Harpoon

source: Harpoon

I have to say that this movie is extremely different from any of those teen slasher flicks. What makes it stand out is the extremely diverse cast and good character development. But lets not forget the creative kills!! In saying that there are some major flaws to this gem of a slasher film. Even though there is a large cast it is a flaw in this film. Since this film does contain such a large cast you cant really connect with any of them. So, when the body count starts racking up you do not really care until you realize the character development in the final few characters. Another flaw is the pacing. The pacing was all over the place. At first it was going slow then it started to go way to fast when characters start dying one after the other with little break in between. In my opinion I did not like that at all. But all in all Reykjavik Whale Watching Massacre is a definite stand out in the slasher genre is probably one of the best out there.

After being huge fan of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre took an interest in this movie (the Title did it) especially considering the review splattered across the cover.. Yeah thanks Bizarre are you sure you were watching the same movie. The Opening is not too bad, spooky music and old footage of chopping up minke whales or whatever then cuts to present day usual set up young girls club etc.... Up until this point all seems the norm. It all goes pear shape when you meet the rest of the fodder (I wanted to press mute every time the french guy spoke) as previously said very cliché type mixture but the acting and dialogue is atrocious. The one interesting character (bleached blonde hair) vanishes never to be seen again. When they eventually end up stranded and rescued - NOT! by the Whalers and taken to the ship it all kicks off pretty quickly. Now this makes a welcome change but thats as far as it goes. You can see why they relate it to the TCM i.e Odd family weird shot away brother with squeaky voice but it just not on the same level. The Deaths are not up to scratch effects wise as you would of expected. Harpoon scene is by far the best and to be fair is actually a good scene. As the movie progresses the dialogue gets a lot worse (in case of the gay bloke he's more wooden than Pinocchio) and the blonde eye candy at the beginning start to get on your nerves ( poor dialogue ) and you end up begging them to get killed. In fact all the characters annoy you by the end if its not the dialogue, acting or plain stupidness ( you shout at the screen for Christ sake finish him lol ). Overall was disappointed with this movie as could of been much better and should of been. I know when a movie sucks when you wishing it to hurry up and finish plus your thinking what a load of balls.

Here in the States, my rental was called Harpoon and not Reykjavik. The film certainly doesn't go for the same old setting in a slasher film. I'm not sure if the rest of the title, Whale Watching Massacre, helps or hinders prospective viewers from picking this up for a boring Tuesday night. Anyway, the story revolves around several people from different countries who board a rusty old bucket for some supposed whale-watching. Things go awry, and one of the crew is killed, which leaves you to wonder exactly how things would have proceeded had he not died, albeit accidentally. After that death, another small craft rescues the passengers and motors them off to another vessel waiting some distance away. Now, it seems like the crew of the second ship are cannibals or something, but we never get down to that because they aren't known for restraint and almost as soon as the passengers all board the Cannibal Cruise Line, one of the villains, who appears to be a rather dim bulb, attacks them. This sends people scattering in all directions, including one guy swimming away(which I'm sort of surprised they all didn't do) only to be harpooned! His body hangs off the side of the ship for the remainder of the film. The harpoon gun kill aside, there is also a hand-held harpoon kill, a "suicide bomber," a flare gun face-shot(reminds me of Dead Calm), a beheading, and a final and hilarious off-screen death that would make Richard Harris very proud(or very ashamed). My biggest complaint about the film is the sound. Those who could speak English either didn't speak it very well or the sound-mixer was drunk. Still, Icelandic horror films are rather rare, and those set aboard whaling ships are rarer still. Could it be setting a precedent for a new genre, similar to the much-loved or much-maligned Nazi Zombie film? Thar she blows.

