Blood Glacier (2014) Movie Review

The film starts out with some text about the turning point of climate change research and acceptance in the face of mounting environmental changes. This establishes the film as existing in modern times and modern concerns without being too pushy about it. This subject comes up at various points later in the film but never gets preachy or makes it the only focus of the story. The film has a host of interesting, developed characters to focus on to frame the environmental horror instead of being message-only told through cardboard cutout people and false human drama.

A remote research installation in the Austrian Alps is home to a group of scientists studying moss and lichen and the like in the hopes of understanding how climate change effects live cycles and the effect of all of this on the rest of the environment. Serving as their technician and go-to guy is Janek (the strong Gerhard Liebmann) – a scraggly, grumpy hermit of a man who has, as we find out, voluntarily stayed in this harsh environment well past what most people would consider normal. It comes out later as to why, but at the start of the film Janek exists as a sad, sharp-tounged maintenance guy – a foil for these go-getter scientists – the latest group in what seems like a revolving door of research teams. Janek’s only real consistent companion worth a damn (to him anyway) is his dog Tinni who accompanies him everywhere he goes.

One morning, an alarm goes off signaling one of their data collection sites is on the fritz. Once to the site, Janek and another scientist discover a bizarre red discoloration of the glacier that is both menacing and curious. Menacing to anyone with common sense but curious to the science-minded. A sprint off into one of the caves by Tinni results in a run-in with some kind of creature inside the belly of a near-dead fox where Tinni sustains an injury. This leads to a return to the site and a discovery of a huge, beetle looking thing that tries to attack Janek. They bring the creature back to the lab and slowly start to figure out that it could potentially be a work-in-progress hybrid of multiple creatures evolving at a high rate. This is alarming, again, to someone with common sense, but to the trio of scientists is a chance at a major discovery. Couple that with a visit of by the (I believe) interior minister and other government officials and you have a situation that will inevitably get very bad for all involved.

Worse for Janek because he learns that a former colleague and love Tanja (Edita Malovcic) is part of the Minster’s traveling group coming to the site to visit. This ups the stakes for him and sets about a series of events (both at their location and with the party traveling up the mountain) that puts everyone in mortal danger.

The film really kicks into high gear at this point, revealing one monster after another of all different kinds. Since you can essentially hybrid anything together via this organism, you get a host of practical-effects monsters of all shapes and sizes threatening everyone. You get flying ones, you get horned ones and they are all (with little exception for the mosquito ones and long shots of another flying one) practical, in-camera creature work. This is such a great decision because it places these creatures right there with our characters and you feel that presence. They are not shown for long stretches and a lot of cuts and edits mask over the limitations of their designs and/or the funding the make them, but man oh man are they fun to look at and experience.

This brings to mind two films that one would almost immediately consider given the subject matter and location. One is Carpenter’s classic The Thing and the other was Toby Wilkins excellent 2008 film Splinter. Both are great examples of the lengths you can go with practical creature effects and ugly body horror evolutions on-screen. No film has ever reached the pinnacle that The Thing achieved but you can certainly see where the team behind Blood Glacier had is sights. I commend them for this, sincerely, because if you’ve going to shoot for something, might as well make your goal one of the best ever.

Beyond the creature work, the film is really well shot and takes full advantage of the environment. There are simply breathtaking sequences of truly honest and emotional moments that, taken by themselves, would seem like the work of a seasoned director with awards lining the shelves. Couple this with a very strong ensemble of actors without a weak link among them, and you have a B-movie setup without the amateurish letdowns that many a B-movie suffer under: namely boring camera, lousy acting or flat dialogue.

Blood Glacier has none of those problems and is, instead, a fine piece of genre filmmaking done with attention to detail, a flair for the creature and the blood and the yuck and a gonzo-nutty ending that reminds you the DNA director Marvin Kren has in his evolving blood vessels.