Blood Red Sky (2021)

A simple premise with high octane execution. There’s great setup and build towards an excellent reveal, that’s played coy but splashed over every bit of the marketing. There’s terrorists, there’s vampires, and they’re all on a plane which turns out to be far more awesome than ridiculous. Once we’re past the vampire reveal, the film becomes a fairly tense action film with copious amounts of blood spatter and well handled moments of horror. The horror elements are myriad, from the vampire hunting its prey, to an ongoing body horror, to motherhood fears, down to flight-specific terrors. The movie does a decent job of filling in background and characterization, but mostly in the form of flashbacks that often derail the momentum. There are hints that the film is attempting to make broader statements about the human condition, prejudices, motherhood, etc but there’s no real meat to any of it. What is good is the first two thirds, beyond the reveal and watching the tables turned upon the terrorists, who demonstrate a surprising amount of wit, resources, and genre savviness. What is not good first and foremost, and maybe unfortunate ADR combined with poor writing, is the child in this film. He’s annoying beyond the point of nauseum at the onset and this only increases as the film proceeds. Unfortunately what starts as a fairly tense scenario and script gets bogged down in contrivances and severe lapses in intelligence and plausibility. However, for those thrilled to see the vampire returned to its rightful status as monstrous, this movie is a fun romp that entertains throughout its runtime.

C+