Sole Survivor (1983)

Code Red has shown itself to be a class act when it comes to releasing fine little obscurities with an extra gold star for my two faves, the extremely fun little monstermovie Strangeness and the awesomeness that is Messiah of evil. And here they have struck gold again, perhaps not as rich a vein as the two movies mentioned in the earlier sentence but still, a fine little movie that deserved a decent release.

Here is a fun little obscurity that rates fairly high on the creepiness scale. It is obviously low budget and the acting is rather uneven but the general ambience of the whole thing wins out in the end. Think of it as a mixture of Night of the living dead and James Herberts The Survivor, and then some. We follow a young woman who survives a plane crash, only to be haunted by strange voices and mysterious people who in the beginning only watch her but soon start to kill everyone around her. Enough said about the plot, it is simple but very effective. The movie focuses on mood instead of gore and it is well directed by Thom Eberhart whose debut this was. The acting is maybe the low point, ranging from wooden to ok, but it never detracts from the enjoyment. The general creepiness of all that is going on, from the voices to the people who pop up from time to time just to watch her before turning homocidal and the mystery of why this is happening, something that is subtly laid out by a psychic friend of the lead.

A decent little timewaster, well above average, which is well worth a purchase. And that "Before Final destination... there was... " bit, not really. Some meager similarities maybe, but entirely different movies.