Movie! ‘Flight of the Living Dead’ (2007)

If you’ve been reading this blog for a while you’ll know that one of my favourite things is the humble zombie. Generally to be found in many places, it’s not often (if at all) that you come across one, or more, in an aeroplane. Until now that is… Knowing how much I love zombie films my wife bought me this as an early Christmas present (I love early Christmas presents!), she was out last night so I settled down with a big plate of chips for an hour and a half of zombie gore!
The plot is pretty simple; a plane load of passengers must fight for their lives when a zombie (locked up in the cargo hold by a criminal scientist) escapes and starts to eat/infect people. If this wasn’t bad enough, the survivors must somehow stop the plane being shot down (the US government know what’s on board and don’t want it to escape)…
Does this sound more than a little like another film involving people trapped on a plane with scary stuff going on? Funny that… I’m actually having trouble finding out which of these two films came first so it may just be a coincidence…
Having watched ‘Flight of the Living Dead’ it’s plain to see why this went straight to DVD and never made it into the cinemas. Once you get past the gore effects the rest of the special effects are ropey to say the least and I really don’t know why the film makers felt the need to do ‘freeze frame’ shots of the zombie attacks. Onto the story itself… Being a fan of sci-fi, fantasy etc I really appreciate how important it is to be able to suspend disbelief while I’m watching or reading something. However, when a zombie survives being sucked into a jet engine (potentially one of the greatest ‘zombie deaths’ ever) then a little part of me thinks ‘hang on…’ And how is a group of renegade scientists able to evade the CIA while lugging a dirty great ‘crate of zombie’ about? And how did they manage to get it onto the plane? And why did no-one wonder why an armed guard was needed in the cargo hold? Too many loose ends are never good…
But you know what? I ended up really enjoying this film. It was almost as if ‘Flight of the Living Dead’ acknowledged its weaknesses and played to them instead of trying to cover them up. Coupled with lashings of death and gore it becomes surprisingly good. You know what’s going to happen but the fun lies in getting to that point and there are lots of tense moments along the way that made me jump. Plenty of ‘amusing zombie deaths’ are a staple for any zombie film and ‘Flight’ is no exception, look for the ‘death by golf club’ and ‘death by umbrella’ scenes! :o) You also get to find out how one zombie can take out an F-15 jet…
‘Flight of the Living Dead’ makes no apologies for what it is and benefits as a result. Give it a go if you like zombie films…

Eight out of Ten