Cringe: ⭐⭐⭐
Enjoyment: ⭐⭐⭐
Passengers and crew on a flight are attacked by unseen forces that threaten all aboard.
Introduction#
Flight 666 is a 2018 horror film from our friends at The Asylum, an organization that produces a wide array of junk cinema. It’s directed by Rob Pallatina, a man responsible for editing and directing a whole bunch of direct-to-video and made-for-tv films, some of which I’ve seen and enjoyed. Excellent. The cast, like many of these films, is composed of a bunch of people I’ve never heard of but look vaugely familiar.
The premise is simple: A bunch of people are trapped on a plane in flight, during a storm, and have to fight supernatural forces to survive. Pretty common horror fare, but still intriguing. What I like about this kind of film is that they’re often shot almost completely on a plane set, making them necessarily claustrophobic. The reduced size of the film also means that more budget can be used for special effects and general production value. I expected all of these things from Flight 666.
Plot#
Flight 666 opens with some gritty, analog looking b-roll of murders and such, setting the tone for what’s to come. As expected, this is pretty much all of the non-plane footage we’re to see. After the short intro we’re introduced to the cast, already up in the air and in the storm. No pointless preamble… Nice. We have a pilot and co-pilot, two flight crew, and a plain-cloths air marshall. There’s also a host of passengers, which play varying roles of importance. I’m sad to announce all the characters are incredibly stereotypical, so don’t expect anything groundbreaking from them.
Pretty early on it’s clear something is wrong. The first to experience anything anamolous is a random dude (I couldn’t think of a better way to describe him). In the windows he sees an evil-ass ghostly figure in the sky, which obviously alarms him. Calling for help, no one believes him, and I probably wouldn’t either. Something about being on planes just drives some people nutty.
It’s not long before other passengers start to report strange happenings, mostly when they look in a mirror or reflective surface. These scenes are rather well put together, and effective in building up tension for the latter parts of the film. It’s not just random horror scenes, though. As the plane is in a storm, there’s plenty of turbulence, with characters and luggage getting thrown around in some pretty thrilling action sequences. That’s about all I can say without spoiling it for you, so let’s move on!
Review#
Flight 666 is an enjoyable little horror movie about people trapped on a plane. The writing and acting are decent, although I did wish we had less generic characters, as the film spends enough time on them to justify it. On the flip side, the horror and action scenes are mostly all excellent and kept me engaged throughout the film, helped along by on-point special effects and sound. The climax is great as well, throwing a twist I definitely didn’t expect. Basically all you could ask of a simple horror film.
Flight 666 was not a disappointment at all, and fits into the weird middle ground of not amazing, but not bad either. Recommended for genre fans.
Cringe 3/5: The cliche characters kind of drag the film down, along with some continuity issues that could have been easily corrected. Thankfully, the horror scenes are not cringy.
Enjoyment 3/5: All around a very enjoyable flick. Would have been better if the above issues had been addressed.
Recommended Audience: Final Destination fans