NateWatchesCoolMovies
Stephen King, the master of deliriously high concept horror, strikes again with The Night Flier, a gruesome, clever and painfully overlooked HBO midnite movie, starring everyone's favourite grouchy pants, Miguel Ferrer, or Albert Rosenfield to any good Twin Peaks fans out there. Via a creepy take on tabloid journalism and the insidious obsession it breeds, King and Co. take a look at the way words get twisted from fact to bombastic fiction, the jaded reality one arrives at after working too long in such a field, and the hilarious possibility that such ridiculous, "made up" horrors one fabricates might in fact be a reality. Acid tongued Ferrer plays Richard Dees, a bitter and depressingly cynical trash reporter who is one drink away from the gutter and two lousy stories away from retirement, an acrid soul who lives by the mantra "Don't believe what you publish, and don't publish what you believe" (a pearl of wisdom that I imagine is rattling around King's own skull, when we look at the sacrilege being wrought upon his magnum opus The Dark Tower in its cinematic emergence, particularly in regards to the casting of Roland the Gunslinger). Dees is on the hunt for en elusive serial killer who pilots an unnamed Cessna across the Midwest, slaughtering people in and around remote airports before vanishing into the night. Vampiric in origin and very hard to track down, this fiend uses the dark as his ally and seems to slip uncannily across America's airspace, leaving a wake of bloody murder in his path that gives any old tabloid yarn a run for its money. Jaded Dees gets more than his usual brand of hoaxes and pranks, and seems oddly, morbidly drawn to this spree of horrific crimes, eerily willing to follow the Night Flier into the very jaws of Cerberus himself, if only to find exodus from his pointless, roundabout existence. All of King's beloved qualities are at play here; grotesque practical effects, gnawing existential calamity, a light at the end of a tunnel that seems to crush our protagonist before they can reach it, and clever morality plays buried like demonic Easter eggs amidst the corn syrup and latex. An overlooked treat.
scottmannen1
Stephen King has many horror films made from his hit novels, yet only a few were made into true cult classics. Some movies were hits, and even fewer were classified as hidden cult classics like this movie. The most numerous of his films were the stinkers. Stinkers are King films that were made into terrible incarnations of the novels they attempted to emulate. As a hidden cult classic, the night flier never really made it big in the theatres, it was not critically acclaimed and the movie wasn't popular enough that common people would even recognize the name of it. With all of that working against the movie, it still managed to develop into a cult classic. Why? How? I will tell you the why, and it's because this truly is a good flick! The acting is good, the story itself is well written and conceived and the premise is great. The supporting actress who plays a beautiful yet brilliant ambitious reporter does a better than average job portraying her character. She is fighting to get ahead of her competition "Deez" but he is too smart, dedicated and one heck of a manipulator that manages to steal her credit, story and make her look bad at the same time.What this fantastic horror story has working against it is the ending. The ending does tie up some of the loose ends, but not nearly all of them. In fact the ending leaves quite a few things for the viewer to decide on their own. If only the story filled in more of the back story on the vampire and tied this up in a pretty ribbon it could have been great! I am convinced that if this movie spent another 30 minutes more on vampire back story and a bit more on Deez's outcome this movie would have pushed out of cult classic status and into horror classic. A great movie, one that I would recommend to any horror/vampire fan.
cody1980
I'm glad to hear that this movie has gained a cult reputation because it deserves it. A sharp, quirky script and vivid performances really elevate this strange tale. If you ask me, it is one of the great horror films of all time.A lot of praise has already gone to Miguel Ferrer for his portrayal of a loathsome tabloid's most loathsome reporter. It is deserved. But Julie Entwisle, as the initially naive new reporter, and Dan Monahan, as probably the weirdest boss in movie history, also bring their A game. The script gives them a lot to work with, from blowout fights to long soliloquies to hilarious one liners. And there are times in the boss's office that the dialogue is so offbeat and perfect that I felt like they were going to break out into a musical number.I haven't emphasized the scary of this scary movie, but don't worry. It's got the bite. I'd call it slow burn horror because it takes care building up a thick, disturbing atmosphere before things really erupt in the last act.
Mark Sion Roberts
Without a doubt, one of my all time favourite films. The Night Flier is an incredibly atmospheric and fabulously gripping film, so-well executed and full of mysterious suspense -- and easily one of the best Stephen King adaptations to ever be made, in my opinion. So criminally overlooked and underrated for a King adaptation -- a rare case of where the film version surpasses the source material (The Night Flier, first published as part of an anthology of modern horror in 1988, later became part of King's own collection of short stories, entitled Nightmares & Dreamscapes in 1993). The film isn't as widely known as it should be, as it didn't have a Hollywood release at the time. HBO bought it so it had it's world premiere on cable. It was then picked up by New Line Cinema and had only a limited theatrical release. Being the mid-1990's, it was not a fertile time for good movie horror. In recent years, it's become something of a cult classic with a big fan following -- myself for one! The Night Flier deserves and needs a Blu-ray release as soon as possible!
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