Area 407 Movie Review

Runtime: 90 minutes
Rating: NR
Release Date: April 27, 2012
Director: Dale Fabrigar, Everette Wallin

It’s New Year’s Eve and a bunch of random people are on a flight from New York City to Los Angeles. A little girl films everyone with her camera as she travels with her older sister. There’s also a professional photographer who seems inappropriately interested in the older sister, a belligerent drunk who hates everyone, and a quiet woman who is actually an air marshal.

Not long after celebrating the New Year, the plane crashes in the middle of nowhere. The little sister hands the camera over to her big sister, which is a mistake because that kid should not get as much screen time as she does. The crash survivors almost immediately divide into two groups. One group wants to build a fire and wait for help to arrive, while the other group wants to wander into the dense forest and look for help. Naturally, those who leave suddenly begin screaming in horror. One man manages to make it back to the group, but he won’t tell them what happened or what he saw.

As the group goes through the supplies, the photographer and the drunk get into a miniature fight. The drunk thinks that his head wound is worse than anyone else’s injuries, and he isn’t willing to sit down and shut up. Once everyone calms down, the flight attendant goes back into the plane to find blankets and food. When the drunk asks for a drink, she laughingly goes to get one before screaming. By the time they find her, she’s dead, and they are all on a fight for their lives.

I enjoyed Area 407...to a point. The little sister is such an annoying character that I literally winced every time she walked onscreen. You know how you sometimes watch a movie and you root for one character to die quickly? That’s how I feel about this chick. The older sister is not only a better actress but far less annoying, which makes it sad when she becomes the camera holder.

Area 407 lacks any real character development too. Did you notice how I keep referring to characters without using their names? Yeah, that’s because I never bothered to learn them. The annoying little sister stays the annoying little sister throughout the movie, and the asshole drunk remains the asshole drunk. It’s also funny that the little sister looks like a tween/early teen, but she skips and dances around like an eight-year-old.

It’s also missing the blood and gore that modern films have. When someone gets attacked, the camera immediately pans to a horrific look on one of the character’s faces without showing us exactly what happened. We also have to sit through a lot of screaming and scenes of the camera pointed at the ground as characters run away.

Still, the end of the movie makes it worth sitting through. We get a few glimpses at what happened to the travelers and why it happened, but Area 407 manages to keep the exact secret under wraps until the last few seconds.