BLOOD GLACIER - DVD Review By Greg Klymkiw - Don't forget to wear your adult diapers while watching this!!!!!

Blood Glacier (2013)
Dir. Marvin Kren
Starring: Madita (AKA Edita Malovčić), Hille Beseler, Gerhard Liebmann, Wolfgang Pampel, Brigitte Kren, Peter Knaack, Michael Fuith, Murathan Muslu, Adina Vetter, Coco Huemer, Felix Römer, Santos as Tinnie the dog

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Ladies and gentleman, in honour of Marvin Kren's utterly insane alpine thriller Blood Glacier, please join me now in raising - not our right hands, but, our heads, hearts and voices to the heavens to sing the following ditty to the tune of the stirring German National Anthem:

Deutschland, Deutschland über alles,
thank you for this very fine film,
we will worship all you have to offer,
even when it inspires incontinence,
we will spew forth,
from our sphincters,
whilst you do scare the living shit from us…"

Good creature features need BABES! Luckily, as this is German, it has a fair share.

I believe, quite strenuously, that Raven Banner and Anchor Bay, the respective visionary international sales agents and distributors of genre films, both need to score a promotional tie-in with the Kimberly-Clark Company to provide free Depend® products so that audiences will not soil themselves whilst viewing such bowel-and-urinary-movement-inspiring scary movies not unlike the new mutants-in-the-Alps horror shocker Blood Glacier, courtesy of some (no doubt) crazed, yodelling, lederhosen-adorned German filmmakers. This is one fun ride and it's infused with more than enough elements to inspire unfortunate accidents of the voluminously expulsive kind.

Poor Tinnie, So Cute, So utterly DOOMED!

A group of persnickety scientists studying the effects of climate change upon the glaciers of the Alps and Janek (Gerhard Liebmann), their slovenly, drunken jack-of-all-trades-technical-dude encounter difficulties with their communications satellite dish. Upon investigating the mystery they discover a huge glacier that looks like it's covered in frozen blood. Samples are taken, the satellite is repaired and - uh, oh - Janek's sweet, loyal and super-cute dog Tinnie is bitten by something in a cave. Getting back to the base station, Janek puts Tinnie under some covers, assuming his canine pal might have been bitten by a rabid fox. We in the audience know differently though, since we've seen many movies like this before. Even Janek suspects otherwise when the ice sample is discovered to be a mysterious entity that creates mutations.

The scientists express grave concern, not over a rabid fox or even other animals outside that have more than likely been infected by this mysterious entity. Rather, they're worried that a visiting delegation might decide not to come the next day if there's any hint at all of danger. More scientists, guides and an influential German Minister (a porcine battle-axe hausfrau type) are headed up to inspect the team's progress in order to assess the extension of funding for the environmental research activities at the alpine base station. Janek is appalled these supposedly good men and women of science would dare risk the safety of everyone for funding.

LOVE means never having to say: "Bitte erlauben Sie mir, Ihnen meine Wurst geben."

Well, things go deliciously awry from this point on. Needless to say, the conflict twixt Janek and the others mounts. Best of all, when one does the quick math on the delegation making its way up the mountain and the members of the research station, the movie yields more than enough characters to ensure an excellent body count. Both the monsters and situations are delightfully derivative of both Alien and John Carpenter's The Thing with just enough originality and environmental thematics to keep things fresh. The group dynamics are especially well evoked and as we meet more and more monsters, we're deep into this affair with more than a few dirty shirts.

We even get some perfunctory romance since the chief scientist coming for a visit is Janek's former lover - a babe, naturally.

Director Kren (Berlin Undead) more-than-ably handles the suspense, elicits strong performances from his cast and makes excellent use of the real alpine locations. He also juggles the character dynamics of Benjamin Hessler's decent screenplay (one which offers just the right balance of smarts and entertaining stupidity). The special effects are also a big treat - a total blast of the ingenious low budget variety mixed with a few dabs of cheesiness (nothing too egregious, though). All the picture's technical credits including cinematography, cutting and a cool score all rank above and beyond the call of duty for a semi-by-the-numbers creature feature.

There's nothing more DEADLY than a hausfrau with a DRILL!

For me, as a fan of both horror movies AND the insane Bergfilme genre, best rendered by Dr. Arnold Fanck and starring Hitler's and Goebbels' favourite Aryan minx Leni Riefenstahl, Blood Glacier rendered me happily apoplectic. Kren's picture has more than its fair share of psycho touches to please any devoted, kitsch-seeking Teutophile. One of the film's most pleasurable moments involves the aforementioned porky hausfrau and her stunningly deft ability to wield a deadly and humungous drill. Most of all, the movie features what I believe to be a cinematic first - a vicious mutant Ibex. An IBEX, people! What in the bloody hell are you doing at home? Get out and see Blood Glacier. How often in your life will you experience an out-of-control Ibex in the German Alps?

Yeah, I thought so.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: *** Three-Stars

BLOOD GLACIER, a Raven Banner presentation of an Anchor Bay Entertainment Canada and Anchor Bay Films DVD on Aug. 19, 2014 with a fine new transfer. Sadly, the only extra feature is the original trailer. I'd have given my left testicle for a Marvin Kren commentary track. The movie enjoyed its World Premiere at TIFF's 2013 Midnight Madness. Here's some Amazon links to order Blood Glacier and some other delightful titles.







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