WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Netflix’s Blood Red Sky, available now on Netflix.
Netflix's Blood Red Sky paints a horrific picture as a flight, Transatlantic 473, has to stop in Scotland after an attack on board. The officials on the ground think it's a terrorist hijacking, but after recovering a young kid, Elias (Carl Anton Koch), it's revealed his mom, Nadja (Peri Baumeister), is fighting fellow vampires onboard. However, as the creatures wait for the sun to set, it turns out Nadja isn't the biggest monster in the movie -- it's actually the mile-high Joker, Eightball (Alexander Scheer).
Eightball cuts a conniving figure early on, but it's all a ruse because he and his crew are looking to steal the plane and crash it to affect the stock market. And when his plan starts to be put in action, Eightball shows his more twisted side, wanting to inflict violence for the sheer joy of it.
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The villain guts an air marshal early on, repeatedly stabbing him up to the point his allies have to call him off. And the way he savors the kill, basking in the blood with a smile on his face, is truly reminiscent of Heath Ledger's Joker. His demeanor also has bits of Jack Nicholson, Jared Leto and the cartoon/video game version of the character played by Mark Hamill and Troy Baker, making the comparison all the more real.
The way he walks, talks and that eerie smile also makes Eightball feel a lot like the Clown Prince of Crime, and as the film goes on, he starts to worry his fellow criminals, which is a staple of the iconic Batman villain. Sure, they want to get the mission done, but they're not into killing women and kids, something Eightball repeatedly tries to do. He's like a rabid animal, and that dark attitude comes to a head when he shoots Nadja in front of everyone.
And the fact that he goes on to joke about everything makes his actions even more alarming. As his crew points out, this isn't the first time he's become unhinged like that, with his colleagues even admitting he's endangered jobs like this before. And this is the same type of roguish behavior Joker's known to have whenever he teams up with another villain in the DC Universe. He can't be trusted to be part of a crew, to the point where even the Legion of Doom has to reconsider his membership.
And Eightball gets worse later on when he turns from human to monster, knocking Nadja out as her vampiric form emerges and tries to stop the terrorists. He then drains some of her blood via needle and injects himself in the cargo hold, which is reminiscent of when Joker used the Bane Venom in the Arkham video games. Nadja is able to burn him, but he quickly transforms into a rabid beast, going around eating and converting people in a brutal scene. At this point, Eightball loses his persona, but it's hard to forget the despicable person he was before.
To see how Eightball compares to the Clown Prince of Crime, Blood Red Sky is now available on Netflix.