Harbinger Down (2015)

Surprisingly incoherent and boring

Strong and Moving!

It is a whirlwind of delight --- attractive actors, stunning couture, spectacular sets and outrageous parties.

This is a gorgeous movie made by a gorgeous spirit.

A group of college students wanting to study the effects of global warming find themselves aboard a massive fishing trawler with Captain Graff (Lance Henriksen) and his crew made up of crude malcontents. Something very mysterious is discovered deep below the surface in the icy Bering Sea. When brought up it is judged to be a failed Russian space probe, when thawed out bio-hazard hell is released. Locked in the ice for three decades are rapidly mutating organisms that create a creature that enjoys playing with its nourishment. Terror, suspense, chomp, chomp, goo, guts and gore. Low budget fun.The cast also features: Camille Balsamo, Giovonnie Samuels, Reid Culloms, Milla Bjorn, Michael Estime, Matt Winston and Jason Speer.

Yes, Harbinger Down is low budget, but that just makes what they did with it all the better. Of course it wasn't going to be another Aliens or Terminator II. Of course it borrowed heavily from terrific movies like The Thing. How is that a bad Thing? It was a fun movie to watch, far from perfect, but perfectly good entertainment if you enjoy low budget sci-fi monster horror thrillers. You knew what you were getting going in.4.5 is for typical SyFy channel movies - hideous trash that should never see the light of day. This is much better than that. I almost didn't watch it just because the rating was so bad, so I probably enjoyed it more as an entertaining surprise and my 8 rating may be a bit high, but still...

In one sense, this is a special case. In another, it deserves the same critical treatment as everything else. Low-budget, independently- produced movies need to compete on the same playing field as the big stuff. We don't want Kickstarter funding to become an excuse. On the other hand, some of the crueler reviews have, I think, a rather rose- tinted view of what 80s creature features were really like. They weren't all Aliens. That's magic in a bottle, and it isn't available to order for any amount of money - or Hollywood would be able to buy it, which it's becoming increasingly clear they can't.So, with these mixed views in mind, I rather liked Harbinger Down. If it sets out to avoid becoming saturated in embarrassing CGI, it succeeds, but naturally more is required than that. The performances are fine, given the painfully thin script - people knocking the actors need to consider the writing they've been given. The script is perhaps most kindly described as functional, and barely so. Henriksen is, of course, a massively experienced guy, and always a pleasure. The cinematography is absolutely rock-solid and a great advertisement for both Benjamin L. Brown and the staggeringly low-cost camera it was shot on. Both the pictures and Christopher Drake's score, and of course the creature effects, elevate the film way, way above the depths to which many low- budget sci-fi movies fall.So let's not be too harsh on Harbinger Down. Behind-the-scenes shots suggest that the creature effects could have been made more of on screen, a fair criticism that's been raised before, and the script is a letdown. But again, it's a genre creature feature. For a bit more creature and a bit more story and characterization it could have been better, but on the off-chance that some sort of renaissance of the golden age of sci-fi and fantasy filmmaking can be launched from this movie, or movies like it, I'm enthusiastic. If Blomkamp does get to do Alien 5, he'd be an idiot not to involve Woodruff and Gillis.

Paying homage to "The Thing," this film was a whole lotta twisty, gnarly fun! The closed in spaces with some whacky lines ("We're going to need a bigger bucket!"), some thoroughly easy-to-hate characters and an icky, morphing creature, made "Harbinger Down" an enjoyable monster- fest. Despite the low star-rating, I watched this movie because of Lance Henriksen. He's awesome and did not disappointed. While some of the acting was cheesy, I felt like it was supposed to be. The heroine wasn't exactly impressive. In fact, I'd never seen her or any of the other actors in anything before. But whatever. The special effects were special in that old throwback monster mash kind of way and I had a ball.