User Reviews

It's hard to bash bad indie movies generally and Harbinger Down is no exception. So I'll try to keep this short and more critically factual.

This movie was kick-started by The Thing (2011) prequel's SFX leftovers that didn't pan out in the final cut of the movie so this thing got birthed on the actual Kickstarter. Inspired by the above mentioned - The Thing, and a bit of Alien, Harbinger Down storyline follows a group of people that for various reasons end up aboard the Harbinger - crab boat. After a short while, they stumble onto something frozen in ice, shenanigans ensue.

It's almost a classic-legacy horror/scifi setup these days, and sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Here it doesn't and the reasons why that is are numerous. I'll mention just a few of those reasons.

Right of the bat, the movie logo itself contains suspiciously similar fonts to ALIEN (HARBINGER part) and PREDATOR (DOWN part). Not a good sign.

Then there are POV found footage moments that are just random and makes you wonder why's this here? And the rest of the photography is similarly bad. Weird, too close and generally bad camera angles don't make this a pleasant viewing at all.

Characters are blank and the acting is bad most of the time. Lance Henriksen being the exception, everyone else was just not good. Leading lady was boring with some forgettable flat performances. The token white guy with beard and the token black guy were also bad as was the Russian lady.

Ah, the Russian lady. She had some truly brilliant script pieces in this. Moments like "Do you make-up, sis?", or something like that, were the moments where you question yourself why are you watching this in the first place? Also the thing that she looks kinda botoxed and nip-tucked with some super-fake contact lenses and you can see that she is actually wearing some makeup, makes this particular question even more stupid.

So, the story is bleh, script is dumb, acting is the same, are the effects any good? No. I mean, they sold this movie most on that part - the practical special effects, but they are wildly uneven and mostly cheap. Which is kinda the most disappointing, because there are some SFX veteran names in this movie.

If this movie was shot (way) better with better SFX, bad acting and dumb story would be forgiven. But it wasn't and it lacks in almost all the major parts that make a movie. Script is dumb, acting is not that good, story is recycled billion times by now, effects are not that good and as a bonus there are some just cringe, face-palm inducing moments.

It's watchable, but I see no reason why you should do that. Maybe for Lance, but he just sorta breezed through this and didn't make this movie that much better by appearing in it.

This is a very uneven movie.

On the one hand, it's not bad for an independent movie with a tiny budget. The settings is pretty nice and the actors are OK.

The movie is an obvious reference to "The Thing" and it uses practical effects and no CGI. And here lies the first problem: The effects aren't impressive. From a company that deals with practical effects, which has some veteran effects guys and lots of experience, I expected more. A lot more. The effects here only show how amazing Rob Bottin's work was over 30 years ago. I also expected the effects to be a lot more explicit, yet I always got the feeling they try to hide them by shaking the camera, cutting, putting something in front, etc.

The last problem has to do with direction: It's pretty obvious that this is the work of a first time director/writer - The movie is very uneven, there are good scenes and bad scenes, there are continuity problems, coverage problems, editing problems, things that simply don't connect and hard to understand what the director meant to do and also many scenes that seem to be missing a dialog.

All in all, this is a so-so movie for something independent without a budget. I expected more and I'm a bit disappointed, but I'd still think it's worth a watch, at least for the effort.

With admittedly sharp visual and commitment to practical effect, Harbinger Down has heavy resemblance to The Thing. It will also be appreciated more for fans of old school sci-fi mystery, but unfortunately the effects are not effective. Often done in shaky motion or poorly lit sequences, the organism is a concept better hidden than shown in plain sight and the script is clearly not capable of delivering "feat what you cannot see" horror theme.

The crew of Harbinger finds a peculiar object near the Bering Sea. After hefty debate they decide to poke what seems to be Soviet satellite, a poorly made decision. Most of the screenplay is marred with needless arguments. The characters argue almost in every turn, from feeble matter and even down to crucial life preservation decision.

These are not the people one would want to be with in high stake situation. Cue the combative professor, finicky brunette protagonist and loud ship crews, then you'll have a story too similar to 2011 The Thing. Just like the creature it grows even more muddled the more it progresses.

