begin to get very anxious, with one passenger almost starting a fight with Bran until un-named Army man and Thad intervene. As Thad and one of the Flight Crew, Liam (Jesse James D'Angelo) debate over what they think the Captain should do, emerging from the bathroom, a creepy figure of a woman appears with a gaping wound to her face and walks calmly down the aisle before pointing at either Thad, or the anonymous Army man and screaming only to then vanish in a cloud of dust. Bursting into the cockpit... again... Alice demands they land the plane immediately, explaining that the plane is haunted but when Captain Hanstock asks outloud: "why would ghosts want to haunt the plane anyway?" suddenly First Mate Ryan is possessed and turning, screams "revenge" and tries to strangle the Captain, only saved when Thad bursts in and wrestles him to the ground. Returning to the Cabin, Thad, Alice and the rest of the passengers begin to share their stories as they logically try to figure out what is happening onboard the flight, Danicka and Anna both discover their hallucinations were the same and when Devon pipes up in agreement that they need to explore the cargo hold, he is freed from his restraints and after some confused arguing, Thad, Danika, Bran, Devon and mr-no-name Army man all go down to the cargo hold... which is usually inaccessible mid-flight but uh, ok. Whilst down there the hallucinations intensify with everyone seeing ghosts and umbilical cords and aborted foetuses and all that nice stuff, with a particularly long umbilical cord leading to a sports bag. Opening the bag, the passengers discover Instax Mini's (small little instant photos) of murder victims together with other souvenirs and various weapons. Discovering the identity of the bag owner, the passengers enter the Cockpit to confront Captain Hanstock who initially denies knowing anything but realising his secret might be out, plummets the plane into a nosedive. As the rest of the passengers struggle for control, and as a ghost runs rampant in the cabin possessing pretty much everyone at some point, First Mate Ryan manages to regain control of the plane and Captain Hanstock is restrained by Thad. In a moment of confusion though, Captain Hanstock is able to break free, snapping free of his zip-tie restraints which was pretty impressive, and wrestling Thad to the ground he is able to gain control of Thad's gun, but is then overcome by the ghosts of the women onboard, and we learn that he killed them all during bouts of kinky sex... fair enough. Taking control of his body, the ghosts force Captain Hanstock to shoot himself in the head and his ghost is forced to confront his three victims in the afterlife... meanwhile the plane begins to dive dramatically and wrestling it into a glide, First Man Ryan is just able to land the plane (in an impact that would have almost definitely caused an explosion but let's not split hairs...) and the passengers finally make it to the ground and survive the ordeal.
Wow. this was... actually.. a half way decent horror movie. Like genuinely. I mean, it wasn't the most original premise ever, and as horror movies go it was a mostly standard haunting and possession affair, and it got really corny and trailer bait in places, but I feel like genuine care and attention was put into this movie to actually make a more than acceptable production and not just, y'know half arse it in an attempt to cash in with minimal effort. If Asylum movies are genuinely this capable of being such high quality, then why are they squelching out turds like Almighty Thor?
If I'm going to nit-pick and I do so with, and I'm not sure if I mentioned this before in other posts but, with some aviation knowledge, there were some glaringly obvious things that I felt the movie got wrong; at no point during any of the power outages does the cabin depressurise and the oxygen masks drop down, there would definitely not be any kind implement on board that could be used to pry open a door, I would imagine that scissors or any other kind of sharp implement would also be prohibited and throughout the movie passengers inside the cabin can hear the thunder of the bad weather which definitely wouldn't be the case but these are minor niggles I guess and I suppose there has to be some exercising of creative licence to make the movie a bit more enjoyable, and to the movies credit there were also moments where they applied the correct aviation logic so somebody obviously did their homework to a degree!
The ghosts genuinely looked pretty scary, and impressive. None more so than the bald lady in the red dress who walks down the aisle who could have been lifted from any Hollywood calibre horror movie and would be getting all the accolades for looking downright terrifying. And cool. They did an outstanding job with that entire scene actually; the cinematography was perfect, the music was perfect, the lady looked scary and threatening, definitely the movies highest point.
The rest of the acting, also was pretty decent. There were some moments when things got a bit vanilla and wooden, mostly with un-named army man who I deduced from the credits is Austin (Paul Logan) and with Thad, but they pulled it back in other scenes so it was a bit forgivable. I mean, nobody was going to earn an Oscar nomination of the back of it, but it was certainly a higher level of performance than I've seen from other Asylum movies, and other FTW movies, so good for them.
Plot-wise the movie did feel like it meandered around quite a bit, it was certainly a slow build to the rest of the passengers coming to the realisation that the plane was haunted and there were moments where I felt there was a degree of padding going on. You could have trimmed maybe 15 odd minutes from this film and it wouldn't have hurt it, but otherwise I feel like they did a good job. The swerve near the end that it was Captain Hanstock who was the killer and not Thad, who I felt was being built up to be the killer was decent although it was a kind of cliché, predictable swerve.
But, applying law of averages here, despite there being a number of troughs but a scattering of peaks as well, this movie on the whole was pretty decent and pretty enjoyable. It had it's cliché, corny moments but the standard of acting was mostly average and above, the cinematography did a great job of making the movie just that little bit more interesting to watch, and it is clear that genuine care and attention and focus went into making this picture work and not just sloppily, hamfistedly throwing it together making it up as they went along. Despite being about the ghosts of dead ladies haunting an aircraft which - on paper - sounds completely ridiculous, this was actually a pretty decent movie that I wouldn't be reluctant to watch again. Nice work people. 3 out of 5.
