Harbinger Down

CinemaSerf

No wonder the pod of whales are a bit narked. These annoying students have decided to gatecrash their merrymaking in the Bering sea, and along the way they manage to disturb a long-lost Soviet satellite that crashed into the icy depths. Led by “Graff” (Lance Henriksen) the team decide to investigate this jetsam - and after about five minutes are wishing they’d left well alone. Perhaps from a lab or maybe even from outer space itself, we don’t know - but there are some tiny microbes that are growing exponentially and they are cold and hungry! It’s like a chilly, watery, version of the “The Thing” (1982) only without the slightest degree of jeopardy, some shockingly bland acting and a reliance on mediocre visual effects that attempt to create menace out of something that’s flatter than the sea bed. I saw it in it’s “Inanimate” guise and that was about the size of it as it borrowed heavily from everything from “Dr. Who” to “Harry Potter” and left us with a beastie totally devoid of any sort of wow or shriek factor. At least it’s short, but I’d avoid, sorry.