BLACK BOX: FLIGHT 298
4 stars
Signature Entertainment. Digital. 6th July
This fun sci fi horror thriller opens with a worrying text screen saying the American FAA doesn’t publicly acknowledge the percentage of domestic flights that lose contact with ground control. It could be as much as 80 per cent… Immediately setting up a sense of paranoia – especially if you are wary of flying.
We are on a domestic flight from Seattle. Various characters settling in (including one who fashions a hat out tin foil – that will protect you from what is to come. Not). Cruising at 33000 feet. Strapped in. Sleeping. Watching or using their devices.
An old boy coughing and spluttering in the toilet. He is a long time, so the concerned stewardesses start to knock – he eventually comes out saying he is so hot. He keeps coughing back in his seat. They are flying through a storm, when the old guy sees something and starts saying “it’s not safe – we’re all going to die up here”. People start to panic (and of course others film it).
The on board Air Marshall tries to stop him – but then he starts to spit up blood and stops breathing, and they now have a dead body to contend with. This will soon be the least of their worries.
With a brewing large hurricane ahead, strange lights are spotted in the sky and the instrumentation in the cockpit goes haywire – and of course they lose contact.
And then calm… as if the plane has stopped in the air – then they realise something is trying to get on board!
Using the enclosed environment of a metal tube flying (or in this case ultimately stuck) at high altitude is a great setting for a tense outing, even if the beats within the script by Stephen Susco aren’t exactly original. This is like one of those TV movies from the 70s or indeed a modern take on a Twilight Zone episode and is directed with a sure hand by Steven Quale, who has worked on several films with James Cameron and also helmed the rather good FINAL DESTINATION 5. Take it for what it is, basically a schlock monster B-movie, and you will enjoy it.
Steve Kirkham
