Over the weekend, I managed to catch up on my TBW pile and I decided on this supernatural horror from Japanese director Takashi Shimizu (who incidentally directed The Grudge Japanese trilogy). It looked promising as it had Amy Smart (Crank), Ryan Kwanten (True Blood), Christian Serratos (The Walking Dead), Jamie Chung (Sucker Punch) and Leslie Bibb (Zoopkeeper) in the cast. I had high hopes for Shimizu because The Grudge was great.

The film revolves around the passengers of Flight 7500 bound for Japan where a man suffers from a mysterious seizure and dies. As the flight crew relocates the body to the first class cabin, air hostesses Laura (Bibb) and Suzy (Chung) begin to notice passengers disappearing, along with the body of the dead guy. When paramedic Brad (Kwanten) overhears the conversation, he enlists the help of his estranged wife Pia (Smart) and newlyweds Rick (Jerry Ferrara) and Liz (Nicky Whelan) to discover the identity of the dead passenger and his connection to the disappearances. What they find in his belongings bring chills to the already spooked amateur sleuths.

7500 seemed like an alright horror at the beginning. It had a certain air of  mystery about it the promises on a great payoff at the end of the movie. Sadly, the payoff didn’t come to fruition.

The biggest problem I felt, was the storytelling, which seemed fragmented and unsure. Shimizu did make an attempt to make audiences care about the characters, but there was really not much in terms of character development or a backstory to support their actions. Nobody really stood out of the lot and for the number of passengers on the plane, it was just sad. Kwanten came close to being that guy but the general air of broodiness overwhelmed him. He seemed to give up and resign to the monotony of the film, which was another problem of the film. The movie proceeded at a singular tone, like a song without a crescendo. It was always at the same level from beginning to end. I felt like it was attempting too much to keep the twist so close to its chest because it was the only thing that the movie had going for it. But when it was revealed, it was not the shocker that viewers were hoping for. It was nothing new. It was just disappointing.

While technically the effects were well executed, there were never any real outstanding scary moments that really take place. The movie did attempt to inject some meat into the story by building up the shinigami story but there was never real focus on it, and it was never really answered what the dead guy’s connection to it was. This storyline was just abandoned as abruptly as it was unveiled.

All in all, 7500 deserves an A for effort but an F for everything else. It wasted a lot of talent and a lot of time, hiring good actors to run around the plane like headless chickens only to stop at a dead end. It was, sadly an underwhelming and unremarkable horror film that does not quite take off.  Not quite horrible but a snoozefest just the same.