Visual keeps a good direction for first half. It's clear, very vibrant and camera angle fits the claustrophobic location. However, it mindlessly turns into the dreaded shaky cam, even with found footage touch. There are a couple of good scenes in the making, but these lose thrill when exposed too many times, hence the shaky cam. The latter half uses blur cinematography and ends up contradicting its crisp build-up.

Despite the effect used, CGI or practical, the movie has to be engaging. Harbinger Down has a few glimpses of terror, but neither its effect nor story has adequate quality to keep the movie afloat.

I've been following the progress of Harbinger Down for over a year now, eagerly awaiting each update. Films like John Carpenter's The Thing and David Cronenberg's The Fly are some of my favourite films ever, and Harbinger Down looked to bring this classic 80s practical monster effects goodness to the present day.

The reality? For a movie that's whole purpose is to showcase practical effects (PFX), it doesn't do this nearly enough, nor does it feature Studio ADI's expected level of quality for these effects.

Almost all the scenes that feature the monster are poorly lit (often only by a flashlight). This is to be expected to a certain extent, being a horror film, however if you watch The Thing/The Fly, you'll notice the creature is always at the forefront, in all it's grisly detail. In Harbinger Down you never truly get a good look at the creature, which I'm sure will be disappointing to many, as the whole point of the movie was to show off an awesome looking creature. What's more, there is a distinct lack of quality for some of the monster effects, something that is unheard of in Studio ADI's other work. Presumably this is why the effects are often obscured by shadow and low light. The few scenes that are well lit are either far too brief or garishly poor quality (the first appearance of the monster comes to mind). There is also a distinct lack of blood/gore in the film, which is a major shortfall. John Carpenter's The Thing is a hideously gruesome film, and that plays a big part in why the film is so loved. This film features barely any blood and gore, and the few scenes that do are often brief and very conservative on the bloodiness. I don't believe I'm wrong in assuming most people interested in these kind of films want to see gruesome practical creature effects and all the bloody mess that goes with that. Harbinger Down completely fails on this.

It feels below Studio ADI, as I know what incredible work they can do. I appreciate the budget was low for this movie, but the movie's whole purpose was to show off PFX and prove to the industry that CGI isn't always the best option. It feels like they have shot themselves in the foot, as this film is a poor effort at showcasing the power of PFX. A little more time and money could have refined the effects and really made a statement about PFX (which, ultimately, could lead to much more work for Studio ADI).

Unfortunately there's nothing outside the creature effects that is even remotely noteworthy. There's a lot of inexperience here, with directing, writing, movie pacing and acting, and it shows. But this is something that is hardly surprising, or overly important. All I was expecting was some gorgeously gruesome creature effects. I was happy to settle down for a hammy, poorly acted film - but in a "so bad it's good" way - where the monster would take centre stage and wreck up the place. The monster instead cowers in a dark corner, ashamed to show it's ugly face, while unlikeable characters and a largely un-engaging plot take the centre stage.

I'm a huge fan of Studio ADI's work and I adore practical creature effects. But this doesn't cut it. This is a poor movie. A poor movie that could have redeemed all it's shortcomings in acting, filmwork, writing, etc by just having regular, explicit monster appearances showcasing ADI work at it's best. This is, sadly, not what Harbinger Down is.

I started hearing about this movie a while ago and was really keen to check it out because of its' interesting Kickstarter origins and because of its' rather refreshing commitment (at least in this day and age) to avoid using any CGI in favor of employing entirely practical on-screen monster effects. It seemed to be, at least philosophically, an attempt to do a throwback to movies like ALIENS and John Carpenter's THE THING (two of my favorite movies), so I was very eager to support the project and primed and ready to go along for the ride.

Unfortunately, this movie only ended up reminding me of the very first and most important rule about visual effects in movies--they only ever matter when they are being used as a tool to serve something that is far more important--a great story and interesting characters. ALIENS and THE THING had great effects that definitely served important roles in those movies, but they're not what made those movies great. It was the incredibly tight writing and story-telling, the engaging characters and actors who brought them to life, and some masterful direction.

