Altitude is a movie centred around a young group of teens, leaving for a holiday on a private rental aircraft. Sara (performed by Jessica Lowndes) is the pilot who’s freshly received her license and keen to get up and away with her buddies. What develops over the course of the movie is a strange and almost surreal escapade as the plane enters dark, morbid looking airspace where some huge, multi tentacled creature resides and is none too happy about the invaders jumping on it’s cloud. The young group have to work out whats going on and find a way to escape the nightmare.
Sounds an interesting premise for a movie, young kids stuck on a plane having to deal with some mysterious, otherworldly creature that’s up in the air. I wasn’t quite sure going into viewing whether it would live up to it’s promise but i can thankfully say (for the most part) that it does. The characters aren’t overly interesting in my opinion, although the decent acting quality really shines through and helps the movie turn into a real edge of your seat experience at times.
I don’t want to give away any big spoilers (that won’t make me popular) but suffice to say there is a twist or two in store for you if you decide to watch this flick. It mostly all comes together at the end and it works well.
Gore wise things are very light, in fact there is not gore whatsoever in this movie. It doesn’t really hurt it, but would have been nice if things could have been a bit grizzlier in this regard. The movies pacing is damn solid, it doesn’t take long for the kids to get up in the sky and for the tension to build up and up and up… I don’t know why, considering most of the movie is them stuck in a small plane but the setting never becomes irksome, tedious or boring. I suppose this is due to the fine sense of atmosphere which is pervasive throughout. It reminded somewhat of the old Stephen King TV Movie The Langoliers quite a bit actually, except better.
So I’m giving Altitude a strong thumbs and a solid recommendation. Just beware that there’s no gore or nudity in this flick, it’s a cerebral nerve jangler with decent-ish characters and a fairly original storyline.
Movie Details
Director: Kaare Andrews
Writer: Paul A. Birkett
Actors: Julianna Guill, Ryan Donowho, Landon Liboiron, Jake Weary
Release Year: 2010