Movies
[Review] Netflix’s ‘Blood Red Sky’ Soars with Intense, High-Altitude Vampire Tale
Blood Red Sky sets up expectations of an intense thriller with horror gimmickry thrown in for good measure between its title and the logline. Terrorists attempting to hijack a transatlantic overnight flight find resistance in the form of a vampire. It’s the type of plot that screams action-horror spectacle, yet this high-altitude thriller defies expectations from the start. A beating heart of familial love pumps through the veins of this intense horror-thriller with a vicious take on vampire lore.
Nadja (Peri Baumeister) and her ten-year-old son, Elias (Carl Anton Koch), board a flight from Germany to New York. She’s very ill and hopes the doctor in New York can cure her illness with an experimental transfusion. Violent terrorists hijack the flight straightaway, putting their lives at risk. Nadja’s determined to protect her son at any cost. When a particularly sadistic terrorist causes harm, it triggers Nadja’s inner monster, unleashing a perilous new fight for survival for everyone on board.
Director Peter Thorwarth, who co-wrote the script with Stefan Holtz, takes care in doling out Nadja’s story. It’s clear from the outset that she’s a vampire desperately searching for a cure, but her backstory and answers of how she ended up a bloodthirsty monster raising a charming, human son come in flashbacks over time. Nadja’s struggle to keep the evil within her at bay for the safety of Elias provides the backbone of the story, one that adds a surprising level of depth as the action and horror escalates at a steady clip. Though at a two-hour runtime, some stretches sag in energy.
This unique mother-son bond is compounded tenfold by Koch’s remarkable performance. Nadja may be a desperate mom that fiercely loves her son, but Koch imbues Elias with a precocious maturity. Elias’s unwavering love of mom adds a heartfelt, humanizing component. More profoundly, it adds a melancholic underpinning; Nadja slowly giving in to her inner monster by necessity doubles as a metaphor for a young child watching his mother succumb to a ruthless disease that renders her unrecognizable.
Nadja’s drive to keep Elias alive provides the stakes, and Thorwarth keeps applying pressure throughout. The filmmaker finds clever ways to maximize the limited space of the plane, utilizing just about every corner of it as each scenario adds a new obstacle to the mix. A feral Nadja isn’t the only problem the hijackers encounter, and all of it causes a ripple effect of catastrophe.
The vampire lore and design here are stellar. There’s nothing romanticized about the bloodsuckers in this story. The vampires within are primal monsters with one instinctual drive; to rip out jugulars and feed.
Thorwarth blends an intense thriller with blood-filled horror, then grounds it all with an emotional core that pulls at your heartstrings. Even when the hijackers fall into familiar stock bad guy tropes, it’s Nadja and her loyal son that keep the narrative so unpredictable. Blood Red Sky defies expectations by opting for a far more complex journey than the plot suggests. It delivers on its concept, bringing the entertainment by way of big spectacle thrills. But by handling its character development and vampire lore with care, Blood Red Sky is a surprisingly savage little gem that sticks with you.
Netflix releases Blood Red Sky on July 23.
Ghostface is back on the big screen this weekend… well, sort of… with the release of Scary Movie, which marks the Wayans brothers’ return to the horror spoof franchise for the first time since Scary Movie 2 back in the day. It’s likely to be the talk of the horror community for the weekend, but don’t overlook the other six genre movies that were freshly unleashed today.
Here’s all the new horror that released on Friday, June 5, 2026.
The horror spoof franchise is back with Scary Movie now playing in theaters!
Marlon Wayans (“Shorty”), Shawn Wayans (“Ray”), Anna Faris (“Cindy”), and Regina Hall (“Brenda”) reunite for the new Scary Movie, with the cast also including Dave Sheridan, Lochlyn Munro, Cheri Oteri, Chris Elliott, Jon Abrahams, Damon Wayans Jr., Gregg Wayans, Kim Wayans, Benny Zielke, Cameron Scott Roberts, Heidi Gardner, Olivia Rose Keegan, Ruby Snowber, Savannah Lee Nassif, Sydney Park, and Felissa Rose.
Twenty-six years after outrunning a suspiciously familiar masked killer (“Ghostface”), the Core Four are back in the killer’s crosshairs and no horror movie IP is safe…
Scary Movie will slash through reboots, remakes, requels, prequels, sequels, spin-offs, elevated horror, origin stories, anything with the word legacy in it, and every “final chapter” that absolutely isn’t. A whole lot has changed in the horror genre since the Wayans Brothers were in charge of the franchise; their involvement ended with Scary Movie 2 back in 2001!
Michael Tiddes (A Haunted House) directs Scary Movie 6 from a script written by Marlon Wayans, Shawn Wayans, original Scary Movie director Keenen Ivory Wayans, Craig Wayans (Scary Movie 2), and Rick Alvarez (A Haunted House).
