12 Hidden Sci-Fi Movies You've Probably Never Seen
10. Harbinger Down
2016’s The Void may not have been perfect, but the Lovecraftian
hospital horror juggled enough elements from the writer’s most famous works (murderous
cults, reanimated monsters, interdimensional antics from elder beings) to
qualify for cult horror status and is beloved among horror nerds the world over
for reviving the dying art of practical prosthetic effects.
However a year before The Void appeared, another horror thriller surfaced with an equally ambitious goal of reigniting the once-omnipresent spectacle of gruesome practical effects work. This flick, entitled Harbinger Down, had a more sci-fi bent than its supernatural cousin, following a set of students besieged by all manner of nastiness on a trawler when they accidentally uncover a frozen alien carcass.
If the set-up sounds somewhat familiar, it may be because the film came into existence when a practical effects house were hired to work on 2011’s reboot of The Thing, only to have their work junked in favour of depthless CGI. This prompted the creators to film Harbinger Down as a showcase for their work, and boy does this high concept love letter to the gory glory days of eighties sci-fi horror deliver in that regard.