Vashirdfel Simply A Masterpiece

SunnyHello Nice effects though.

Afouotos Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

Aubrey Hackett While it is a pity that the story wasn't told with more visual finesse, this is trivial compared to our real-world problems. It takes a good movie to put that into perspective.

mb1456 Harbinger Down reminded me strongly of The Thing released few years ago but not as well done or creepy. It has major actors like Lance Henriksen(from the Alien movies) as the captain of the trawler Harbinger but I think he'd have been kinda disappointed too with how the movie turned out. It starts well with the tension of things to come but post the alien creature attacks its first human victim in the ship, the scare factor is predictable and the jumps hardly startle you except in the initial scenes. The actors are OK. Save Lance, the rest of the performances are mostly average. For a horror thriller, the story had good potential - a large trawler in the icy seas with few graduate students, a professor and the trawler crew who accidentally discover a Soviet space vessel below the sea with a dead pilot in it...but the end result was above average at best. A one-time watch, with your soda and chips.

Leisher Have you seen John Carpenter's The Thing from 1984 and starring Kurt Russell? If so, then you've seen this film.This is almost an exact replica of that movie. Character names and the setting is different, but they're pretty much the same movie.That doesn't necessarily make this film bad, but because it's a copy of a more famous film, the natural tendency is to compare it to said film. That's where this movie fails. It doesn't capture the same atmosphere or mood. The acting isn't as good, and there are some logic problems with the plot.Still, if you're a horror fan you'll be entertained enough to make a viewing worthwhile. The cast does a decent job and it's still an interesting premise.

851222 Greetings from Lithuania."Harbinger Down" (2015) is pretty much a much weaker rip-off / clone of "The Thing". Considering its small budget, i kinda enjoyed this flick for what it is. The creature itself was very "Thing-ish" - pretty creepy staff. Sure some of the characters kills off were way to chezee, but not also not that bad. The main reason i watched this flick were that i wanted to see some low-key horror flick and especially something with Lance Henriksen - i really like this actor, so basically i got what i asked for it - a low-key horror flick with Lance Henriksen - and it was pretty OK one.Overall, if you skip "Harbinger Down" you won't lose anything, as you have seen this movie many times if you like the genre and in much better form. Nevertheless i kinda enjoyed this movie, for what it is - it gave me what i expected and nothing more. Enjoyable, low- key genre flick, definitely not as bad as its rating says.

phil_rhodes 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.