With admittedly sharp visual and commitment to practical effect, Harbinger Down has heavy resemblance to The Thing. It will also be appreciated more for fans of old school sci-fi mystery, but unfortunately the effects are not effective. Often done in shaky motion or poorly lit sequences, the organism is a concept better hidden than shown in plain sight and the script is clearly not capable of delivering "feat what you cannot see" horror theme.

The crew of Harbinger finds a peculiar object near the Bering Sea. After hefty debate they decide to poke what seems to be Soviet satellite, a poorly made decision. Most of the screenplay is marred with needless arguments. The characters argue almost in every turn, from feeble matter and even down to crucial life preservation decision.

These are not the people one would want to be with in high stake situation. Cue the combative professor, finicky brunette protagonist and loud ship crews, then you'll have a story too similar to 2011 The Thing. Just like the creature it grows even more muddled the more it progresses.

Visual keeps a good direction for first half. It's clear, very vibrant and camera angle fits the claustrophobic location. However, it mindlessly turns into the dreaded shaky cam, even with found footage touch. There are a couple of good scenes in the making, but these lose thrill when exposed too many times, hence the shaky cam. The latter half uses blur cinematography and ends up contradicting its crisp build-up.

Despite the effect used, CGI or practical, the movie has to be engaging. Harbinger Down has a few glimpses of terror, but neither its effect nor story has adequate quality to keep the movie afloat.

Well, chances are that if you enjoyed Carpenter's "The Thing" from 1982 or even the 2011 remake, then you will find some enjoyment in the 2015 movie "Harbinger Down" from writer and director Alec Gillis as well.

I will say that I actually enjoyed "Harbinger Down", though this wasn't exactly a diamond in the long line of cinema. Sure, this was enjoyable and watchable, but the movie was just too much akin to "The Thing" actually. And that made the movie suffer a bit.

The concept of "Harbinger Down" definitely is interesting, and the storyline definitely has some good aspects to it. But the overall movie just suffered from having 'borrowed' a bit too much from "The Thing".

One thing that "Harbinger Down" suffered from was having a fairly inadequate character gallery. By that I mean that the characters in the movie just weren't given much time to show any personalities, traits, etc. So if felt like you hardly knew the characters, and that resulted in when people got killed off by the alien organism, then you just shrugged, moved on and waited for the next one in line to be killed.

The storyline felt sort of rushed and lacking something crucial. The threat of the alien parasitic creature just wasn't overwhelming looming. And it seemed rather amazingly easy for the protagonists to overcome the creature.

"Harbinger Down" actually had quite a good ensemble of actors and actresses, with the likes of Lance Henriksen and Matt Winston. The actors and actresses were actually doing fairly good jobs with their characters, despite not really having much to work with from the script.

Visually then "Harbinger Down" was rather nice. There were a great amount of interesting special effects being utilized and used here. And for the majority of the time, then these practical effects were quite good. Just a shame that some of the scenes were obscured by lack of lighting or with some shoddy camera work.

I was going to rate "Harbinger Down" a six out of ten stars, but I am downing - pardon the pun - it to a five out of ten, because it just felt like writer and director Alec Gillis was doing too much of a copy and paste of John Carpenter's classic movie. If you ever thought to yourself 'what if they made a watered down light version of "The Thing", then you have this movie'.

A handful of folks on a crabbing vessel in the middle of the ocean find themselves in considerable jeopardy when a lethal shape-shifting organism gets lose on board the ship.

Writer/director Alec Gillis keeps the familiar, but still enjoyable and engrossing story moving along at a brisk pace, maintains a grimly serious tone throughout, brings a right-on mean'n'lean no-nonsense sensibility to the premise, generates a good deal of tension, and makes nice use of the cramped claustrophobic setting. The always excellent Lance Henriksen anchors the movie with his trademark rock-solid professional presence as gruff skipper Graff. The rest of the cast for the most part also acquit themselves well, with especially praiseworthy contributions from Camille Balsamo as the perky Sadie, Matt Winston as obnoxious pompous jerk Stephen, Winston James Francis as amiable giant Guillaume, Milla Bjorn as the scrappy Svet, and Edwin H. Bravo as the superstitious Atka. The funky old school practical f/x are quite impressive and convincing. Benjamin L. Brown's crisp widescreen cinematography provides a neat polished look. Christopher Drake's spirited shivery score hits the stirring spot. A fun flick.