As much as I was routing for it, HARBINGER DOWN fails miserably because it uses its story and characters to prop up and serve the visual effects instead of the other way around. The story borrowed so much from THE THING and ALIENS that it brought absolutely nothing new or interesting to the table. The characters were completely forgettable and you didn't really care what happened to any of them.

And the effects? Well, they're definitely solid and it was nice to see a return to the use of practical monsters--but they honestly weren't good enough to live up to the hype that this movie promised. Given how much the filmmakers were trumpeting this movie as a triumphant return to all practical effects, they needed to raise the bar and bring out some mind-blowing, next-level practical on-screen visual magic and it falls well short of that.

Bottom line (and important lesson of the day)--no amount of visual effects wizardry, whether CGI or practical, can save a movie that is lacking good storytelling and characters.

Here's the thing--at the end of the day, real movie magic doesn't come from creating creatures and effects that seem real. Movie magic comes from creating characters that seem real and putting them in a story/situation that we genuinely care about. Here endeth the lesson.

The Harbinger is a crab fishing ship sailing in the Bering sea. The captain is Bill Graff (ever reliable Lance Henriksen), and on board are students looking to study the effects of climate change on the lives of beluga whales. One of the students is Bills' own granddaughter, Sadie (Camille Balsamo). Soon they discover something interesting inside an ice floe: the long missing remains of a Soviet space capsule, a perfectly preserved cosmonaut...and something else, a malevolent life form that can change forms and liquify at will. Trapped on this ship with nowhere to go, Bill, Sadie, and others realize that they all could have been infected by this thing.

"Harbinger Down" was made by veteran makeup and creature effects creators Alec Gillis (making his writing / directing debut) and Tom Woodruff Jr. as a response to seeing all their hard work for the prequel to John Carpenters' "The Thing" replaced with CGI. That frustration is understandable, but the result is a pretty routine genre entry. Gillis's script is under developed and populated with lame characters, especially the idiotic, jealous professor played by Matt Winston (son of the late, great effects maestro Stan Winston). The character stuff in this movie, in general, is of the eye rolling variety, and Gillis fares a little better with the technical aspects of filmmaking.

He's able to generate some decent suspense, and the atmosphere is pretty impressive for the budget. Obviously, this was made as a direct tribute to "The Thing" (it even begins on June 25, 1982, the date that Carpenters' classic debuted in theatres), and it can't quite exploit the element of paranoia that the earlier film did so well. Some fans may appreciate that it's a quickly paced story that runs a mere 82 minutes, but others will likely wish that it had been fleshed out more.

As a showcase for creature effects that were *supposedly* 100% practical, it does a passable job, but the effects are often under lit, and none of them are really going to blow the audience away.

Chalk this one up as a well intentioned miss.

Five out of 10.

Harbinger Down meant well. Its setting, characters, and creature (and creature FX!) are inspired by John Carpenter's "The Thing," a cult classic so popular it breaches its "cult" status. However, "Harbinger" doesn't break new ground, try anything new or clever, or establish its own personality. It's as if "Harbinger" was so in awe of John Carpenter's "The Thing" (or afraid of it, perhaps, as much of "Harbinger's" backing came from nerdy fans) that it's afraid of entering holy ground.

What this film has got going for it (apart from aping "The Thing") is its practical monster effects. Stop motion, animatronics, and distractingly obvious blue contact lenses for the woman playing "Svet" are all in use here. As most movies today overuse CGI (an error the 2011 prequel "Thing" so grievously commits) seeing animatronics in use is a CPR breath of nostalgia. And what's more, the creature effects (usually) look great.

There were parts during Harbinger where the twelve-year-old in me who still loves monsters and giant robots (thanks, Pacific Rim!) smiled, watching the plot unfold. But it was a wistful sort of smile. I was recalling the dread and pleasure felt from the heavy atmosphere and creature effects from John Carpenter's "The Thing." Harbinger Down is vastly inferior, and just makes me feel like watching that film instead.

