Harpoon: Reykjavik Whale Watching Massacre

Iceland has rarely been out of the news these past few years, with its banks collapsing and causing a minor economic meltdown here, then a volcano goes and blows its top causing all aircraft to be grounded over much of Europe for six days. Not renowned for making horror films, it has now decided to join Scandinavia and the rest of Europe by making a full blown genre film. Actually, it might be a stretch to say that Iceland decided to make a horror film, I can't imagine the government had anything to do with it or that the decision was put to a plebiscite, and that the decision lay with a small group of filmmakers and producers.

As one of the few countries in the world that actively want to hunt whales, Iceland is often lumped with Japan and Norway as the major nation to go out and harpoon the noble mammals, either under the guise of 'scientific experimentation' or simply because they like to eat whale meat and see nothing wrong with hunting them for their flesh and blubber. This is where whale watching tours come in, with a strict ban in place, forcing the boat that would otherwise be hunting whales into taking tourists from all around the world to go and see the creatures.

On one of these tours, an international group of people all board the Poseidon to head out into open water in the hope of seeing some whales. When the sea is sadly much calmer than they expected or hoped for, the captain gets on his radio and manages to contact another vessel which provides directions. This is no ordinary vessel, but one with three strange crew members, seemingly cannibalistic Nazis. There is no way that the other boat can know this, so the captain quite happily changes direction to head North West to where he has been told the whales are.

One of the passengers, an annoying Frenchman who has had one too many, has climbed up the main flagpole and is in the process of being talked down when he knocks something, which falls all the way down and goes straight through the captain. This causes the already fractious group to further break apart and, when the other boat arrives, they must try and keep their wits about them and trust in one another in order to survive. If this situation weren't bad enough, the ship's first mate tried to rape a passenger and jumped overboard when he failed and was caught.

From the trailer, I expected this to be a slasher movie on a boat -- it isn't, but something more complicated than that. There are many different locations, sometimes three at once with the camera flitting between each so you really need to keep up to know who is who, where they are, where their sympathies lie and where your own sympathies lie. At one point you have a small group on a whaling vessel, two in a life raft and two others in a lighthouse (with a stranger who you met at the beginning). With a family of killers around, plus nature being none too kind, the chances of survival for the whole group gets slimmer by the minute.


Although this isn't anything particularly mind blowing, Harpoon: Reykjavik Whale Watching Massacre is a very well written, acted and directed film with a group of characters perfect for this kind of film. Some of them are brilliantly hate-worthy, others are more complex and there are a couple who you just want to survive and get back to land for a warm milky drink! I'd never come across any of the cast before, with the exception of horror legend Gunnar Hansen, who plays the whale watching boat captain and it's a shame that he is dealt with so quickly. On the other hand, if he was around for the entire running time (or nearly all of it), you might expect him to be as tough as Leatherface and become the saviour. I've seen better horror movies this year, but many worse, and this is about as good as I expected.

There is plenty of blood, some good gore effects and, for the most part, the tension remains high where it should be. The language mix is certainly interesting, with most characters speaking English as a second language, some of the Icelandic characters speaking their native tongue to one another, as do a group of Korean tourists, and everything but the English is subtitled, and subtitled well.

The Disc

The Picture
As most of the film takes place at night, it's a shame the contrast levels aren't high enough to make the picture crystal clear in the dark scenes, where the detail level drops significantly to the detriment of the overall picture. The 'kill scenes' are very well done, especially when the sadistic Nazi tests out his harpooning skills to see if he still has the knack and to bring in one of the Koreans who decided to go for a swim.

The Sound
You only have one audio track, Dolby Digital 5.1, which is very good and presents the dialogue clearly whilst the surrounds are used to create atmosphere and tension with little creaks and footsteps emanating from around the room. In a very quiet scene, where someone is hiding, it is these little noises that keep you on edge.


Final Thoughts
Harpoon: Reykjavik Whale Watching Massacre is a fantastic title for a film and one that brings expectations of wall-to-wall hacking and slashing, with blood everywhere and a high body count. This is a film that doesn't belong in the slasher genre, much less the 'body count' subgenre. Sure, there are decent ways of bumping people off which is no surprise when you have a boat with a harpoon gun and flares. There are also guns and plenty of sharp instruments that come into play.

This isn't long enough for much characterisation and there is a lot packed into the short(ish) running time, with little space for dead air. As such, once our friendly whale watching boat meets the other sinister vessel, it is pretty much 'go' from then on, and it barely pauses to take a breath. It is a shame that there are no extra features as a commentary or retrospective documentary would have been worth watching but this is still a really well constructed horror film that is well worth a look.