Space Horror Mini Movie Appraisals: Prometheus (2012), Pitch Black (2000), and Screamers (1995)

I think it would be pretty cool to review three space horror movies that I haven't gotten around to reviewing yet. While I'd love for all of these movies to have their own reviews, I don't think I have enough to say about these movies to have content enough for full reviews of each. Prometheus itself is so incredibly popular and talked about that there's not much more that I feel I could add to the conversation. Pitch Black, although excellent, only leads me to say one major thing about it, and Screamers, while I have the most to say about that movie, has a simple yet effective story, but little else to offer.

So, starting with Prometheus, this prequel to Alien, made by the same director as that movie, Ridley Scott. It was his first time returning to the franchise since Alien and... yeah... I have a lot of the same problems with this movie that I had with the first one. While I think the movie looks absolutely gorgeous (and it really does) it relies heavily on CGI, even if that CGI is some of the best I've ever seen. The story itself is fairly bland, full of plotholes, characterization misses, and generic alien environments. It doesn't fit well looks-wise into the Alien franchise, and *probably* should have been a completely new franchise that works on its own without the Alien franchise limiting it. Now, I love Aliens, but that doesn't mean that any other movie in the franchise really appeals to me. I also truly think that this movie, even while having those stunning visuals, is basically a really awful movie.

I hate the acting. The characters, except for David, are largely uninteresting, have no discernible or qualifying features, and are really, really flat in general. David, played by Michael Fassbender, is brilliant though, and he continues the legacy of all the Alien films I've seen having the best character (and actor) being an android. The plot makes literally no sense to me. As a biology major with a concentration in genetics, I have no idea why the archaeologists somehow figure that the "Engineers" created humans or why these archaeologists have any say when it comes to actual genetic samples that need interpreting. Look, you have a biologist for a reason and you're supposed to use him... I mean, yes, he dies quickly and stupidly, but the plot could have been worked better. I'll even throw out my own hypothesis here: If the DNA of the Engineers and humans are the same, then that points out that we are probably descended from them rather than created by them. It would make a great deal more sense serving as a hypothesis rather than humans being created and still being 99.9% similar to chimpanzees in the end anyway. It basically dissolves the theory of evolution, which would be a pretty ignorant thing to do (no offense meant, but it is the best explanation of why genetic material is so similar even across large taxonomic gaps). I truly wish more thought would have been put into the science rather than the visuals, but... what is a big-budget film these days except a movie that puts style over substance?

Other complaints are more varied, including complaints about make-up, random dead people not being dead anymore for some reason, and a male only operating tube thing. None of those make me happy. They're all terrible and stick out in a movie that should be much better structured all around with a powerhouse of a director, and a ton of money behind it. I really wondered why some of the make-up effects were so bad, particularly on Guy Pearce's character. I have to mention him specifically because he looked just plain silly. The movie also delivers no tension, no real character moments, and a generally ridiculous plot that makes no sense and ultimately ends with a whimper. This isn't horror so much as stupid.

I can't help disliking this movie. I can't recommend it. If you want a good Alien movie watch the first movie or Aliens. Avoid this one.

Pitch Black is all kinds of brilliant. I've seen the theatrical version, the edited for TV version, and the Director's Cut, and I've loved them all. It's a wonderful film no matter how you watch it and a great space horror flick to boot. I can't recommend it enough if you want a really good horror movie, a really good space movie, or a really well acted story and character based movie. Riddick has quickly become one of my favorite characters movie fiction. While I don't like the second Riddick movie anywhere near as much, this one really works on every discernible level. Vin Diesel plays the perfect Riddick. It was like the role was made for him and him alone, and that's not something I say about most characters and their actors. Nobody else could ever play Riddick, and that's about the highest praise I could give about a character. Radha Mitchell also does a great job as Carolyn Fry, pulling out a surprisingly emotional performance that I thoroughly enjoyed.

