WillSushyMedia
This movie was so-so. It had it's moments, but wasn't the greatest.
Mathster
The movie runs out of plot and jokes well before the end of a two-hour running time, long for a light comedy.
Lela
The tone of this movie is interesting -- the stakes are both dramatic and high, but it's balanced with a lot of fun, tongue and cheek dialogue.
Leofwine_draca
This spooky little film is full of the supernatural imagery familiar to us from other good ghostly films (such as DON'T LOOK NOW). Filmed in Australia, the story of the man surviving the plane crash and being plagued by ghosts is both intriguing and dramatic. Director David Hemmings is adept at serving up disturbing images, from the burned young girl to the photographs of the dead. I have read the James Herbert novel on which this film is based before and from what I can remember it sticks pretty well to the source material.Robert Powell is on top form as the haunted (and in the end, haunting) pilot and he is given solid support from Jenny Agutter as the psychic he teams up with. Expect lots of shivers and chills instead of in your face horror and you'll find yourself enjoying this little mystery, which copes well with a low budget and is well worth your time. Not one for watching alone late at night!
jadavix
"The Survivor" is a bizarre, incomprehensible attempt at a horror story that barely registers as that or anything at all.The bits that one assumes are meant to be scary are merely confusing and come out of nowhere. The soundtrack pummels you with frantic music but this is merely irritating since you can't understand what, if anything, you are supposed to be scared by.The plot is fairly simple, so why is it so confusing? It's about a pilot who survives a plane crash that kills everyone else on board. He is visited by some kind of clairvoyant or something, played by Jenny Agutter, who is about as mystical in this role as the CEO of Wendy's. Her role in the plot is obvious on paper (how else is the movie going to get the supernatural bent going?), but when handled this badly, becomes confusing and you may wonder what she is there for.The ending, I admit, was clever. It's just everything that led up to it was so bad that it was completely wasted, like the rest of the movie.
iain_somerville
This is a pretty cool film, and I have been surprised at how much it has been ignored over the years. Halliwell's Film Guide doesn't list it at all. It's a chilling, atmospheric horror story that plays on the audience's deepest fears about what lies in the dark. That said, the book is still better and alot more unsettling and disturbing. All the James Herbert novels I've read are very graphic and go into a great detail about sex and death, although I wouldn't say they make good bedtime reading.
uds3
For some reason this film never won the affection of either its peers or the viewing audience at the time. It played to half empty theaters, barely covered its production cost and was unceremoniously tossed out of everyone's subconscious. Yet its not even a bad film, I would venture to suggest a most interesting study of the paranormal and well directed by former BLOW UP star David Hemmings.Robert Powell is Captain Keller who's 747 suffers a bomb explosion just before take-off and 300 odd passengers are incinerated as the plane explodes in flames. A short time later Keller is found wandering from the burning wreckage unharmed and quite unable to fathom how he has survived. The mystery deepens when a rapidly convened investigation concludes that there is no possible way ANYONE could have survived the explosion and heat blast, wherever they were in the plane.As Keller embarks on his fateful odyssey, he and the audience are taken down lanes that both THE SIXTH SENSE and UNBREAKABLE may have trodden..and this was almost a generation earlier! The viewer needs to suspend belief and take things for what he sees (or thinks he sees) A really intelligent Aussie flick that you will get as much out of as you are prepared to put in. Always good to see Joseph Cotton and Jenny Agutter!
