Climate change is one of those topics that films haven’t really exploited, so when Snowpiercer hit in 2013, it was a nice change of pace. Coincidentally around the same time, Austrian director Marvin Kren’s film Blood Glacier (aka Blutgletscher) premiered at the 2013 Toronto International Film Festival. Both films tackle the topic of climate change in different ways. Kren went the monster movie route, which is almost always the more fun way. Plus, it’s reminded more than one person of John Carpenter’s The Thing. Turns out that this is both a good and bad thing.

Janek (Gerhard Liebmann) is stationed at the Climate Research Base in the Swiss Alps. Manned by scientists Birte (Hille Beseler), Harald (Felix Römer), Falk (Peter Knaack), and their dog named Tinni, the group is there to monitor the effects of global warming on the glaciers. When a particular melting glacier starts leaving a blood red substance in the water, the local animals start to behave strangely. In fact, the liquid is causing the wildlife to transform into genetic hybrids. The scientists find this fascinating, while Janek is far more cautious. His suspicions prove accurate, as the group starts to succumb to attacks by the hybrids. Things grow even more complicated when another group arrives to investigate the scientists’ discovery.

Like John Carpenter’s classic, the cast of Blood Glacier is a big thumbs up. While not as likeable as the group stationed up at Outpost #31, Blood Glacier does have a more diverse crew. Instead of a bunch of predominantly middle-aged guys, the cast includes both men and women of varying ages. As far as the likeability goes, Liebmann’s Janek is what you’d call a flawed hero. While the character initially starts out as your boozing loser running around in his tightie whities, he later on evolves into something more resembling a hero: A no-nonsense type who shows off some sensitivity and a level head. Adding his ex Tanja (Edita Malovcic) to the mix provides some good chemisty. The other big plus is Brigitte Kren, who plays the state minister along for the ride with the second group of scientists. Her role is another no-nonsense type that also elicits a couple of laughs.

Another big plus, once again like Carpenter’s film, is the decision to use practical creature effects, eschewing the use of CGI (insert joke about The Thing remake here). While it’s not Rob Bottin, there’s still enough gory effects and weird creatures that will pique your interest. Unfortunately, we don’t quite get a good look at some of these guys due to budget restraints, and the fact that they aren’t as visually strong as you’d hope. To compensate, the score by Stefan Will and Marco Dreckkotter attempts to drum up the tension that the creatures lack. Finally, cinematographer Moritz Schultheiss presents us with a downright beautiful landscape, which in contrast is something more hospitable than the harsh British Columbia glacier that John Carpenter and company used. Schultheiss also does a few neat focus shots that again shows just how beautiful the environment is in that part of the world.

As you can probably tell, Blood Glacier draws a lot of comparisons to The Thing. So much so that it’s to Blood Glacier‘s detriment. Unlike The Thing, there’s a real lack of dread in this film. Part of that is the previously-mentioned lack of real sustained shots of the creatures, the other is the fact that the film drags. A lot. It definitely feels longer than it’s 97 minute runtime. Every time something scary happens, it’s all too brief and becomes the equivalent of a jump scare. Also, the reliance on character development is a hindrance, since it takes away from much of the action. While this sounds strange, when you have two groups of characters that take forever to come together, with many of the characters aren’t that interesting to begin with, it’s generally not a good idea.

As much as I wanted to like Blood Glacier (and I really did), the film lacked something to make it all gel together. There were hints of the dread that were very much present in The Thing, but those were never fully realized. The creatures and the gore were all in their practical effects glory, but we never got a real extended look at the creatures to give us a real payoff. While the main characters were interesting and the acting was good, the slow pacing and focus on developing uninteresting characters lessened the impact of the action scenes. I definitely do recommend seeing Blood Glacier, as there’s definitely fun to be had, but not as much as there could have been.

Video/Audio:

Shot in 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen, the transfer shows off some great detail. Colours are muted (a directorial choice) but accurate. There’s a bit of banding in some of the shots, with it being more noticeable in some of the darker shots. Overall, it’s a quite acceptable transfer that does it’s job.

Audio-wise, you have English 5.1 and German 5.1 tracks. Both do a great job of presenting Stefan Will and Marco Dreckkotter’s eerie score, and both take advantage of the directionals. Dialogue is clear and free of distortion, though there are a few errors in the English subtitles when compared to the English dub, but that is again, minor.

Extras:
Other than the film’s trailer, there are no other extras. In contrast, the Region 2 DVD gives us a photo gallery of the creature designs in addition to the trailer.