Directed and co-written by Mark Pavia,[3] the film stars Miguel Ferrer as Richard Dees, a tabloid reporter who, while investigating a series of murders committed in airfields, begins to suspect that the killer may be a vampire.

Merton Morrison, his editor-in-chief at the tabloid Inside View, assigns him to investigate a series of murders at rural airfields.

Blair is outraged when Morrison gives the story to Dees, who begins using his own light aircraft to retrace the killer's path.

He is amoral, caring only about sensationalizing the story: he has no scruples about desecrating a grave for a photo opportunity or taking pictures of dead victims for publication.

He flies to Wilmington and finds Renfield's black Cessna Skymaster, the interior covered in blood and an old photo album showing a pilot and his wife.

Renfield, clearly a monstrous being but with his face still obscured, tells the reporter that he likes Dees's work and would find the world more dull without him in it.

Dees hallucinates that the victims are rising as revenants (or folkloric vampires), so he grabs a fire ax and begins recklessly hacking them.

"[4] The character of Katherine Blair was added to the screenplay when O'Donnell, Pavia, and King decided to include "a younger rookie for Dees to play off of.

[4] Ferrer became aware of the Night Flier adaptation about a year prior to the film's production, when The Stand director Mick Garris informed him that he was being considered for a role in it.

So I immediately felt how sad this man is, to have to be immortal and fly around and land in places with some kind of anonymity and all off people to feed, and I thought that aspect of him really was the most attractive [thing about the role].

[9] Director Mark Pavia and producer Richard P. Rubinstein opted not to take Paramount's offer, as keeping the film on the shelf until October 1998 would break obligations they had with their European investors.

[15] Lisa Schwarzbaum from Entertainment Weekly wrote, "Once the easy joke about the fellowship of bloodsuckers has sunk in and the versatility of latex in the creation of gore has been demonstrated, there's not much else going on [...] What personality there is comes from Ferrer, who, with a belligerent glower, throws himself into the role of the soul-dead reporter with a full-blooded intensity that's almost more than this undead caper can handle.

[17] Lael Loewenstein from Variety gave the film a positive review, writing, "The Night Flier is a creepy vampire tale that also offers some clever commentary on bloodthirsty tabloid journalists.

"[19] A sequel script entitled Fear of Flying was written by Pavia and King in the mid-2000s, focusing more on the Katherine Blair character as well as the origins of the Night Flier killer.

[20] However, the duo failed to gain the required 10 million dollars in financing from Hollywood studios, due to the original 1997 film being viewed as merely a minor cult hit.