Five-Legged Iguana

¡QUÉ HORROR! 2011
Candidate # 7

ALTITUDE
(October 2010)


Like John Cassaday before him, Kaare Andrews is a comic book artist whose work I rather like, that’s chosen to spend some time in the Director’s Chair. And while Cassaday’s debut was on the small screen (an episode of Dollhouse), Andrews tackled some shorts before taking the feature film route with Altitude.
Paul A. Birkett’s script for the film is an interesting and curious throwback, with shades of an ‘80’s creature feature sporting generous helpings of The Twilight Zone. It also operates in the area of experiential horror, as, following an initial set-up, the audience winds up confined on a tiny twin prop with five young, fresh-faced pretty things in peril, among them, alumni of primetime TV shows like The O.C. (Ryan Donowho), Degrassi: The Next Generation (Landon Liboiron), 90210 (Jessica Lowndes), and the daytime soap As The World Turns (Jake Weary).
Andrews and DP Norm Li successfully capture the claustrophobia of the cramped cabin of the plane, as first, mechanical failure, and later on, something decidedly inhuman, threatens the lives of Altitude’s protagonists.
And while the film itself is an effective piece, the most significant aspect of it is Andrews’ achievements; I, for one, am certainly curious to see whether he chooses to follow Altitude up with more feature directing.
If he does, rest assured, I’ll be there to check it out.

(Altitude OS courtesy of bloody-disgusting.com.)