Harpoon (4/5) – Fantasia 2019 Review

HARPOON is a new horror-comedy that just screened at Fantasia 2019. It’s from Canada and the cast consists of just three people who give stellar performances. This movie is a real gem and you should definitely check it out. Read more in our full Harpoon review here.

Harpoon is a new horror-comedy from Canada and it is awesome! The horror-comedy just screened at the Canadian film festival Fantasia 2019 which is a perfect venue for it.

The movie features just three actors and that’s all it needs. A tight story and funny script is all you need to create a good movie.

Read more in the rest of our Harpoon review below. 

Brett Gelman is the coolest narrator

When Harpoon begins, the first thing you should notice is the narrator. While the actual cast consists of just three actors, we have a fourth and very important actor onboard as the narrator.

This voice of reason and commentary is Brett Gelman who you should know from Stranger Things. In that particular Netflix series, he plays the paranoid conspiracy guy who speaks Russian. 

You might like: Our review of Stranger Things season 3 which has Brett Gelman in a key role >

With Brett Gelman as the narrator, you just know from the first scene, that this movie will be a real treat. And you won’t be wrong. Things escalate damn quickly but it works like a charm.

It’s a speargun not a harpoon

A running joke in this movie is the fact that the weapon in question is actually a speargun and not a harpoon. This weapon will be part of the story from the very beginning. Or rather, first we have to watch a very violent scene which perfectly portrays the vibe of this movie. 

The small cast in Harpoon is made up of Munro Chambers, Emily Tyra and Christopher Gray. All of them are absolutely brilliant!

I’ve been very fond of Munro Chambers since watching him in the brilliant Knuckleball, which was directed by one of the producers on Harpoon. In this movie, Munro Chambers delivers yet another brilliant character portrayal which continues to surprise.

If you’ve watched the TV series version of Stephen King’s The Mist or the Netflix series The Society, then you should recognize Christopher Gray from one of those.

Check out this one: Read our review of The Society season 1 here >

I’ve never been that crazy about Christopher Gray but in this movie, he absolutely wins me over. He is so brilliant and funny and creepy in this movie. He should definitely do more horror-comedies.

Don’t miss out on Harpoon

Rob Grant wrote and directed Harpoon which is hardly his first movie. However, I really hope he’ll continue to both write and direct his own movies since this worked really well. Also, the horror-comedy genre clearly works perfectly for his style.

Whether you’re a fan of horror-comedy or not, Harpoon should be well worth your time. It’s a very interesting story in the “it could happen to you”-style. Well, if you have some very strange friends that have extremely bad tempers.

Harpoon is playing at Fantasia 2019, but make sure you watch it whenever you get the chance.

Details

Director: Rob Grant
Writers: Rob Grant
Stars: Christopher Gray, Munro Chambers, Emily Tyra, Brett Gelman

Plot

Wealthy Richard (Christopher Gray) is prone to fits of violent anger, particularly when he believes his girlfriend Sasha (Emily Tyra) is cheating on him with his best friend Jonah (Munro Chambers) — who’s been having worse luck than even his Biblical namesake. Once they reassure him that his fears are unfounded, Richard invites Sasha and Jonah on an excursion aboard his yacht The Naughty Buoy to make amends. What starts out as a pleasure cruise becomes a fateful trip when festering suspicions and resentments bubble to the surface, and the trio become stranded on the open sea with a dead motor, extremely limited food and water, and one of them grievously injured. Unconsciously violating any number of maritime superstitions, they are soon at the mercy not so much of the elements, but of each other.