Look. Up in the sky...
A 2013 short film by director and visual effects artist Marcus Alqueres, The Flying Man ruthlessly examines and deconstructs both the Vigilante Man trope and the character of the Superman-like Übermensch.
News reports start coming in of an unidentified humanoid figure flying through the skies of an unnamed city. At first, officials and citizens are just trying to get a good look at the guy, but fascination quickly turns to horror when the figure starts attacking and brutally murdering people on the streets with terrifying displays of Super-Strength. When the victims are all identified as having extensive criminal records, though, people start asking: is this justice? And do we even have a say in the matter?
You can watch The Flying Man for free on Vimeo here
and on YouTube here.
Tropes:
- Ambiguously Evil: The Flying Man himself. It's not clear if he's a genuine - if very extreme - superhero who is just trying to punish the guilty and protect the innocent, or a vicious Blood Knight who just happens to target criminals. Or something else entirely.
- Ambiguous Situation: When Mike survives with only minor injuries, there's speculation as to whether he was lucky or deliberately spared. Then Mike gets off his hospital bed and looks at the window to see the Flying Man hovering outside. Has he come to finish the job, or is he just there as a warning to Mike not to continue his criminal ways?
- Asshole Victim: Deconstructed and explored, as the story raises the question of whether or not the Flying Man's victims truly deserve what he does to them and points out that even if they do, they still have families and friends who are negatively affected by their fates, not to mention that the Flying Man's flagrant disregard for the law and willingness to kill his targets in front of civilians is worrying no matter who is the target of it.
- Beware the Superman: The Flying Man murders at his discretion, apparently (though never confirmed to be) as a means of 'punishing' criminals, ignores the law and the fears of the people, evidently feels no need to explain himself to a terrified world, and is by all appearances unstoppable.
- Black-and-White Insanity: At best, the Flying Man is operating on this. At worst, it's Blue-and-Orange Morality.
- Cape Punk: The film deconstructs multiple elements of superhero fiction, showing just how horrifying a Superman-esque Vigilante Man would be, particularly if he had no aversion to killing and no respect for the law. The result is an inscrutable Humanoid Abomination whose brutal executions of criminals terrify the public, who are helpless to do anything about it.
- Combat Pragmatist: No fancy moves or stylish fights for the Flying Man. He kills by either just pulverizing criminals with his super strength or using the same and his flight to drop them out of the sky at a fatal height. And he stops the gun dealer's cars by just slamming into them with his full power.
- Cosmic Horror Story: This trope applied to superheroes, depicting the Superman-esque Flying Brick as a terrifying and inscrutable Humanoid Abomination that nobody understands or knows anything about.
- Cruel and Unusual Death: Despite his Super-Strength, the Flying Man's favored tactic is grabbing criminals, flying up high, and then dropping them. At one point he drops somebody in front of an oncoming train.
- Dirty Cop: Rob, the gun dealer.
- Disproportionate Retribution: Or is it? Played horribly, horribly straight.
- The Dreaded: Among those who have enough brains to fear him.
- Even Evil Can Be Loved: Discussed at the end; the speaker in the final voice-over notes that even though the people who were killed were criminals, they nevertheless had family members who loved them.
- The Faceless: The Flying Man is only ever shown from a distance, too far away to make out any features... if he even has any.
- Fat and Skinny: Rob is fat, Mike is skinny.
- Flying Brick: The Flying Man demonstrates both Flight and Super-Strength.
- For the Evulz: One of the darker interpretations of the Flying Man is that he plays out the part of a Vigilante Man and kills criminals less because he really cares about protecting anyone and more just because he can.
- Genre Deconstruction: Of the Flying Brick Ubermensch-type superhero, basically looking at what would happen if Superman decided that the ends justified the means from the word go.
- Good Is Not Soft: One of the more charitable interpretations of the Flying Man's behavior. He genuinely does just want to protect the city, but is frighteningly ruthless about and approaches the issue of crime with especially brutal practicality.
- Gory Discretion Shot: The results of the Flying Man dropping a criminal beneath a train are censored with Pixellation.
- Humanoid Abomination: The Flying Man is implied to be one of these. At one point it's mentioned that nobody's sure if he's wearing a grey suit or if that's his skin, and the few times he's very briefly seen up close, there seem to be intricate designs to his uniform/body and a texture perhaps not unlike muscle... and he doesn't seem to have a face.
- Implacable Man: The horror of the Flying Man. He methodically hunts down and kills thirty-five criminals over the course of a week.
