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

"Flight of the Living Dead: Outbreak on a Plane" (2007)
Starring David Chisum, Erick Avari, and Richard Tyson
Written by Sydney Iwanter and Mark Onspaugh
Directed by Scott Thomas

This movie should've just been called "Zombies on a Plane" to capitalize on the "Snakes on a Plane" web craze.  Someone also should have written, "I've had it with these muthafuckin zombies on this muthafuckin PLANE" somewhere into the script.  But alas, what we get is what we get.

And what we get is Zombies on a Plane.  Imagine every obvious cliched story beat or character you might want to put in a movie like this, and it pretty much happens.  The plane is flying into a nasty thunderstorm?  Check.  The pilot is two days to retirement?  Check.  Two young couples on a romantic getaway to Paris?  Infidelity among said couples?  Check.  Possibly dangerous prisoner being transported by a US Marshal?  Check.  A douche-y celebrity in first class?  Check.

Badass dude in a silly hat with the skillz necessary to re-deadify the living dead?

Fuckin' check.

Of course, I can't remember what any of these characters were named.  To me, they're all just types.  The plot is just as paint-by-numbers as the characterization - the US government is transporting a super-secret virus sample (incubated in the body of a woman for some reason) in the cargo hold of a commercial airliner.  After adverse weather conditions allows the woman to escape, the virus takes hold and she begins to turn the other passengers into vicious, bloodthirsty zombies.  The government, of course, decides that their only course of action is to shoot down the plane, lest the virus get free and pose a danger to the civilian population.

Why they didn't concern themselves with danger to civilians before loading their dangerous cargo into the belly of a commercial jetliner is never explained.

Loaded with cliches and low-budget special effects, "Flight of the Living Dead" actually isn't terrible.  I mean, it's certainly not a good movie.  But its flaws are also what make it so viciously entertaining.  The plot makes no sense, the characters are stupid and the zombie effects look pretty cheap by most standards... and yet you sort of can't help but laugh at the whole thing and how ridiculous it all is.  Everything about it is obvious, so if you're ever surprised by anything in this movie, then, well, you're pretty stupid.  The humor of it all comes from that very stupidity, coupled with some fun zombie kills.

As a side note, we watched "Flight of the Living Dead" immediately after watching "The Room," and some of the bits in "Flight" are made funnier because of that - mostly concerned the two cheating young travelers.  Whenever the two discuss their infidelity, we were cracking jokes with dialogue from "The Room" and it just drove us into fits of laughter.

So this is another bad movie.  It's more competently made than "The Room" for sure, but it's still entertaining because it's not any good.