This Netflix Horror Puts a Vampiric Spin on a Jodie Foster Thriller

The big picture

• Netflix's hit horror movie
  Blood red sky
  combines vampire lore with elements of Jodie Foster's airplane thriller
  flight plan
  .
• Gloomy, claustrophobic and emotionally rooted,
  Blood red sky
  pits Nadja, a woman infected with vampirism, against criminals who hijack her transatlantic flight.
• Peri Baumeister's compelling performance makes Nadja a selfless and tragic heroine who is determined to protect her son and preserve her humanity.

Snakes on a plane? This is ancient history. 2021 German-British Netflix co-production Blood red sky it houses a ridiculous but unbeatable premise: humans trapped on a transatlantic flight with wild vampires on the loose. To this end, Blood red sky combines elements of Jodie FosterThe 2005 psychological thriller flight plan with the evasive claustrophobia of monsters of Train to Busan. The supernatural horror-action-thriller hybrid definitely had audiences hooked on its debut. Blood red sky it garnered more than 50 million global views in less than a month, making it the streamer's most-watched German program ever (as of 2021). Iron-clad in its appeal, satisfyingly terrifying and surprisingly sad, Blood red sky he does well with that “vampires on a plane” tag line by rejecting satire. At the age of What do we do in the shadows?the film is darker than the conceit might suggest, its strengths lie in its structure, from slow-burn psychological thriller to gruesome bloodbath grounded in a mother's love for his son, the latter obtained through the protagonist. Peri Baumeister's (the last kingdom i The Signal) spectacular performance.

What inspired “Blood Red Sky”?

Peter Thorwarth, Blood red skydirector and co-writer on the side Stefan Holtz, had nurtured the idea for almost 20 years. He told /Film during a 2021 interview that “when I was 13 I wanted to make horror films, but I ended up making comedies, without any intention. […] In fact, it took me a long time to convince people that I could do something else [other than comedies]. It took me 16 years to finance this film.”

Thorwarth modeled the original pitch after it From sunset to dawn, Robert Rodriguez i Quentin Tarantinothe classic of violent camp. The bond between a mother and her child took precedence when Thorwarth fleshed out the story. Elaborating on /Film, he said:

“It started when I was on a night flight, looking out the window at the surface of the clouds, and I began to think that if I were a vampire, I should organize and book red-eye flights. What if this comes. kidnapped , the hijackers would turn the plane into the rising sun, and then I realized I wouldn't be the one with the problem abilities I can use as a superhero. […] My first draft of the script was a little more fun than the story right now. When I got a little older and now I'm a father,
I thought maybe it needed a little more than just a cool tone with a punchline
s.”

Though Thorwarth hasn't cited Jodie Foster's nail-biting thriller flight plan as an influence, the frame of reference allows a precise dissection of Blood red skythe structure of Released in 2005 and directed by Robert SchwentkeFoster plays Kyle Pratt, a new widow escorting her husband's body from Germany to America. Accompanying the grieving Kyle is his 6-year-old daughter, Julia (Marlene Lawston) – or so she hopes. When Julia disappears and a group of hijackers take over the plane, the staff and hijackers enlighten Kyle about his daughter's existence. The emotionally vulnerable mother doubts herself before deducing the kidnappers' plan to use her as a scapegoat for their crimes and discovering that they murdered her husband to start the plan. Kyle, an aviation engineer who designed the plane they're on, fights back with her knowledge, naturally quick instincts, and protective parental fury.

What is Netflix's 'Blood Red Sky' about?

For Blood red sky, the mother in question is the widow Nadja (Peri Baumeister). Flying from Germany to America with his little son Elias (Carl Koch), the loving couple hopes that an exclusive experimental treatment can cure Nadja's illness. His baldness, hidden in public with a wig, suggests cancer. Once the plane is in the air, hijackers disguised as staff hold the passengers hostage. Literally looking for ransom money and planning to frame innocent Muslim passengers, these men have no qualms about killing anyone, as Nadja learns. Ordered to stay seated, she runs after Elias as he tries to hide. Despite her pleading tears, the particularly perverse Eightball (Alexander Scheer) unloads his gun into Nadja's chest as Elias looks on.

