A reporter is on the trail of a vampiric murderer who travels by plane.A reporter is on the trail of a vampiric murderer who travels by plane.A reporter is on the trail of a vampiric murderer who travels by plane.
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- Awards
- 1 win & 2 nominations total
Richard K. Olsen
- Claire Bowie
- (as Richard Olsen)
Robert Leon Casey
- Terminal Cop #2
- (as Bob Casey)
Korbi Dean
- Linda Ross
- (as Deann Korbutt)
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Featured reviews
Richard Dees is a reporter and he is a vampire because he works for a tabloid and earns his living by writing lurid stories and taking sordid pictures. He's got a despicable job and he is getting sick of it. Dwight Renfield is the Night Flier and he is a vampire too, but he is a "real" one an evil and supernatural creature feeding itself on humans. He flies from one airfield to another across the U.S. on a black, private aeroplane. Of course he always leaves bloodless corpses behind him and Dees ends up chasing him with his tape recorder and camera. When they eventually meet, the vampire doesn't really feel like killing one of his kind, and he is ready to let him go. Yet Dees proves his curiosity will always make him chase people like the Night Flier and he will bitterly regret it. At the end of the film, everybody will see and remember Richard Dees as what he really was, that is to say a nasty character living on people's suffering. Well, this film is a great B-movie. The story is exciting, Miguel Ferrer is excellent and the film has no Hollywood-like happy ending. I strongly recommend it to anyone looking for a nice thrill and a few gallons of blood.
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 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!
Richard Dees (Miguel Ferrer) is a nasty and bitter senior reporter from sensationalist tabloid Inside View. When a mysterious pilot starts killing persons nearby the airports, Richard's boss Merton Morrison (Dan Monahan) invites him to cover the matter, but he is not interest. However, rookie reporter Katherine "Jimmy" Blair (Julie Entwisle) studies thoroughly the story of a serial-killer that killed his victims Claire Ellis Bowie in Maine; Buck Kendall in New York; and Ray and Ellen Sarch in Maryland. But Richard steals her research and gives the following advice to Katherine: "Never believe what you publish...Never publish what you believe". He flies to each place in his plane and realizes that the killer might be a vampire due to his style and calls him "The Night Flier". Meanwhile Merton assigns Katherine to follow Richard to give a different view of the same story. When Richard finally finds The Night Flier, he descends to the hell in his insanity and Katherine follows his advice.
"The Night Flier" is one of the best adaptations of Stephen King for video, with an interesting horror movie with a different vampire story. The plot is well constructed, and the story is very simple, but also very frightening. Miguel Ferrer has a good performance in the role of a scum reporter. Unfortunately, Julie Entwisle has a very weak performance in an important character. The contrast between the final black and white scene and the following bright colored one is visually impressive. My vote is eight.
Title (Brazil): "Vôo Noturno" ("Night Flight")
"The Night Flier" is one of the best adaptations of Stephen King for video, with an interesting horror movie with a different vampire story. The plot is well constructed, and the story is very simple, but also very frightening. Miguel Ferrer has a good performance in the role of a scum reporter. Unfortunately, Julie Entwisle has a very weak performance in an important character. The contrast between the final black and white scene and the following bright colored one is visually impressive. My vote is eight.
Title (Brazil): "Vôo Noturno" ("Night Flight")
Miguel Ferrer breathed life into the role of jaded tabloid reporter Richard Dees, who is determined to chase down the Night Flier, a serial killer who exsanguinates his victims as he travels from place to place in a small plane. Ferrer's character is a driven, self centered man who has no interest in life other than his next sensational byline.
A young female competitor brings out the worst in him, and he leaves her behind while he pursues the vampire responsible for the killings. What Richard encounters is more than he bargained for. The ending is actually better than for most of King's stories.
The acting, especially Ferrer's, is good. He also appeared in the TV miniseries adaptation of King's novel, The Stand, the same year The Night Flier was made. May Ferrer rest in peace; we will miss him.
A young female competitor brings out the worst in him, and he leaves her behind while he pursues the vampire responsible for the killings. What Richard encounters is more than he bargained for. The ending is actually better than for most of King's stories.
The acting, especially Ferrer's, is good. He also appeared in the TV miniseries adaptation of King's novel, The Stand, the same year The Night Flier was made. May Ferrer rest in peace; we will miss him.
