Harbinger Down (2015)

Simple and well acted, it has tension enough to knot the stomach.

I really wanted to like this movie. I feel terribly cynical trashing it, and that's why I'm giving it a middling 5. Actually, I'm giving it a 5 because there were some superb performances.

As somebody who had not heard any of this before, it became a curious phenomenon to sit and watch a film and slowly have the realities begin to click into place.

There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

While studying the effects of global warming on a pod of whales, grad students on a crabbing vessel and it's crew uncovers a froze soviet space shuttle, and unintentionally releases a monstrous organism from it. Harbinger Down is unfortunately a rip-off of the great 'The Thing' but also lacks any actual excitement in general. Lance Henrisken is the only good and experienced actor in the film but even he is just pretty forgettable as a whole. The special effects were pretty good but everything else? Were horrible and just terrible as a whole. (0/10)

The Three Acts:The initial tableaux: In 1982, a Russian manned probe re-enters Earth's atmosphere, something besides the cosmonaut is on board. The probe ditches in the sea, to the north, near Alaska.In current times, graduate student Sadie, professor and project leader Stephen, and lab tech Ronelle have a grant to study the effect of global warming on Beluga whales in the Arctic. Sadie's grandfather, Captain Graff, agrees to take the academics on his crab boat Harbinger to do the study. Graff and his crew (Dock, Svet, Big G, Atka, Bowman) will catch crab at night. The academics have the daytime to study the whales. Early in this process, they ping the lost probe, then bring it aboard. They discover the extra on board was an engineered organism.Delineation of conflicts: The organism is glad to be awake and have a lot to eat. Stephen wants full credit for the discovery, even though Sadie discovered it. The Russians, as it turned out, have a representative aboard to implement their strategy. The crew of the Harbinger want to survive the elimination derby.Resolution: Will the Russians get their way? Will anyone of the original crew survive?

Saw this movie and thought it might be a nice movie, until they show "Dutch Harbor". Funny thing is, I used to live there for a good number of years. This movie didn't even come close to reality, did no one even research the location? There are NOT that many trees there and the landscape was completely wrong. I couldn't even watch the rest, knowing they made such a glaring mistake from the get go. I will probably end up watching the rest, if only to see the other mistakes im sure are there. Hopefully they put more thought in the rest of the movie, although I currently don't have high hopes that it will be all that good.

Loved it, the feel of 80s and 90s sci-fi horror done with REAL EFFECTS not a green screen in sight. The FX team put there skills that where over looked by the director when making the thing remake/prequel that opted for almost total CGI effects (the norm in Hollywood, sadly). Well there loss is our gain, this feels like its what that remake could of offered, some "critics/reviewers" bandy around the word "ripoff" i prefer the term "affectionate nod" as this film has a few nice little touches that some proper fans will see n smile fondly at. Ill leave saying this if you where a fan of 80s/90s horror be of big budget or "B-movie" and you appreciate the real effects that films of that era was built on and the talents behind the bog franchises then this is a fond, welcome long overdue return to those days.