Harbinger Down (also known as Inanimate in the United Kingdom) is a 2015 American independent science-fiction monster horror film written and directed by Alec Gillis and produced by Tom Woodruff Jr., the founders of the special effects company StudioADI, and starring Lance Henriksen.

The film follows a group of graduate students aboard the crabbing trawler Harbinger who are studying the effects of global warming on a pod of Belugas in the Bering Sea.

[3] Director Alec Gillis made the film in response to his special effects being replaced with CGI in The Thing (2011).

In 2015, biology professor Stephen and graduate students Ronelle and Sadie go on an experimental tour to study the effects of global warming on whales.

Sadie's grandfather, Graff, takes them to sea in his fishing trawler Harbinger, crewed by Bowman, Roland, Big G, Dock, Svetlana and Atka.

While Big G distracts Stephen, Sadie inspects the lander and discovers the Soviet cosmonaut died of an unknown infection, taking a skin sample to analyze.

Holding Sadie, Bowman, Big G, Ronelle and Graff at gunpoint, she explains that the tardigrades were part of a Soviet experiment to create radiation-resistant cosmonauts.

"[5] The film's in-story events open on June 25, 1982, a tribute to the release date of John Carpenter's The Thing.

[7] The success of the Kickstarter campaign went on to draw the attention of producer Sultan Saeed Al Darmaki, who provided additional funding for the film through his company Dark Dunes Productions.

The cast includes Lance Henriksen, Giovonnie Samuels, Camille Balsamo, Reid Collums, and Matt Winston.

[12] Joe Leydon of Variety gave the film moderate praise, writing, "Made by and for aficionados of '80s-era sci-fi/horror thrillers, 'Harbinger Down' ranks somewhere between self-consciously cheesy SyFy Channel fare and better-than-average direct-to-video product in terms of production values, performance levels and overall ability to sustain interest while generating suspense.

Theatrical exposure will be fleeting, but this small-budget, high-concept trifle could attract home-screen traffic if favorable word of mouth is sparked by the enthusiasm of genre-friendly websites and bloggers.

"[1] Biologists Mark Blaxter and Arakawa Kazuharu note the film as an example of tardigrades having "rare but entertaining walk-on parts" in science fiction and fantasy.