Harpoon: The Reykjavik Whale Watching Massacre [DVD] [2009]

A load of tourists go on whale watching sea trip. There's an accident the captain is injured and they call for help. Help comes in the unlikely form of a family of backsea fisherman or fishbillies as the dvd blurb refers to them. I say unlikely because they don't help.

This has to be one of the best european slasher films I've seen. It has some good gore done with practical effects and a couple of inventive kills but the thing that raises this above other movies like cold prey (which was good) and trackman (which was bad) is the characterisation. Yes, some of the characters may be a little one dimensional but at least they have some character. You have the down trodden Japanese PA who finally has enough. The three middle aged women on the hunt for young men and the French tourist who says just about every French cliche you can imagine. from oohlala to sacre bleur.

Also this movie has some laughs. Some of the dialogue is funny in a very surreal way mainly from the hunchback fishbilly. I enjoyed it alot more than I expected to and i'm sure on further viewing I'll see more things in it to make me laugh and squirm.

Although awkwardly titled, "Harpoon: The Reykjavik Whale Watching Massacre" certainly delivers on its title, being a film which is indeed about visitors to Iceland being murdered while on a whale spotting trip. The film from director Júlíus Kemp is actually the country's first proper exploitation genre release, something which surely marks it as being of interest for horror fans, as does the fact that it was written by Sjón Sigurdsson, a noted Icelandic poet, novelist and lyricist who works regularly with Björk and who collaborated with Lars Von Trier on "Dancer in the Dark". Following a successful run at festivals and having garnered positive word of mouth, the film now arrives on region 2 DVD. Harpoon is about a group of people that take a trip out to sea on an old boat to go whale watching. While at sea one of the passengers, an annoying and drunk French guy, decides he is going to climb the mast of the ship. He does so, and as he makes an attempt to descend the mast at the captain's (Gunnar Hansen of the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre) request, he falls, hitting a sharp object which then penetrates the captain's body killing him. With no captain, the boat's only other crewman is busy in his cabin trying to rape one of the passengers. Upon hearing that the captain is close to death, he leaves the ship in a small boat, abandoning the passengers. A few hours later, the boat returns with someone else behind the wheel. The man tells the passengers that he is there to rescue them, however he can't bring them back to the harbor as a storm is coming. Instead, he brings them back to his boat where his mother and perverted, insane religious freak brother are waiting with sharp implements at the ready. The bloodbath then begins as the family begins to kill and terrorize the passengers one by one. Harpoon does have it's moments but also has a few flaws like in the acting department and it seems like some of the characters weren't really developed that well. However on the plus side, the cinematography from Finnish cinematographer Jean Noel Mustonen is superb, with director Kemp making the most of the bleak seas and grey skies to atmospheric effect. The film's melancholy soundtrack by composer Hilmar Örn Hilmarsson is also impressive, nicely underscoring the action and making for some moody and oddly affecting scenes. On technical terms, the film does generally score highly, and is well directed, with a professional, yet gritty look. Although Kemp does drop the ball during quite a few of the scare scenes, he has the sense to throw in plenty of gore, and the effects themselves are decent enough, if overly computerised at times. Clocking in at just over an hour and twenty minutes, it never outstays its welcome, with a few amusingly unexpected twists in its latter stages. Overall, Harpoon: Whale Watching Massacre is a film that takes a lot of its ideas from other films. It is a fun horror film to watch and it does have its gruesome moments, so I would definitely recommend it as it was an enjoyable and a bit weird and unusual horror flick.

Whilst this film has its moments, to compare it to The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is like comparing a dog turd to an emerald. Sheer sacrilege and an utter cheek.
There are certainly some good gory sequences, but the characters fail to convince. According to the law of lesser slasher movies, the characters also sometimes make stupid and unbelievable decisions which also impairs the impact of the movie.
Similarly scenes are built up, only to be anti-climactically let down leaving you with a bad taste in your mouth.
It may be me being dumb, but what was the ending with the Japanese woman all about? Didn't seem to make much sense to me. I would be grateful for any insight from someone who has taken the time to read this.