BLACK BOX

Starring Tom Brittney, Holly White, Betsy-Blue English, Dane Whyte O’Hara, Kaja Chan, Molly Belle Wright, Asa Ali, Danny Mac and Hanneke Talbot.
Writer: Stephen Susco
Director: Steven Quale

RATING: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

As George Miller proved with his TWILIGHT ZONE THE MOVIE contribution and Marc Forster did with that nerve-shredding sequence in WORLD WAR Z, the confines of a commercial airliner should in no way hinder the delivering of some very cinematic thrills and chills. 

In BLACK BOX, director Steven Quale joins the list of filmmakers able to wring considerable suspense out of a steel tube. With scribe Stephen Susco and a committed ensemble leaning into the full potential of the sci-fi premise, Quale delivers a surprise-upon-surprise romp that Rod Serling himself might have once conjured.

The narrative launches with the twitchy energy of a found-footage film, thanks to an opening barrage of clips from devices owned by key characters. Primary amongst them is Jeremy (Tom Brittney), a forlorn figure travelling alone, who strikes up a friendship with the similarly sad tweenager Chloe (Molly Belle Wright). The iPhone/iPad accounts from on board the plane capture the same desperation that those clips do in the real world and Quale uses the ‘vertical frame’ format well.

Like the ‘70s disaster movies of yore, characters are given just the screentime they need to have the audience pondering their fate. Flight attendant Emma (Holly White) and a trio of GoPro-wielding action-sports types get enough character-building dialogue to buy them time; a douchey finance-bro, convincingly played by Hollyoaks regular Danny Mac and recalling the delicious scumbaggery of Hart Bochner, aka ‘Ellis’ in DIE HARD…not so much.

Jeremy notices brightly coloured flashes in the mountainous cloud formations surrounding them and soon turbulence and ill-health descend upon Vero Airlines Flight 298. The spectacular rendering of the light-show outside and the rich visual tones captured in the plane’s interior indicate the below-the-title craftspeople were working at the top of the game, providing this mid-tier programmer the polish of a high-end studio pic (BLACK BOX is far more satisfying on every level than the other UFO pic doing the rounds at the moment).

The third act more literally defines the nature of what the crew and passengers are experiencing and a tangible sense of menace settles over the film, for characters and  audience alike. A major reveal is handled with the genre filmmaking chops of early-stage Cameron or Carpenter; steam and steel, shrieks and shocks combine to send BLACK BOX into the depths of paranoia and societal disconnect. Like a lot of great sci-fi thrillers, the narrative provides pure popcorn escapism while the thematic ambition gives the journey a timely resonance.