Richard Dees is a cynical tabloid reporter whose motto is "Never believe what you publish and never publish what you believe". Merton Morrison, editor-in-chief at the tabloid Inside View, confides a case to him about a bloody murder in a rural airfield, committed by a passing aviator who thinks he is a vampire and registered under the name of Dwight Renfield. Dees refuses but reverses his decision when two more murders are committed in another airfield, the victims drained of their blood. He recovers the case from Morrison, who in the meantime had entrusted it to the novice reporter Katherine Blair, and leaves in the footsteps of the killer aboard his own light aircraft. Dees gathers accounts, pays bribes and even profanes a grave for the purposes of his investigation. He senses that the case is stranger than it seems and receives messages telling him to stop his investigation. Dissatisfied with Dees' attitude, Morrison sends Katherine Blair to conduct her own parallel investigation. Dees offers the young woman to join forces to hunt down the killer. They find his trail at the Wilmington airfield and, as he no longer needs her, Dees abandons Katherine to continue alone. He lands at Wilmington and finds Renfield's Cessna Skymaster with dirt inside and the interior covered in blood. The airfield seems deserted but Dees finds several massacred people. After taking photographs, he goes to the bathroom to vomit and is surprised by Renfield, who reveals his face and turns out to be a vampire. Renfield destroys his photographic film and forces him to drink a little of his blood, which gives Dees visions of all the victims coming back as zombies. In a trance, he attacks the bodies with an axe and is shot by the police officers who arrived on the scene with Katherine. She sees Renfield get on his plane and take off but, adopting Dees' motto, she publishes an article that portrays Dees as the killer.
The film, which was independently financed by European investors, attracted strong interest from Paramount Pictures. Due to a crowded release schedule, the studio could only bring the film to theaters in time for Halloween 1998. Director Mark Pavia and producer Richard P. Rubinstein opted not to take Paramount's offer, as keeping the film on the shelf until October 1998 would break obligations they had with their European investors. The Night Flier would instead premiere in the United States on HBO on November 7, 1997. The film was later picked up by New Line Cinema for an American theatrical release on February 6, 1998, where it performed poorly. The Night Flier was first released on DVD by HBO Home Video on May 27, 1998. Since then the film has been released multiple times by HBO and Warner Home Video, and once distributed by Mosaic Movies in 2000.
Reception
On Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 33% based on, with a weighted average rating of 4.1/10. On Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating to reviews, the film has a weighted average score of 36 out of 100, based on 7 critics, indicating "Generally unfavorable reviews". Stephen Holden of The New York Times gave the film a negative review, criticizing the film's poor adaptation, and lack of thrills, citing Ferrer's performance as the film's sole strength. Lisa Schwarzbaum from Entertainment Weekly wrote, "Once the easy joke about the fellowship of bloodsuckers has sunk in and the versatility of latex in the creation of gore has been demonstrated, there’s not much else going on — not creepiness, not scariness, not Twilight Zone nostalgia. What personality there is comes from Ferrer, who, with a belligerent glower, throws himself into the role of the soul-dead reporter with a full-blooded intensity that’s almost more than this undead caper can handle." However, not all reviews of the film were negative. Leonard Maltin gave the film a score of 2.5/4 stars, complimenting the film's "Genuinely creepy mood" and Ferrer's performance, but criticized the final third of the film. Lael Loewenstein from Variety gave the film a positive review, writing, "Stephen King's The Night Flier is a creepy vampire tale that also offers some clever commentary on bloodthirsty tabloid journalists." In 2020, Screen Rant placed it tenth on their list of "Stephen King's 10 Most Underrated Movies". They wrote, "Continuing to soar under the radar is King's The Night Flier, a well-paced and consistently entertaining tale of vampirism very little people seem to know about, much less care to champion."
Cancelled sequel
A sequel script entitled Fear of Flying was written by Pavia and King in the mid-2000s, focusing more on the Katherine Blair character as well as the origins of the Night Flier killer. However, the duo failed to gain the required ten million dollars in financing from Hollywood studios, due to the original 1997 film being viewed as merely a minorcult hit.
