Blood Red Sky - Review

They picked the wrong flight. So this is about a group of hijackers who overtake a transatlantic flight. Their plan is about to go awry because a passenger (Peri Baumeister) has a mysterious illness and a monstrous secret. She is the variable that will end up being a wildcard for everybody onboard. Now the trailer for this one enticed me. I have this button with plane thrillers which is why Lost hooked me from the pilot, and once I saw that is what this appeared to be, I cut off the bumper without finishing it and added it to my queue. The posters gave off a different vibe from the film I thought I was getting into, and then I started to remember that I had heard about this movie back when it was in production because it was so outlandish. I will give Blood Red Sky this: I've never seen a mash-up quite like this before. Now I'm positive there's a group out there who won't want to see these two types of movie coming together. You can make a moral stance against this film as this is not a subject matter to take lightly, and I would not try to discredit you. 

For me, I just wanted to see where this story was going to go next. It's a premise that is over-the-top, but they always manage to keep it engaging, so I always wanted to see each and every situation play out. They know how to work with the claustrophobia that comes with being on a plane. It's not like you have tons of options on where you can go in this enclosed space, and even if you could, this is a commercial airline where they pack flyers in like sardines. It amps up the tension since you are in such close quarters, and because I've never seen two radically different movies crossover in this fashion, I could never pinpoint where it was going. Some may say that this is like two screenwriters weren't looking where they were going, collided, and then picked up two scripts with all of the pages mixed together, and I'm not going to try and make a counterargument against that, either. I was just able to accept this for what it is: a mad scientist hybrid. Blood Red Sky isn't perfect, and I do have quibbles. I thought the flashbacks in this were fine and added a bit of background to where this woman came from, but they do beef up the runtime, which is what I feel is the biggest detriment. This isn't high art that is being crafted here, and two hours is too long for a story that should only run 100 minutes at maximum. Also, there's some off-screen animal violence where you see the aftereffects, and that's something I could have done without. You already know the hijackers are the scum of the Earth, you don't need to further stack the deck so you root for them to die in grisly ways. Overall though, I got what I wanted from Blood Red Sky, which is a delightfully weird movie fusion.