Review of Harbinger Down (2015) by Eric L — 18 Aug 2015

So, I'm a big Studio ADI fan, and naturally, when I learned of this film, I jumped right behind it! Being a huge supporter of practical effects, it's nice to see projects like this that can show how well Practical effects hold up to CGI. Watching this film though, I was rather disappointed. The Dialogue and acting is pretty bad at times, but I can live with that, because that's not really what I loved this project for. While the acting isn't nearly as bad as some of the B movies today, it still has it's moments of unintentional hilariousness from sheer lack in quality.

But lets talk about the elephant in the room, the Practical effects, which, all things considered, and Studio ADI's history included, were incredibly disappointing. Now, I'm not going to say that practical effects on their own can't be awesome, I mean, look at the Alien movies (The first 2 in particular), the Thing, Little Shop of Horrors, the effects are great! So I don't know who got lost in translation for this film, in which a lot of the time, the effects are very cheesy and almost laughable, and not in a good way. I think a standout example of this is when a character is grabbed by this huge tentacle thing and pulled into a pipe. The tentacle itself looks awful approaching the character, like a really bad puppet, and the character being dragged into the pipe is on par with "Nightmare on Elm Street"'s horrible effect at the end with the mom and the door. The rest of the creature moments are along the same line, very lackluster.

A great interview ADI did for the website "Cracked" details to some extent what I think caused this issue. CGI, when appropriate, is great, Practical effects, when appropriate, are great, but sometimes you reach areas where one doesn't quite meet up. ADI talked a lot in that interview about how they feel that neither technique is the answer, and that really good effects come from finding the balance between Practical effects and CGI, this sort of "Mix" of the two that creates dynamic realism. The Alien Queen from "Requiem" is a good example of this, the queen is a mix of CGI and animatronics and puppets, and the end result is astounding. Here though, the effects are missing that last little polish and touch up that CGI can offer, I'm not saying I wish this film was all CG, in fact, I think that would make it worse! I'm saying that, all things considered, Practical effects (and CG) have their limitations, and using a hybrid of the two could have led to much better effects, which, as they stand now in the film, were very lackluster.

I hope to see more Studio ADI in the future, despite this film, I really love the studio and it's work!