- Jack Bauer Interrogation Technique: After the Flying Man kidnaps rather than outright kills one of his victims, a news report speculates that this trope is how he finds targets; periodically beating information about local crimes out of crooks.
- Mook Horror Show: The Flying Man is a superpowered human-shaped thing that seemingly exists solely to kill criminals. It doesn't interact with the press or anyone else on-screen, so we see it through the eyes of a hapless criminal that attracts its attention. The video has been called "Lovecraft with superheroes."
- Nervous Wreck: Mike has been following news about the Flying Man and is resultantly an anxious mess who keeps jumping at every noise out of fear that the vigilante will come after him next. His fears are very justified.
- Only Sane Man: Mike had every reason to worry about The Flying Man. Rob, unfortunately, didn't take heed to the worries.
- Original Position Fallacy: Despite the Flying Man's rampage, Rob is stupid enough to think that he's somehow different from other criminals and will fly under the vigilante's radar. He is wrong. Later at the end, a critic of the Flying Man calls out his supporters for this trope, pointing out that they presume he has some kind of sensible human moral code and that they and their loved ones will never do something to incur his wrath.
- Pet the Dog: It's implied that the Flying Man let Mike live because he saw Mike's tattoo of his young son.
- Practical Voice-Over: The Flying Man's appearance and Mike's fate are narrated via newscaster.
- Properly Paranoid: Rob keeps telling Mike not to worry about the Flying Man. Guess who shows up and attacks them?
- Riddle for the Ages: A great deal of the point. What is the Flying Man, where did he come from, how does he do these things, what are his motives, and many other questions about him are raised but never answered.
- Rogues Gallery: Defied with a vengeance. The Flying Man clearly has no desire for recurring run-ins with criminals and prefers to just kill them as immediately as possible.
- Secret Identity: Deconstructed. Assuming the Flying Man has a secret identity or is even human to any extent, the lack of knowledge regarding who is or where he came from just makes the public even more frightened of him and suspicious of his motives.
- Smash to Black: Quite literally; the scene blacks out after the protagonist's car crashes headlong into the Flying Man.
- Sole Survivor: Mike is the only person to survive the gun deal gone wrong after the Flying Man attacks. It's unrevealed why, but hinted to be because the Flying Man took mercy on him for the sake of his son.
- Superdickery: Downplayed in that he really does gruesomely murder people, but for the first while of his rampage, nobody is aware of the "criminal" part and think the Flying Man is just some kind of spree killer. The revelation that he's a vigilante ironically ends up soothing a lot of fears about him, if only a little.
- Superhero Horror: The Flying Man takes a near-Lovecraftian approach to superhero fiction, by showing the titular Flying Man as an entity that just showed up one day and started enforcing its own justice without anyone being able to do anything about it.
- Superman Substitute: The Flying Man is a version Played for Horror.
- Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: This is probably the one film that truly showcases how horrifying a Superman like being would be in real life, especially one that doesn't adhere to the strict "no killing" rule that Superman did.
- Thou Shall Not Kill: Terrifyingly averted; unlike your average Cape or even Cowl, The Flying Man is not simply willing to murder criminals, but does so as a rule, racking up a 35 man body-count in a week.
- Too Dumb to Live: Rob, the Dirty Cop who's dealing weapons. Sure, the Flying Man's been ruthlessly tracking down and murdering criminals for a week, but there's no way it'd happen to him, right?
- Übermensch: The Flying Man. Whatever his motives, it's pretty clear that nobody has what it takes to stop him, and it's suggested that this fact is a great deal of why he does what he does.
- Vigilante Execution: The Flying Man's MO.
- Vigilante Man: Deconstructed, where a ruthless vigilante has somehow gotten Flying Brick superpowers similar to Superman. The result is a horrifying Humanoid Abomination that brutally murders over thirty criminals in about a week, sometimes right in front of innocent civilians, simply because no one in the city has the power to stop him. Intriguingly, the ending suggests he may have a more human side to him, as he spares a small-time crook upon seeing that the man has a young child.
- Villain with Good Publicity: The Flying Man, to an extent. While most people just find him utterly terrifying, it is shown that he has plenty of supporters who point out that his actions are seemingly targeted exclusively at violent criminals and believe he is just trying to protect the public in a way that law enforcement has continually failed too. Even some of his critics admit that they wouldn't inherently mind his vigilantism if he took the criminals to jail instead of murdering them when he could very easily do the former.
- Villains Out Shopping: While on their way to an illegal weapons deal, Rob and Mike pull over in a fast food joint for some grub. Even crooks gotta eat.
- The Voiceless: The Flying Man has no lines. The only people he might speak to at all are killed soon after.
