Blood red sky (Blood red sky) is presented as an action-horror film, although in essence it is a drama that explores the relationship between a mother and her child from a fantastic perspective. The tenderness of the relationship between Nadja (Peri Baumeister) and Elias (Carl Anton Koch) brings one of Netflix’s most recent productions on track, generating a sensation of emotions as different as well achieved.
From that point of view, his success on the platform of streaming. Blood red sky can entertain and move in high doses. As it does so, it generates expressions of disgust, fear and expectation in the observer. Then it is understood that the film is effective. Beyond some conveniences, the pact with the viewer is sustained because the story is stable and, within its fantastic universe, it is coherent.
Netflix and Peter thorwarth, Director of Blood red sky, they met to grow mutually. Thorwarth, recognized for Wave (Dennis Gansel, 2008), Bang boom bang (1999) and Wir sind die Welle (2019), has its first major production on a global scale. For its part, Netflix generated a story with franchise potential. Win-win.
Blood red sky: survival and the antihero
Nadja and Elias must travel at night for the mother’s safety. His flight matches the terrorist aspirations of Berg (Dominic Purcell), Roland Møller (Karl) and Eightball (Alexander Scheer). What appeared to be one more trip on an airline’s calendar turns into a plane with enough potential to alter global geopolitics.
Nadja’s abilities, acquired by some accident and hidden in order to survive and raise her child, are suddenly not only useful but, more importantly, necessary: she is the only alternative to the threat. The triumph of Peter Thorwarth and Stefan Holtz, the screenwriters, lies in the exploitation of the human condition in this scenario: what do we do when what can save us also inspires fear?
That question leads to the following, according to the Netflix account: how do you manage that fear when you are in flight thousands of feet above the ground and there is no other way out than from the seat to the aisle? Blood red sky It transforms that sort of passage into a jungle that at times evokes movies about zombies, holding the attention of the observer without departing from the tradition of films developed in the air. In these circumstances not even the boy, Elias, turns out to be entirely good. The mixture strengthens the story.
The value of a good villain
There are sections of Blood red sky that evoke the best of Underworld (Len Wiseman, 2003), with sequences that play between terror and action. There are no castles or extensive landscapes here, but the plane depot can also seem like a butcher shop. This progressive transformation of the narrative towards a violent and horrifying tone finds in Eightball the villain that every good story should have.
Although their reasons are not explored so much, the why of their way of being, Eightball and its bloody calling are compelling and intimidating. Enough to generate contempt and involve, again, the viewer in the story: no one wants to be close to such a person. its performance does not reach the sadism of other productions, much more explicit as Saw (2004), but it offers shocking sequences.
Blood red sky It triumphs by offering those who observe the possibility of empathizing and positioning themselves in different situations. The breadth of its themes, from terrorism to vampires, with the participation of special forces in between, make the two hours go by without being noticed. It is a step forward from Peter Thorwarth, Peri Baumeister, and Alexander Scheer.