GORE IN THE STORE
REVIEWS BY FANS FOR FANS
5 STAR FAB - 1 STAR RUBBISH

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Harpoon:The Reykjavik Whale
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Messengers 2

 

Directed by Júlíus Kemp. Starring Gunnar Hansen, Pihla Viitala, Nae, Terence Anderson, Miranda Hennessy, Aymen Hamdouchi, Carlos Takeshi, Miwa Yanagizaw. Horror, Iceland, 90 min.

DVD release date 10th May 2010 - £12.99.

This rare Icelandic genre offering bids to be its country’s equivalent to Tobe Hooper’s - oh you guessed it - TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE, with a central plot device that amusingly transplants the main story catalyst of the 1974 movie to eco-conscious modern day Iceland. Here, the nation’s outlawing of whaling - as opposed to the demise of the old Texan slaughterhouse methods - inspires an extended family of oddballs to take things to an extreme. The escalating carnage unfolds against a aural backdrop of radio broadcasts lamenting the impact of the whale-fishing ban on the local economy. These alternate with a disarmingly haunting original score by Hilmar Orn Hilmarsson that - and here’s the crunch - belongs in a better movie.

HARPOON, which joins a growing mini-genre of movies named enticingly after sharp things you can use to create substantial flesh wounds (HATCHET, MACHETE, etc.), is by no means in the lowest ranks of CHAINSAW-wannabes. But it makes the fatal mistake of giving us no one to sympathise with and no one to be genuinely afraid of, while relying on splatter for cheap thrills - which would be acceptable had the gore been exceptional.

At least it gives us an intentionally funny bunch of odious international stereotypes to form the ensemble of folks on Gunnar Hansen’s “Poseidon”, a tour boat that runs into trouble and results in the survivors being “rescued” by the aforementioned group of disgruntled, unemployed whalers. Hands in the air for a trio of horny middle-aged Icelandic bints (“Tell him we’re in the movie business- it always works with brainless hunks”), comedy Japanese tourists, a boozing, selfish French loser (“I want to zee ze fucking whales!”) and a sombre, bereaved American. Ex-Leatherface Hansen (whose performance was dubbed in post-production) is a cuddly Brian Blessed-type figure these days and his extended cameo offers little novelty.

Once the plot has got going, the movie goes through the slasher motions without much flair, as characters are threatened / tortured with harpoons by hatchet-faced interchangeable villains who, on occasion, demand they “Sing like a whale!”. The more creative deaths - a boat-based homage to Patrick Troughton’s impalement in THE OMEN, a flare-gun-to-the-head a la DEAD CALM - are borrowed from earlier movies, though things do perk up when hammers are embedded in foreheads, throats are slashed or folk are horribly burned.

Sadly, on this evidence, Iceland has not birthed a prominent new horror filmmaker here. Even the most rudimentary gore moments tend to fall flat due to mediocre staging. The decapitation of ze annoying French guy by a flying axe, for instance, should induce a cheer, but is barely worth a slow clap on a wet Wednesday. A splashy exploding head may be the movie’s highlight, but this kind of thing was also done with more gusto and grisly style by Tom Savini 30 years ago.

It’s more than a little disappointing, though fans of Bjork may appreciate the prominence of “It’s Oh So Quiet”.

Steven West

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