Nerds That Geek Movie Review: ‘Harbinger Down’

Written by Scott Edwards

​As we continue to try and get further into space, most people do not know that we have not explored most of our planet yet. That is right, our oceans have yet to be explored completely, while we can see above the surface, we have yet to see everything that is under the waves. Since our planet is mostly water, it is astonishing that we have not tried to explore it further to unlock more of its secrets. But I am not good at diving and my ears consistently pop after moving five hundred feet in altitude, so I may not be the man to help with that.

Students Sadie and Ronelle are ready to get their senior project underway with their professor and heading to the Bering Sea to research a pod of Beluga whales seems like the best idea. As Sadie has been able to secure passage on her grandfather’s crabbing ship, the three are ready for an adventure of a lifetime. While boarding, Captain Graff is surprised to see his granddaughter, but none the less, he is ready to take to the high seas to fill up his hull and make another successful haul. While the crabbers mainly work at night, the students and professor will have to work in the day time and it seems like a fair tradeoff for now.

When Sadie kicks on her tracking software, she finds that the ship is right on top of the pod that they are tracking. Heading out and using her underwater camera to observe the whale’s behavior, she sees something suspicious in the ice. Allowing Graff to see what it is, he puts the crabbing on hold and cuts the object from the ice. When the frozen mystery is brought on board the ship, they find out that it is a Russian spacecraft and that it has been lost at sea for many years. Agreeing to maritime salvage rights, the space craft is given to Sadie, but her professor, Stephen, is not happy about the turn of events. Being shot down several times by Graff, Stephen has to find a way to get this new find under his name for nothing more than the fame behind it.

While the battle on the boat ensues, the crew is able to distract Stephen from the tests that Sadie wants to run on the body. With the outer shell of the spacecraft being burnt to a crisp, Sadie is surprised to find out that the pilot remained in perfect condition. Even though he had been stuck in the ice for over thirty years, he appears to have died yesterday. Running a test on the pilot’s blood, she sees that it is infected with tardigrades that were being tested on in space. Not knowing exactly what she has found, an organism is free on the good ship Harbinger and getting bigger by the minute when it is able to feed on the crew. Needing to find a way to defeat the creature before the boat can make it to shore, the crew is in for another rude awakening when they find out a member of the former Soviet Republic is trying to stop them.

I don’t think I can find one thing wrong with this movie and that being said, it is a pretty good one to get lost in. With many characters that you can fall in love with, in the story, you kind of hope that two of them hook up before it all hits the fan. The creature that is released on the boat does not have to have a name, much less a consistent shape since it is able to adapt to any form it chooses. I am not too scientific, but I know enough to know, that if it is true that saltwater hangs on to all of the DNA that dies in it, well, there might be some very interesting things swimming around out there, and more people need to be made aware of that. This movie is just fun and when you get to see someone becoming infected, you will not know what to expect when the creature tries to take over their bodies. Stay Scared.

---