THE NIGHT FLIER (1997) - Stephen King's other vampire tale.

DIRECTED by Mark Pavia.

SCREENPLAY by Mark Pavia & Jack O'Donnell based on the short story "The Night Flier" by Stephen King.

STARRING  - Miguel Ferrer as Richard Dees,  Julie Entwistle as Katherine Blair,  Dan Monahan as Merton Morrison,  Michael H. Moss as Dwight Renfield.

PLOT - Richard Dees, a cynical, hard-nosed reporter working for a trashy tabloid newspaper is given the assignment of reporting on a murder that took place at a rural airfield. The victim was drained of blood, apparently by a private plane's pilot, a man going under the pseudonym "Dwight Renfield". A man who appears to be a vampire.

At first Dees rejects the story as a waste of his time. Nonsense that not even the low standards of his tabloid rag should be touching. However, more murders are committed at other airfields and Dees instinct for a story is soon roused. 

Merton Morrison, Dees's sleazy manipulative editor sends rival reporter, the niave new recruit Katherine onto the story, this spurs Dees into action, not wanting to miss out on the story of a lifetime.

As Dees begins to track down the enigmatic Renfield using every immoral journalistic trick in the book, the bodies begin to pile up. It soon becomes apparent that the vampire knows that Dees is following him and a deadly game of cat and mouse begins.

See what happens when a parasite meets a REAL bloodsucker...

DIALOUGE  - Dees - "Never believe what you publish and never publish what you believe."

PERFORMANCES  - The late Miguel Ferrer made a career out of playing utter bastards (I'm sure he was a nice bloke in real life though). Not only where his characters utter bastards they where also usually very funny bastards. Ferrer cornered the market in playing mean, cynical, pragmatic arseholes with a dash of acerbic wit thrown in that ensured that they where never completely unlikeable and where always entertaining to watch.

All of the above means that Ferrer is absolutely perfect casting for the role of Richard Dees, you could even argue it was a role he was born to play. 

Dees is the archetypal immoral reporter, cynical yet dedicated to getting his story. Yet Dees isn't on a noble quest to tell the public "the truth" about the world around them. No way. Dees is in it solely for the money and the glory. No trick is too low, no one is above being betrayed or backstabbed by him in his quest for the front page. And yet, as repugnant as he is, for some reason you can't help but like him - or at least admire his determination. It is this quality that Ferrer brings to the table, leading to an interesting main character.

At the opposite end of the moral spectrum to Dees is Katherine Blair (Julie Entwistle). Katherine is the niave young cub reporter who is set up to be his rival in getting the story. She's sweet, friendly and righteous in her goals...at first anyway. 

As the story progresses she is bullied by Dees, jeered at by him and ultimately betrayed by him. All this exposure to Dees's worst traits serves to bring out a more hardbitten side to Katherine's personality and by the end of the film Katherine appears to be headed down the same path as Dees. When Dees is mistaken for the killer and shot dead by police, Katherine runs with the story (even though she knows the real truth). The result - Katherine gets the front page whilst Dees ends up dead with his reputation in tatters. Entwistle (who reminds me of Pheobe Cates a lot) plays this transition very subtly and leaves you wondering to what depths her character is going to plunge in the future.

Rounding out the cast is Dan Monahan who is wonderfully slimy as Merton Morrison the paper's editor and Michael H. Mass as the vampiric Dwight Renfield.

Renfield isn't in the film much, we only catch glimpses of him as he shadows Dees shadowing him. Yet his presence is felt throughout the film and his eventual revelation is both shocking and memorable. King's vampires have always been great when committed to film (see Salem's Lot for instance) and Dwight Renfield is no exception.

SFX - As I said above, Dwight Renfield is a brilliant creation and the effects used to portray his full on vampire form only serve to back this up. 

In his human form he doesn't look like much, if anything he looks like Michael Bolton cosplaying Bella Lugosi, as cheesy as cheesy gets...

But once he gets a taste for the red stuff and fully vamps up he becomes this walking nightmare...

JESUS CHRIST !!!!! They're not fangs, they're RAILWAY SPIKES. 

He's definitely one of the most feral looking vampires I've ever seen and its a great piece of prosthetic makeup work.

SEX & VIOLENCE  - A feral vampire with teeth like that is obviously going to cause a LOT of damage to anyone unlucky enough to get within chomping distance. Cause damage he does, theres no "small puncture wounds" on the neck in this movie. Dwight Renfield literally tears his victims to shreds.

Whether its by ripping his victim's throats out...

Or leaving gaping bloody holes in thier necks...

Or just good old fashioned decapitation...

...Dwight Renfield is guaranteed ALWAYS to be a messy eater.

This all culminates in his worst atrocity at the film's end when he single handedly wipes out an entire airport full of innocent people. Not since the massacre of the villagers in Scars Of Dracula has there been such a gruesome looking aftermath to a vampire attack...

It's really quite remarkable. And to think Renfield does all this just to prove a point. Dees must have REALLY got his dander up.

Speaking of Dees, he has his darker moments too. At one point he happens across a random fatal car crash and casually stops to take gruesome photos for his paper. Dees is completely unfazed by this gory spectacle and tragic loss of human life. Its all just another cheap and easy front page for him, he's become utterly desensitised by his job...

By the end of the film Dees gets his comeuppance. After arriving at the charnel house that the airport has become and seeing Renfield in his full glory, Dees then has an hallucination (caused by Renfield) that Renfield's victims have turned into zombies and are attacking him...

This vision causes Dees to attack the lifeless bodies with an axe which in turn causes two passing cops to think Dees is an axe wielding maniac. The upstanding guardians of public safety proceed to shoot Dees multiple times. He gets taken out by a bullet wound to the neck...

Dees ends up getting his much coveted front page...but not in the way he would have wanted.

RATING  - The Night Flier is another great vampire tale from the pen of Stephen King and is one of the better adaptations of his shorter works. It's sleazy and unpleasant but then it's supposed to be. The whole film is steeped in a sense of grime, even the one likeable character ends up being tainted. In it's way its just as much of a satire about tabloid sensationalist journalism than it is a vampire movie.

It's also a very 90's feeling film. It has the look and feel of an episode of The X-Files about it, except with tons more blood and gore and Mulder and Scully being replaced by Albert Rosenfeld from Twin Peaks (another great Ferrer character). It's just got that dark looking pre-millenium film style that was all the rage back in the 90's.

All in all The Night Flier is a nice slice of 90's nihilism - 4 cape wearing crazies out of 5.

POSTER/VHS/DVD ART  - 

And for those of you looking to read King's original short story, you can find it in this book where it was first published...

Or more commonly in King's anthology Nightmares and Dreamscapes.