While the plot is simplistic, I think it works incredibly well. I love the characters, the situation, the beginning, the end, and the middle. It is one of my favorite movies I newly saw this year. I can't help recommending this film as much as I possibly can. Watch this movie if you want a movie sort of like the Alien movies, but all kinds of different nonetheless. I found this movie incredibly enjoyable, much more enjoyable than any Alien film, and easily one of the best horror movies taking place in space/on another planet outside of Pandorum, Sunshine, and Event Horizon. It is horrific in all the right ways, has some great directing courtesy of the wonderful David Twohy, some pitch-perfect visuals, and an alien that rivals the alien from the Alien series for purely horrific and terrifying. If you haven't seen this movie you need to.

Screamers, a movie about opposing military bunkers on a planet with an important natural resource during a civil war, has an incredibly complex plot, some really interesting moments, and harbors one of the better stories I've seen in movies of this time period. Based off of Philip K. Dick's short story "Second Variety" and starring Peter Weller, I don't think I could easily dislike this movie. It has some similarities to Dick's Blade Runner as well, specifically the reliance on robots/androids for things humans cannot or will not do. In this case the robots are killing machines bent on destroying the other side of the conflict with no ethical reservations. These robots eventually start evolving, become closer to human, but never having emotions, and always bent on destruction... uh... kind of.

I guess there is some room for the robots to evolve and at least one (maybe two) of the robots seemed to develop quirks in their personalities, specifically in regards to either having emotions (love and hate) or being able to pass well as humans. The robots are named "screamers" because when they attack they give off a high-pitched shrieking sound, whether they are little underground robot or more evolved models.

The human robots seem to be both creepy and heavily advanced from humans. They can pass as humans, among humans, for days without being found out, but just like in Blade Runner their fatal flaw is that they cannot pass perfectly. In this case they show their true colors by having tics and random repeats of certain phrases or motions. Also a model will look the same as a model of the same type, which is convenient. This movie features some blood and gore, but a decent amount of actual tension as well to create the horrific atmosphere. When the main characters are in the enemy bunker they've been going towards for half of the movie to help sign a peace treaty between the two sides, but find it tomb-like and full of death- well, I don't remember too many other moments that were quite as effective at creeping me out in other movies of this type. It's actually funny just how creepy an army of murderous robotic children screaming at you can be. I would have never expected that particular thing to be terrifying.

All-in-all, this movie is fun even if it is not perfect. I would call it average if not for a few wonderfully tense scenes towards the middle and at the end of the film. Check it out if it sounds interesting. I enjoyed it much more than I thought I would.

Movie Appraisal: Alien (1979)

So, I'm back and ready to review! I'm almost sorry to review Alien though. It's a movie I've avoided watching for a very long time. I think it was mostly because I didn't want to be disappointed. I'm such a huge fan of space horror as a genre, and Alien is really the granddaddy of all modern space horror. I mean, Event Horizon, Pandorum, and Sunshine are some of my favorite films of all time. No, they're not just some of my favorite horror films of all time, but some of my favorite movies period... of all time. That's quite the accomplishment, especially when I'm pretty finicky about movies in general. I know how much influence the Alien movies and especially this one have had on this weird and niche subgenre of sci-fi horror.

So, for the first time ever I checked out Alien. I usually am very fond of Ridley Scott. I usually like movies that have this kind of premise. I think you know where I'm going with this. I found Alien to be pretty mediocre. And there were large tracts of the movie that I didn't like at all. The story was pretty good. But the characters felt so weak in response. Okay, let me elaborate. I found the story to be very standard for a movie of this type, certainly derivative of some earlier sci-fi films like Planet of the Vampires and Forbidden Planet, but with a much more serious tone and a horror focus. And that's fine. Honestly, that's a good thing. I like the early sci-fi movies, but I have to admit to loving the more serious efforts of the 1970s and 1980s. The problem with this movie wasn't its derivative story or the quality of that story, rather it's really the lack of a focus on characters. I mean, I felt nothing for any of the characters. None of them had a well-developed story or anything interesting about them. I felt that I couldn't relate to any one of them whether they were male or female. There simply wasn't enough to establish the characters as actual humans. Instead every last one of them felt so generic and boring that their deaths were meaningless to me. The whole movie was basically meaningless for me.

