Spoiled by the Twist, ‘Altitude’ Could Have Been Awesome (Review)

Written by: Daniel Hadley

It’s a rare thing for me to be absolutely loving a movie only for it to end up totally sucking. Like sucking so hard it just implodes into itself and blow its way out of its own ass. The twist at the end of this movie is terrible, illogical and completely out of place. To put it in perspective, imagine The Wizard of OZ had a Saw like twist right before the credits role, it’s that ludicrous.

Okay, so the plot is after Sara’s plane malfunctions and begins a seemingly endless ascent, she and her boyfriend Bruce and three friends are trapped inside at the mercy of a huge creature that’s stalking them through the clouds. And as I said, I was loving it. For an indie horror this film boasts some good looking effects, decent acting and an awesome monster. I loved the design of the creature, it was fantastic. Despite one or two of the characters being needless assholes just for the sake of being assholes, I really got into the story and the idea that there are huge unseen tentacled sky beasts stalking their way through the clouds. It’s a pretty damn cool concept.

There are some great tense moments littered throughout, such as when one of the character is forced to climb outside the plane to fix a problem on the tail (he’s tethered only by a climbing rope). And the exterior shots of the creature attacking the plane are great. Given the situation the characters seem to have a better chance just jumping and praying on the way down they hit something soft, because this beast is truly monstrous. Everything was looking good up until the final reveal and seriously, it was just awful, who the hell thought that that was a good idea? Really, I want to know.

To give you an idea of the kind of ending I’m talking about without ruining it I’ll just say this: It’s the kind of twist I used to remember seeing in kids’ TV shows like Goosebumps or Are You Afraid of the Dark. The only way it could have been worse is if had been all just a dream.

I will say that the movie is worth checking out, as without the ending this is a damn fine monster movie and to my mind will always stand as a testament to how a bad twist can totally destroy a good film.

Rating: 2/5