So, what's so wrong with Harbinger Down? Try watching our female lead. It's like she's trying to juggle the task of acting while remembering a list of groceries or something. And I'm not picking on her; the rest of the cast is no better. The comic black guy (called "Dock" coz he used to sleep under one, yo) is meant to be sassy and defiant, but instead he comes off as a bad stereotype. The woman playing "Svet" is playing a stereotype as well, with her Hollywood movie Russian accent that falters from scene to scene (and here's a newsflash, filmmakers—no one from Russia actually talks like Ivan Drago from Rocky IV.) The only worthwhile actor Harbinger has is horror movie veteran Lance Henriksen, and the movie has him delivering lines like "we're gonna need a bigger bucket." Yeah. Again, Lance: apologies. Why the filmmakers would have you parrot classic lines from Jaws is beyond me. Is it because many of the nostalgia-fueled backers from Harbinger's crowd funding campaign were also fans of Jaws? Or maybe the screenwriter/director was just (gasp) incompetent. Who knows.

Another of Harbinger's flaws is its music. Guys, the key to any good horror movie isn't shadows, or drunk teens shouting "Let's guh-get outta here!" It's sound. Sound and music build atmosphere, and atmosphere is why we watch horror films. Example: the Silent Hill movie used music and sound cues from the original game, recognizing its effect and character. John Carpenter, the old master himself, conducted his own music for many of his films ("The Thing" included.) The music in Harbinger could not get anymore stock. It sounds like the faux-tension music used in parody scenes in episodes of South Park. An eerie soundtrack would've blessed this dumb, ugly, golem of a movie what it needed most: a soul.

But when we aren't cringing at our actors or wincing at the music, the film's direction/cinematography robs the film's monster of much of its grandeur (even though it really is just a copy of "The Thing's" monster.) When Lance and the Asian bearded mystic (yet another of the film's stereotypes not worth mentioning) descend to the ship's bunker and first encounter the creature, the lighting and direction couldn't have made it look more like a puppet.

Which it is.

But Leatherback in Pacific Rim was all CGI, yet it was done so well that I forgot I was looking at a big pile of zeroes and ones while I was watching it. Perhaps that's Harbinger's greatest sin— it yanks the viewer out of the moment. Atmosphere is why we watch horror.

It's not all bad, however. The setting— an old trawler in the middle of a night snow storm in the Bering Sea— allows for plenty of shots of dark cabins, cramped corridors, and slippery, uncomfortable surfaces made perilous by the snow and rain. The sound of the Bering Sea continually slapping up against the Harbinger (God, "Harbinger Down" sounds like the name of a war movie— does this production's incompetence know no bounds?) helps draw the viewer in. And again, it's so great to see practical effects in a modern movie.

But if you want to see practical effects done right in a *competently* made movie, see Mad Max: Fury Road. That, and "The Thing," are examples of love, genius, and perseverance. Harbinger Down is a crowd funded, loveless mess made on a thin budget—and its strains of stress show through on every botched transition, poorly delivered/written line, and overlit scene.

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.

An almost unwatchable mess, simply awful in every way.

Every scene - EVERY scene - is show in super close up, presumably to hide the fact that they have no sets and no budget. Nearly every shot features one, or at most two faces, totally filling or overspilling the screen.

Worse, they are often filmed with a shaking or panning hand held camera, giving the distinct feeling that either the cameraman or the audience is drunk.

The sound balance is all over the place. Despite the camera being shoved into the actors' faces, the microphone seems to have been placed in a different time zone. Crank the sound up, and your earballs will be blown off by the foley from a budget SFX CD from the 1990s. Urgh, that metal door creak, when will we stop hearing it.

The cast and characters are a random boatload of nobodies and nothings, scraped off the floor of a Scriptwriting 101 remedial class. Slimy White Guy, Sassy Black Girl, Chippy Black Guy, Chubby Asian, Big Guy, Stud McBeardly, Milfy Madeyes, and some blank faced eye candy who doesn't really have any character or personality. Oh, and Lance Henriksen is there, doing his contracted number of scenes, but he can't save it.

Script, I guess there is one. Climate change, white man's welfare, save the whales, climate change, ooh, creature. It truly doesn't matter, you're only here to see the non-CGI effects.

And sad to say, they are dreadful. Comically inept, right from the shaky model space capsule in the opening shot, then all the way through to the slimy, rubbery conclusion. We're talking unintentionally slapstick levels of cringe.

