I wanted to start this off right - something with an overtly horror-y title. I don't know if I've come across a movie title that I've liked more - maybe ever - and I was hoping the movie would live up to my lofty expectations.
The Movie
The set-up follows the template of The Thing - a group of scientists in an isolated location run afoul of some sort of mutation-causing life form and end up in a battle for their lives. Here, you've got 3 scientists (the meek, nerdy-type), a technician named Janek, and Janek's dog, Tinnitus. (Tinnitus has that horror movie cloud of doom hanging over him from the very beginning - you just know that things won't end well for this pup.) They are in the Austrian Alps to study... rocks? Minerals? Weather? I guess I missed out on that part. The important part is they're alone and far away from civilization.
At any rate, an outpost a couple of hours away has ceased sending data. When they check it out, they run into a BLOOD GLACIER! Which is a giant, red, icy film covering the cave and mountains next to the outpost. They check it out, take samples, and Little Tinnitus runs afoul of a rabid fox (or is it?!?!) in the cave. The dog gets a gross wound in the stomach, we get sad hearing the dog cry, and the team heads back to the base with their little biological weapon in tow.
This all happens right away - the movie doesn't really leave any doubt that it's anything other than weird creatures that are causing the havoc. You've got lots of creepy, organic noises and some good-old-fashioned monster POV shots pretty much right off the bat.
Since you need more than 3 people to get killed (or 4 if you want a downer), there is an impending visit from the Minister of... (the environment? I need to take better notes) and her team, who are slowly making their way on foot to the base. This adds another half-dozen people to the potential body count. Providing our dramatic arc of the story is Tanja, a scientist who worked at the base several years prior, who had a failed relationship with our hero Janek.
Eventually, the crew discovers that the microbes in the Blood Glacier are little DNA factories - basically they take little bits of the DNA of the host and mix it with whatever else is in there. So the fox ("the world's greatest omnivore" per one of the scientists) drinks the blood glacier water, and eats a grub beetle or something - and BAM! - fox beetle monster. It's a great set up, and allows for basically endless combinations of really cool looking creatures.
What I liked
Really, this movie has a pretty old-school aesthetic. The monsters (with the exception of the flying ones) are all practical, and look awesome. Granted, there is a bit of a safety net if they look/act a little sloppy - they are mutants, after all, but they are just fun to watch and see in motion. I would love to see a movie based on the ram/ibex monster alone. There is something that makes the child in me smile whenever a creature sticks it's head through a wall/window/whatever, and you just know there are like three or four dudes behind it making it go. The gore effects are pretty solid too - you never see a creature shot with a gun - it seems like the only way to get rid of them is bloodily stabbing/drilling/bashing/etc.
Also, it's played totally straight. I think that might be the only way to do it in 2014. There is a little situational humor to be found in the movie, but overall there are no winks to the audience or anything like that.
Both the Minister who is visiting the camp and one of her guides are a bit older than you usually see in this type of fare. It was refreshing to see - a lot of times these Baby Boomer-types are just kind of dead weight. It was cool seeing some older people (and an older woman, no less) kind of kick some ass.
And the scenery just looked flat-out good. It seems like the kind of environment that would be hard to make look bad, but the way the mountains and landscape were shot was very well done - some of it wouldn't look out of place in an IMAX nature documentary. You could still-shot some of the landscapes and it would be a great post-card - although I'd still rather have a postcard of the ibex monster....
The performances are just fine. I'm never really too sure of how to judge a performance in a foreign language (I watched this with German audio and the english subs) - I think it would be easier to let bad delivery pass. But no one stuck out as being too bad or too good (although the Minister mentioned above would skew hard to the good side).
What I didn't like
Some of the effects are a bit iffy - particularly the titular glacier. I think covering majestic mountains in a CGI gloss could maybe *never* work, even if you had a Transformers-sized budget. Which I'm guessing this did not. But the melding of the CGI and the practical effects was off-putting - to the point that the CGI ended up taking me out of the film.
The shoe-horned dramatic story between Janek and Tanja worked up to a point - it actually brought me to tears at one point (although honestly that was more of the dogs fault, and I cry easily). But there is a very serious topic brought up between them that is a bit of a groaner at the time it's revealed, leads to some interesting character work, and then is kind of shit on at the end. This last bit was unnecessary and tone-deaf in comparison to the rest of the film. It was one of those endings that sort of taints the entire viewing experience, you know?
Ultimately
I really wanted to like this one, (being not only a fan of blood but also glaciers) but the ending really left a bad taste in my mouth. Still, it's pretty enjoyable for the majority of the time, and you could do so much worse with for a movie such as this (see: every SyFy monster movie). There was some obvious passion here, which will win me over every time. Plus, practical monsters!
I would recommend this film to others.
Until next time...
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