The Night Flier (1997)

This movie, unlike almost every other movie made from a Stephen King story, is awesome. Ferrer is perfect for the role of somewhat coldhearted tabloid reporter, Dees, and he makes the movie work in the end. There are a few cheesy things about the movie, the look of the vampire being the biggest, but it's easy to look past these little things and see the movie as it is. It's creepy and it's entertaining. I have watched this movie a number of times, and I still get excited to see it coming on cinemax or HBO or whatever.

The film's look is really done well, a lot of darkness adds to the overall feel. The places used to shoot the different airports are awesome as well, great small town look, where things like this might happen, and no one would even know. I love the movie, and I think it's probably the best King adaption yet. By the way, the word can either be adaption or adaptation...just in case anyone was wondering of my use of the word.:) 9/10

Fmovies: 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.

Spawned from a short story by famed novelist Stephen King, "The Night Flier" presents itself as a mystery that never strays far from horror. I honestly believe that this could be one of the most creative films of the '90s. The dark and menacing tone keeps the viewer entranced, while the mysterious elements keep them guessing till the end. The plot is coherent, and never truly strays into cliches. Production values, including special effects, for this film are exceptional when compared to similar made-for-cable movies. The cast is led by a composed and disturbing Ferrer, though the rest of is forgettable. If you like horror films that are inventive and complex then this film may very well suit you.

The Night Flier fmovies. This movie was absolutely great. Of course it had some bad clips but overall, the scenery, plot, and charactors were far out the best. The ending was really strange and hard to understand but you got to love it. Oh yeah, and check out the villians face... some freaky stuff... nine out of ten!!!

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!

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.