If this is the answer to CGI, it's a question nobody asked.

There is no reason to watch this film. It has no merits. You will not enjoy it, and you will not recall a single scene from it after it is finally, blessedly over.

In the sunken nightmare ship of Harbinger, Russian water-bears sleep waiting. Before I go and tell you about the movie experience, you should know that this film is a Kickstarter movie, with more than 350 thousand dollars coming from that campaign, and made by people with vast experience with practical effects. You see, Hollywood uses CGI nowadays because it is cheaper and it has become a hallmark of fancy directors to use practical effects, all other movies relying on the cheapest alternative around. Cherish it, like you did fat and ugly radio stars before MTV came around.

The plot is pretty much a rip-off of The Thing. That is not accidental, because it is the same team that worked on the recent remake before the studios decided to go with CGI instead. The characters are archetypal, like in most films of the genre, with pretty decent acting all around. Lance Henriksen is great, of course, but even the rest of the actors give professional performances. What I liked also is that the characters themselves were borderline interesting making the entire feel more engaging when adding a little depth to them.

The special effects were just great for the budget they had and in conclusion I would go as far as say they accomplished their mission of creating a movie fans would enjoy and a nice homage to the great horror movies of the late 70s and early 80s.

Was the science accurate? Hell no. Was there a larger than life moral that one can leave the theater with and become a better person? Unless you count "do not join academia if you don't have the stomach for pompous self-absorbed a-wipes", then no. Was it fun? Oh, yeah!

A majestically grizzled-looking, Lance Henriksen plays, Graff, the crabby captain of the doomed fishing trawler Harbinger currently tasked to track some elusive migrating whales. Not long after a thickly ice-encrusted, badly scorched Soviet lunar Module is hauled aboard, the increasingly fractious sailors grimly discover that they are NOT alone!!! As an aggressively malign, macabrely mutating alien parasite proceeds to do its sinister, species splicing 'Thing' to the Harbinger's gruesomely overwhelmed crew!

Granted, the derivative text lacks invention, the charismatic, Henriksen is wholly credible, and the appealingly gloopy, polymorphous practical FX arguably make, Alec Gillis's bracing throwback horror, 'Inanimate' one of the more dynamic contemporary Creature Features. I have always been strongly drawn to subzero-set splatter, and Inanimate's gorily body-morphing B-Movie behemoth proved animated enough for me! While I'd be ashamed to admit it in polite company, Henriksen deliciously deadpanning the line, 'We're gonna need a bigger bucket!' certainly made me giggle at the time!

Poor script, poor characters, poor acting, poor direction, poor special effects...need I go on? It really is sad to see Lance Henrikson ending his career making these stinkers. Do not be fooled (as I was) by some of the reviewers here saying this stands up next to Carpenters 'The Thing'....it is nowhere near it. I only granted it 3 stars because there are actually films around that are even worse. Please don't bother. Just watch 'The Thing' again instead.

The movie has not too original storyline and already visited idea behind. Well casting interacts with interesting characters that fit well into chilly marine claustrophobic environment. Authentic latter-one goes good with nerve thrilling and simple dramatic (also visual) moments. Having a techno-thriller style, it approaches a lot interdisciplinary fields (eg. biology, physiology, astronomy, electronics, engineering, etc.) not deeply, but correctly. Main problem of the movie is that the idea and even storyline is far from original. It's all quite a bit already visited and recognizable from the good old days of Carpenter and Cronenberg claustrophobic sci-fi body-horror. I'm not going to name the titles – for many of us all-time favorites. From which are some things copied (insultingly obvious!) All in all, honestly: the movie has it's moments and the claustrophobic atmosphere in authentic space is also OK. BUT almost all other aspects are all but already seen and well known. Even score! You will hardly be surprised by anything (except several nerve-wrecking thrilling scenes - and those are just horror cliché). Because of the good aspects I didn't give it less then 4.

Harbinger Down is a badly made B-grade version of The Thing. Much as its nice to see Lance Hendrickson on the screen again, its a shame to see him take part in this travesty of a monster flick.

