When I saw “Blood Red Sky” in the “Top 10 in the U.S. Today” category on Netflix, my love for horror films and desire to keep up with the trends, immediately drew me to the movie. Two hours later, and I am disappointed with my click.
Keep reading for my brutally honest review of the movie, but be wary of spoilers.
Setting the stage of Blood Red Sky
Peter Thorwarth’s film takes a “Snakes on a Plane,” concept and turns it into a far too drawn-out action-filled disaster. It had potential, if only it focused on one plot point and took the audience on an adventure past one location.
With that being said, let’s start with the location this movie takes place at. This will be short because the entire movie took place on an airplane. That would make sense for the basis of the film, but so much more could have been done. Maybe more shots in the airport would have been nice.
Talk about low-budget, but that’s probably because they spent so much money on fake blood.
What is the Movie about?
Okay, so now you are probably wondering “What the heck is this movie about?” I’ll give you the rundown.
Nadja (Peri Baumeister) is traveling with her son, Elias (Carl Anton Koch) across the Atlantic. The plot immediately, and honestly far too quickly, switches to the group of terrorists, which have hijacked the plane with the aim to take it down.
At first, the fingers point to passengers on the plane where Thorwarth integrates some anti-Islamic sentiment into the film, but the attempts don’t land well.
Following, we learn that Nadja has a secret, but it doesn’t stay a secret for too long, which leaves for no anticipation. Simply put, she is some sort of vampire creature who now will use her fangs and fighting strength to take down the hijackers. At the same time, she must stop the plane from going towards the sun, which will kill her, especially in this situation where the medicine she takes to manage her condition is running low.
The entire movie seems to come from Elias’ perspective as he witnesses the chaos on the plane while also worrying about his mother who is fighting tooth (literally) and nail to bring the bad guys down.
Eventually, the terrorists realize that this is not a group of average passengers, because of the one standout vampire-esque person. I want to note that it was never clear if she is a vampire, but it’s easy to assume.
The plot gets pretty simple from here. The terrorists manage to kill a few people when Nadja finally realizes she must fight them to protect the rest of the plane. It’s now terrorists vs. vampires.
She runs through the plane, into the pit striking fear in both the terrorists and passengers. She is able to suck the blood out and kill a few hijackers until one takes her down and takes some of her blood. The terrorist injects himself with it and in no time, he will have her Vampire powers.
So, now there are two vampires, and it is only downhill from there. Other passengers begin to fight off the hijackers, who seem to be multiplying as vampires. One after the other, with one bite, the passengers began to become vampires as well until everyone was a vampire.
The only passenger who does not get the powers is little Elias who’s vampire mother is fiercely saving him from the curse that is inflicted on her.
In the end, once everyone is a vampire and the plane lands, Nadja tragically dies from the sunlight and lack of blood in her system. Elias and another noble/loyal passenger are the last ones standing.
The flight crew at the airport has no idea what has become of the passengers, despite Elias’ attempts to inform them. They try to save the rest of the passengers up until the point where they enter the plane and are killed off by all the vampires.
Elias’ magic touch presses a button that sets the plane ablaze and kills all the creatures in the plane. It simply ends with that.
Pretty predictable if you ask me.
What went wrong?
A lot of things.
In my opinion, there were many plot points that could have been dragged out and gone into further detail. It would have added a lot to the movie and built up anticipation rather than just a bunch of fight scenes.
For starters, the mother-son relationship could have gone into depth and added some heart and warmth to the plot. Secondly, the backgrounds of the hijackers and their intent should have been explored more. I had no idea what their names were and honestly their goal with taking the plane down.
Were they targeting a specific area? Was it some sort of plot against another country? What led them to this plane in specific? I literally have no idea.
They should have let the plot build up more. Nadja’s secret was revealed within the first 30-minutes of the movie and after that, I pretty much knew what was going to happen. There were no fun twists and turns that put me on the edge of my seat.
Overall, this movie was a fail. The idea could have gone so much further. It is a disgrace to fantastic movies such as Snakes on a Plane.
Watch it or not?
Personally, I think it is a waste of two hours to watch Blood Red Sky. My first choice of the movie aside from this one was “Joker” starring the great Joaquin Phoenix. However, the crowd I was with insisted on this movie.
Throughout the movie, I could not stop expressing how we should have watched my choice of the movie instead. Some of the scream scenes made it fun, but other than that I was pretty uninterested.
Rate: 4/10
The movie is available on Netflix.
