Movie Spotlight - BLOOD GLACIER

I love it when I come across a hidden gem of a movie that I don't know anything about. Blood Glacier is a perfect example of this type of discovery. A German film that is also known as "The Station," the general storyline is that there is a climate observation station up in an extremely isolated area in the Alps, where scientists are studying the melting of the glaciers and its effects on the environment. They discover a glacier with red liquid running through it and the scientists are baffled as to what is going on. What they begin to piece together is that as the ice is melting, the red liquid, or glacier blood, spreads throughout the environment. As animals drink water from the melted ice, it causes mutations to occur, some of them innocuous, others not so much. A fox that drank some of the water begins growing a mutated version of insects it had ingested, that eventually pop out of its stomach in true Alien type fashion. Soon, our intrepid band of scientists find themselves battling all sorts of strange creatures, including a giant demonic looking mountain goat.
I watched the dubbed version of this rather than the subtitled one, and of course at times that can lead to unusual dialog as they try to match up the words with the movements of the mouth. It was fairly well done and was not distracting to me whatsoever. Something that I rather like about this movie is the fact that the group of scientists actually look like regular people. Let's face it, it this were an American film every one of the cast members would be about 25 years old and look like a model for Tommy Hilfiger. Blood Glacier features a much more realistic looking cast. The main character, named Janek, is a 40 something year old, short, mostly bald dude. The rest of the cast is similar, including a short 60 year old lady as the Environmental Minister that is visiting the station. She actually has one of the best lines I have heard in a movie in a long time. An absolute classic. As the group is holed up inside the station, trying to figure out a way to ward off the attacks of the mutated creatures, there is a character that is very upset and is attempting to eat. She is struggling to peel a piece of fruit and the Minister lady swoops over to her and screams in her face, "Stop eating that banana while you're crying!" It is a line that just came out of nowhere and is incredibly ridiculous and perfect.
Blood Glacier had definite similarities to "John Carpenter's The Thing" but is different enough to not be  a rip off of that classic. Cinematography is well done, the movie is well made, well acted, and worth a watch. If you are interested in horror/science fiction hybrids that creep along at their own pace then hit you with giant mutated animals trying to kill everybody, Blood Glacier just might be for you. It's available on Netflix streaming. Check it out.