DeadSpace

Dead Space (1991)

All around cool guy and space hero Krieger and his robot pal Tinpan are chilling out and flying around the universe when they hear a distress signal. There is a research facility on a nearby planet that has had some accident involving some biological experiment and they need help. So after dispatching a few interstellar bad guys that show up for no reason other then to reuse the special effects from another movie they head on out to check on the situation. When they get there they find that the scientists have accidentally made a bulletproof monster that is a disease! So not only can’t you stop it with guns, but also if it bites or scratches a victim they proceed to get every disease known to man!

You know guys there are cheesy movies then there are cheesy bad movies. This is one of those bad movies. It starts off okay with genre favorite Marc Singer chewing up some scenery as space hero Krieger. He cracks wise with his robot sidekick and shows up at the base ready to kick some butt. Even the first couple appearances of the monster are fun and staged pretty well. But this is the small version of the critter. Once you get to the bigger effect it all falls apart. Normally I reserve the discussion of the special effects for later, but here I think it plays a critical part as to why the story doesn’t work. Let me explain myself.

The story becomes bogged down with Krieger chasing the larger version of the creature down. First it makes it’s escape outside to the hostile environment. Instead of leaving the creature alone he insists on chasing it. Why you might ask? Probably because this allows the awkward prop monster to peak out from around rocks and hide in a cave, thus allowing them to keep it off screen as much as possible. So Kreiger goes outside and as he does he is warned that his protective suit will only keep him save for 20 minutes. This warning doesn’t seem to encourage him to zip up the jacket or cover his perfectly quaffed ‘80s hair.

After killing off another character by popping up from a convenient airshaft (again keeping the effect off screen) the creature breaks back into the research facility. Here is where things get really silly. The cast then had to keep coming back to the same room where they have set up the completely immobile creature. So for no apparent reason they fight some then wander away and then wander back. This forces the story into a completely silly and inexplicable series of events. Just let me say that for a movie that is only 69 minutes long I couldn’t wait for it to be over.

So if it isn’t obvious yet I’ll make it official and say that I can’t recommend Dead Space to anyone. Though the good news is that if you really feel the need to see this one it is on a double feature with The Terror Within, which is a much better movie and worth the price of the DVD.

1 out of 4

reviewed by John Shatzer