Director: Alexander Babaev
Year: 2022
Country: Russia
Alternate Titles: Ryad 19
Genre: Supernatural
Plot:
After boarding a flight, a woman and her daughter heading home to visit her family are confronted by a series of strange supernatural figures hinting at the same figures that left her the sole survivor of an earlier plane crash are back and must sort out her horrific visions to keep them alive.
Review:
This was a pretty solid overall genre effort. Among the better features here is the intriguing setup that provides this one with a solid setup with plenty of likable factors. With a lot of great work here involving her backstory of surviving the original crash while the current setup featuring her fear of flying and general unease with the status of the flight creates a fun setup with the first half of the film. Taking the cue of the usual motions found in these kinds of efforts about the general sense of discomfort once the visions start happening provides a nice furthering of these issues by creating a highly effective atmosphere within the plane going forward.
That leads to a lot of fun here with the rather impressive setups designed to showcase something that may be happening on the flight with her and the rest of the passengers. The shots of the strange demonic beings in the various seats around the plane or the clawed hands pounding on the windows that go alongside with some decent enough kill scenes on the other passengers which offers the kind of setup works rather well. The grounded approach inside the plane as well as the eventual reveal of the whole affair makes for a fun tone as the events become more terrifying, and with a breakneck approach to the pacing here there's a lot to like here.
The film does have some big issues. The main factor here is the rather flimsy and generally unimpressive storyline that tells a highly predictable type of setup where the type of scenes that emerge are rather suspect and familiar. The whole idea of the supernatural curse being in play once again at a special anniversary of the initial scaring incident coming back around is an over-done concept that doesn't have any impact in the long run with very little of this requiring a running time to portray this. As the film goes along, there's not a whole lot to offer up in terms of changing that up which makes this feel overly repetitive and familiar.
This ties very heavily in the other flaw where its finale is so overly predictable and familiar that it's really hard to be impressed by what's happened. This one tends to go for the most obvious route here in exploring how the past trauma of her survival has to come to pass in one form or another which is a rather pedestrian way of doing this. Very little of this will be unique to viewers who are able to piece together the storyline based on how familiar this overall concept will be since it plays rather comfortably within the parameters of the style, but that’s pretty much all that hold this one down.
Overview: **.5/5
A decidedly decent enough if an overall flawed supernatural effort, there's a lot to like here which is somewhat undone by the flaws on display as well as the problematic country of origin. Those who are comfortable looking past the recent events of the world or are just curious about this one, in general, will enjoy it the most, but those who are unable or unwilling to do so as well as those just plain put off by the flaws should heed extreme caution.
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