5 Airplane Horror Movies to Watch Before Your Next Vacation
Afraid to fly yet?
updated on
Flying is actually very safe. The National Safety Council puts the odds of dying in a commercial plane crash at 1 in 9,821. The odds of dying in a car crash? 1 in 93.
Still, airplanes are a common source of fear and anxiety. Unlike driving, we are not in control. We have to trust the pilot to do her job. Passengers are also in an unfamiliar place with unfamiliar people. There’s no way to know whether the person sitting next to you is trustworthy.
These horror movies probably won’t help your fear of flying, but since horror fans like to live on the edge, here are the scariest horror movies about air travel:
Final Destination (2000)
Final Destination is a unique horror franchise about a high school student, Alex (Devon Sawa), who boards a flight to Paris with his high school classmates. He has a premonition that the plane will explode and causes a scene which gets him and a handful of other students kicked off the flight. Sure enough, the plane explodes in the air during takeoff.
Unfortunately Alex discovers that escaping Death comes with consequences. Namely, that Death will come back around for those who thwart it. He and his classmates search for a way to survive while Death eliminates them through elaborate Rube Goldberg-like sequences.
Red Eye (2005)
Wes Craven directed this psychological thriller about Lisa (Rachel McAdams), a hotel manager who is stealthily accosted by a terrorist, Jackson (Cillian Murphy), on a flight. Jackson pressures Lisa to use her authority to switch a politician from one room to another at her hotel in order to carry out an assassination plot. Most of the film takes place on a plane where Lisa gets creative in her attempts to elicit help from others who are unaware she is in danger.
The Green Inferno (2013)
Green Inferno follows a college freshman, Justine, as she travels to South America to join a protest to protect the Amazon rainforest. After a harrowing fight during which Justine is almost killed, she finally boards a flight back to the relative safety of the United States. However, the plane explodes and the group crash lands in the territory of an indigenous tribe that practices cannibalism.
World War Z (2013)
This is an action horror movie about a former United Nations investigator, Gerry (Brad Pitt), who is tasked with uncovering information about a worldwide zombie outbreak. The scariest scene in World War Z is the plane sequence where zombies overtake a plane midair. There is little the passengers can do in mid air to protect themselves from the zombies and it is terrifying to witness.
Blood Red Sky (2021)
This high concept action horror movie is about what would happen to a vampire if they were stuck on an airplane. A sickly woman, Nadja (Peri Baumeister), and her son (Carl Koch) board a plane to New York City where Nadja will receive an unspecified medical treatment. During the flight, terrorists hijack the plane and the secret Nadja protected at all costs becomes her secret weapon in protecting her son.
Further reading:
