Flight 7500

There were some good elements that were original. Some things were inexplicable but were well resolved at the end. The characters were well developed for an inside-plane movie and there was an ineffable sense of mystery. The characters in fact needed to be interesting and they were. I thought the trip should have started in Japan to provide a contrast and some extra interest at he beginning. The trip would have been better departing Tokyo and proceeding to the States. Actually it would have been good to see a few more Japanese characters in it since it could have helped make it an extraordinary movie rather than just a competent movie. I am being careful not to write spoilers. I will mention that a couple of the devices had been used before and one or two of them had been used a couple of times too often before. Overall though I have a clear conscience in telling you that you are not wasting your money; but its not an extraordinary movie despite some very good elements and it is adequately entertaining.

In Los Angeles, the Vista Pacific Flight 7000 departs to Tokyo in a ten- hour flight. The flight attendants Laura Baxter (Leslie Bibb) and Suzy Lee (Jamie Chung) receive the passengers, among them Brad (Ryan Kwanten) and his wife Pia Martin (Amy Smart) that have broken up; the newlywed Rick (Jerry Ferrara) and Liz Lewis (Nicky Whelan) that are traveling in a honeymoon trip; and the well-resolved Jacinta Bloch (Scout Taylor- Compton), who is sat close to Liz and Rick. Laura is having a love affair with the Captain Pete Haining (Johnathon Schaech) that is married and her behavior is questioned by Suzy. After passing by a turbulence, the passenger Lance Morrell (Rick Kelly) dies and the crew brings his body to the first class. Then there is a pressure drop in the cabin and Brad helps several passenger to use the oxygen mask. When the pressure returns to normal, Captain Haining loses contact with ground control. Soon weird things happen in the plane and Brad, Rick, Jacinta, Pia and Liz decide to investigate who Lace was. Soon they find that he was a dealer of dolls and a "shinigami" inside a wooden box. Jacinta explains that the Eastern doll would be equivalent to The Ripper; however she collects souls only if those that let go whatever hold them to Earth. What has happened to the Flight 7500?

"7500" is a horror movie directed by the cult-director Takashi Shimizu from "The Grudge", with a good story that deserved a better screenplay. The creepy conclusion is a great twist and surprises any viewer. Unfortunately many of them did not understand the message of the story. First of all, death is part of life since everyone is going to die. Therefore, we should not waste time with insignificant things and try to resolve any problem with those we love; otherwise we would regret when time comes. Last but not the least, when death comes, the person shall have resolved whatever holds him or her to Earth; otherwise the person will be trapped in-between. Back to the movie, when Jacinta discovers what has happened to her, she easily waits for the "shinigami". However, the death doll does not collected the souls of the two couples since they still have problems between them. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): "Vôo 7500" ("Flight 7500")

It's so underwhelming to see a horror movie spams high pitch sound effects, sudden screams and grasping mysterious hands for any sort of shock value. The movie has a good set in plane, but there's no consistency from the horror aspect, it's never clear what it tries to do, it may go for supernatural threat but first act resembles more of infestation scheme. Not to mention the characters are nothing close to likable and the film relies too heavily on plot twist gambit at latter half. There's barely anything to sustain the flight of 7500 until the end.

Ancient tricks, as if they are tattooed on a ghost child's hand, such as jittery camera and annoying booms are used excessively. The film doesn't have any coherent soundtracks, it has loud thuds and shouts to signal when the audience are supposed to react. The dark graphic isn't helping either, almost half the movie is shot in blinking lights or just bad lighting.

Story is a mixed bag of unexplained mysteries, the movie throws some shady philosophical life gibberish and it comes off at cringe-worthy at best. Acting are sloppy, but it's probably not the actors' fault since the on-screen characters are not identifiable. They are highly unrealistic, created just to fit stereotypical roles.

Strangely, there are some names from TV shows here, and while they are not box office veterans, they might have done better with more consistent material. That doesn't stop the film from churning high dose of subplots, none of these pay off in any meaningful way. They only ironically create more plot holes, enough to trip an aircraft into free fall.

It has one or two good moments, and the rest is fumbling around in existential crisis. Effects of the smoke and turbulence don't produce claustrophobic thrill, instead they just seem messy and cheap. If audience lasts through the movie they might have a surprising conclusion, as in baffled how it literally happens.

This is one flight you'd glad to cancel, for the sake of saving time and money.

Hell even the Wayans Brothers make-up in White Chicks was scarier than this

But then again it seems like the director intentionally tried to make it as unscary as possible, with showing as little scares in your face as possible and keep everything very suggestive with little to no visual gore

And the acting doesn't help either, you get no real sense of fear in any of the people involved

The cast on paper is fairly impressive, a lot of famous faces there with actors and actresses that have done well in other things, but here they don't even seem to try

And perhaps my initial comparison with Lifetime movies wasn't that far off, this really has sort of a TV-movie feel to it

It's incredibly slow as well, with a running time of 75 minutes without the credit you'd expect that it couldn't get boring very often but it really does, more than once

There are so many better thrillers that take place on a plane than this one so if you're considering watching this despite of what I just wrote let me instead recommend: SNAKES ON A PLANE, NON STOP, FLIGHTPLAN, RED EYE, PASSENGER 57... Heck even PANIC BUTTON is better than this...

Usually Japanese Horrors are up there with the top horror movies I have seen (The Ring, Grudge, etc) so when I saw this was Japanese production I had I hopes for a thrill. Unfortunately I feel for some reason the director tried to hard to please the Hollywood crowd.

Lets start with the good.... The concept and plot is fresh and interesting - horror on a plane. The tense build up to the horror is done well. The Twizzlers sticks twist.

Then the bad.... The characters are stereotypical Hollywood horror cast - young couple, goth, guy who cant wait to get some, pilot having an affair with the air hostess. When things start "happening" things get a bit confusing with "things" crossing into many horror genres it does not really make sense and just gets silly.

The ugly... Some of the acting and dialog is a bit amateurish. They could have done with a more international cast The tense build up to that horror scene - is cut away so you don't really see people fate, just screaaaammmm....cut, scccrreeeaammm... cut.