Monthly Archives: Mar 2021

Flight of the Living Dead: Outbreak on a Plane

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Inflight meals just got gruesome!

It’s a seemingly normal flight to Paris on the flight Concord 239; Pilot Ray and Co-Pilot Randy are discussing Ray’s retirement plans after landing in Paris. Ray mentions that there is special government cargo in the hold, and if anything strange happens they should contact the scientists on board; one of them is down below in the hold, watching over a cold container.

In business class, Lucas and Sebastian are arguing over the cargo they’re transporting; it is revealed that the cargo is Lucas’ infected wife, Kelly, and he’s worried something may happen to cause the virus to escape; Bennett, the CEO of MedCon calms them down and tells them to keep a low profile.

Meanwhile, we’re introduced to various character dotted about the plane; the Stewardesses: Megan, Emily and Stacey, Agent Burrows and his prisoner Frank, undercover TSA Agent Judd, Pro Golfer Billy and wife Anna, and a pair of young couples.

Concord 239 has to fly through a storm, causing severe turbulence and causing scientist Kevin, in the cargo hold, to be injured by a box falling on his leg; the freezer containing Kelly also malfunctions and she climbs out, confused and disorientated but seemingly normal, until Kevin kills her and she comes back as the undead to eat him.

While Megan and crew run around looking after passengers, and while two on the young couple cheat on their partners in the toilets, Ray tells Randy to take the remaining scientists to check the cargo; Lucas and Sebastian reluctantly go but are attacked by Kelly and Kevin – Randy heads back up to the cockpit to tell Ray.

Meanwhile, another round of turbulence knocks Burrows unconscious, allowing Frank to get out of the cuff and hide; Megan rouses Burrows and he begins the hunt for Frank, assuring her that Frank is just a conman and mostly harmless. In the cockpit, Ray calls for the TSA agent and Randy explains the situation; some wires are crossed and it’s assumed that Frank is the attacker, leading Judd to invite Burrows to the cargo hold to look for him.

Chow time!

Kelly and her fellow undead have gotten out of the hold through the ducts and into the main plane. The infected spread quickly, killing one passenger or crew member after another.

At the Pentagon, the military are trying to convince the higher-ups that Concord 239 has to be destroyed, Bennett’s team created the virus from a strain of Malaria with the intention of making it into a bioweapon to make super soldiers; MedCon are illegally transporting Kelly and they’re concerned now that contact has been lost with the plane – they send a jet to blow it out of the sky.

Last ones alive?

Burrows and Judd make it back to the main plane, but the undead are already out of control; they find survivors Megan, Frank, Billy and Anna barricaded in the tail end of the plane while the undead continue to pull victims into the cargo hold to eat. When Megan can’t reach anyone in the cockpit they’re positive the Pilot is dead and that someone needs to land the plane; Frank knows how and reluctantly agrees to help, he heads to the cockpit with Burrows with the aid of Billy, who is bitten – his wife rushes to help him and she’s also bitten, the pair are cornered by an emergency door and undead Bennett approaches. Billy opens the door, sucking the undead out and Bennett is caught in one of the engines – causing it to catch fire.

The fighter jet has arrived and fires when he believes no one is left alive; Frank manages to gain control of the plane just in time and the jet pilot abords the missile, however, it still blows a hole in the side of Concord and sucks more undead out, causing one still strapped to the seat to collide with the jet. In the cockpit, Frank and Burrows manage to land as safely as possible, leaving them, Megan and Judd the only survivors.

As they make their way to civilization, some of the undead have survived, including Bennett and Kelly…

Bennett might be just as smart undead…

5/5: Full marks! It’s a good, uncomplicated zombie film with very little to complain about; it’s well paced, well thought out and well executed – and, I must admit, the theme Among the Dead is a brilliant music track!

The Possession of Hannah Grace

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Deathly cliche

During an exorcism ritual, the possessed Hannah Grace kills one priest and almost kills the other by choking him while suspended in midair; her father, Grainger, then suffocates her to death using a pillow.

Unless you can twist like a pretzel, I’m not scared, hon.