A lot of the issues that I saw in Alien were fixed in other later space horror movies. You look at a movie like Event Horizon and you can clearly see the improvements from this baser movie. At the same time, despite the characters having literally no depth at all, the acting is fairly well put together. I'd put a lot more blame on the script and the pacing than I would on the actors. And the thing is... this is an absolutely all-star cast. Maybe they weren't all-star then, but nowadays you hear the names of Ian Holm, Sigourney Weaver, John Hurt, Tom Skerritt, and Harry Dean Stanton all being in the same movie, you'd definitely be interested in the movie. Hell, Ian Holm in a movie is enough to get me interested in it. So the acting is solid, but I have to say that the performances of Ian Holm, John Hurt, and Sigourney Weaver should have a special mention. Each really tried to bring a life to their respective character. John Hurt, although he has limited screen time because of... well...

...uh... yeah...

...let's say reasons and leave it at that. He really does a great job with the time he is on screen, really making Kane one of the only characters that has any memorable qualities at all. Ian Holm was also quite good, and his characterizations actually made a lot of sense. He also happened to be my favorite character for much of the movie, but that's less about the character of Ash, I suppose, and much more about how much I like Ian Holm. Sigourney Weaver and her Ripley is obviously the famous character, but I honestly can't see much of the character in this movie. Sure, she's tough and survives, but all-in-all she comes across as more of a generic female heroine than the icon she would eventually become. Now, this might be because I'm watching it over thirty years after this movie came out, and it was groundbreaking in its time and just hasn't aged as well as I would have liked. That's fair. And I can't argue that as much or as effectively as I'd like to argue the point. I doubt that there were too many female heroes of Ripley's calibre back in 1979, and it stands as a testament to the movie that it was a huge movie that happened to have a female lead. I respect it for that, but I still have trouble liking it.

The movie was incredibly slow-paced at times, but they were all the wrong times. When the movie should have been slower, to establish characters or the titular alien, it moved quickly and without remorse, and when it should have moved more quickly in action intense scenes or hectic times, I felt it dragged on and on, often focusing on character faces and such for long periods of time while more interesting things should have been focused on. I'm certain it was an artistic decision... or maybe one to remove copious amounts of gore from the movie, but it seemed really awkward throughout. Having an intense moment with a character who is about to die only to have them die off-screen while another character is focused upon became incredibly frustrating. I couldn't enjoy the movie if it literally shielded me from the scarier moments like I was a baby. It felt terrible. I hated that feeling of the movie literally not letting me feel tension or not letting me feel fear... I go into these horror movies wanting to be creeped out, but with this movie I only found myself annoyed at the lack of actual horror. Kane is the only character truly shown to die. The rest are either off-screen or their faces are so focused upon when they die that you have absolutely no idea what's going on. Dallas, played by Tom Skerritt, and Brett, played by Harry Dean Stanton, completely die or are taken or whatever offscreen. Nothing is shown of their fates (yes, there are deleted scenes, but that's not what I mean) and they basically just disappear from the movie without any establishing character moments, without any heroics, without even showing their deaths or really even reacting to them. I found it so badly done that I seriously thought that I had missed a scene or the DVD had skipped or something. The same thing is true for Parker, played by Yaphet Kotto, and Lambert, played by Veronica Cartwright. They kind of get killed by the alien, I guess, but I have no idea because the scene flew by with quick shots of their faces that I had literally no idea they were dead until Ripley saw them and was like, "Oh they're dead." without even checking them to see if they were dead. I guess they must have been very obviously dead, but I couldn't tell.

I guess that all comes down to the script and the editing. And I have to say that the editing was really not my style. It was, in my opinion, really badly done, to the point where I literally could not tell what was going on for large portions of time. That should not happen. I should know what's going on in a pretty simple movie that I already know the premise of. Instead I was more confused than anything else, finding flaws all over the place in the editing of this film that should have been scary and should have been good, but instead came off as fundamentally flawed.

