Be prepared to be terrified by the tentacled terrors in Alec Gillis’ 2015 sci-fi horror film “Harbinger Down,” The film, dubbed “Inanimate” in the United Kingdom, featured another monster invention by StudioADI’s Gillis and Tom Woodruff Jr., and was mostly inspired by John Carpenter’s horror masterpiece “The Thing,” which is today regarded as one of the best horror and sci-fi films ever made. Rob Bottin’s creature effects in 1982 “The Thing” have served as a steady source of inspiration for special effects artists ever since.
In “Harbinger Down,” Bottin’s idea that the creature should always seem different because it mutates has been adapted. To maintain consistency, Woodruff and Gillis, who were in charge of creature effects in the 2011 picture “The Thing,” followed Bottin’s ideas, but most of their hard work was digitally changed at the last minute. After the displeasure of their hard work on creature effects being eclipsed in the 2011 picture “The Thing.” StudioADI, or Amalgamated Dynamics, decided to release this film.
The film “Harbinger Down” tells the story of a study team who boarded the fishing trawler Harbinger for a scientific mission in the frigid Bering Sea, only to be ambushed by a crashed Soviet moon lander bearing a mutated lethal creature. Graff was played by Lance Henriksen, Sadie was played by Camille Balsamo, Stephen was played by Matt Winston, and Bowman was played by Reid Collums. Apart from the monies raised through Kickstarter, StudioADI’s dedication to the project is commendable. So let us take a short look at the plan and see what it is all about.
Sailing with The Harbinger And Exploring The Journey and The Monster
The movie commenced on the day of June 25, 1982, when a Soviet Moon Lander was seen entering the earth’s atmosphere as it caught fire. The audience got a glimpse of a dripping pink slimy substance inside the Lander as it crashed into the Bering Sea near the Arctic Circle. By the way let me remind you, this date, June 25, 1982, incidentally resembles the release date of Carpenter’s 1982 movie “The Thing.” Quite the coincidence, huh?
Back in 2015, two biology students, Sadie and Ronelle, accompanied by their professor Stephen, were on their way to an expedition on the sea to conduct experiments about the effects of global warming on whales. Sadie’s Grandfather’s Graff, who owned the fish trawler, Harbinger, took them to the sea from Dutch Harbour in Alaska. Sadie, Ronelle, and Stephen were introduced to the crew members Bowman, Roland, Big G, Dock, Svetlana, and Atka on the ship. Mind you Big G was really Big! I hope Winston James Francis will not mind. Sadie was delighted to be reunited with her Grandfather despite being disturbed by the fact that her father also died at sea.
The crew of the Harbinger started working at night while Sadie, Ronelle, and Stephen went to sleep. That night when the staff caught a load of crab, Sadie woke up as she suspected whale activity in the area. She used SONAR equipment to detect the whales but was surprised to find something huge under the ice instead of whales. The ship’s crew helped her recover the thing, which turned out to be the crashed Soviet Lander, which was totally frozen in ice.
Meanwhile, Ronnie and Stephen were awakened in the commotion, and Stephen, in excitement, claimed that the crashed Lander belonged to his university. Graff disagreed with him and stated that it belonged to Russia, but Sadie informed that since the Soviet Union did not exist anymore, according to maritime salvage law, it belonged to the person who discovered it. Stephen was further agitated when Graff declared that it should then belong to Sadie as she found it.
Understanding that Stephen was desperate to take credit for the discovery, Bowman encouraged Sadie to investigate the Moon Lander before Stephen claimed it. He engaged Big G to distract Stephen for a while as Sadie sneaked off with Svetlana to explore the Moon Lander. As the ice melted, the body of the cosmonaut was recovered. Sadie slowly cut open the spacesuit and took some skin samples for analysis as she suspected that the cosmonaut had died of an unknown skin infection.
She continued her investigation and learned that the Moon Lander contained tardigrades, a rugged life form capable of surviving extreme conditions. But exposure to cosmic radiation had caused them to mutate and become capable of physical transformations. As Sadie learned more about her sample, she informed her Grandfather about her research while a strange slimy creature impaled Roland in the basement. Graff was worried that the poisonous substance from the spacecraft could contaminate the two tons of crab and decided to retreat to the harbor as soon as the storm stopped.
