First time feature directors Dale Fabrigar and Everette Wallin, present a found footage style horror and sci-fi film, though, they both have previous film credits, providing them with a solid foundation to create an interesting journey for viewers, involving a monstrous creature likely a T-Rex dinosaur. Once again the success of The Blair Witch Project (1999) and then multiple films from the Paranormal Activity franchise spinning out of control, have dollar signs in future filmmaker’s eyes, and hence minimum in cost and high demand rewards in the found footage sub-genre in horror.
The storyline has the world’s most annoying teen girls boarding a plane from New York to Los Angeles on New Year’s Eve, setting in motion, kids from perhaps a separated or divorced family, and one is armed with a constant running video camera, and the most inane nonsensical rambling uninteresting chatting. The jet crashes from turbulence, into several pieces, and presenting a new series of issues, but fret not the camera works and continues to film the entire incident with Trish (Abigail Schrader – spoiler she makes it to part two) and her older sister Jessie (Samantha Lester). The nightmare starts quickly but the dialogue seems disjointed though perhaps intended since traumatic experience of a plane crash brings jumbled nerves and utterances. Survivors begin misguided actions with no advisements or control, opening and gorging themselves on champagne and food, mere hours after the crash, another random action occurring plodding aimless, with neither flight attendant Lois (Samantha Sloyan (Hush [2016])) nor the Air Marshall Laura (Melanie Lyons) taking possession of the food and supplies. Many people seem to have survived the wreckage, yet in the middle of nowhere, soon enough screams echo in the darkness, and the foreground is far too well light, cue the monster in the film, and growl in the distance. Among some of the survivors and perhaps meal tickets are a drunken passenger Charlie (Brendan Patrick Conner) and Lois’ husband Tom (Ken Garcia). Soon enough a mysterious beasts appears and sniffs out a hot meal and late night snack chasing them into a cabin, therein they try to make sense of the entire situations, cue the shouting, macho standpoints, and excessive whimpering. Sadly, none of them remember the lessons from Jurassic Park (1993), the light attracts attention, so shut off the camera, and turn the film into a narrative, but it seems you cannot do that for an unknown reason. The film at times, has a plot that mirrors a superior found footage film known as Evidence (2012), yet strives to carry itself under tremendous plot holes burdening it.
If one, takes the time to research, and discovers that the production of the movie occurs over five days and that much of the script involves ad-lib lines, with screenplay offering a rough outline in more or less than a skeleton design. The control that a director needs for input and for structure vanished in the movie, almost as if creating a paradox of an arthouse venture. This movie was in the grouping of found footage, the attitude taken likens it to a reality show, which allows for repetitive statements and free flowing misconceptions. Most of film fills itself with aimless action sequences, of running from point A to B and back to A, though shockingly the monster, which has CGI representative on the screen in low quality, appears briefly. One wonders if the concept was to create a land that time forgot, or a government base of genetic monstrous, sadly neither come to aid the audience.
This film, I sadly cannot truly recommend it to the horror fans, while it was produced well enough, and the sound effects of the dinosaur come through believable and many times mysterious elements creep on the film, it never really lives up to expectations. The found footage genre right enjoys a staying power in the market, and continues releases new productions on a weekly basis, providing a new avenue for filmmakers to venture through and stake a claim in the market and in this case, something for the sci-fi films, though, should have focused on aliens instead. As an added tidbit this movie produced enough interest for a sequel, entitled Area 407: Part Two (2013) by famed director Jay Lee.
This review was originally published on the now defunct Rogue Cinema website in September 2015 and accumulated a view count of 2,306.
TAGLINES:
- More terrifying than surviving a plane crash is what awaits them in the darkness.
- The plane crash was only the beginning
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2062661/
IMDb Rating: 3.6/10
Baron’s Rating: 3.5/10