Half-successful B-Movie madness as zombies cause chaos at 35000 feet.

High above the Atlantic, a Concord Airways jet is heading for Paris with passengers and crew oblivious to the deadly, undead frozen cargo in the hold being transported by unscrupulous scientist types. Plane heads into storm, crate cracks open, living dead re-animate, havoc ensues.

This is, of course, all utterly preposterous; “Plane Dead” aka “Flight of the Living Dead: Outbreak on a Plane” aka “Hell Flight” aka “Zombies on a Plane” – pick your favourite title, they say it all; you might imagine that you’ll be watching some corny, b-movie about the living dead getting loose on a airplane – and, of course, you’d be absolutely right. No danger of any clever Night / Dawn / Day social commentary here, put plenty of cheesy schlocks and – surely deliberate – disaster movie clichés; on board are a nun, a cop escorting a prisoner, sinister scientists – there’s no alcoholic ex-pilot but someone does ask “does anyone here have any flying experience?” (and of course the answer is “yes”).

In the grand tradition of many b-movies, any sensible notions of realism are out the window – not a second thought is given to the use of two pistols, a sub-machine gun and an improvised bomb in a pressurized cabin, but this is being rather churlish – it romps along so enthusiastically that you can forgive it. Personally I’m less concerned by reality gaffs and more concerned by yet another zombie film ignoring the issue about if zombies attack and eat their victim then how come that victim is seen soon after walking around bloodied, but intact?

Acting, directing, effects are all adequate, if unspectacular, but there are a clutch of great Jackson / Raimi style bits where it raises its game:

• Someone’s glasses fall off during a zombie attack; the rest of the scene is shown from a worm’s eye view –distorted, through one of the lenses.

• Umbrella speared through zombie chick’s face – umbrella then bursts opens.
• Pity the poor zombie who wants a bit of live flesh but can’t reach any as his seat belt is stuck and he can’t get up.

Fun though these moments are, there aren’t enough of them to save PD from being just ok. Zombies? Scary! Airplanes in turbulence? Scary! Claustrophobia? Scary! PD has all these yet it never gets scary. One part has the heroes creeping through cramped air ducts in a “who’s stalking who in a confined space” scenario. Making a scene like this suspenseful has got to be like shooting fish in a barrel to any half-decent director (remember Alien?) but it’s a bit of a wasted opportunity here.

The pacing isn’t quite right either; it’s too drawn out in the first half and too rushed in the second, and all those character sub-plots are unnecessary, they’re just padding that don’t go anywhere – more hamming it up with those b-movie clichés.

It’s hard to be hard on PD though, it is after all meant to be a fun romp, and it is – it’s far more fun than Snakes on a Plane – which it doesn’t rip off, incidentally, PD went into development quite some time before Snakes.

In conclusion; Plane Dead, it’s as good as you could possibly expect and anyway if you’re the sort of person who would willingly consider watching “Zombies on a Plane” then you’re the sort of person who would enjoy it.

Favourite Scene

Zombie falling out of the plane – and onto a fighter jet!

Favourite Quote

“side effects!?! look around you asshole, these side-effects have eaten half the passengers!”

Film Rating

3 /5

Adherence to the Lore

1.5 / 5

Low. They’re runners and basic thinkers. Also, they’re killed with a shot to the heart!