Stephen became extremely enraged when he realized that Sadie had explored the spacecraft before him and threatened to destroy her career if she did not sign the claim that Stephen deserved the credit of discovering the spaceship. Graff wanted to oppose Stephen, but Sadie, considering the power of Stephen, agreed to his words. Soon they found out that the dead body of the cosmonaut was missing. Stephen accused Sadie of throwing it away, but she denied it. When Stephen became violent, Graff threatened him and defended Sadie.
Stephen, in the meantime, got contaminated with the mutated tardigrade as he complained that he couldn’t breathe and started stripping his clothes even in a sub-zero climate. While the crew members dragged him back, suddenly, several stalk-like growths began sprouting from his back and sprayed a purple slimy fluid everywhere. Sadie apparently informed everyone about the parasitic creature from the Moon Lander that released certain chemicals in the host’s body and also confirmed that every one of them had been exposed to contamination. They poured liquid nitrogen into the scuba tank and spread it to freeze Stephen’s body and the Lander.
Meanwhile, Sadie collected another sample of the strange fluid and found that it had abnormally high genetic diversity while it could withstand extreme conditions. When Dock began to show signs of contamination, he was caged by Svetlana, which others despised, but as soon as tentacle-like growths sprouted from his body, Svetlana blew him with a flare gun. As Graff and Atka looked for the missing body of the cosmonaut, the tardigrade killed Atka. Soon it disconnected the ship’s power but luckily, the backup power set in.
All the survivors decided to find the mysterious creature and kill it before it attacked them. Things became worse when Svetlana was revealed to be a Russian spy, and she held Sadie, Bowman, Big G, Ronelle, and Graff hostage. She explained that the tardigrades were a part of a Russian experiment to make cosmonauts resistant to radiation. She also informed that a Russian submarine was on its way to pick her up while she had also planted bombs to sink the ship. Suddenly, the monster attacked and pulled Ronelle through a small pipe while Svetlana was dragged off.
Eventually, the survivors started looking for the explosives planted by Svetlana and managed to retrieve two of them. The remaining four were hidden in the bilge of the ship, and Sadie went down to fetch them. As she recovered the explosives, others noticed that tardigrades had also consumed two tons of crabs on the ship. As they warned Sadie, she realized that she was completely surrounded by the tardigrade. Somehow she managed to escape, but to her dismay, Graff became infected.
He instructed Big G to start the ship and Sadie to steer it while he requested Bowman to kill him. Big G restarted the boat, but the monster which had shape lifted Svetlana’s mutated body, attacked him, and slaughtered him. The creature impaled even Bowman before he could freeze Graff with liquid nitrogen. Graff, with great effort, fought the monster and shouted at Sadie to steer the boat and save herself. Sadie, with great effort, managed to steer the ship towards an iceberg and escaped from the ship just as the creature burst into the deck. The US Coast Guard sent an alert via her portable radio that a rescue helicopter was on its way. The sound of the rescue helicopter was heard as Sadie lay motionless on the ice waiting to be rescued.
Writer-director Alec Gillies had promised to use minimum CGI and more animatronics and practical effects, which he fulfilled in the film. This film was not only their form of protest to their dismay with 2011 film ”The Thing” but also a tribute to 1982 film ”The Thing”. Even the Chess Wizard Computer that was used in “The Thing” has been displayed in many scenes. Gruff’s dialogue while investigating the Lander was “Is that a man in there, or something?” was the same dialogue asked by Dr. Copper in “The Thing.”
Gillis and Woodruff Jr. successfully created incredible horror effects, but a solid screenplay would have saved the film from negative feedback. Lance Henriksen had been excellent as usual, while Camille added the softness in the movie. The other actors did a fair job of carrying forward the film.
