1973’s The Horror at 37,000 Feet has been mostly forgotten, but it delivers some good, cheesy ’70s fun along with some familiar faces and a few really creepy moments.
What Is It?
This relic from the age of the TV Movie of the Week delivered a creepy and fun (if rather cheesy) Twilight Zone/Night Gallery type tale extended over an hour and a half (with commercials), peppered with any of a number of familiar faces from TV shows of the 60’s. Its story revolves around a flight chartered by architect Alan O’Neill (Roy Thinnes who also played an architect in The Invaders) and his wife to carry the ruins of an ancient altar from London to the United States. Also onboard are a handful of passengers who managed to secure tickets on this “extra” flight (because its main purpose is to deliver cargo) as well as the crew and two stewardesses (back in the time when they wore short skirts and go-go boots). Along the way, strange events begin to occur and the passengers and crew come to the realization that an evil presence is on the plane and threatens to destroy them all.
Aired: February 13, 1973
Cast: William Shatner, Roy Thinnes, Chuck Connors, Tammy Grimes, Buddy Ebsen
Crew: David Lowell Rich (Director), V. X. Appleton (Story), Ronald Austin (Screenplay), James D. Buchanan (Screenplay)
Legacy:
This TV movie delivered a fun little horror film with a lot of well-known television faces and a lot of ’70’s cheesiness, and it also managed to work in a few good creepy moments.
A Closer Look:
This TV Movie came out around the same time as similar small screen exercises in horror such as Gargoyles, The Trilogy of Terror, The Night Stalker, and Duel, and while it doesn’t quite match up to those classics, it has a cheesy charm of its own and delivers some truly creepy moments. It also delivers a fun who’s who get together of well-known faces from ’60s television (including two sci fi leading men): William Shatner (Star Trek), Roy Thinnes (The Invaders), Chuck Connors (The Rifleman), Buddy Ebsen (The Beverly Hillbillies), Russell Johnson (Gilligan’s Island), Paul Winfield (multiple guest-starring roles) and France Nuyen (I Spy and multiple guest-starring roles including Elaan in the Trek episode “Elaan of Troyius”).
While the four TV movies mentioned above have gone on to be hailed as cult classics, The Horror from 37,000 Feet has mostly fallen off the radar of genre fans. Sure, it didn’t have a Richard Matheson script backing it (which Duel, Night Stalker, and Trilogy of Terror did), or Dark Shadows‘ Dan Curtis producing it (Night Stalker, Trilogy of Terror), or Stan Winston providing makeup (Gargoyles), or a young Steven Spielberg directing (Duel). And any one of those might have helped the movie’s long-term cult-standing. But The Horror at 37,000 Feet still managed to overcome its shortcomings and deliver a better-than-average television movie with a few good scares.
The film starts out much like the disaster movies of the day doing big business in the theaters like Airport and The Poseidon Adventure as it gives us a brief glimpse of the lives of each of the people boarding the endangered vessel. And also much like the theatrical disaster movies, it offers an “all-star” cast of sorts, though of ’60s TV veterans not major movie stars. But The Horror at 37,000 Feet gets things rolling pretty fast (the whole film is only a little more than seventy minutes long) as it introduces the supernatural elements right away and quickly thrusts the crew and passengers into a battle with an unknown, malicious entity.
The first half of the movie seems to suggest that Chuck Connors and Roy Thinnes are the focal characters to the story, but then it shifts away from them about midway as Connors retreats to the cockpit and mopes and Thinnes fades into the role of a background character. But then William Shatner, as an ex-priest of all things, comes to the forefront and basically makes this his film. I’m sure this is the result of a poorly executed script, but it actually works in the movie’s favor as Shatner comes out in full force and delivers a rather energized performance, actually one of his best in my opinion. And he definitely overshadows the other characters who mostly offer little more than lackluster, by-the-numbers readings of their roles.
Because of the somewhat messy script and the phoned-in performances of many of the actors, The Horror at 37,000 Feet falls short of being considered a classic. But it’s not a bad movie either and actually delivers a rather fun viewing experience if for no other reason than seeing all those ’60s actors together in the same film, even if some just seem to be there to collect a paycheck. It’s definitely worth seeking out, especially for horror fans, just make sure that going in you adjust expectations accordingly.
Should It be Rebooted?
Sure, this could turn into a great remake. The script had its problems, but you can iron those out and get a bunch of known genre vets onboard and this could turn into retro-movie fun. The Shat-man is still alive, so maybe he could make a cameo. Anybody up for a crowd-funding campaign to remake this film?
Interesting Facts:
In 1963, William Shatner starred in another airplane-horror installment with the infamous Twilight Zone episode “Terror at 20,000 Feet” when he had to face the menace of a creature that only he saw trying to sabotage the plane he is on while in flight.
The director of The Horror at 37,000 Feet, David Lowell Rich, would go on to direct two more airplane disaster movies: the 1977 TV movie SST: Death Flight which also had an “all-star” cast of TV actors, and the 1979 theatrical film The Concorde… Airport ’79.
Where Can You Watch It?
This film has finally been released on DVD, and you can pick that up at a pretty economical price. It is not streaming on any of the major services (seems likes it would be a good one for the horror-focused Shudder), but you can catch it on YouTube from time to time. The video quality there will probably not be great, though.
