HARBINGER DOWN (2015)

Studio:       Vertical Entertainment
Director:    Alec Gillis
Writer:       Alec Gillis
Producer:  Benjamin L. Brown, J. Douglas Scroggins III, Jennifer Tung, Tom Woodruff Jr., Alec Gillis
Stars:     Lance Henriksen, Camille Balsamo, Reid Collums, Winston James Francis, Milla Bjorn, Giovonnie Samuels, Mike Estime, Edwin Bravo, Matt Winston

Review Score:

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Summary:

A crabbing ship carrying graduate students on a research study uncovers an alien organism in the Arctic Circle.

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Synopsis:     Show/Hide Spoilers

June 25, 1982 – A Russian lunar lander manned by cosmonaut Sergei Petrova crashes near the Arctic Circle with a sentient alien ooze onboard.

Dutch Harbor, Alaska – Now – Working on a climate research project studying Beluga whales, university professor Stephen and graduate students Sadie and Ronelle board the crab ship Harbinger, captained by Sadie’s grandfather Graff, to journey to the Bering Sea. Aboard the Harbinger, Stephen and his students meet the crew, which includes engineer Roland, Rick Bowman, Atka, Dock, Svet, and Guillaume, who is referred to as “Big G.”

Whales lead Sadie to the wrecked Soviet spacecraft frozen in ice and submerged in the sea. Graff’s crew retrieves it and they find the cosmonaut’s corpse inside. Graff insists on taking stewardship over the discovery and passing ownership to Sadie, which frustrates Stephen, who wants to claim the salvage on behalf of the university.

While Rick and G distract Stephen, Sadie and Svet investigate the wreckage and discover that the cosmonaut did not burn to death as they originally presumed. Sadie removes a sample from the body and discovers that the cosmonaut was infested with tardigrades, also known as waterbears.

The cosmonaut’s corpse reanimates and mutates, slithering from the wreckage and into the engine room where it kills Roland.

Sadie reports her findings to Graff. Worried that the wreckage may be toxic and could infect the crab haul, Graff decides to return to Dutch Harbor despite a terrible storm. Stephen discovers that Sadie opened the cosmonaut’s pressure suit and threatens her with a lawsuit for exposing everyone to a potential biohazard. To placate Stephen’s threat, Sadie agrees to sign over her claim to the find.

The crew discovers that the cosmonaut’s corpse is missing. Stephen becomes infected with the alien organism and mutates into a hybrid creature before dying. Fluids from his dead body move on their own and enter a nearby drain. Everyone aboard the ship realizes they have been exposed to the parasite.

Sadie and Ronelle discover that the organism reprogrammed its genetic code while submerged for decades by absorbing various sea life and bacteria DNA. Graff and Atka find the cosmonaut’s corpse as a creature emerges from it. Atka is killed. Graff escapes and returns to the others.

Several crewmembers search for the creature and attack it with liquid nitrogen. Ronelle alerts the others when she finds Svet preparing to kill Dock under the assumption he is infected. While everyone tries restraining Svet, Dock transforms. Svet kills the mutation with a flare gun.

Sadie and the others confront Svet when they discover that she is carrying military communication gear. Svet confesses that she was on the Harbinger specifically to recover the wreckage on assignment as a Russian agent. She further reveals that the USSR was experimenting with ways to make cosmonauts resistant to radiation. Sadie realizes that the Russians want everything destroyed. Svet pulls a gun and reveals that she plans to detonate timed explosives planted aboard the Harbinger once a submarine comes to retrieve her.

A creature attacks and pulls Ronelle through a pipe. Svet is attacked next.

Graff, G, Sadie, and Rick split into teams of two to search for the explosives. Graff and G find two of them. Sadie explores the bilge for other charges when Rick and G realize that the crab haul is gone, indicating that the parasitic material has multiplied.

The creature attacks using Svet’s mutated body. Graff is infected.

The creature attacks G while he fixes the ship’s drive shaft. G overpowers the mutation long enough to escape and make repairs before being attacked again and killed. One of the charges explodes and injures the creature.

While Sadie goes to steer the ship, Graff pleads for Rick to euthanize him with liquid nitrogen. However, a creature suddenly attacks and kills Rick.

As Graff battles to the death against a mutation, Sadie steers the Harbinger into an iceberg to freeze the alien lifeform. Sadie abandons ship and radios a mayday to Dutch Harbor as the ship’s only survivor.

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Review:

Alongside her professor Stephen and her classmate Ronelle, grad student Sadie books passage aboard a crab ship captained by her grandfather Graff to study whales in the Arctic.  What they discover instead is a long-lost lunar lander that crashed in 1982 with an alien ooze onboard.  Once that ooze is accidentally unleashed, the scientists and fisherman aboard the boat find themselves fighting a sentient parasite capable of transforming everyone exposed into terrifying mutations.

