'The flight engineer has been killed.'
#Dramatic music#
Welcome back to my Dark Corner of this Sick World.
‘Let’s get this show on the road.’
There was a question over whether we should review TV movie The Horror at 37,000 Feet because,
while it’s not great and does have some laughable moments.
‘It’s a selsen motor not a human female, now pull it.’
It’s nowhere near as bad as our usual fare.
‘Wish I could find something funny in all this.’
What makes it funny is actually its connections, for starters.
Yes, William Shatner is having a Horror at 37,000 feet,
just ten years after he had a Nightmare at 20,000 feet.
'Peculiar...'
There’s something on the wing!
‘That’s a little nasty isn’t it dear’
Actually, there’s something in the hold.
And for the record I think they missed a trick not calling this
‘There’s Something in the Hold’.
‘You really don’t know what’s down in the hold, do you dear?’
Let’s backtrack; this flight has been specially commissioned by wealthy jerk Alan O’Neill to transport...
‘Remains of an old abbey, it's been in the wives family for centurys.’
which he’s taking from the UK to the US, but he doesn’t know that something’s coming with it,
sending a chill through the plane as it is loaded,
freezing the cockpit windows and blowing up stewardesses skirts,
What a mischievous demon it is.
Because this isn’t a proper flight there’s only a handful of passengers plus two stewardesses.
‘You know how I hate flying.’
Just wait till you get the end of the movie.
But shortly after take off...
‘We’re caught up in a wind like none there ever was.’
So this is like an aerial Horror Express or Exorcist at 37,000 feet.
#Wierd demonic voices#
But to be honest, most people watching today are going to be thinking of Airplane!
It’s got the little girl,
'My little girl is just a tiny bit nervous.'
The guitar,
'You know this sounds just a little off.'
'Naturally.'
and Chuck Connors, playing the pilot, was the Sarge in Airplane 2.
‘It’s can’t happen but it has.’
Shatner of course also in Airplane 2,
here displaying his finest dramatic pause acting.
‘Do you remember what you said when you…
when you fainted?’
As he plays a priest who has lost his faith and,
I love Bill Shatner, but it’s hard to envisage Captain Kirk as a priest.
‘I was just thinking I might become a doctor.’
until we get a hint of why he is no longer a priest.
‘And they have such power over women it’s the paternal thing except they’re allowed to use it.’
The fuss people made when I hit on my parishioners.
In the hold, things have escalated…
Yikes. I would not stick around.
‘Get out! Get out!’
‘Jim’
Is he okay?
‘Jim, he’s dead.’
He’s dead Jim.
How will they stop the demon?
That’ll hold it.
The first half of the film does a good job of building the menace without us seeing anything,
but as with a lot of TV movies it does struggle when it wants to visualise the threat.
'What is is?'
Another good title, by the way; There’s something under the carpet.
I do also feel that most of the thought went into the set-up, not how to resolve it.
'He doesn't matter.'
‘We have to find out what it wants’
The demon wants O’Neil’s wife, Sheila,
but obviously they’re not going to sacrifice the poor woman so...
‘Perhaps we could offer it this.’
We’re assuming this is a short-sighted demon.
Oh well I didn’t realise you were going to dress it up.
I can’t believe that didn’t work.
In the end it feels as if Shatner’s Priest drunkenly rambles his way through various suggestions.
‘Fire Mrs Pinder? Is that it?’
Before stumbling to a conclusion that doesn’t really pay off on the moral conundrum it set up.
‘One life against how many’
and leaves questions unanswered, particularly concerning the character of Mrs Pinder,
whose main motive seems to be explicating the plot for everyone.
‘Inside the altar at Grove abbey was a druid sacrificial stone'
That said, this has a solid cast including Buddy Ebsen.
‘Don’t you laugh at me’
and Paul Winfield,
‘The only magic I know is that man can fly at 37000 feet.’
A solid idea that I’m now calling Spooks on a Plane.
‘Are you saying it came from inside the plane?’
and a solid structure
that develops at a well-paced rate,
right up until the final act when someone said
‘Faithless priest? Has anyone seen the Poseidon Adventure?’
‘The closer to heaven, the more discordant.’
But as an example of 70s TV movies at their best, give it a watch.
'You fool, you've given them hope for nothing.'
Thanks for watching. If you like budget horror then check out my books on Amazon, there’s a link in the comments below.
What are your favourite non-Star Trek performances from the legendary William Shatner,
let us know in the comments below.