Blood Red Sky has an interesting concept: it’s Snakes on a Plane but instead of snakes, we have a woman on a plane, desperately fighting to retain her own humanity against the ever increasing ‘virus’ of feral vampirism coursing through her veins in the midst of a terrorist hijacking attempt. It’s a Die Hard or Air Force One but instead of John McClane or Harrison Ford’s Action-President we have a woman on a plane, desperately fighting to– well, you get my drift.
The woman in question is Nadja (The Last Kingdom’s Peri Baumeister), mother to a young son, Elias (Carl Anton Koch). Through flashbacks, we find out why she’s battling vampirism, and her early attempts at hiding and combating the disease. Nadja is flying to New York (on a flight that buys her five extra hours of night time– perfect when you’re avoiding sunlight) with her son to visit a doctor who can treat her affliction. She uses drug injections to keep her vampirism at bay whilst, to the world at large, appearing as if suffering from leukemia. All is going well until after take off and a group of terrorists, led by Dominic Purcell’s Berg, himself no stranger to vampires after his role in Blade: Trinity, take over the plane. It’s all downhill for, well, almost everyone from that point onward.
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Blood Red Sky was made by German production company Rat Pack Filmproduktion, distributed by Netflix, directed by Peter Thorwarth and written by Thorwarth and Stefan Holtz. Baumeister is excellent as the tortured Nadja and Alexander Scheer is far too convincing without going too over-the-top as the twisted terrorist Eightball. The Hobbit, Preacher, and Duck Tales star Graham McTavish also makes an appearance as the Colonel, brought in to deal with the terrorists, and fellow passenger Farid, who meets Nadja before the flight and is sympathetic towards her and her son, is well played by Kais Setti.
The vampires are nicely realised, in visuals as well as character. As mentioned above, in this universe they’re very much of the “feral animal” type that loses all remnant of any humanity once fully turned, though there are ways of suppressing that nature. They turn quickly here, and they do not hold back for anything.
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It’s an interesting take on an action/horror film that sits well beside 30 Days of Night, for example, and at a push, it could even be a shared universe. Beneath the surface, it’s a tale of the strength of the relationship between a parent and their child and the sacrifices a parent will make. It’s also an example of the weakness of the human condition. While vampires are a major antagonist here, they wouldn’t be in that position if not for the mistakes and greed of humans. It’s like we want to be wiped out by vampires or something!
Despite some pacing issues, where the flow of the action on the plane is sometimes broken up by the flashbacks, Blood Red Sky was a nice surprise, given I’d managed to miss any hype in the build up to it’s release. Well worth checking out, even if a vampire flick isn’t normally your thing!
Blood Red Sky is available now on Netflix.
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