Found this low budget horror film on a streaming service and decided to watch it. And I'm glad I did. It was only now I've come to review it did I find how much of the minority I seem to be. I'm guessing it's set about 100-150 years ago when a sail-ship takes an expedition to the North Pole in order to find a previous lost vessel. Naturally, they find something pretty nasty waiting to take a bite out of them in the frozen wastelands.
As I say, it's low budget. Don't expect any amazing set pieces, but what I enjoyed was the cast. They were older than your average cast of a modern horror film. Most cases have actors barely out of their late teens cast in roles which should really go to middle aged people. Here, I actually believed that the men on the crew were hardened sailors - especially the captain himself, who I was really rooting for.
Now, don't think that I'm saying that everything is perfect here. The monsters are nice - for the budget, but they're basically men in costumes and the lack of movement was really visible when the creatures had to attack humans. Because the monsters' mouths obviously weren't designed to move and be seen to take bites out of people, they just sort of rub their hideous, slimy faces against the people. It was actually quite comical, unfortunately.
Plus there's a woman on board. Yes, the 'in story' explanation is that she's a stowaway, but her character seems really out of place, like she's had Ripley's ('Alien' franchise) personality imprinted on her. She even tapes two guns together in a weird throwback to that classic scene from 'Aliens.' It's very out of place.
Then you have the human antagonist of the film, who chews up every piece of scenery even harder than any beastie could. He's more evil than a thousand Dr Evils and he shows it.
Yet, I watched it right until the end. I actually enjoyed it. It had its flaws, but the casting and story was different enough to keep me entertained. Although, perhaps its strongest 'selling point' (for me!) was that it was set a long time in the past and this is the first new horror film I've seen in a while where the teens don't have to point out that their cell phones don't have any reception.
