When you think of the frozen landscapes that can be the setting for a horror story, most horror fans will go to John Carpenter’s The Thing or H.P. Lovecraft’s At the Mountains of Madness. Both of these are great examples of how to use the isolation and strange white vistas to craft a compelling tale. I’m also willing to wager that most of you are aware of them. Today, I wanted to bring you a different movie that is very much in the vein of these giants of horror.
Harbinger Down is a film that was born from 2011’s The Thing (the prequel). Amalgamated Dynamics was hired to do most of the special effects work on the film. By the time the film was released, most of their work had been replaced by CGI in post-production. The effects team posted the footage of their effects on Youtube, where it received great response. The team started a Kickstarter campaign to make their own film, utilizing their own practical effects. It was the most successful scifi/horror Kickstarter campaign at the time.
This film is great for fans of practical effects in monster movies. I enjoyed the cast and felt that the film made the most out of a meager budget for a film of this scope. Lance Henriksen stars as the Captain of a crab boat that dredges up something nasty from the Soviet space program. If you haven’t seen this film, but love Carpenter’s The Thing, then I advise you to check out this movie. You can click the cover below to pick up a copy and read on for the official synopsis.
Synopsis: A group of grad students have booked passage on the crabbing boat Harbinger to study the effects of global warming on a pod of Belugas in the Bering Sea. When the ship’s crew dredges up a recently thawed piece of old Soviet space wreckage, things get downright deadly.
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