The Night Flier

For anyone who cares, this is probably the last full-length (I consider at least four paragraphs to be full-length) review that I'll write for the site.  For awhile anyway.  Reason being, I want them to be reserved for somewhat special occasions.  Plus, working on a book full of Blood Capsules has conditioned my brain to think in terse, laconic terms.  By the way, this is definitely a special occasion.  I love The Night Flier.  It's one of my favorite films of all time (top 5, easily), and as a matter of fact, I thought that I had reviewed it already.  What better way to end Vampire Month than to talk about the most underrated Stephen King adaptation out there?  No one ever mentions it.  Drives me nuts.

The late, great Miguel Ferrer stars as Richard Dees, a character that has surfaced in other King tales.  He's a blood-hungry reporter working for Inside View, a salacious rag most comparable to Weekly World News.  His boss gives him first crack at a story too bizarre to be real.  Some lunatic is flying into desolate airports in the pitch of night and butchering everyone there.  Victims are marked with neck wounds, "holes as big as railroad spikes."  So what's this guy's deal?  Why does he think he's a vampire, and how did he get a pilot's license?  Dees, a pilot himself, is determined to find out.  We spend most of the film with him, and I'm going to need a whole new paragraph to praise Ferrer's performance.

He is such a dick.  Dees has been hardened by life, and as such, he is full of acid words for anyone unfortunate enough to veer into his vicinity.  He pelts poor Katherine, a fresh-faced journalist competing for the front page.  She is played with poise and pathos by Julie Entwisle.  Trivia!  Entwisle married director Mark Pavia not long after shooting wrapped on The Night Flier.  More trivia!  Pavia and King co-wrote a sequel nearly twenty years ago, but the funding wasn't there.  Okay, I'm getting ahead of myself.  I need to pat cinematographer David Connell on the back.  Despite a scrawny budget (the film was originally headed for theaters before premiering on HBO), the imagery is crisp.  Prismatic colors bleed off the screen.  Damn near stained my carpet.

I'll level with you.  I'm going to give The Night Flier five Z'Dars, but it's not perfect.  I've seen the thing so many times, I don't see the pockmarks anymore.  For instance, the acting is sketchy from the peripheral players.  A gravedigger here, a hairdresser there...it doesn't add up to much.  The carnage is just gory enough.  The special effects are fantastic, and yes, that includes a nominal amount of CGI.  There are a lot of reasons why I love The Night Flier.  Chief among them?  It's cool.  No, really.  The villain is cool, the basic plot is cool, and even the short story is cool.  Speaking of which, you can find it in Nightmares & Dreamscapes.  You can find The Night Flier pretty much anywhere.  Watch it yesterday.