The Night Flier

You can say what you want about Stephen King-movies, but there's always just enough talent and budget involved to not make 'em look cheap. In THE NIGHT FLIER this talent mostly comes from actor Miguel Ferrer and SFX-artists Kurtzman, Nicotero & Berger. Ferrer is an often overlooked actor who most of the time only gets supporting rolls. But he'll always be edged in my memory as go-getter Bob Morton in Paul Verhoeven's ROBOCOP. Now he gets the chance to star in the leading roll in THE NIGHT FLIER, and he proves that he can carry a film. He was just perfect as the arrogant sleaze-reporter Richard Dees.

There's a mysterious figure flying in a black airplane and landing on small airports at night. He leaves behind him a trail of mutilated, blood-drained corpses. Richard Dees, reporter for the cheese & sleaze magazine "Inside View", is put on the case. So he gets in his airplane and starts following the same route as the vampiric murderer. Meantime, a rival reporter (the rookie Katherine Blair) is also assigned to write a story about it...

The plot is nothing too complicated, but it's built up nicely and even manages to be a bit scary from time to time. It all leads to the enjoyable final scenes at the last airport. The vampire is mostly kept in the dark throughout the movie, which helps to build-up a little tension. But don't worry, you'll be satisfied when you see it's ugly scary face in the end. Which brings us to the work of our beloved KNB-crew. The special make-up-effects are very decent and quite gory too. And I also liked the fact that the vampire is able to mess with peoples minds.

Okay, there are some improbabilities concerning some events in the plot, but lets not make a big deal out of it. Just take it as it is: It's a decent Stephen King-adaptation and a good vampire-movie, nothing more nothing less. So switch off the lights and fly with it.

This movie is a notch above most King films.

I own the DVD of this film and I have to say that Director Mark Pavia did an excellent job with this film. Especially with the end. The end is a great tribute to George A. Romero's style but it goes further and becomes creepier than anything I've seen in recent memory. I caught the last fifteen minutes of this film on cable one night and I was hooked. I remember thinking wow what a stylish film what the hell is this? So I researched and found out the title and bought the film.

The film suffers from a lame screenplay and some stiff acting. Miguel Ferrer was excellent, as was Dan Monahan. Michael H. Moss and Julie Entwisle were a bit stiff. All in all this is a good horror movie and the DVD transfer is sharp and the colors are precise. The sound balance is natural, without over-placement of artificial sound effects.

Watch it alone on a stormy night!

Richard Dees is a reporter and he is a vampire because he works for a tabloid and earns his living by writing lurid stories and taking sordid pictures. He's got a despicable job and he is getting sick of it. Dwight Renfield is the Night Flier and he is a vampire too, but he is a "real" one – an evil and supernatural creature feeding itself on humans. He flies from one airfield to another across the U.S. on a black, private aeroplane. Of course he always leaves bloodless corpses behind him and Dees ends up chasing him with his tape recorder and camera. When they eventually meet, the vampire doesn't really feel like killing one of his kind, and he is ready to let him go. Yet Dees proves his curiosity will always make him chase people like the Night Flier and he will bitterly regret it. At the end of the film, everybody will see and remember Richard Dees as what he really was, that is to say a nasty character living on people's suffering. Well, this film is a great B-movie. The story is exciting, Miguel Ferrer is excellent and the film has no Hollywood-like happy ending. I strongly recommend it to anyone looking for a nice thrill and a few gallons of blood.

I'm not really a great fan of vampire movies, in fact there are very few that I could actually name that I like, nonetheless I rented ‘The Night Flier' because the DVD cover looked rather interesting but I still didn't expect much from this movie.

Richard Dees (Miguel Ferrer) is a journalist for a sleazy and morbid weekly publication named ‘Inside View' and is assigned to cover the story of a mysterious pilot who flies into rural airports and kills whoever is there, draining the victim of all their blood. At first Richard doesn't want the story but after seeing how big a story it could be and also wanting to put ambitious young journalist Katherine (Julie Entwistle) firmly in her place he accepts the assignment and goes in search of information on the killer he later nicknames The Night Flier.

I was very surprised by the quality of this movie. Currently I am moderately wary of Stephen King adaptations and with it also being a vampire movie my hopes were not particularly high. The first ten minutes or so of ‘The Night Flier' are fairly slow moving and rather tedious but that soon changes as ‘The Night Flier' becomes a quite adept thriller. It's not a typical vampire movie and that is probably why I enjoyed it. Instead, ‘The Night Flier' is more of a crime drama as the movie is directed towards uncovering the killer rather than stopping the killer. This makes it an interesting thriller in a way and despite some noticeably gory scenes stays away from the obvious idea of concentrating solely on the killer's activities. Tension is built up exceptionally by not concentrating too much on The Night Flier. The way the movie plays out gives it a strong purpose as it leads to a blistering finale. What we are left with is a story about a man on the edge who will do anything to get his story. The character of Richard is a bitter man, possibly socially maladjusted and one has to question whether he is in some way disturbed by all that he has witnessed in his life? He shows mental strength in his pursuit of success and seemingly fears nothing, showing no compassion or sympathy for the feelings of others yet there are still moments when he comes across as a much `softer' human being. Miguel Ferrer does an excellent job of portraying Richard and his performance in the last ten minutes of the movie is almost profound. The ending is brutal, in some ways shocking and definitely not what I expected. By the end it becomes obvious that there were two levels of horror working in this movie that came together well to leave us with ‘The Night Flier'.

There were flaws with the movie though, a couple of plot holes and many unanswered questions, though perhaps that the intent was to leave an air of mystery over the movie. Apart from Ferrer I don't think the movie was well cast as most of the other actors didn't really seem to fit the tone of the film. Furthermore, despite many great make-up effects there were also a few (one in particular) that looked awful and seemed to be totally out of place with the rest of the film. The movie was also a little slow in places and does not really get very good until about a third of the way through. These few faults though aren't really enough to harm the enjoyment and whilst this may not be to everyone's liking I personally believe it to be a well made and appealing movie. My rating for ‘The Night Flier' – 7/10.

I went to see this film at the theater almost 25 years ago and was fascinated by it, even today I believe it is among the most successful adaptations of King's works.

I think Pavia has made a cynical, ruthless, intelligent and witty film, with several really cool gore moments, the villain is great, and in the same way the performance of the late and underrated Miguel Ferrer who brings a cynical anti-hero to the screen is great and slimy, with which, however, it is impossible not to empathize. A great film still too underrated, a small cult to be rediscovered very much better then actual terrible PG 13 ghost story.