Turbulence 3: Heavy metal

Posted by Vicki on 23.02.05

Following the success of 'Scream', any film seeking to be ironic and profitable started to dissect its own medium. Now lengthy conversations about what makes a successful horror film or sequel is part of the humorous plotline of many films.

Rather than plough through the vast array of films that seek to employ this tactic - from 'Final Scream' to 'Shriek if you know what I did last Friday the 13th' - to cherry pick the best summarisations, it is far less horrific to paraphrase Randy in 'Scream 2':

"There are certain rules that one must abide by in order to create a successful sequel. Number one: the body count is always bigger. Number two: the death scenes are always much more elaborate - more blood, more gore - carnage candy. And number three: never, ever, under any circumstances, assume the killer is dead."

The rules change again if the film is a concluding part of a trilogy, but otherwise any subsequent sequels can simply follow this general plot device forever - or until the studio cuts their budget. Whilst horror movie franchises are the most obvious examples of this, other genres have been known to abuse the paying public in this way, one example being the three 'Turbulence' films.

Through a miracle I missed seeing the original 'Turbulence', in which Lauren Holly plays an air hostess who by losing her clothes gains the ability to overcome multiple bad guys and land a jumbo jet. I was also spared 'Turbulence 2: Fear of flying' where Craig Sheffer (from such memorable films as 'Hellraiser: Inferno' and 'Wes Craven Presents Dracula II: Ascension') saves the day in some equally contrived way.

However, I did see 'Turbulence 3: Heavy Metal', in which Craig Sheffer again helps save the day, this time as a completely different character and with no link whatsoever so the previous film. The plot is fairly original: a gothic rock star, Slade Craven, decides to play his final show to lucky competition winners abroad a specially modified passenger plane, which is also wired for a live web cast of said event.

Slade Craven is played by John Mann, who has also played a convict in 'The Chronicles of Riddick' and a bouncer in 'Catwoman'. He has since played a similar scene stealing role in the upcoming 'Underworld: Evolution'. Slade’s music sounds like watered down NIN 'Pretty hate machine', whilst his stage makeup is a Marilyn Manson influenced take on Dimmu Borgir corpse paint.

Given the general accuracy of films involving alternative music in any way - the accursed 'Queen of the Damned' and 'Dracula 2001' in case you need reminding - as well as the hilarious mistakes that films make when using the internet in the plot - 'Hackers' or 'The Net' - 'Turbulence 3' looked too amusing to miss for £3 including postage. This was despite knowing that in its darkest dreams it would never perpetuate worse kiddie goth stereotypes than did 'The hangman's curse.'

Amazingly the film's budget had been stretch to afford a single solitary pair of Rock Boots, which made repeated appearances on a variety of wearers. For those cast members whose feet were the wrong size to take a turn wearing the boots it was their sorry fate to have freshly drawn on tattoos, artistically smudged eyeliner, over-gelled hair and clip on piercings.

Now that the scene was set it was time for the standard confusion between Satanists and Devil Worshippers in the form of a cult called 'Guardians of the Gateway'. Their aim was to commit 10 million souls to hell (via the web cast viewers) and crash the plane into a church. Apparently Marilyn Manson's backup dancer was the false Anti-Christ and had thus annoyed the cult into magically appearing on the plane to bring about the end of the world.

All this is very well and entertaining, but 'Turbulence 3''s real coup was the presence of Rutger Hauer in a glorified cameo role of a former Vietnam veteran / current satanic airline pilot, who when asked for an opinion on Slade’s music replies that, "it reminds me of Vietnam."

Whilst a little low on ritual sacrifices, the amazing reuse of the single pair of Rock Boots (which admittedly lead to some mild confusion at one point in the film) made 'Turbulence 3: Heavy Metal' a most enjoyable quasi-low budget goth comedy.