Almost everything about Harbinger Down is bad. The story's timing is off, there's really no suspenseful build up and the so called monster is more silly than genuinely scary. Indeed, this film almost succeeds as a comedy where it fails abysmally as a horror.

The special effects like the rest of this film are second rate too and the acting, on the whole, is only passable.

My advice stay well away from Harbinger Down, its a real stinker. One out of ten from me.

Ranks somewhere between self-consciously cheesy SyFy Channel fare and better-than-average direct-to-video product. I think the reason for the films to be located at the Pole's is mainly for the story arc of a 'Time capsule'so to speak' . So the Biological hazards may frozen in time so Hollywood can make scene play Sci-Fi horror film for the masses

What a shame.. what a waste.

More and more movies with decent budgets are released with bad stuff, ruining stuff in them that wouldn't have cost more money to resolve. So why is it happening you may ask yourself? I really don't know but I start to wonder if the movie makers think people are getting dumber with each generation. Perhaps they are right..

Anyhow, it could actually have been a decent, proper "The Thing" spin off. Most of the actors are actually decent with a couple of good ones. The camera work is solid. The effect that I have seen are acceptable to decent.. but they had to go an ruin it with idiocy written into or allowed to exist with the story itself.. Something that could have been eliminated.

Does it really take idiocy in a story (e.g. stupid mistakes, idiotic reasoning etc) to create a horror setting? I mean come on people.. A story can be anything the writers can come up with and yet they choose to write in ruining idiocy to start the horror and keep it going.

I don't want to write any spoilers for people, so go out and see it yourself and see if you feel the same. But it completely RUINED the movie for me and I couldn't continue watching it past 1/3 because of it. The lead female character had an ignorant, spoiled, clueless annoying look on her face from the opening scene on, but soon after I just couldn't look at her anymore because of this poor ruining story writing. I guess she became the focus point of my annoyance of this film being ruined by the writers.

Did you see Alien or Aliens? Did you see John Carpenter's The Thing? Did you see Jaws? Have you watched Deadliest Catch? If yes, then you've seen this film, almost everything about it is derivative-- dialogue, plot, characters etc. That being said, this film is surprisingly much better than it's one star rating on Netflix would suggest.

I've recently made it my mission to see as many one stars as possibly and I can assure you this film is pretty well put together. If anything, it could use a more consistent and "big budget" looking color correction and I think the standard viewer's impression might raise their impression of this film up a notch.

I first saw the trailer on Youtube and I thought to give it a try. I must say it was an entertaining trailer, but I got disappointed by the actual movie. Some minutes into the movie, I immediately was brought back to when I was watching The River (that TV series). This movie is pretty much like The River - set in a confined space of a ship - only with another "entity" instead of the curse of the Amazon. Not a waste of time, but I personally believe there are so much more to be done with the story. The story is also almost too similar to Whiteout or whatever "entity" containment type of story. So, I gave it a five star, just because it does not waste my time.

I think it would be easy to criticize this movie in the context of the current climate of cinema movies being released as it doesn't fit in to this era at all. That said I think it will hold up over time like many titles you didn't expect to do so. It works as a homage to the great creature horror movies of previous decades like Alien/s and The Thing and has that magic ingredient of keeping me 'in' for the duration of what would otherwise be a schlocky genre. The special effects, which were all practical effects I found very enjoyable to watch. In some scenes they aren't as sleek as I would have liked but mostly they had that creepy-artistic effect that I haven't seen in a while. The characters were a little stereotyped but that is fine in this kind of film, and they all seemed to be having a fun time on set which again isn't a common commodity in Hollywood anymore. It would hold up very nicely as part of a retro horror night of films alongside the likes of The Thing, but more in the arena of the home cinema; a movie to watch with a beer, and since this is where all movies end up maybe it is the true yardstick.

"Harbinger Down" or "Inanimate" is written and directed by Alec Gillis, who is more known for his work in Special Effects and Make-up. It is no surprise then this film has a large dose of effects in it as the crew of a ship do battle with a mutated organism whose characteristics are like those of the alien in "The Thing" (1982).

