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Lack of good storyline.

Better Late Then Never

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

Yes, Harbinger Down is low budget, but that just makes what they did with it all the better. Of course it wasn't going to be another Aliens or Terminator II. Of course it borrowed heavily from terrific movies like The Thing. How is that a bad Thing? It was a fun movie to watch, far from perfect, but perfectly good entertainment if you enjoy low budget sci-fi monster horror thrillers. You knew what you were getting going in.4.5 is for typical SyFy channel movies - hideous trash that should never see the light of day. This is much better than that. I almost didn't watch it just because the rating was so bad, so I probably enjoyed it more as an entertaining surprise and my 8 rating may be a bit high, but still...

While the reason to make this movie seems like a good idea and the motivation and the effort that were taken to make Harbinger Down are truly honorable - for all creature-feature builder and its fan base.But in the end the movie proofs again, that FX is not enough - especially if the script and the editing are… let us say it nicely; in a poor state. The movie is very dull, sorry. It's a wasted opportunity to actually proof those movie executives, that they are wrong how they treat the animatronic and practical FX departments. Afterall, I rather watch a flick with a decent, entertaining story (I'm talking about a basic horror-flick-story by all means. I'm not talking Shakespeare here!) with *sight* cheesy Digital FX. Or I re-watch an old classic, like Cronenbergs The Fly, Carpenters The Thing or Peter Jacksons Braindead, they proof at least that both works… story and practical FX.I really WISHED for the makers of this movie it would have been a better movie - for the sake of their professions and their future. Therefore I give it five stars instead of 3.

Did you see Alien or Aliens? Did you see John Carpenter's The Thing? Did you see Jaws? Have you watched Deadliest Catch? If yes, then you've seen this film, almost everything about it is derivative-- dialogue, plot, characters etc. That being said, this film is surprisingly much better than it's one star rating on Netflix would suggest. I've recently made it my mission to see as many one stars as possibly and I can assure you this film is pretty well put together. If anything, it could use a more consistent and "big budget" looking color correction and I think the standard viewer's impression might raise their impression of this film up a notch.

In one sense, this is a special case. In another, it deserves the same critical treatment as everything else. Low-budget, independently- produced movies need to compete on the same playing field as the big stuff. We don't want Kickstarter funding to become an excuse. On the other hand, some of the crueler reviews have, I think, a rather rose- tinted view of what 80s creature features were really like. They weren't all Aliens. That's magic in a bottle, and it isn't available to order for any amount of money - or Hollywood would be able to buy it, which it's becoming increasingly clear they can't.So, with these mixed views in mind, I rather liked Harbinger Down. If it sets out to avoid becoming saturated in embarrassing CGI, it succeeds, but naturally more is required than that. The performances are fine, given the painfully thin script - people knocking the actors need to consider the writing they've been given. The script is perhaps most kindly described as functional, and barely so. Henriksen is, of course, a massively experienced guy, and always a pleasure. The cinematography is absolutely rock-solid and a great advertisement for both Benjamin L. Brown and the staggeringly low-cost camera it was shot on. Both the pictures and Christopher Drake's score, and of course the creature effects, elevate the film way, way above the depths to which many low- budget sci-fi movies fall.So let's not be too harsh on Harbinger Down. Behind-the-scenes shots suggest that the creature effects could have been made more of on screen, a fair criticism that's been raised before, and the script is a letdown. But again, it's a genre creature feature. For a bit more creature and a bit more story and characterization it could have been better, but on the off-chance that some sort of renaissance of the golden age of sci-fi and fantasy filmmaking can be launched from this movie, or movies like it, I'm enthusiastic. If Blomkamp does get to do Alien 5, he'd be an idiot not to involve Woodruff and Gillis.