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Review: "Blood Red Sky"

It has been a while since we have seen a decent horror film, and this is an interesting take.

By Nick CavuotiPublished 3 years ago 3 min read
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Netflix new horror film, Blood Red Sky, has an incredibly fun premise but feels incredibly disjointed at times. The film itself doesn't seem like it knows whether or not it wanted to be a foreign film, or an American horror story for one and the dialogue is so jarring that it easily takes you out of the experience. The premise and feel of the film will make many people think back to genre hits such as "From Dusk till Dawn", "Snakes on a Plane" and even at times "30 Days of Night." That is some high praise as all of those films are fairly well received and I suspect Blood Red Sky will be as it is a rarity to find a decent monster horror film these days.

The plot follows Nadja (Peri Baumeister) and her son Elias (Carl Anton Koch) as they are boarding an overnight transatlantic flight in an attempt to reach the states to see a special doctor for a mysterious illness that Nadja is suffering from. However, the plan goes awry when terrorists hijack the plane forcing Nadja to protect her young son by any means necessary.

The characters aren't horribly fleshed out, nor do we ever get a whiff as to why the terrorists are hijacking the plane and seemingly have no interest in causing any harm to the hostages but the main character is incredibly vanilla. Nadja's backstory and how she got sick would be an interesting story to tell, and all of her flashbacks are horribly uninteresting in comparison to the main plotline. Her attempts to shred her humanity even in the ever present eyes of her young son is fascinating to watch, especially Baumeister's performance in spots but the flashbacks and odd dialogue make it hard to truly care for any characters on the screen.

The premise is intriguing and fun for a time before the novelty of it wears thin and you find yourself wanting the plane to just land and move on. It is rare to say such a thing, but if this film were to get remade, I could see it doing much better. Particularly if it were filmed from the terrorists perspective as they have to deal with being hunted by a feral mother protecting her son. Not only would it increase the tension and horror but it would be much more focused and claustrophobic as there would be no escape. Again, the film feels disjointed between things it wanted to be. The choice of hiring Dominic Purcell as the leader of the terrorists, an American actor while the rest spoke a different language and a different dialect. It may just be my criticism solely from having watched the film in English as opposed to in it's native language of German.

After the terrorists first make their presence known, tension rises and panic among passengers is ever present but after that moment, director Peter Thorwarth doesn't quite sink his teeth into anything. It may be his inexperience as a director, but the only interesting thing that remains is the gallons of blood that is thrown at the audience as things go crazy. The gore and the monster are all well done while again, Peri Baumeister deserves credit for her performance. Seeing the anguish on her face as she battles the terrorists is riveting. Her son, Elias, has some horrible dialogue that is incredibly cringe-worthy in some rather dramatic scenes between he and his mother that Baumeister does her best to uplift. Which isn't any of the actors fault, that is purely on the script which throws logic to the way side with every turning minute in the runtime. Overall, the premise makes up for some it's faults as does Baumeister in spots and the action once it gets started is well done but the film loses itself about half way through and never really recovers only to completely fall flat in the closing act.

3 stars out of 5

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About the Creator

Nick Cavuoti

An avid movie watcher, and I have been writing short stories and novels on the side for years now. Hoping to hone my craft here on Vocal!

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