The Harbinger crabbing ship is booked by some science graduates who want to investigate global warming effects on Beluga whales in the Bering Sea. When it dredges an old Soviet space wreckage the team of graduates have something else to study. Locked within the wreckage is an experiment gone wrong - the Russian's had been experimenting with tardigrades and space radiation. When the space craft crashed and froze in the sea, the mutated tardigrades lay dormant, waiting for the warmth of human interaction to wake them up. Once loose, chaos ensues, and the crew of the ship and its passengers have a fight to survive on their hands.

I was drawn to this film for two reasons; 1 - it sounded like a "The Thing" (1982) crossed with "Alien" (1979), and 2 - it has Lance Henriksen in it. Two points I will use for the basis of this write-up.

When reading the synopsis for this film it felt like it would be something comfortable, like an old sweater. It seemed clear that this film would kind of be a cross between "Alien" and "The Thing" so I figured I could just watch it without needing to use my brain. I figured there would be some jump-scares, there would be some cool effects, and there might even be lots of tension in a claustrophobic scenario. Some of that served to be right, it was an attempt to cross "Alien" and "The Thing", it just was not much more - it did not push any further and stayed safe rather than challenging. Within the first 10 minutes it is easy to see where the film is going and who is going to be more than just a victim by the end of the film. The writing could have been much better and maybe offered some tension of shocks, alas this never really happened. Having such potential left me disappointed that I got what was delivered.

The writing also seemed to affect the script, and thus the dialogue that would be encountered. As mentioned, one of the attractions was Lance Henricksen, and truth be told, it is not a film he will be remembered for. He will probably be glad that he will not be remembered for this with the lack of quality to some of the lines the script had him delivering. His character, like the others in the other characters written into the film are bland and poor. Some of the others were that stereotypical in fact that they could have been pulled from a number of other films to play a cliched roles here - the Russian lady for example (Svet), with that poor accent that kept slipping in and out, it made her sound like Ivan Drago from "Rocky IV" (1985) - she could have been from any 1980's Hollywood film that had Russians in it. The script tried to convey that there was tension, but all it did was have characters argue and shout at each other. Once one argument finished, the arguments and shouting would be taken to a different part of the ship. It just never really went anywhere. I tend to argue that a good acting performance can make even a poorly written character look good, however that did not really happen here. Apart from Henriksen the acting does not really elevate the film much.

Having been conceived mainly as a vehicle to show off some cool creature effects then, the film unfortunately is a let-down in that arena too. Poor lighting and annoying shaky camera effects really get in the way of seeing some good visuals on-screen. While it is possible that having a low budget affected the delivery of the effects in some sense, it cannot be the sole purpose if I'm saying that the lighting and camera didn't help. Then some of the blame needs to be on the direction and cinematography too for not leading in a more visual way for the effects. Speaking of the cinematography, one thing this film got right in that field is the ship setting. If everything else had of been carried out successfully then the ship would have made things very claustrophobic.

This film is not the worst film I have seen by a long way, but it will not be one that I highly recommend to fans of the horror genre. Its heart is in the right place but there are other films which are practically the same, that are delivered a lot better than this. Having had so much promise when I read the synopsis of the film, I was left disappointed at the failed potential and the bad execution of it too. Rather than watch this, I'd be tempted to go for the film that inspired it and watch "The Thing" instead.

While the reason to make this movie seems like a good idea and the motivation and the effort that were taken to make Harbinger Down are truly honorable - for all creature-feature builder and its fan base.

But in the end the movie proofs again, that FX is not enough - especially if the script and the editing are… let us say it nicely; in a poor state. The movie is very dull, sorry. It's a wasted opportunity to actually proof those movie executives, that they are wrong how they treat the animatronic and practical FX departments. Afterall, I rather watch a flick with a decent, entertaining story (I'm talking about a basic horror-flick-story by all means. I'm not talking Shakespeare here!) with *sight* cheesy Digital FX. Or I re-watch an old classic, like Cronenbergs The Fly, Carpenters The Thing or Peter Jacksons Braindead, they proof at least that both works… story and practical FX.

I really WISHED for the makers of this movie it would have been a better movie - for the sake of their professions and their future. Therefore I give it five stars instead of 3.