THE HORROR AT 37,000 FEET (1973)

"There's never been any shortage of idiot things to believe in..."

I don't often travel on international airline flights that are attacked by pre-Christian, ancient Druid evil spirits, but when I do, I make sure that it's with a group of passengers who immediately accept what's happening and resort to lighting fires and human sacrifice!

Clocking in at a blazing 73-minute runtime, THE HORROR AT 37,000 FEET (or TH@37k as it's called in the 'hood) says "Eat a bowl of fuck!" to a slow build-up and gets right to it.  A small group of passengers board a commercial airplane and immediately get to what normal people do on long airplane flights: playing a guitar out of tune, smoking cigarettes and openly drinking out of a private flask.  The Druid ghost (or ghosts), trapped in a sacrificial altar down the lonely cargo hold, doesn't take kindly to not being invited to the party and start bringing the ruckus.  And by "ruckus", I mean, lowering the air conditioner temp down a little bit and ripping a hole in the carpet.  There's also a monk dude wandering around in the galley, but don't mind him much.  He's just looking for some Doritos.

Lame jokes aside, THE HORROR AT 37,000 FEET was a lot of fun.  I love old made-for-TV movies (and airplane-themed disaster movies) and had a blast watching this one.  Extremely quick pace, awesome lighting, really cool sound effects, dope as fuck cast, plot holes and reality just kicked right in the balls and sacrificed to the gods of entertainment, a frozen dog, demonic mold growing on the walls, a large Louis Vuitton bag with the letters upside-down on one side (I was curious about that, so I Googled it and it's due to them using one continuous piece of leather), a possessed woman talking shit in Latin, Jed Clampett yelling at people, a phantom clerical collar popping up for a few seconds.  Anybody who loves cheesy vintage horror movies should check it out.  I'd watch it again in a heartbeat.

It's kinda strange thinking that this film actually aired 10 months (Feb.13, 1973) before THE EXORCIST hit theaters (Dec. 26, 1973)...but, of course, long after the novel became a best seller in 1971. AIRPORT was also #2 at the U.S. box office in 1970.

[Comment outside of the review: in one scene, one of the pilots states "In the last VOR, we're covering ground about like a lady bicycle rider." In the scene, they're talking about how the plane isn't traveling as fast as they had expected so I understand that's just a way of saying "slow", but still...what a bizarre, shitty and sexist way to phrase it!]

THE GRASS IS ALWAYS GREENER OVER THE SEPTIC TANK (1978)

I've gotta be the wrong audience for this one. For as much as I love old made-for-TV movies (especially from the late 1970's / early 1980's) and enjoy both Carol Burnett and Charles Grodin, I never even laughed once during this "comedy".  Or even came close to smiling.  The entire story is fucking ridiculous and makes no sense.  A single income family (working husband, stay-at-home mother and three children) live in a small apartment in New York City, so, to make their lives better, they move to the suburbs.  Alright, nothing wrong with that, that happens all the time.  Problem is once these idiots move into the house that they had built to their specifications, they automatically somehow still don't have enough room!  And now, the mom (and aspiring writer), who is left home alone during the day time, is forced to set up her small foldout table and typewriter in the garage!  Dude, you have an entire two-floor, multiple bedroom house all to yourself...why are you out typing in the garage?  At the same time, the father complains non-stop about how far away he is from the office and how the commute is killing him.  Well, fuckface, why did you move so far away?  Naturally, to simplify their lives, they adopt a large dog.

There's tons of other anti-funny things going on in this movie like the hilarious moment when the garbage disposal kicks up something and Carol runs across the kitchen and jumps up on the counter or the whole side-splitting subplot about Carol's emotional support relationship with a local stay-at-home dad or the disturbing (I mean knee-slapping) time when the youngest child puts a sign in the back window of the station wagon saying he's being kidnapped! Good times.

Vintage cars, wacky dog montage, a long drawn out scene about the importance of life insurance, Eric Stoltz underused, that one kid from AIRPLANE!, dead script, average acting, unsatisfying ending that didn't resolve anything!  As negative as this review is (and it damn sure is), I'm actually fascinated by this entire movie and why it was even made.  Like what was the point?  Who knows.  I'm sure there's plenty of people out there that love it and laugh their testicles off watching Charles Grodin dump fertilizer on Carol Burnett's typewriter.  I'm not one of them.  

Also, did houses in the suburbs back in 1978 actually have septic tanks?  And in the front yard of all places!  This movie is set in a large, planned suburb outside of NYC (although it looks suspiciously like a pre-POLTERGEIST Simi Valley, California to me), you'd think it would have the infrastructure for a combined sewage system.