You Know What's Great?: The Night Flier

All right Goddammit. Enough is enough. I can not and will not sit idly by and allow this travesty to remain unaddressed. Mark Pavia's 1997 The Night Flier is an undeniable masterpiece and in my opinion the 3rd best horror film of the 90's behind Seven and Candyman. Never has the trashy, propulsive tone and unpretentious, working man dynamic of Stephen King source material been so faithfully translated apart from perhaps Mary Lambert's Pet Semetery (which I also consider a damn near perfect film). It comes across like a really great Tales From The Crypt installment or Creepshow vignette given room to breathe and subsequently blossoming into dark parable programmer perfection. In all honesty, it's a film that I always am in the mood to and would gladly watch. That, my dear friends, puts it in rarefied company with the immortal likes of Evil Dead, Dawn of the Dead, Goodfellas and Fulci's top 3 (The Beyond, City of the Living Dead and Zombie).

What's that you say? You've never bothered to give it a look? You saw it on the video store shelves and thought it looked lame? Shame and woe upon your household fellow home theater traveler, cause The Night Flier has everything good horror requires. It boasts impeccable atmosphere made all the more commendable by it's readily apparent low budget. It swims in some strange production ether betwixt made for cable and direct to DVD, yet triumphantly succeeds thanks to Pavia's clever direction and blocking which subtly serve to amp up the pulpy proceedings. Even the horrendous late 90's fashions defy conventional logic and against all odds bolster the films already ample charm.

It features uniformly solid performances with several stand outs, namely Miguel Ferrer as Rick Dees, the most lovable asshole ever committed to film. He's a tabloid reporter introduced to us storming into his editor's office, throwing down the latest issue and bellowing "Where's my goddamn dead baby?!?!" in reference to an absent front page picture he worked so hard to acquire. I can think of no more forceful and off putting a line with which to introduce our lead character, but all be damned if Ferrer's authoritatively honeyed voice doesn't pull it of with effortless aplomb. Seriously, Miguel Ferrer has one of cinema's greatest voices and it belongs in the pantheon next to other gravelly greats like Lance Henricksen and Michael Wincott. Miguel Ferrer's agitated presence and explosive charisma go a hell of a long way toward elevating The Night Flier from passable Tuesday night time waster to grand melodrama. A Faustian tragedy laced with cutting, incisive commentary on the parasitic nature of the media and the dark heart beating beneath humanity's morbid curiosity concerning suffering and the unknowable. Shit yeah, it's that fucking deep and I'm serious as a heart attack.

Gore, you ask? Hells yes there's gore. It's not gratuitous nonsense inserted for cheap laughs and a Fangoria spread. It eloquently supports the tragic elements of the story and reinforces the dangerous dimensions of the narrative's inherent nastiness. KNB does some truly unsettling work here and every last shred of it is necessary and perfectly photographed to maximize its impact. Brian Keane contributes an elegant, lilting little piano melody for a score and it suits the material perfectly, coloring the tone with mystery and sadness. Every time I watch the film I have it stuck in my head for days. And you know what? It's so damn good that doesn't even bother me.

It might seem like I'm being hyperbolic for the sake of comedy, but I legitimately feel this way about The Night Flier. I can not fathom why it is not frequently feted and righteously revered along with other more well known King adaptations such as The Mist, Pet Semetery, The Shining and The Shawshank Redemption. Budgetary limitations aside, I consider it to be every bit those films equal and a damn sight better than the middling garbage most horror nerds espouse as greatness. It is, in my humble opinion, THE most under rated horror film of all time and future generations will no doubt erect monuments to its towering brilliance and ethereal grandiloquence.