TheresNothingOutThere

There’s Nothing Out There (1992)

So if you can’ tell from all the reviews that I’ve written or the fact that I run this website I’m a huge fan of horror movies. I spent most of the ‘80s renting everything on the video store shelf that had anything remotely horror related in it’s story. But even I started to get burned out on one movie after another that followed the same formula. Then I rented There’s Nothing Out There and I loved it. Though I hadn’t watched it in years when I got the new 2 DVD set from Troma I was very excited to pop it in the player and see if it was as good as I remembered it to be.

The movie opens with a mysterious figure chasing a pretty young girl through a video store. Just as she is about to get it she wakes up and we see it was a dream. Though she was sleeping behind the wheel so the car ends up smashed into a tree. Here the real movie starts because something comes out of the woods and attacks her. Then the action moves to a group of friends heading off to the lake house for some partying. The thing in the woods starts to pick them off one at a time. Eventually we have just a few survivors remaining to do battle with what we now know is some strange creature that is after them for some nefarious purposes, basically food and reproduction!

There’s Nothing Out There is one of those rare movies that works on a couple different levels. It is a decent low budget creature feature that gives the audience everything they expect. The story is predictable, but moves along at a decent pace that never lets the thing get stale or boring. We have some stupid characters doing the things that we as fans know won’t end well for them. Speaking of ending badly there are some decent effects on a budget including a melting face, a head that goes flying and a creature that works on a cheesy level. I mean they didn’t have much to work with so don’t expect too much, but I found them funny. Basically this is everything that a fun goofy horror movie from the VHS shelves of your local mom and pop video store should be.

If that is all There’s Nothing Out There gave us it would be another goofy, but ultimately forgettable flick. But writer/director Rolfe Kanefsky recognized that we as fans had seen this kind of movie many times by the early ‘90s. So in a very clever twist that a much bigger named director would be patted on the back for doing a few years later we get a movie that nods knowingly at it’s audience. One of the characters in the movie knows all the rules to a horror movie and keeps trying to warn everyone. Hell at one point the character breaks the 4th wall and stares down the camera and mentions they might be in a horror film! But they don’t stop with that. You have another character swinging to safety on a boom mic in a nod to all those bad low budget movies that can’t seem to keep them out of frame. And in one of my favorite bits the camera lingers on the fact that the stunt car they wreck isn’t anywhere close to the car in the movie, which is another thing many lower budget movies can’t help but do. Toss in a bit of slapstick with a rake and you have a very funny and entertaining flick.

As I’ve already mentioned for this review I watched the new 2-disc anniversary special edition from Troma. In addition to a couple of cool commentary tracks there is a fun 30 minute long discussion from the director Rolfe Kanefsky. He talks about designing the creature, and chats about the movie’s history. If you are interested in how some of these independent filmmakers got their movies out to the public this is worth checking out. The one other thing that I though was funny was a short commentary track over the trailer. It was actually kind of informative and I recommend if you pick this DVD set up spending a couple of minutes watching it.

What we have here is a really fun movie and a nice DVD set. If you are already a fan of There’s Nothing Out There then you will want to grab this one. And if you aren’t a fan yet I think you will be. I recommend There’s Nothing Out There.

3 out of 4

reviewed by John Shatzer