Critic Reviews
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Simon Foster, Screen-Space
Deliberately OTT in its gory dispatches and crassly xenophobic enough to rile the intelligentsia, Kemp's riff of 'Texas Chainsaw'-style claustrophobic terror is neither as bad as some would have you believe nor as shocking as it makes itself out to be.
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Anton Bitel, Little White Lies
by replacing Tobe Hooper's bubba with a whole lot of blubber, Júlíus Kemp's Harpoon: The Reykjavik Whale Watching Massacre reinvents the southern gothic as a bloody Nordic seafaring saga.
Featured Audience Ratings
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So-so slasher based in Iceland about a group of Whale-watching tourists who bump into a family of murderous former whalers. Films of this type have been done before but the change of scenery was nice, unfortunately I don't think the film made the most of it's unique… More
So-so slasher based in Iceland about a group of Whale-watching tourists who bump into a family of murderous former whalers. Films of this type have been done before but the change of scenery was nice, unfortunately I don't think the film made the most of it's unique environment. The cast of characters are an interesting mix but aside from providing a couple of laughs they are mostly stupid, annoying and unlikable... some dodgy acting going on by most of them too. It has some gore but nothing too special. Overall it ends up fairly average. The attempts at humour didn't work, it should have been played straight.
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Not as special as I hoped, the location helps get you through some of the unoriginality of it.
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Great title but that all is good about this movie.Its full of dull people and hillbillies type people on a boat really dont work.The plus side there are some descent killings and enough gore for fans but its the over all quality just sinks.
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Great name\story, bad movie.
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It has the suspense, and the gory fun ride but this movie has the most stupid or rather annoying characters that just sits there and die. This could have been great, really and I truly loved the conclusion because the survivor is the only one who deserves to live because the other… More
It has the suspense, and the gory fun ride but this movie has the most stupid or rather annoying characters that just sits there and die. This could have been great, really and I truly loved the conclusion because the survivor is the only one who deserves to live because the other characters are just bad.
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This movie actually isn't too bad -- but that may in part be the fact I went into it expecting a poorly dubbed horribly campy B-movie.
It's not poorly dubbed.. while the vast majority of the time if a movie isn't filmed in English I prefer subtitles, this is one of the… More
This movie actually isn't too bad -- but that may in part be the fact I went into it expecting a poorly dubbed horribly campy B-movie.
It's not poorly dubbed.. while the vast majority of the time if a movie isn't filmed in English I prefer subtitles, this is one of the rare exceptions where it's more than tolerable and that helped me get over a pretty meh beginning and character introductions.
Once everyone is on the boat, the next 45 minutes or so probably would have earned 4 stars from me as a solid out of the blue fun, somewhat original, horror flick. It's a foreign indie Wrong Turn meets Ghost Ship on a much lighter budget.
While none of the characters were really endearing, I didn't find myself wishing away anyone in particular, the acting was about on par and no one was unbearable to watch which can be common in this type of movie. It had its share of suspense, some good twists, and mostly respectable gore and effects. It was well paced, and the production value wasn't bad at all.
The movie had it's share of flaws though. While the characters were tolerable, they were boring and some completely underdeveloped and didn't make sense. The few times they put you in a position to become emotionally attached and care about one of the handful of people, they either bailed too early and didn't finish the connection, or ended up with an out of left field personality flop for that character that ruined it later.
There were two occasions where the gore was unnecessarily campy for effect. The atmosphere of the movie was good, they could have done without that and cut away from the gore rather than trying to force it.
The last 20 minutes of the movie are basically what ruined it for me, and why it's average at best. Too many movies in hopes of a great climax feel they need to go to the extreme and end up ridiculous, and this was one of them. They'd have been better off attempting less of a frantic climax, and kept with what was working and left it more low key.
Not bad.. I'd not recommend it to most though. There are definitely better foreign indies out there if that's what you're looking for.. like The Children and Let the Right One In.
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"Reykjavik Whale Watching Massacre (R.W.W.M.)" is a decent film to anyone that is a fan of slasher films, and most other horror films as well. There are some interesting death scenes with pretty good gore. The acting is overall decent. The setting is used very well to the… More
"Reykjavik Whale Watching Massacre (R.W.W.M.)" is a decent film to anyone that is a fan of slasher films, and most other horror films as well. There are some interesting death scenes with pretty good gore. The acting is overall decent. The setting is used very well to the film's advantage.
Worth a check!
Read all 7 featured audience ratings
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