I went to see this film at the theater almost 25 years ago and was fascinated by it, even today I believe it is among the most successful adaptations of King's works.
I think Pavia has made a cynical, ruthless, intelligent and witty film, with several really cool gore moments, the villain is great, and in the same way the performance of the late and underrated Miguel Ferrer who brings a cynical anti-hero to the screen is great and slimy, with which, however, it is impossible not to empathize. A great film still too underrated, a small cult to be rediscovered very much better then actual terrible PG 13 ghost story.
I think Pavia has made a cynical, ruthless, intelligent and witty film, with several really cool gore moments, the villain is great, and in the same way the performance of the late and underrated Miguel Ferrer who brings a cynical anti-hero to the screen is great and slimy, with which, however, it is impossible not to empathize. A great film still too underrated, a small cult to be rediscovered very much better then actual terrible PG 13 ghost story.
Stephen King Movie Adaptations, Ranked
Stephen King Movie Adaptations, Ranked
See how every feature film adaptation of Stephen King's work stacks up, according to IMDb ratings.
Did you know
- TriviaIn the scene where Katherine is looking at all of Richard's bylines, the framed copies of "Inside View" contain many references to other stories by Stephen King: "Springhill Jack Strikes Again!" (Strawberry Spring), "Headless Lamaze Leads To Successful Birth!" (The Breathing Method), "Kiddie Cultists in Kansas Worship Creepy Voodoo God!" (Children of the Corn), "Satanic Shopkeeper Sells Gory Goodies!" (Needful Things), "Naked Demons Levelled My Lawn!" (The Lawnmower Man) and "The Ultimate Killer Diet! Gypsy Curse Flays Fat Lawyer's Flesh" (Thinner).
- GoofsRichard is leaving a small rural airport when he swerves to avoid hitting an oncoming pickup truck. As he does this you hear the squealing tires but he is driving on a dirt road.
- Quotes
Ezra Hannon: What paper you say you're from?
Richard Dees: Inside View, you know it?
Ezra Hannon: Oh yeah. My wife Martha reads your paper. After she's done with it, I use it to line our kitty's toilet box. Soaks that cat piss real good.
- Alternate versionsThe U.K. DVD includes a few more seconds of gore in the massacre sequence at the end. 1) The camera pans over the corpses on the floor a second time (right to left), and we get a closer shot of a black man, cut in half. The reporter stops and takes a photo of this. He then looks to his right, before proceeding further into the room. Duration: Approx. 18 seconds. Now, this is how the scene plays in the US cut: After the reporter enters the building, the camera pans over the corpses scattered on the floor, from left to right. After that the film cuts to a close up shot of the reporter holding his flash light and looking around. Instead of the insert mentioned above however, the US cuts directly to the next two corpses on the floor (a woman with a neck wound). 2) A close up shot of Dees holding his flashlight and looking around is longer in this cut (after he walks away from the woman with the neck wound and the other corpse). In the US cut we see him look straight ahead and then the film cuts directly to the dead woman at the counter. However, the US disc omits the following: Dees looks to his left and there are three quick shots of a severed head on the floor. He walks further and looks down, and there's a severed arm there. The camera pans up from the arm and shows some more of the interiors in a wide shot. Duration: 14 seconds 3) Before the night flier feeds Dees his blood, there is a longer gore scene: The shot showing him cutting his arm open with his long nail has more spurting blood and lasts longer. Also, the camera pans / tilts from the wound and up to the Night flier's face. In other words: A one shot with a camera pan / tilt. The US cut on the other hand uses an alternate shot / take from a different angel, to make the scene less explicit. First we see the first second of the cutting & blood flow in a large close up, and then the US cuts to a front shot of the vampire finishing the cutting. Around 2 seconds of gore missing here. 4) The exploding head in the black and white sequence is longer.
- ConnectionsFeatures Killer Crocodile (1989)
- SoundtracksRed
Performed by Sister Machine Gun
Written by Chris Randall
Published by KMFDM Ent. (BMI)
Courtesy of Wax Trax! Records / TVT Records
Details
Box office
- Budget
- $1,000,000 (estimated)
- Gross US & Canada
- $125,397
- Opening weekend US & Canada
- $91,549
- Feb 8, 1998
- Gross worldwide
- $125,397
- Runtime
- 1h 37m(97 min)
- Color
- Sound mix
- Aspect ratio
- 1.85 : 1
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