The Horror at 37,000 Feet (1973)

Terrible acting, screenplay and direction.

Just perfect...

If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

In THE HORROR AT 37,000 FEET, a typical flight from London, England to Los Angeles California, USA is transformed into a supernatural nightmare. It seems that, aside from the passengers, there's something quite different in the cargo hold. A man (Roy Thinnes) is transporting an altar from an ancient abbey. An eeevil abbey! Odd occurrences begin almost immediately, like sudden cold, and female flight attendants wearing go-go boots and jockey helmets! The passengers, including a pseudo-cowboy, a Cindy Brady clone, a cranky zillionaire (Buddy Ebson), and a disillusioned ex-priest (William T. Shatner), are unaware of the brewing mayhem. Thankfully, Captain Chuck Connors and his crew, including Professor Russell Johnson are in the cockpit. What the... ? The jet stops dead in the air, floating in place! Could it be that spooky abbey? The creepy Mrs. Pinder (Tammy Grimes)? Or, is it the fact that Bill Shatner is aboard? After all, he just might have seen something on the wing of the plane! THE BIGGER QUESTION IS: Are airline tickets refundable if the flight engineer has been quick-frozen, or if pea soup begins bubbling up through the floor of the aircraft? THE BIGGEST QUESTIONS ARE: Can anything, even the sacrifice of Mrs. Beasley, possibly assuage these dark forces? Could there be any hope left, once ex-Father, T.J. Kirk begins sanctimoniously pontificating? HA37KF is what early 1970's made-for-TV cheeeze was all about: An all-star cast in peril, with Captain Kirk as a clergyman! The thought of him flying into the heavens shall stay w/ me forever...

What do you get when you combine an airline, a slew of TV stars (including Captain Kirk himself!), and ancient, cursed Druid temple foundations all in one film? 1973's "The Horror at 37,000 Feet"! Starring the likes of Chuck Connors, William Shatner, Buddy Ebsen, Tammy Grimes, Frances Nuyen, Jane Merrow, Lynn Loring, Paul Winfield and Roy Thinnes, it's a wonderful mash up of the supernatural and 70's airline flicks. When architect Roy Thinnes transfers the remains of an abbey long owned by his wife's family, he unknowingly angers the old druid gods who have been attached to the old abbey before Christianity. Faced with impending disaster if the old gods are not appeased or defeated, the passengers and crew scramble to find a way out before everyone descends into a mob and gives the gods what they want: the sacrifice of the architect's wife Jane Merrow! Enter hard drinking, superstition mocking defrocked ex-priest William Shatner (Even writing that sentence makes laugh uncontrollably)! Can the former priest sum up his faith and courage or will everything go down in flames?I absolutely love this movie due to, if for nothing else, just the creativity of it. I mean, for crying out loud, you have an ancient cursed Druid temple being transferred to the states on an airliner by an arrogant, rich architect and William Shatner as a wise cracking, drunk, former priest as the hero to save them. That's more creative than 90% of the films that get made today! But as silly and hokey as the plot line sounds, everyone here gives their best foot forward, from Shatner to Thinnes. Director David Lowell Rich keeps the direction tight and never allows the story to get dull, and the writing is superb with a little message about faith and hope in the darkest of times. This is a type of movie that proves you don't need elaborate special effects or gore to make a good horror flick; sometimes good acting, a decent story, and a little message are all you need, a lesson that has unfortunately been lost on Hollywood these days! If you are in the mood for a creative little horror film from back in the day, I recommend "The Horror at 37,000 Feet" as a good way to spend your time. P.S. It's on youtube.

I watched this years ago as a kid, on television, and only had vague memories of it. I just recently re-watched at and I have to say it's quite the turkey. A made for TV horror film staring Chuck Connors, Buddy Ebsen and William Shatner that takes place on a 747 airliner...at apparently 37,000 feet. There's a Druid stone on the plane (being moved from England to the U.S. to be part of a private bar of a successful architect. It's the solstice, the ancient Druid god's are angry and demanding a sacrifice. So, the movie is pretty weak, as one might expect for a made for TV movie of this time (1973), and I doubt many would like it. I enjoyed it mostly due to the memories it brought back and my weird love of crappy movies. If you want to relive some TV memories from the 70's or also like cheesy bad movies, then I say go for it... If you don't fit this mold, just walk away and don't look back. Trivia: Paul Winfield also stars in this movie - William Shatner and Paul Winfieled would later go on to be in Star Trek II - The Wrath of Khan nine years later in 1982.

This movie provides a(nother) strong case for people who consider William Shatner an awful actor. He plays a disillusioned ex-priest – which is admittedly not his fault but merely a result of inane casting. What he does have to accept blame for is that he chose to play this former preacher as if he'd been handed a comedy script; he makes faces, he grins, he snickers, he mugs his way through the role as if he'd really been drunk. He is the only one in the entire cast who plays it broadly (apart from the cowboy, but even he tones it down as soon as the demons start their incessant demonizing).As if it weren't enough that his character was badly written; a walking movie cliché of a sardonic, hates-his-life, smart-ass quasi-drunkard whose actions and reactions make little sense half the time. He is the only passenger who gets killed, so perhaps that was the movie's revenge: kill off Shatner. Sort of a way to at least somewhat appease the anti-Shatneristas.Although, to be fair, Shatner merely flies out of the plane. So we don't know for certain that he didn't land on some fat (and very soft) sperm-whale who had come out to the surface for some air, just at the very instant as Shatner was spiraling downwards toward it. Whatever the case may be, Shatner's character died (or at least fell out) happy, because he had found God again. How sweet. How American.Don't expect to actually see any of these ancient, demonic druids who so fluently jabber in Latin. HA30000F is a low-budget TV product, so you'd better use your imagination, and plenty of it. The special-effects "highlights" here are smoke being blown into an elevator, and a few kilos of mud coming out of a girl's doll.And anyway, what's with that little girl? She seems to be traveling alone. WTF.In fact, there are only 9 passengers (if I'm not mistaken) on the entire flight. In other words, there is almost as much flight staff as paying customers! I figure that this flight couldn't have possibly broken even for the airline unless each traveler had been charged at least 20,000 dollars or thereabouts. I suppose they could have charged the dead zombie druids for the flight, too, and that way made a profit after all (assuming that there were as many as several dozen druids farting about in the luggage compartment).