The kidnappers leave Nadja for dead in the cellar, not knowing her secret. Nadja's disease is vampirism, a progressive infection she has since a bloodsucker killed her husband and bit Nadja. when Elijah was a child. Nadja wears false teeth and color-changing contacts to hide her sharp fangs and red eyes, respectively, and is injected with pure blood. Untreated, his personality will be subsumed; American specialists are their last hope. Unfortunately, Nadja's fate becomes irreversible after she regains consciousness and drinks the blood of a kidnapper. Does she kill him in defense, but feeds on it because her growing compulsions override her judgment? Or is it worth the consequences that give him the strength to protect Elias? Blood red sky leaves the tragedy intentionally vague.

Either way, if you thought a mama bear was terrifying, wait until you meet a mama bear with vampire powers. Nadja didn't design the plane like Kyle Pratt, but even though she slowly lost the last bits of her humanity, he will stop at nothing to protect his beloved son. When the hesitant woman in a wig turns into a snarling, leaping, artery-shredding Nosferatu, it's hard not to cheer. The vampire is not the threat in this “vampires on a plane” scenario; she is the heroine.

'Blood Red Sky' uses claustrophobia to raise the stakes

Once the film unleashes its delicious twist along with the suspense pot boiling over, Blood red sky accelerates into a sharp, emotional and entertaining action horror. Like Kyle Pratt and Die HardJohn McClane before her, Nadja outsmarts her captors by using her surroundings. An enemy gets locked in a car? He pours alcohol and a lit lighter through a crack in the windshield. Supernatural strength cannot instantly overpower a large armed group, especially in tight quarters. Director of Photography Yoshi Heimrath it emphasizes the natural claustrophobia of an airplane (seats, aisles, cockpit) and this design requires a specific type of struggle. Action techniques favor believable fighting and brute force contests over complex sophistication. Nadja cuts with claws and teeth. Muscular men throw her into the wall panels and kick her in the face. No character plays fair.

Every time Nadja cleverly adapts to her environment, a new disadvantage arises. Nadja and Elias take refuge in the cabin, but the criminals ask her to open the door and quickly execute random hostages as an incentive. With the pilots dead, who lands a massive plane? Once they fix the radio, how do they convince the authorities that there are murderous (and infectious) vampires on board? And once Nadja's vampirism spreads in mass, Blood red sky it becomes a chaotic massacre of terror, raising the stakes and demanding more last-minute strategies. The tension builds with each development, forcing Nadja to choose the “best” horrific option available: a template Die Hard perfected and well used by flight planthe intellectual heroine of taking advantage of her limited resources.

'Blood Red Sky' gives his vampire mother a human heart

However, there is one notable benefit Blood red skythe back pocket, and it's Peri Baumeister. She delivers a beautifully committed creature performance, twisting and snarling like a reptile, while tapping into the raw pain and selfless love of a single mother. By rejecting language, Baumeister makes Nadja real in an unreal world — the requirement of the underlying genre and a colossal undertaking. We don't need to know how Nadja supplies herself and Elias, or where her anti-vampire serum comes from. Blood red sky it's about a tormented woman crying as she tries to pull out her fangs, screaming heartbrokenly at her crying baby and risking everything, including others, for her child's survival. After losing her husband, Nadja is kept alive because of Elias.

Devotion goes both ways. Elias knows about his mother's condition. He keeps his secret; they are almost partners in crime. His determination to keep her safe is only thwarted by being a pre-teen. As Nadja becomes more animal, the only thing that binds her mind is her love for Elias. He does have fun when the WWE vampire assaults happen, though nothing matters without Nadja and Elias' relationship.

Speaking about Baumeister to /Film, Peter Thorwarth stated, “While we were shooting, Peri did everything right on purpose, so I didn't have to direct her very much. Even during the casting process, she did everything right. Then later she would say, 'Wasn't that good enough?', and I said, 'No, Peri, it was perfect.'

This Netflix vampire movie is about love

Nadja might be a one-woman army, but with a difference flight plan, his resistance comes with many costs: death by a thousand cuts, if you will. Although Blood red sky could benefit from a lighter pacing than 121 minutes, the overlapping twists create a mountain and the flashbacks up the emotional stakes. What could otherwise be a raunchy midnight B-movie, this tale of “vampires on a plane” never loses sight of its tragic foundation, which is a tale as old as time: the immeasurable love shared by a mother and her son. This mom only has real fangs.

Blood red sky is available to stream on Netflix.

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