Merolliv
I really wanted to like this movie. I feel terribly cynical trashing it, and that's why I'm giving it a middling 5. Actually, I'm giving it a 5 because there were some superb performances.
Hadrina
The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful
Kayden
This is a dark and sometimes deeply uncomfortable drama
peng88
This Icelandic film is a much better movie than the title suggests. In fact the title is a lurid and stupid one. The original title is closer to the truth. (promoted in Iceland as "Tryllir" meaning something between Thriller and Horror) More a Thriller than a straight up slasher film, it is well acted and has the grace to add some truly interesting moments into the mix: a girl suddenly getting on a ship's intercom and singing IT'S SO QUITE when a character dies in a freak accident, a mousy Japanese tour guide becomes Ninja smart, and a black, gay man ascends to be a true action hero. It is also shot well.However, the ending twists are highly confusing, illogical and unsatisfying. You find yourself saying "WTF?" a hell of a lot in the last 20 minutes, where characters suddenly shift motivations with no apparent reason just to satisfy the public's stupid need for stupid twist endings. I do appreciate that most of the bad guys (a racist whaling family) get it worse than their victims and that the violence and gore, while brutal and bloody, is not overly extreme or pandering. (but only in the R-rated version, the uncut version is gorier) To me though, that ending translates to: doesn't matter if you are a good person; brave, strong, sympathetic to other humans, or that you have been through a lot already BEFORE the psycho family decided to hunt you down, you will still most likely die and greedy people who weren't good people will get away alive. It may be life, but it ain't entertainment in the Book of Jaimes.
GL84
While on a whale-watching trip in Iceland, a group of tourists find themselves under attack by a fanatical bunch of whalers protesting the recent whale-hunting ban and must escape before they're all killed.Overall, I wouldn't say it's all that bad, and it definitely has it's good moments, including the initial sweep of the boat where they take over, as it's pretty creative and unexpected, making for a pretty nifty sequence, the gore is definitely good enough when we get to see it as far too often they attack with some object that forces the victim out of the camera's eye-view and then we turn to see the aftermath, at least giving us something but the majority of the time, it's not really much of anything good. Unfortunately, the plot makes very little sense or features way too much filler in a plot not made to be stretched out. Why'd we spend ten minutes in the opening music club when they're not important to the plot, no one we met there is involved in the rest of the film or why we've been wasting that time to start with? Even more puzzling is why they're going out to kill them, as the answer isn't given and overall makes for a very jarring experience overall.Rated R: Graphic Violence, Graphic Language, Nudity and violence-against-animals.
Tender-Flesh
Here in the States, my rental was called Harpoon and not Reykjavik. The film certainly doesn't go for the same old setting in a slasher film. I'm not sure if the rest of the title, Whale Watching Massacre, helps or hinders prospective viewers from picking this up for a boring Tuesday night. Anyway, the story revolves around several people from different countries who board a rusty old bucket for some supposed whale-watching. Things go awry, and one of the crew is killed, which leaves you to wonder exactly how things would have proceeded had he not died, albeit accidentally. After that death, another small craft rescues the passengers and motors them off to another vessel waiting some distance away. Now, it seems like the crew of the second ship are cannibals or something, but we never get down to that because they aren't known for restraint and almost as soon as the passengers all board the Cannibal Cruise Line, one of the villains, who appears to be a rather dim bulb, attacks them. This sends people scattering in all directions, including one guy swimming away(which I'm sort of surprised they all didn't do) only to be harpooned! His body hangs off the side of the ship for the remainder of the film.The harpoon gun kill aside, there is also a hand-held harpoon kill, a "suicide bomber," a flare gun face-shot(reminds me of Dead Calm), a beheading, and a final and hilarious off-screen death that would make Richard Harris very proud(or very ashamed).My biggest complaint about the film is the sound. Those who could speak English either didn't speak it very well or the sound-mixer was drunk. Still, Icelandic horror films are rather rare, and those set aboard whaling ships are rarer still. Could it be setting a precedent for a new genre, similar to the much-loved or much-maligned Nazi Zombie film? Thar she blows.
Coventry
At the moment I'm writing this user comment Iceland is world famous, not so much for unleashing this particular horror movie upon the world, but because an active volcano started to erupt and the subsequent spreading of thick clouds full of damaging ashes makes any type of aviation impossible all over Europe. Perhaps this is another good idea for an Icelandic horror movie after "Reykjavik Whale Watching Massacre"? Spectators of environmental phenomena traveling to Iceland to climb the volcano get brutally killed by local villagers who refused to be evacuated before the eruption and became irreparably damaged maniacs? How about that? I could be rich writing this nonsense instead of joking about it on the internet. Anyway, about the actual movie "Reykjavik Whale Watching Massacre", I regret to announce that I rarely ever witnessed a movie that used to little of its own massive potential. The title is terrific, the setting and scenery are astonishing, the basic concept is ideal horror material and the opportunities to go berserk with gore and bloodshed are immeasurable … And yet, unfortunately, RWWM is a mostly dull and derivative slasher imitation of "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre", with bland villainous characters, suspense-free rampages and uninspired murder sequences. A group of tourists of different nationalities, though including most stereotypes like photographing Japanese people and an obnoxious French guy, go on a whale watching trip in Icelandic waters. The captain (played by THE Gunnar Hansen of the original TCM) dies in a banal accident and the tourists get picked up by a wandering family of whale hunters. They're unemployed and quite frustrated due to the whale hunting prohibition, so they decide to relief some anger by slaughtering tourists. I must admit I was quite disappointed after finishing RWWM. I was truly hoping for a deeply grim, sardonic and raw slasher, but the ambiance was not even half as disturbing as it could (and should) have been. The opening sequences are quite unsettling; with genuine whale hunting archive footage guided by eerie tunes, but the film almost immediately reverts to familiar slasher territory after the credits. The tourist characters are all insufferable beyond belief (although admittedly, people do become selfish bastards in hazardous situations) and the demented whale hunter family members are not the least bit menacing. There's only one kill that is truly worth mentioning (involving a harpoon, duh!) and the climax is a huge letdown. Naturally there are also references towards Iceland's most famous musical export product Björk and her tiresome song "It's oh so quiet". A missed opportunity.