Evolving Mutagenic Tardigrades of Harbinger Down Explored
Mutant tardigrades were the tentacled monsters of the horror film “Harbinger Down.” Usually, tardigrades are microscopic creatures with eight legs and cylindrical mouths. It appeared that the Russians had experimented with the tardigrades, as they are resilient creatures that can tolerate extreme conditions. With the experiment, they wanted to create cosmonauts who would be able to handle cosmic radiation. The tardigrades survived the experiment but not without mutation. The mutated group of tardigrades infected and assimilated living things and converted their bodies into terrible monsters.
When the crashed Russian Moon Lander was rescued from the Bering Sea, the entire crew of the Harbinger ship was exposed to these aggressively mutated tardigrades combined into one devastating creature, which started killing them one by one. The crew was totally unaware of the monsters till professor Stephen was infected. Apparently, strange stalk-like growths appeared from Stephen’s back and spread a purple-colored slimy fluid on everyone. Biology student, Sadie, analyzed the fluid sample and concluded that the species contained abnormally high genetic diversity.
The mutated tardigrades were further resistant to any temperature change, and on cutting, they regenerated into two. Sadie concluded that prolonged submerged time in the sea had exposed the creature to DNA of various aquatic species, and probably this parasitic creature first attacked the brain of its host and then consumed it. Not only was the monster unfathomably powerful, but it was also quite intelligent as it disconnected the ship’s power so that it could quickly attack the crew in the dark. The most important and nerve-wracking fact about the creature was that it was becoming more potent with each consumption of its prey.
With its increased capacity of accumulation of biomass and absorption of DNA, it was able to shape-lift aggressively. It could take any form or shape or change from solid to liquid or vice versa. Their life force was like a limitless reservoir of energy. The only option everyone had was to freeze the creature with liquid nitrogen, but the monster was too powerful and quick compared to any human being. No wonder it consumed each and every organism on the ship, including two tons of crab that the crew had caught, and the only way Sadie could save herself was by jumping from the ship as the mutated tardigrades froze in the ice while the ship crashed in the iceberg.
Harbinger Down Is The Thing Remake We All Wanted!
StudioADI or Amalgamated Dynamics is a special effects company that specializes in animatronics and prosthetic makeup and was founded by Tom Woodruff Jr. and Alec Gillis. Universal Studios hired them for practical special effects to the 2011 film “The Thing,” which is a prequel to 1982 film of the same title by John Carpenter. Woods and Gillis were able to champion the use of practical effects on CGI, but during production, their work was covered mainly with the help of CGI. StudioADI was genuinely disappointed with CGI dominating their hard work.
They released videos of their practical jobs for “The Thing” on YouTube, which received vast positive responses from the people. It inspired them to create a YouTube channel featuring archived videos of creature effects from their career. The positive response from people prompted Gillies and Woodruff to start their own production. They raised funds on Kickstarter and worked very hard themselves to create the dream film which they wanted.
On May 8, 2013, Alec Gillis started advertising for the film “Harbinger Down,” as a monster horror film that had been inspired by the greatest sci-fi horror films of all times, “Alien” and “The Thing,” and would execute only practical techniques to create monsters instead of using CGI. By June 7, 2013, StudioADI was ready to fund the film “Harbinger Down,” making it the most successfully funded horror project in Kickstarter history. The remaining funds were provided by Dark Dunes Production, while the special effects were created at Gillis and Woodruff’s own expenses.
Our Final Words About The Film!
It goes without saying that “Harbinger Down” masters the special effects and is a remarkable film among a significant number of horror sci-fi movies, which depend on CGI for its products. The studio had mainly used animatronics, prosthetic makeup, stop motion, and miniature effects to feature the practical techniques of the film’s creatures. Though the movie collected mixed responses from the viewers, horror fans praised the film for maintaining the suspense and animation of the tardigrades.
Alec Gillis did a commendable job in his first directorial venture as the film flows naturally and does not appear to be an unrealistic series of events. Though some CGI was used to enhance the ghastly effects, it did not ruin the splendor of what is being shown. If you are truly a hardcore horror fan and very fond of incredible monster creatures without caring much for the script or excellent screenplay, you might just want to get on board and sail with Harbinger without going down.