Blood and Snow



A couple of scientists go off on their own to investigate a reported meteorite landing in the arctic. But when their fellow scientists go to check up on them, they find one scientist dead and his assistant in a state of shock. They take the stunned woman back to their research base to let her recover and try to figure out what happened to the two of them. But once she wakes up and starts behaving strangely, they quickly discover that her strange personality shift may not be the result of post traumatic stress, but something far more sinister.



Hey, look! I watched something new! Well, new-er, anyway, since it’s already two years old at this point. But considering what I usually watch this may as well have come out yesterday. Which is probably why I hadn’t heard of it before. But it looked kinda interesting, and it sounded very John Carpenter’s The Thing-like, so I thought I’d give it a whirl. And it is indeed very reminiscent of The Thing, and you can tell everyone was trying really hard, and I really did start off wanting to like the movie because of all that but… Eh, let’s just say they missed the mark, but I still feel like giving them a gold star for effort.


Not to you though, You were such a wet blanket.

So, the easiest way to describe this movie is “The Thing, but with a much smaller budget.” Because you can tell that this is very much an homage to that movie (movies?), but they just didn’t have the funds to go all out. So the story is very similar, what with the research base, all the snow, and a lot of increasingly paranoid people. The acting is okay, but not great. And they didn’t have the money for any actual monster effects, beyond some glowing eyes and about half a second shot towards the end where it looks like the lady’s face maybe-kinda morphs (?), but it’s really dark and hard to tell, since you can’t see much anyway, so I’m not even sure if that counts. So, no. No spiffy monster to look at. Instead you get to watch this chick walk around in her jogging outfit and act creepy for around 99.9% of the movie. So, yeah, The Thing, but with a little Invasion of the Body Snatchers thrown in due to monetary constraints. But hey, at least they stuck to practical effects for all the bloody/gory bits you get to see, and they didn’t subject the viewer to all those cheep-o CGI blood splatters that seem to be all the rage these days for low-budget, independent horror productions. So again, I’m inclined to give the filmmakers some extra credit for effort.


I guess this counts as a special effect…

The real problem is the plot to this thing is just.… Ugh…. There’s just not enough of a story here, quite frankly. Or at least not enough to fill almost two whole hours worth of film. And I know I complain a lot about movies needing to be shorter, but this one really could have benefited from it. There’s just too much time spent watching people wandering about, or standing around, or having long, drawn out conversations for this movie’s own good. And not just talking, but often rehashing or unnecessarily elaborating on talking points that they’d already gone over earlier. That’s the kind of stuff that could have been condensed into one scene, not needlessly stretched out into two. It just creates too much downtime and kills the small bursts of decent tension the movie does have. And yes, cutting and condensing stuff like that could have really helped with the pacing. So suffice it to say, that the movie could have probably greatly benefited from about a dozen more editing passes.


It’s not nothin’ to lose your head over though… Heh heh heh… I’m sorry.

And the other big problem is that while the acting may be decent for the most part, none of the characters are what I would consider likable. I mean, there might be one or two that are tolerable, but sadly this is a film that seems to have gone out of its way to make almost all of its characters either annoying stereotypes, or as dumb as a moldy sock. And then towards the end most of them become both, which isn’t fun either. One guy is nothing but a pretentious, pencil pushing, twat. One seems more interested in getting high and playing video games instead of doing his job. The boss-man seems to fluctuate from being a bit of a prick to being semi-competent, which is oddly even more frustrating to watch than Video Game Guy. The Professor (That’s how he’s credited, they never gave him the decency of a name!) seems nice enough, but he has no idea what he’s doing. Another guy is so lovesick over our possessed chick that he’s willing to put the whole station at risk based on a very slim chance that they could maybe-possibly save her. And the final guy is a rude, drunk, redneck douchebag, who’s so misogynistic that he refuses to acknowledge his beloved dog is a girl. Oh, and the film inexplicably tried to make that last guy “the hero” of the film, despite doing their utmost to make him as despicable as humanly possible at every possible turn. Not really sure what the reasoning behind THAT decision was. Maybe they wanted to say something about how even assholes are right at least once in their life. But if so, that’s a crap lesson for a film like this, and I assume that means the movie was written by one of those “I have no filter and tell it like it is” asshole types who felt the need to somehow redeem his worldview. But by doing that they made the possessed chick (and the dog, the dog’s cool) the most likable character in the film (the irony!), and rooting for the villain doesn’t necessarily make for the most engaging movie experience.


I’m genuinely not sure who I’m supposed to root for here.

Ah, man, I was… I was really hoping I’d like this one more than I did, because you can tell it had some decent effort and a lot of heart put into it. But… It’s just not that good. They were trying, bless them. But… Yeah…. It does look pretty good, it sounds okay, and it builds up some pretty good atmosphere throughout the film, what with all the snow, the cramped corridors and the oppressive isolation. But for the most part the pacing is glacial, and the characters are woefully one-dimensional. And while the basic story presented is perfectly fine, it sort of falls apart at the end due to everyone turning stupid and making predictably poor decisions at nearly every conceivable turn. So, alas, the movie has its moments, but it’s not what I had hoped. If you liked Carpenter’s The Thing and would like to see a different take on it, then I guess you could give this one a try. But as much as it pains me to say this, for everyone else, there are better sci-fi horrors out there.

Blood and Snow is available on a variety of streaming services.

Blood and Snow is also available on DVD and Bluray.

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