From IFC, shark attack movie Chum is now available on Digital.
Alice Eve (Haunting of Queen Mary) stars in shark attack movie alongside Eric Michael Cole, Jim Klock, Elle Haymond, Lisa Yaro, Johnny Gaffney, and Sarah Siadat.
This one sounds very similar to last year’s Dangerous Animals…
Here’s the plot: “A newlywed couple joins friends on a Mediterranean yacht excursion, only to find themselves caught between a predatory shark and a psychopathic killer in their midst-transforming a sun-drenched escape into a fight for survival.”
Jonathan Zuck directs Chum, from a script by Jonathan Zuck and Joe Leone.
Samara Weaving (Ready or Not 2: Here I Come) and Kyle Gallner (Strange Darling) come together in Carolina Caroline, a sexy crime thriller now playing in theaters.
It’s not a horror movie, mind you, but it’s worth a mention here all the same.
Kyra Sedgwick (Family Movie) and Jon Gries also star in the romantic crime thriller.
Director Adam Carter Rehmeier’s film stars Samara Weaving as Caroline Daniels, whose desire to leave her small Texas town brings her into the orbit of a charismatic con man (Kyle Gallner), and together they weave a path of crime and passion across the American Southeast.
Adam Rehmeier previously directed the films Dinner in America and Snack Shack.
Tom Dean wrote the screenplay for Carolina Caroline.
Similar to Steven Spielberg’s upcoming big screen blockbuster Disclosure Day, Signal One explores humankind’s enduring question: what if we aren’t alone in the universe?
The sci-fi thriller is now available on Digital.
Isabelle Fuhrman (Orphan), Josh Hutcherson (Five Nights at Freddy’s), David Thewlis (Harry Potter), Raoul Bhaneja (Possessor), Emma Ho (“The Expanse”), and Dennis Quaid (The Substance) star in Signal One from director Jonathan Sobol (The Art of the Steal).
When tech billionaire Sam Houston (Quaid) hires the brilliant computer scientist Annika (Fuhrman), she ventures to an isolated facility run by the brilliant, nihilistic creator of LITTLEMOUTH, a machine which can communicate with alien intelligence.
Annika soon learns some humanity-altering facts: that we are not alone in the universe, that alien intelligences are communicating around us at every moment, and that we are likely too primitive to even remotely understand what they are trying to tell us.
When the goal of the endeavor shifts from listening to talking back, the project rapidly devolves into chaos. With contact comes consequences, and soon Annika and the team must work to ensure the very survival of our species.
A schoolyard dare becomes an urban legend in the creepypasta-inspired horror anthology The Summoning. The indie film is now available on Digital from Brainstorm Media.
“A babysitting gig becomes a nightmare of urban legend when three teens summon Baby Blue. Survival depends on uncovering the past to escape a mother’s wrath from beyond the grave.”
Felipe Vargas (Rosario, Hive), Sergio Gonzalez, Brandon Piskorik, Corey Benson Powers, and Brian Sepanzyk direct the segments. Valeria San Martín, Justina Ceballos, Daniela Flombaum, Nannu Spannauss, Agustín Olcese, and Giovanni Onetti star.
The Summoning is written by Camilo Zaffora.
Happy Death Day actress Jessica Rothe stars as a mom struggling to keep her grip on her sanity and memory in the mind-bending Affection, now available on Digital at home.
In Affection, “Afflicted by a mysterious condition that resets her memory, Ellie becomes trapped in a cyclical nightmare with a man who claims to be her husband. She soon must uncover the horrifying truth of her existence—before she forgets it all again.“
Joseph Cross (“Big Little Lies”) and Julianna Layne (“Chicago P.D.”) also star in the sci-fi horror thriller. Affection marks the feature debut by writer/director BT Meza.
Daniel Kurland wrote in his review out of the film’s premiere, “Affection is steeped in existential questions and fears that plague modern society, while it embraces the ethos of the ’80s through bold body horror. Add to that Rothe’s revelatory performance, and Affection is a hidden gem that will connect with your mind, body, and soul.”
Lucile Hadžihalilović’s latest dark fairy tale, The Ice Tower, loosely reimagines Hans Christian Andersen’s fable “The Snow Queen,” and it’s now streaming on Shudder.
In the ’70s set film, “Jeanne, a 15-year-old orphan, witnesses the shoot of a film adaptation of the fairy tale The Snow Queen, and she becomes fascinated by its star Cristina (Marion Cotillard), an actress who is just as mysterious and alluring as the Queen she is playing.“
Clara Pacini stars as Jeanne. August Diehl and Marine Gesbert also star in The Ice Tower, and look for a cameo from director Gaspar Noé (Climax, Irréversible).
“For me, The Ice Tower solidified Lucile Hadžihalilović’s place amongst the most fascinating creators of fairy tales today,” said distributor Yellow Veil Pictures co-founder Joe Yanick.
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