Blood Glacier Review

When I got the screener for Blood Glacier I knew very little about it, other than it looked like a creature feature, and as we all know, I love me a creature feature. I tend to not ask much from them either, especially those of the indie fair, as I understand budget restraints and the like. You give me some halfway decent practical effects, some gore, and a body count, and I'll kindly thank you for your time. Blood Glacier turned out to be a pretty ambitious effort, and ultimately ends up suffering a bit for it.

Way up in the Austrian Alps, a small group of scientists discover a strange liquid leaking from the glaciers. As they begin to study it, strange occurrences begin with the local wildlife. They attack unprovoked, and eventually begin to mutate. With the attacks becoming more and more frequent, and the mutation even beginning to spread beyond just wildlife to the scientists themselves, the small group fights to survive in the freezing cold with no help in sight.

Sound familiar? It should. Blood Glacier borrows heavily from John Carpenter's The Thing, and plenty of other similar movies. I give it props for an attempt at an original twist at the end, even though I rolled my eyes so hard I was afraid they were going to stick. Points for trying though. Other than that, there's nothing in Blood Glacier you haven't seen before, and most likely done better.

The cast mostly does what it's supposed to do, with no real standouts, and no real groan inducing performances. The dialog isn't exactly Shakespearean anyway. People run around and scream a lot, and when they aren't screaming in terror from the creatures, they're screaming at each other for various reasons, none of which are all that interesting. Let's be honest, the real reason we watch movies like these is the creatures, which we want to watch eat, tear to shreds, eviscerate, etc. said people. This is where the ambition that tripped Blood Glacier up I mentioned earlier comes in to play. There are somewhere around three main mutants that have the most screen time, a fox, some sort of bird, and a ibex. Problem number one is the bird, which is done with some pretty bad cgi when it's flying. If you know your budget isn't going to allow for cgi, then don't have a flying creature, folks. Problem number two is that every shot of the creatures is so dark, and cut so fast, that we never get a good look at them. If you know your budget isn't going to allow for multiple creatures to be built well, then maybe pool your resources into one badass creature? More isn't always better. I'd settle for a well shot decent creature over three or more shitty looking monsters in pitch blacknss every day of the week.

Still, even with all that negativity, I can't say Blood Glacier doesn't have anything going for it. I didn't hate it, I just wish it would've done at least something to differentiate itself from countless other movies out there with similar premise. If you're starving for a new creature flick to kill 90 minutes on, and don't ask a lot of your indie creature flick, by all means, give it a watch. All it really did was make me want to watch The Thing again.