When I first saw the previews for Netflix’s Blood Red Sky, I dismissed the flick because it reminded me of Snakes on a Plane and I doubted it would hold my interest. Vampires on a transatlantic flight? Not much action there…

Then a writer friend of mine went on Twitter to say that despite his misgivings, he actually enjoyed the film. I’m glad I decided to give it a try – I’ve never seen a vampire movie like it before.

Nadja (Peri Baumeister) is a German widow who seems to have a mysterious illness similar to leukemia. When she hears that an American doctor might be able to help her condition, she books a flight to New York with her young son, Elias (Carl Anton Koch). Nadja relies on injections to control, or suppress, her illness.

Not long after the flight takes off, terrorists, aided by a co-pilot, kill the air marshals and take over the plane. Nadja’s need for her injections leads to a violent confrontation with one of the terrorists, who (and this has long been a cliché) seems to be a loose cannon with no self-control when it comes to his sadistic tendencies. He shoots Nadja and everyone assumes the woman is dead.

The film has many gory moments and what I thought might turn into cheesy action scenes were instead quite entertaining – I did not always predict exactly what would happen next. The story is, at its core, about maternal love and what lengths a mother will go to protect her child.

What Nadja wants most is to go back to being normal and not be a threat to her son. Flashbacks reveal how she ended up widowed and how she became a vampire against her will. In order to save Elias and the other passengers, Nadja must stop taking the injections and let herself transform into the monster she has always resisted becoming.

Even so, humans are the worst villains of all.

I’m giving this film 3.5 out of 5 goblins.