Pandorum (2009)

Don't fear the end of the world. Fear what happens next.

Two astronauts awaken from a cryogenic sleep to find themselves seemingly alone on what appears to be an abandoned space craft. They struggle to remember who they are, where they are going, and what their mission was. Meanwhile the ship experiences increasingly intense and dangerous power surges. They realize that they are in a race against time to resent the ships reactor. But they are about to discover something even more horrifying... they are not alone.

The two men race against time, and against their mysterious, deadly visitors, meeting friends and enemies along the way. Every turn reveals another terrible piece of the puzzle that ultimately proves their mission to be even more important than their own personal survival.

Pandorum's release may have come at an unfortunate moment. Namely, right between District 9, and Avatar - two great sci-fi films both of which were major successes with lots of advertising and media attention. It's box office intake was dismal and it did not establish a real high level of notoriety.

But these facts don't take away from the real bottom-line as far as the viewer is concerned - that Pandorum is actually a thoroughly watchable movie despite a certain level of campyness. But the movies budget, which was just slightly more than that of District 9, allowed for reasonable special effects and some fairly nasty looking bad guys - even if they do kind of resemble Gollum.

But really what keeps the movie interesting is the big question of what the heck is actually going on inside this ship. The answer doesn't come until near the end of the film and leaves the door open for two planned sequels which, unfortunately, will likely never be made due to the originals poor financial performance.But if they were made they would be worth watching for the same reason that you will keep watching the original from start through to finish; just to see what happens next.

3.5 loopy space men out of 5
Rated R for strong horror violence and language.

Watch the Pandorum trailer.

The Crazies (1973)

Why are the good people dying?

A military plane crashes in the mountains near Evan's City, Pennsylvania. It's deadly cargo, a bacteriological weapon named "trixie" is released into the towns water supply. Soon the residents are dying, or turning incurably, violently, mad.

A small group of civilians tries to escape death at the hands of either infected fellow civilians, or trigger-happy soldiers, as the military quarantine's the town and begins rounding up its people. Meanwhile the military blunders its way through a failed containment of a man-made disaster they created.

The Crazies is the original version of the 2010 remake. While the remake was not completely true to the storyline of the original, the over-all plot remains basically the same as does the underlying social commentary about war, the military, biological/bacteriological weapons, etc.

Of course the original had a budget of around $250,000 as opposed to the $20,000,000 of the remake - a fairly significant difference which is pretty noticeably in terms of production quality, makeup, special effects, costume and basically every other aspect of the film.

But The Crazies is still a thoroughly enjoyable film despite its small budget and other limitations. It holds true to the hallmark of George A. Romero's other films: horror, gore, and politics. It's only a shame that until the release of the recent, excellent, remake, this original film had nearly faded into the unknown. Hopefully the remake will encourage more horror and sci-fi fans to hunt down a copy of the 1973 film and give it a well deserved viewing.

4.5 gas masks out of 5
Unrated: contains violence, gore, nudity, language.


Watch The Crazies trailer.

The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951)

A robot and a man . . . hold the world spellbound with new and startling powers from another planet!

An alien from another world (Klaatu), and his deadly robot (Gort), land on Earth, in the United States, just at the beginning of heightening Cold War tensions. After a less than warm welcome, Klaatu announces that he brings an urgent message to the leaders of the planet, but he is informed that it is impossible to convene all of the leaders due to rising international tensions. He instead tries to bring his message to the people of Earth through their most brilliant scientific minds.But Klaatu's plans are complicated by a society gripped by fear and bent on violent solutions.

Spoiler alert... Klaatu has arrived on Earth because human kinds recent development of nuclear weapons and rockets is considered to potentially threaten inter-galactic peace given the violent and warlike nature of human history and the rising tensions of the day. Klaatu and Gort have traveled to Earth to warn that humanity must change its ways or face obliteration.

The Day the Earth Stood Still is a delightful sci-fi flick which is not only a lot of fun with its over the top acting, and dated special effects, but also carries a timely message of peace and dialogue rather than war. Of course real life isn't so simple. There are economic factors at play. It's not that those behind wars and occupations today just don't want to sit down and settle their differences because they hadn't considered that option - there's money to be made after all! But I digress. It's a great movie, and a total mockery of the fear, paranoia, and hawkishness of the Cold War era which may be over, but yet continues today in new forms.

Fun fact: the words that Patricia must speak to Gort in order to stop the obliteration of Earth are the same words Ash must speak in Army of Darkness.

4.5 laser beam eyes out of 5
Unrated. Contains mild violence.

Watch The Day the Earth Stood Still trailer.

Splice (2009)

She's not human... not entirely.

A pair of rebellious scientists, who also happen to be a couple, secretly take their groundbreaking scientific research to a new level against the orders of the employer who wants to redirect their focus to creating profitable commodities from their existing research instead of pushing it forward in the hopes of new exciting discoveries.

But their work takes an unexpected turn when their human-animal hybrid experiment, which they had intended to abort before it came to term, develops at an alarming rate and is born. The new being, which they name Dren, becomes increasingly human in appearance as it rapidly develops to adulthood.

The scientists, forced to hide their illegal and unsanctioned experiment, begin to take Dren on as their own daughter. But is she as she seems?

Splice is a genuinely different movie, that much is true. It isn't particularly scary or suspenseful, but different it certainly is. Over-all, not a bad movie. It does keep the viewers interest because its hard to guess what bizarre or disturbing turn of events will happen next as Dren matures and goes through a variety of interesting changes and mood swings.

The movie also plays around with the ongoing debate about the morality of certain scientific fields. While not actually mentioned specifically, stem cells come to mind. The movie doesn't make a definitive statement, but it seems to come out on the irrational, anti-science, side of the argument. However, according to writer and director Vincenzo Natali, this was never the intent of the movie and in fact it is only meant to be a cautionary tale about the need for the mature and careful use of such technology.

Either way, Splice was ultimately an enjoyable film which was good, but maybe not amazing. It also ended with a huge open door for sequels: sequels which will surely have no hope of being as good as the original film and, if produced, will undoubtedly be primarily action films and will lose the edgy, messed-up, drama of the original.

3 blob fights out of 5
Rated R for disturbing elements including strong sexuality, nudity, sci-fi violence and language.

Watch the Splice trailer.