Blood Red Sky

Blood Red Sky
Official release poster
Directed by	Peter Thorwarth
Written by	Peter Thorwarth Stefan Holtz
Produced by	Christian Becker Benjamin Munz
Starring	Roland Møller Peri Baumeister Alexander Scheer Dominic Purcell
Cinematography	Yoshi Heimrath
Music by	Dascha Dauenhauer
Production company	Rat Pack Filmproduktion
Distributed by	Netflix
Release date	23 July 2021 (2021-07-23)
Running time	121 minutes
Countries	United Kingdom Germany
Languages	English German
Budget	$17.7 million[1]

Blood Red Sky (also known as Transatlantic 473) is a 2021 action horror film directed by Peter Thorwarth, who co-wrote the screenplay with Stefan Holtz.^[2] The film stars Roland Møller, Peri Baumeister, Chidi Ajufo and Alexander Scheer.^[3] It was released on 23 July 2021 by Netflix.

Plot[]

A plane is airborne and headed for a landing based on a hijacking. Someone has control of the plane and lands it successfully. A man claims he is injured but suspected of being a hijacker.

A woman then is seen talking to a child who was a passenger.

A German widow, Nadja, and her son Elias prepare to board a plane to New York; Nadja, who appears to suffer from leukemia, is set to visit a doctor who can provide her with the treatment she needs to restore her health. At the airport, Elias befriends a man named Farid, while his mother takes medicine that causes her severe discomfort.

As the passengers settle down for the evening, a group of men, including the co-pilot Bastian, discreetly murder the three air marshals on the plane and sabotage the black box, preventing the plane from being tracked on radar. Their leader, Berg, then makes an announcement to the passengers that he and his men are now in control of the plane and expect everyone to stay put until a ransom is paid. Elias tries to hide, and Nadja follows him. A sociopathic hijacker named Eightball sees them and shoots Nadja several times. Assuming she's dead, the hijackers begin the second stage of their plan, forcing Farid to record a statement that makes it appear the plane has been seized by terrorists for a suicide attack, knowing it will then be shot down.

As Nadja slowly regains consciousness, she begins to relive the day her husband, Nikolai, was killed. He had gone to a local farmhouse for help when their car broke down during a family trip but failed to return. When Nadja went looking for him, she was attacked by his murderer, a vampire who managed to bite Nadja before being burned to death by the sunrise. Nadja soon turned into a vampire, and went back to the farmhouse looking for answers. She ran into an elderly vampire who tried to shoot her to stop further spread of vampirism, but she overpowered and beat him to death before escaping with vials of vampire suppressant and burning the farmhouse to the ground.

Nadja manages to access the cargo hold, and removes the contacts and dentures that conceal her mutated eyes and fangs before killing and feeding on a dog. A hijacker catches her in the act and she kills him and drinks his blood, which fully transforms her into a vampire. She finds Farid and they manage to regain control of the plane just as the hijackers are about to parachute out. Berg tries to take back control of the cockpit before Nadja surprises and bites him. She then stabs him with a knife before he can fully transform.

The hijackers, realizing what they're dealing with, task Eightball with killing Nadja. He subdues her with UV light before extracting some of her blood, but just as he is about to stake her, Elias confronts him with Berg's gun and accidentally shoots out a window and depressurizes the plane. The hijackers take back the cockpit and restore the pressure. Eightball flees into the cargo hold and injects himself with Nadja's blood; she tries to set him on fire but fails to fully destroy him. Soon enough, the other hijackers, with the exception of Bastian, are ambushed and killed by a vampiric Eightball, while the rest of the passengers arm themselves. Nadja convinces them that she wants to help, and they manage to lock Eightball in the hold and secure the plane.

Bastian informs Nadja that the plane doesn't have enough fuel to reach New York, and that they must land soon or crash. A selfish passenger dying from an injury releases Eightball in the hopes of being bitten; instead, he kills him and proceeds to turn most of the other passengers into vampires. Nadja, knowing that they will escape if the plane lands, decides to sacrifice herself by using the hijackers' explosives to kill them. Elias stops her and goes himself, but only manages to grab the detonator before being surrounded by vampires. Nadja makes Farid promise to look after him before killing and feeding on Bastian. She tries to save her son but is attacked and drained of her blood by Eightball. Just as he goes for Elias, Farid steers the plane into the path of the morning sun, causing Eightball to burn and fall to his death.

Elias uses his blood to save Nadja's life, but she rejects him and flees, knowing that her taste for his blood puts him in danger. The plane lands at an RAF base in Scotland, but the authorities ignore Elias and Farid's pleas and board the plane looking for survivors, resulting in a massacre. They mistake Elias' pleas as trauma, so an ambulance is sent to transport him to a hospital. But before embarking he demands for his teddy bear to be given back, and he becomes reunited with it. As a medic prepares to inject him with sleep sedative, Elias escapes from the ambulance and runs back to the plane. He sees his mother get out of the plane and feed on a soldier, but when he calls her she only returns a hunger roar, then heads toward him with the intention of devouring him. Realizing that his mother is gone and all that is left of her is a hungry beast, Elias activates the detonator he hid in his teddy bear, killing her and the other vampires. Farid is released from custody and hugs Elias as the camera slowly pulls away.

Cast[]

• Carl Anton Koch^[4] as Elias
• Peri Baumeister^[4] as Nadja
• Kais Setti^[5] as Farid al Adwa, a physicist and passenger.
• Nader Ben-Abdallah as Mohammed, an astrophysics student and passenger.
• David Hürten as Marvin, a former German Islamic convert to ISIS.
• Kai Ivo Baulitz^[4] as Bastian Buchner, the co-pilot and member of the terrorists.
• Graham McTavish^[4] as Colonel Alan Drummond, British Army
• , as Sergeant Karen Brown, British Army
• Roland Møller^[4] as Karl, a Danish member of the terrorists.
• Dominic Purcell^[4] as Berg, the American leader of the terrorists.
• as Jurij, Czech explosives expert and member of the terrorists.
• Alexander Scheer^[4] as Robert/Eightball, a psychotic German member of the terrorists.
• Chidi Ajufo^[4] as Curtiz, an American member of the terrorists.
• as Michael, a Bundespolizei air marshal.
• as Holger, a Bundespolizei air marshal.
• Jacqueline Macaulay as Naomi, a German interpreter at RAF Drybridge.

Production[]

On 11 September 2020, it was announced that filming in Prague^[6] for the film, then known as Transatlantic 473, was temporarily closed after an extra tested positive for COVID-19.^[7]

Release[]

Blood Red Sky was released on 23 July 2021 by Netflix. It is one of the 71 original films that Netflix would release in 2021, being part of a strategy that intends to release at least one new film every week.^[8]

Critical response[]

On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 81% based on 26 reviews, with an average rating of 6.6/10. The website's critics consensus reads, "Blood Red Sky makes the most of its high-concept vampire story, delivering a fast-paced treat for genre enthusiasts."^[9] On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 43 out of 100, based on six critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".^[10]

Audience viewership[]

Netflix reported the film was watched by 50 million members over its first four weeks of release, making it the most successful German original title to date.^[11]

References[]

External links[]

• Blood Red Sky on Netflix
• Blood Red Sky at IMDb