When Netflix dropped the trailer for their newest horror thriller Blood Red Sky, genre fans were justifiably excited by the prospect of “Vamps on a Plane.” I’m not a big fan of reviewing a film by comparing it to other films, but with so much going on in Blood Red Sky, it’s hard not to describe it as a mash-up of Die Hard and 30 Days of Night with touches of The Thing and, yes, Snakes on a Plane. However, proving why I hate doing those comparisons, that description doesn’t really do justice to Blood Red Sky. It may draw from obvious influences, but it is its own movie, standing alone as a suspenseful, moving, and surprising film from start to finish.
Blood Red Sky, written by Stefan Holtz and Peter Thorwarth (who also directed), opens on a tense scene that adds a layer of sickening dread to the entire rest of the film. A commercial jet makes an emergency landing at a Scottish military base. A little boy scampers off the plane as soon as it lands, but the military personnel keep everyone else onboard. The man in the cockpit, Farid (Kais Setti), tells Colonel Drummond (Graham McTavish) that he needs to get off the plane safely and then blow it up. After this puzzling pronouncement, the little boy, Elias (Carl Anton Koch), is interviewed to try to determine what really happened on the flight. He’s not talking, though, and the viewer is left to piece together the supposed terrorist attack that the military is trying to prevent.
As Elias gazes off in shock during his interview, the film picks up the narrative from the moment when he and his mother, Nadja (Peri Baumeister), first arrive at the airport in Germany. They are flying to New York to meet a doctor who can cure what Elias calls Nadja’s “bad blood.” Even if you managed to avoid the fang-heavy trailer, it becomes clear very early on that Nadja’s illness is vampirism: she stays indoors until the sun goes down and drinks blood as medicine. She is desperate to get to New York to find a cure for her condition, and she works hard to keep her vampiric urges under control…until a group of hijackers take over the plane.
From here, Blood Red Sky turns into a work of action horror that keeps the viewers on their toes and weaves in previously established character work in satisfying ways. One of the most intriguing aspects of the film is how it combines familiar elements from different types of genre fare into something cohesive and compelling. The villainous crew with a terrifying loose cannon from action thrillers meets the tragically sympathetic monster from classic horror. The film threads the needle effectively, providing edge-of-your-seat moments of suspense, bloody scenes of horror, and even a few brief moments of wry comic relief. Still, this is a serious-minded film with more on its mind than simply telling a nail-biting story about vampires on an airplane. It also examines capitalism’s susceptibility to fear-based manipulation, the injustice of Islamophobia, and the ways that humans fail each other when survival is on the line.
The cast is strong, conveying both the pathos of their terrifying situation and the horror of it. Alexander Scheer in particular stands out with his magnetic and unpredictable presence as Eightball, and Baumeister does an excellent job of portraying a desperate, protective mother even when she’s working underneath prosthetics and contact lenses. Speaking of the effects: the creature design, body movement, and sound design for the vampires are viscerally frightening and feature a few inventive flourishes, even if they do owe a large debt to movies like 30 Days of Night. The pulsing score with its occasionally mournful strings adds to the tension and the heartbreak of the film, and there are some lovely shot compositions, especially in early moments when Elias watches the sun go down at the airport and Nadja luxuriates in the bathroom after drinking some blood to get her through the long flight.
Action horror is an exciting genre mash-up that, when done well, amplifies the adrenaline rushes of both types of films into something special. Blood Red Sky is a worthy addition to this hybrid genre. It’s far more interesting than just “Vamps on a Plane,” and it delivers on that irresistible logline with a combination of riveting action and horror along with an affecting examination of love, duty, and family.
