It’s that ghoulish time of year again, where all the CRaziEs come out and horror fans get to bask in their element; which includes watching horror movies on those brisk October nights. Over the years, yours truly bestowed upon you 13 Halloween Horror movie reviews. Last year, 7 Deadly Horror flicks were put on display. Some were classics! Others were decent. A few were so bad that one had to watch them anyway. This month, 6 Sinful Films are being unearthed to help guide my loyal readers through their tireless search in finding a worthwhile horror flick during the Halloween season. Watch at your own entertainment risk my lovely corpses!

(Note: These reviews will differ from my usual style. All horror movies are selected at random, so some could, and will, blow goats)

Before we close the coffin on this year’s Halloween horror reviews with Flight of the Living Dead: Outbreak on a Plane, there was some consideration to feature Kevin Smith’s Red State as the last sinful film review. Until I watched it.

As a fan of every movie Kevin Smith has written and directed, what the blood happened here?!?! This is nothing but a generic cult flick with no imagination or purpose. For a guy who has successfully found an entertaining way to mock religion – directly or indirectly – this is a major step back. More like an Olympic long jump back. The premise is a Hostel rip-off with a poorly delivered social commentary. In fact, the only clever aspect was that some of the name and/or recognizable cast members met their demise early, while the unknowns carry on the tale, and therefore, suffer through the rest of this numbing bore. It’s no wonder Kevin Smith chose to handle marketing and distribution on his own “horror” film; aside from being a Kevin Smith product, what studio would ever want to financially back this? And that includes Miramax. Rant over. Hopefully this was just a mulligan for the crafty and hilarious storyteller.

Now onto the feature horror (that is really a horror movie) in Flight of the Living Dead. And no, this does not have any involvement with Night of the Living Dead creator & icon George A. Romero. Although one would be wise to wager that he’d rather have something to do with this than Survival of the Dead (talk about mulligans).

This flick is just like every other zombie product out there that yearns to emulate the NOTLD franchise. Only difference this time around is that this all transpires on a massive 747 airplane. Why and how? Well, rogue scientist managed to smuggle classified cargo onto a plane going from Los Angeles to Paris. The flight is barely half-full and it is currently maneuvering through a wicked thunderstorm; which of course compromises and unleashes the cargo, leading to the zombie mile-high club party to begin.

Call it Passenger 57 with zombies or the prototype for Snakes on a Plane; either way, this is shockingly an entertaining zombie flick. I repeat, this is shockingly an entertaining zombie flick. The script is patient and establishes the characters (body count) and the cast enacting these future corpses are actually very good for a low-budget horror product. Some faces you’ll recognize stemming from their work as role players in major releases from the last twenty-years (Raymond Berry, Kevin J. O’Connor, Erick Avari, and Richard Tyson). And you may even remember the lead hottie, Kristen Kerr, who has appeared in a few notable projects over the years (Old School, Dexter, and Strictly Sexual).

Bottom line, this has clever zombie kills when factoring in the environment where all the action is shot. Director/co-writer Scott Thomas is clearly a student of this sub-genre of horror and got the most out of everyone involved both in front and behind the lens. Sure it’s a love note to works spawned by Romero, but having nice execution in the unlikely setting – with decent, and dare I say plausible, fundamental storytelling – this transforms into a solid survival feature with plenty of scrumptious action. Is it scary? No. Is the gore graphic? Hell yeah. Add in the great make-up work and this eventually becomes pure zombie fun, sans an over-the-top campy aesthetic.

RATING: Solid Fundamental Zombie Shenanigans.

Review by Joe Belcastro