I will say that the set designs were well done though, as were the actual artistic assets done by H. R. Giger. The man can certainly create an alien image that looks creepy on a fundamental level.

One way or another, you look at the alien there and you feel slightly unsettled. I think the designs were incredibly well done for the time, and it was easily the most compelling part of the entire movie... although there were times that I found the alien unintentionally hilarious and kind of awkward looking, but that might just be because I'm a jerk whose really hard to scare.

Anyway, for the most part I was very lukewarm on this movie. It had great designs, good acting, decent direction by Ridley Scott, and an interesting story that should have worked for me, but the editing of the movie, the script, and the lack of characterizations really hurt this movie on the most basic of levels, so much so that I can't even recommend this movie. It wasn't fun for me to watch. Hell, I enjoyed watching Nightflyers and The Dark Side of the Moon a ton more than this FAMOUS POP CULTURE MOVIE. Eh, well, I'm not changing my opinion. The movie didn't suck, but its flaws outweighed any good feelings I could have about it.

Movie Appraisal: The Thing From Another World (1951)

The Thing From Another World is a horror and science fiction classic film directed seemingly jointly by Howard Hawks and Christian Nyby that was remade by John Carpenter into The Thing (1982). That's all you really need to know. The opening title sequence is pretty much the same as the remake to this film, which tends to be the better known movie. The Thing happens to be one of my favorite films of that genre, so I was very interested to see how this movie holds up.

It's pretty good actually, but also very different from The Thing. I had known this before seeing the movie, but it is kind of weird seeing just how different they both are, even with many elements remaining the same. They both take place in the Arctic. They both heavily involve sled dogs. They both go to a crash site. They both fight the alien off with fire.

Now, I'm not going to say that this film is better than The Thing. It isn't. It's very good for the film it is. It's actually quite good for a science-fiction horror film made in the early 1950s, much better than I would have ever thought. I can see the kernels of good ideas all around this film, but without the technological know-how as to how to execute a lot of those thoughts, the movie comes off as sometimes awkward, and not even a little scary.

This is something to remark upon actually. This film is not exactly scary, but it can be unsettling in points, especially when the audience cannot see the alien. Once the audience gets a good look at the alien and sees he's a guy in a suit who looks a little confused, it really takes away from any horror within the film. The unsettling mood of the movie before that point really changes once that alien gets his first big appearance.

This film also has a big deal of tell, don't show, which is frankly exactly how most of these early horror movies are. They describe dead men in great detail, or the horror of the alien, and that works. They didn't have the technology or desire to show off gruesome bits and I thought it worked out well. The alien, once melted out of the ice block, is simply not as scary as they describe. I know in the theaters back then, it would have been a huge payoff, but today the alien simply does not stand up well. He looks a little silly.

The acting is okay, but it's always okay in these early sci-fi horror movies. It would not ever blow me away, and certain characters seem incredibly awkward when they're not supposed to. Margaret Sheridan (playing Nikki Nicholson) is the biggest example of an actor/actress in this film simply not seemingly knowing her lines, or not acting correctly or something. Most of her lines, especially her early lines in the film, come out awkward and hesitantly, and it really did not work in connection to who her character was supposed to be.

The story itself is quite interesting, and the film is actually worth a watch if you enjoy classic sci-fi or horror films. If you're into those films already like I am, you kind of know what to expect. It's better than most and the science parts of it are actually remarkably well-done. I liked them a lot. It was a thoroughly entertaining movie.

As for characters, most of the main characters are fantastic.They all have their own personalities and are quite well acted. The scenery is also well-done, as in the portrayal of the cold they constantly have to be aware of. I liked that when the plane came landed the few times it did. It looked awesome and felt like something epic. Also the landing site of the flying saucer was well done and a great scene as well.

All together this film is a very well done classic that should be watched by any kind of enthusiast for films such as these. If you enjoyed the remake, you'll more than likely enjoy this one too, even without Kurt Russell, Wilford Brimley, and Keith David. Just don't expect any body horror, although there is some amazing scenes with fire to watch out for.

"Watch the skies, everywhere, keep looking! Keep watching the skies!"