THE NIGHT FLIER (1997)

 WOW, THERE'S A HUGE BOOM IN THE SHOT 7 MINUTES INTO THIS MOVIE!!! 

Ok, that's as maybe.  I first read Stephen King's short story "THE NIGHT FLIER" in Douglas E. Winter's seminal horror collection PRIME EVIL:  NEW STORIES BY THE MASTERS OF MODERN HORROR" paperback hot off the bookshelf in 1988. 

It's been so long ago that all I remember about it, besides the airport setting, is the vampire peeing blood in a urinal.  Now, almost 10 years later, we have the Mark Pavia-directed film adaptation of King's vampire story in 1997.  I never saw it before this year.  This seems like a made-for-TV movie and it is, in fact, made for cable TV.  I don't mean this as a slam because I love made-for-TV horror movies but more of the 1970's variety and 1997 is waaaaaaaaaaaay past that sweet spot.  Mark Pavia is a director whom I'm not familiar with but he did also direct FENDER BENDER in 2016 and I've heard nice things about that one although I've also never seen it.  I quite enjoyed the Stephen King short story as I recall even though it's been decades since I read it so I went into this hopefully optimistic.  But then there's that boom mike in shot 7 minutes in . . .

The wonderful Miguel Ferrer plays grumpy and jaded tabloid journalist Richard Dees whose editor is trying to get him to investigate a series of vampire murders that have been happening at night in deserted airports.  The culprit apparently flies his own plane in and suck dry whatever poor schmuck he encounters; then flies off into the night sky again.  First I want to mention the really nice music composed by big-time award-winning composer Brian Keane.  The score is lush and atmospheric and no surprise coming as it does from this hall-of-fame composer.  Cinematography by David Connell (who also lensed the Stephen King mini-series ROSE RED) is also pretty good.  Julie Entwisle plays tyro cub reporter Katherine "Jimmy" Blair (Dees constantly calls her "Jimmy Olsen") who is trying to team up with the veteran grouchy journalist to investigate these vampire murders.  Sounds like they need Carl Kolchak on the case but I guess he was busy.  Entwisle is OK in the role -- nothing spectacular -- and she only apparently made one other film ("IN & OUT") in her career. 

John Bennes provides some nice Stephen Kingian Northern "Ayuh" colour as airplane mechanic Ezra who is questioned by Dees.  When Ezra asks what paper he's from , Dees says 'Inside View', Ezra cracks up and says "My wife Martha reads your papuh.  After she's done with it, I use it to line our kitty's toilet box.  Soaks up that cat piss real good!"  And good ole Michael H. Moss plays our vampire with the supremely Easter-Eggy name of Dwight Renfield!  The look of the big-mouth vampire is quite nice; giving me vibes of the much later Master from THE STRAIN for some reason.  I've seen this vampire around the place somewhere before so I guess this movie must be more well-known than I thought.  Renfield here wears the full Dracula cape and I think that's awesome.  The opening scene of the first murder is wonderful; set late at night in the pouring rain as a guy goes out on the runway to check out a small plane which won't clear the path and gets clawed across the face for his troubles.  Wonderful opening volley!  The vamp flies the same plane into each airport at night -- a black Cessna Skymaster with the same tail number which is well-known to everyone.  Yet they still can't catch the vamp night flier since they never known which airport he's gonna fly into from night to night.  Gotta give it to ole Steve, this is a kinda cool premise.  I just love when Ezra is describing seeing the Cessna fly in one night:  "My shift was ovuh and I was loadin' up to head home.  That's . . . . when he came down.  Lemme tell ya, mistuh.  Right from the get go, that fella didn't seem propuh!  Just . . . sorta . . . off. . .He was wearin' a big cloak!  He was!  Red as a fire engine inside!  Black as a woodchuck's asshole outside!  And when it spread out behind him, it looked like a goddamn bat's wing, it did!"  That's some excellent monologue!  Basically, Dees and "Jimmy" are eventually gonna have to team up to get the story (but it's not as simple and cut-and-dried as that) before the big encounter with the big bad vampire.  And yes, the vampire urinating blood scene is also here.  I have to admit that I wasn't expecting much from this movie.  I have to tell ya, however, that I kinda really enjoyed it and that surprised me.  The premise, as I said, was interesting and I liked it in the OG story so here it is and it's adapted pretty well.  The end confrontation between Dees and Dwight Renfield is also a real winner.  Yeah, this is a pretty good vampire movie and I'm glad I finally caught up with it.