Three months later, Megan Reed, an ex-cop with the Boston Police Department gets a night shift job in the Boston Metro Hospital’s morgue as an intake assistant.

During Megan’s first shift, a man tries to convince her to let him into the building, but she finds him suspicious and informs the two security guards Ernie and Dave. However, shortly after, Megan helps EMT Randy to move the corpse of a brutally murdered young woman into the building and the man secretly enters the building. Randy tells Megan a man stabbed Hannah to death and was then caught in the act trying to burn her body in an alleyway.

When Megan tries to fingerprint and photograph Hannah’s corpse, the camera explodes and the computer breaks when she tries to run the prints. Other strange things occur and Megan has a panic attack, she reaches for some pills and we learn that struggles with depression and an addiction to pills after her patrol partner was shot dead by a criminal whom she failed to subdue.

Once settled again, she notices that Hannah’s bright blue eye color does not match the one listed on her driver’s license.

Megan soon encounters Grainger who had invaded the building trying to drag Hannah’s corpse through the building. Alongside with the two security guards Ernie and Dave, Megan manages to subdue Grainger. The latter screams Hannah’s corpse must be burnt because she isn’t really dead, but they do not listen to him and have him arrested by the police.

Megan’s ex-boyfriend, Andrew, is still employed as an officer and responds to the scene. He agrees to help Megan identify the corpse after she tells him about the color of Hannah’s eyes. Meanwhile, Hannah kills Dave by telekinetically lifting his body across the ceiling and into her refrigerated drawer in the morgue where she breaks his body.

Later, after a strange encounter in the toilets, Megan notices that some of the wounds on Hannah are missing, as if they had healed by themselves. Investigating the security footage, Megan sees Hannah’s corpse crawling around in the building; she shows the footage to Lisa who does not believe her and accuses her of having a relapse on her addiction to pills. Lisa is killed by Hannah soon after after finding Dave’s body in the stairwell.

Still not scary, sweetie.

Soon after, Andrew calls Megan to tell her that Hannah Grace had died three months earlier and asks whether the given fingerprints was Hannah’s; Megan confirms it is and admits she took his pills, but she hadn’t taken any.

When Randy returns to the morgue to deliver another corpse, Megan shows Randy the healing body of Hannah; he says he believes her and shares that he also had an addiction to alcohol.

After Randy leaves the Morgue, Megan notices that the lift closes by itself and is going down; she investigates the security footage and sees a glimpse of Hannah’s body crawling inside the lift. She rushes down to the access bay to warn Randy, but Hannah has already killed him by crushing him between his vehicle and a pilar.

Suddenly, Andrew calls Megan to warn her that Grainger has escaped police custody after killing the two officers transporting him; suddenly, Grainger appears forces Megan to take him to Hannah’s body at gunpoint. Grainger explains to Megan that he is Hannah’s father, he tells her that numerous exorcisms failed because the demon possessing her was too strong; so strong, in fact, that it is even able to possess Hannah’s body after her death by killing people to heal itself. He tells her that Hannah had depression and it worsened until the demon was able to enter Hannah’s body. The blue eye color is the sign of the demon possessing Hannah.

Grainger asks why Hannah killed others but not Megan; she agrees to help Grainger cremate Hannah, but she reanimates and pushes Grainger into the fire; she then locks Megan inside her refrigerated drawer.

Andrew and Ernie come to Megan’s help. Hannah kills Ernie by slitting his neck and then tries to kill Andrew, but Megan forces herself to be calm; she takes Andrew’s firearm and shoots Hannah, she then drags her to the crematorium while Andrew calls for backup. After a brief struggle before the incinerator, Megan pushes Hannah into the fire, eventually killing the demon.

And they all lived happily ever after…

1/5: This was so boring. I liked the idea of a possessed corpse, but everything else around it was so cliche; there’s little to no creativity in the deaths and the jump scares – not that they actually caught me out – were minimal. From the beginning, you knew that someone was going to blame Megan’s past addiction on what she was experiencing, and obviously she was going to redeem herself for her past mistake by saving Andrew.

Try again next time.