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

A different, yet welcome kind of slasher., 25 Mar 2011

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.

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