“Harbinger Down” sees FX maestro Alec Gillis taking his first turn as a feature film writer/director, with fellow creature creator Tom Woodruff Jr. tapped as a producing partner.  Together, Gillis and Woodruff spun out of Stan Winston’s effects studio to spin up one of their own: Amalgamated Dynamics Incorporated, aka ADI.

With big studio Hollywood only leaping further away from mold-making and plaster-casting in favor of 21st-century technology, “Harbinger Down” is ADI’s cool callback to fondly-remembered creature features of an earlier era, when practical FX were king.  It also doubles as a Mulligan to make up for the disappointing discarding of work created for 2011’s “The Thing.”

Gillis and Woodruff’s huge hook for raising Kickstarter cash was appealing to old school monster movie fans by billing itself as a celebration of animatronics and makeup FX.  Having grown up in the horror heyday of the 1980s myself, it’s an idea easy to champion when computer-generated explosion extravaganzas have given so many moviegoers blockbuster burnout.  Though if the limitations of latex and foam mean there is little left to do than recreate “The Thing,” “The Abyss,” “Event Horizon,” “Alien,” basically any movie about a potentially murderous or mutinous crew confined to an isolating interior while paranoia, predator, or parasite threatens from an inclement exterior, perhaps a reevaluation is in order regarding what is being fought so hard to preserve.

That statement isn’t intended to disrespect “Harbinger Down” for being the movie that it is, which is the one it wants to be.  Nor is it meant to condescend to anyone with a firm position in the practical versus digital effects debate.  It’s a sidetrack suggestion that there ought to be a discussion regarding the benefits of silicon versus silicone, and a question if closing eyes and crossing shoulders to refuse a fusion of the two doesn’t discount more imaginative possibilities.

On the production side of the project, “Harbinger Down” is ambitious for an effects-heavy thriller produced with a frugal checkbook.  Gillis and Woodruff have the unenviable task of living up to their Academy Award-winning quality bar on a bank balance far less than what they are usually allotted.  They manage to move mountains with a garden spade in that regard, putting monsters and hybrid humans onscreen to rival any that Rick Baker, Rob Bottin, or even ADI have brought to life.

As a San Fernando Valley resident writing this review in 100-degree heat, I also cannot help but amusedly thrust an upward thumb at ADI for filming the Arctic Circle in nearby Chatsworth.  Something difficult to discount about “Harbinger Down” is the passion pulsing behind each frame to build believability on a budget.  This project is a true labor of love, and that love comes across in both the production and in the performances.

The crewmembers aboard the crabbing vessel congregate conveniently in an introductory scene, referring to each other by name so the audience knows who is who, and exhibiting at least one individual trait to flesh out each character.  In less than one minute we learn that Dock is the insult-slinging prank-player.  “Big G” Guillaume grimaces and growls like a humanoid tree.  Svet brandishes a knife and an accent, even uttering the clichéd archetypical Russian line of, “how do you say…?”  The stereotypes are too in your face to ignore as such, but at least the characters have personality.

The hat tip for giving that personality to this predictably motley crew goes to the cast, putting up as much of an enthusiastic effort in front of the camera as Gillis and company are behind it.  They are an easily likable group when the only true human villain, initially anyway, is Sadie’s supervising instructor.  Actor Matt Winston pulls the trigger a little early on turning the professor into a contentiously conniving university academic, though he ends up with a Dr. Zachary Smith vibe befitting the characterization.  Headliner Lance Henriksen doesn’t deliver his most impassioned performance as the grizzled seaman, though his presence always makes even a passable movie infinitely more appealing.

The challenge “Harbinger Down” has in front of it is coming up with a concept for a story that matches the concept for the creatures and the charisma of the cast.  It’s déjà vu all over again when an alien lifeform infiltrates, friends turn into foes, humans mutate into monsters, and everyone antes up to be offed in a single file line.  Add the snowy setting surrounding it all and a cocked eyebrow can’t help but ask, “isn’t this just like…?”

Recycled fiction is directly at odds with the goal of appealing to an audience who has undoubtedly seen every similar film being emulated.  The misstep made is that “Harbinger Down” isn’t just influenced by the style of those previous movies, it is overpowered by their substance, being too similar to engrave a unique name for itself that demands to be noticed and remembered.

“Harbinger Down” already has its work cut out for it to be the most memorable sci-fi movie about aliens infecting human hosts and featuring Lance Henriksen.  That the feel is so familiar is what turns enthusiasm for the promise of practical FX and a return to form for modern monster movies into disbelieving disappointment that there isn’t more to show for it.

“Harbinger Down” does however create a worthwhile springboard for Gillis and Woodruff to wet their collective feet in the world of crowdfunded indie horror.  The film is well-made and well-acted, and its FX are as dynamite as expected.  But its underachieving screenplay is a hurdle that no special effect, practical or digital, can jump without knocking over.  Now that they are in the pool, let’s encourage ADI to wade deeper into the originality end when they swim their next lap.*

* Let’s also encourage the sound department to terminate the creaking metal door SFX that repeats so often, I yelled out loud at the screen in frustration for it to stop.

Review Score:  65

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