The film follows a group of grad students aboard the titular fishing trawler Harbinger, who are studying the effects of global warming on a pod of Orcas in the Bering Sea. When the ship';s crew discover a block of ice that is infected with alien bacteria, they are attacked by shapeshifting alien monsters.  It seems that the Russians experimented with tardigrades, tiny resilient animals able to withstand the extremes of space radiation. The creatures survived, but not without mutation. Now the crew is exposed to aggressively mutating organisms. And after being locked in ice for 3 decades, the creatures aren';t about to give up the warmth of human companionship.