HARPOON: THE REYKJAVIK WHALE WATCHING MASSACRE is billed as Iceland's first horror film and their answer to THE Texas CHAIN SAW MASSACRE, with the action shifted to an inhospitable landscape and a ship. Unfortunately, it turns out to be as dull-witted and laughable as many a Hollywood slasher sequel, a film that strives to be horrific and entertaining and yet which ends up a mess. The first half of the film sets up the cast, which is fair enough, but it doesn't help that most of the characters are intensely irritating (with the exception of the black guy and the Japanese girl). Gunnar Hansen pops up for a worthless cameo, but after that we're mired in a mess of horror film clichés and predictable death sequences. It's all badly written and quite badly directed, two things which sap enjoyment from the production. One thing HARPOON does have going for it are some explicit gore sequences, although these aren't quite as grisly as you'd expect, with the emphasis being on the staging of each effect rather than going all-out to gross-out the viewer. But such moments aren't enough to save what is another forgettable, lamentable horror yarn.

A load of tourists go on whale watching sea trip. There's an accident the captain is injured and they call for help. Help comes in the unlikely form of a family of backsea fisherman or fishbillies as the DVD blurb refers to them. I say unlikely because they don't help. This has to be one of the best European slasher films I've seen. It has some good gore done with practical effects and a couple of inventive kills but the thing that raises this above other movies like cold prey (which was good) and trackman (which was bad) is the characterisation. Yes, some of the characters may be a little one dimensional but at least they have some character. You have the down trodden Japanese PA who finally has enough. The three middle aged women on the hunt for young men and the French tourist who says just about every French cliché you can imagine. from oohlala to sacre bleur. Also this movie has some laughs. Some of the dialogue is funny in a very surreal way mainly from the hunchback fishbilly. I enjoyed it a lot more than I expected to and i'm sure on further viewing I'll see more things in it to make me laugh and squirm.

The best thing I can say about HARPOON is that I watched it to the end (with, I must admit, increasing use of the fast forward button) hoping that it was going to come together. It didn't. The opening titles are shown over grainy footage of whaling boats. Then we are introduced to an assortment of irritating characters of various nationalities. They go out for a short (presumably about two hours, based on dialog muttered in passing) trip to, well, watch whales. The captain (the great Gunnar Hansen, the only familiar name in the cast) falls victim to a, well, harpoon. Then the irritating tourists, squabbling among themselves, get on board a "rescue" ship that turns out to be manned by crazies. This is not a case of watching untalented actors go through the motions. But the tone is so uncertain that we never become involved with these people in their struggle to survive. Is this supposed to be a comedy? If not, why does a scene in which one character's dying act is to decapitate another seem so hilarious in retrospect? At the very beginning a title card announces that this was a product of the Icelandic Film Company, which I presume to be an entity that encourages the development of that Country's cinema industry, possibly with funding or at least tax breaks from the Icelandic government. It would have been amusing to have been present when this film's producers set up their projector in the company's board room, as in, "You spend our $4 million on THAT?" Two positive notes about the film, though: 1. It has, oddly enough, some effective use of sound that gave my stereo speakers a chance to shine. 2. Neither the director nor screenwriter has gotten another credit on IMDb since making this turd. By the way, HARPOON may stink in most aspects but it has a great poster.

At the moment I'm writing this user comment Iceland is world famous, not so much for unleashing this particular horror movie upon the world, but because an active volcano started to erupt and the subsequent spreading of thick clouds full of damaging ashes makes any type of aviation impossible all over Europe. Perhaps this is another good idea for an Icelandic horror movie after "Reykjavik Whale Watching Massacre"? Spectators of environmental phenomena traveling to Iceland to climb the volcano get brutally killed by local villagers who refused to be evacuated before the eruption and became irreparably damaged maniacs? How about that? I could be rich writing this nonsense instead of joking about it on the internet. Anyway, about the actual movie "Reykjavik Whale Watching Massacre", I regret to announce that I rarely ever witnessed a movie that used to little of its own massive potential. The title is terrific, the setting and scenery are astonishing, the basic concept is ideal horror material and the opportunities to go berserk with gore and bloodshed are immeasurable … And yet, unfortunately, RWWM is a mostly dull and derivative slasher imitation of "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre", with bland villainous characters, suspense-free rampages and uninspired murder sequences. A group of tourists of different nationalities, though including most stereotypes like photographing Japanese people and an obnoxious French guy, go on a whale watching trip in Icelandic waters. The captain (played by THE Gunnar Hansen of the original TCM) dies in a banal accident and the tourists get picked up by a wandering family of whale hunters. They're unemployed and quite frustrated due to the whale hunting prohibition, so they decide to relief some anger by slaughtering tourists. I must admit I was quite disappointed after finishing RWWM. I was truly hoping for a deeply grim, sardonic and raw slasher, but the ambiance was not even half as disturbing as it could (and should) have been. The opening sequences are quite unsettling; with genuine whale hunting archive footage guided by eerie tunes, but the film almost immediately reverts to familiar slasher territory after the credits. The tourist characters are all insufferable beyond belief (although admittedly, people do become selfish bastards in hazardous situations) and the demented whale hunter family members are not the least bit menacing. There's only one kill that is truly worth mentioning (involving a harpoon, duh!) and the climax is a huge letdown. Naturally there are also references towards Iceland's most famous musical export product Björk and her tiresome song "It's oh so quiet". A missed opportunity.

Around twenty minutes into this movie I started to wonder if "Reykjavik Whale Watching Massacre" was meant to be a dark comedy. After all, how could this be a serious horror movie when it included scenes such as a traumatised woman singing Björk's "It's Oh So Quiet" over the loudspeakers of a ship whilst a tragedy occurs on the deck? Or the moment in the movie where the scene suddenly changes to a group of people discussing their love for whales? But if it's a comedy, where are all of the scenes designed to make you laugh - or at least smile? It's almost as though the scriptwriter was as confused about the movie they were making as I was about the movie I was watching. Obviously "Reykjavik Whale Watching Massacre" is a homage to the far superior "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" - the original Leatherface (Gunner Hansen) even shows up here. However, everything that "Texas" did right, "Reykjavik" does wrong and then some. The victims here are some of the most one-dimensional stereotypes you could ever assemble from the loud, drunk Frenchman to the Japanese tourists with their camera gear, and none of them are particularly sympathetic or appealing. The only exception is a young black American man (portrayed by an actor in serious need of accent training) whose sexuality prompts one of the most unrealistic dialogue exchanges i've heard (and that's before you take into account the fact that this exchange takes place whilst the two characters are running for their lives from insane whalers). I'm not even sure who was supposed to be the main character in this movie which shows how problematic the story was. This already unsteady boat is further sunk by gaping holes in logic which will leave you scratching your head in disbelief. For example, early in the movie we're introduced to a character whose presence seems to indicate that our victims have been lured into a trap. However, their fate actually has nothing to do with him but rather an unfortunate (and highly unlikely) accident. This is indicative of the poorly written script in which strangers suddenly and inexplicably relate their life stories to one another merely for the purpose of giving the audience some back-story, or act out of character to set up a specific plot point (see the crazy sequence of events which begins with the line "Your father was a real kamikaze!" for evidence of this). There is only one death scene that is of any interest and the villains aren't terribly memorable. Whilst it's exciting to see a slasher movie emerge from somewhere other than America, I can't recommend "Reykjavik Whale Watching Massacre" due to its many, many flaws. You would be advised not to waste your time and to instead watch a movie like 2006's "Severance" which manages to be both funny and frightening - two things which "Reykjavik Whale Watching Massacre" completely fails to be.

Just saw this "Reykjavik Whale Watching Massacre" at the ScreamFest 2009 Film Festival and it was fantastic. A very droll and bloody film, "Massacre" follows a whale watching expedition that goes all kinds of wrong. The synopsis makes it appear like it will be "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" on a whaling vessel, but it's much more than that. Plenty of splatter to go around, but made with great humor. My wife and I briefly chatted with director Julius Kemp who was extremely polite and revealed that they indeed created the movie after coming up with the title as I guessed. The film is currently hitting the film festival circuit, so catch it if you can. There's no current distribution for the U.S., though it has been sold overseas in the U.K. and other countries. With "Let the Right One In," "Dead Snow," and now "Reykjavik Whale Watching Massacre," Scandinavia is becoming a force to be reckoned with in the world of horror film making. Bravo.