Review - Dead Space (1991 - Dir. Fred Gallo)

I'll tell you now: Marc Singer is out of the cup. Jennifer Connelly has got it sewn up and she only got 5/10 for The Hulk. Dead Space (nothing to do with the games) is a very poor film that homages to within an inch of its sad and sorry existence.

All it says on the IMDb summary is, "A deadly virus attacks the crew of a Saturn space station." Yep, that's about it. Oh as long as by 'virus' you actually mean 'alien'. And that is 'alien' in the sense of Alien and Aliens. The virus idea is virtually non-existent in the film; despite it being a mixture of every known disease, everyone quite happily walks around without hazmat suits or even face masks. In fact, their high level protection against this virulent virus is to "keep away" from it. So it's an alien then.

It thieves blatantly from the Alien franchise. But even then it does so in a tedious fashion. An android gets torn in half. Amazingly, it's not a patch on the shot from Aliens. It's so blatant that it nicks a complete line from the same film. As time goes on the alien, I mean virus, becomes quite large, a bit like the alien queen perhaps. But whereas the proper queen charges around scrapping with Ripley and chasing Newt through ducts in a manner befitting Scooby Doo, this virus quite spectacularly stands still for a bit. Well, for a while really. It's not the most mobile of creatures.

Marc Singer does nothing to liven up the proceedings; in general he wanders around aimlessly shooting. That about sums up his performance. At least he would have been able to buy himself a chip butty from his wage packet. As long as he cadged a quid off his mum.

Is this film recommendable to anyone? Maybe. There is one small subset of society that may benefit from watching this turgid piece of poop: blue spandex fetishists. Even then they could fast forward to a couple of scenes where some ladies get a bit frisky in said garments, and forget the rest. Even lovers of futuristic ear rings shouldn't bother; the best they can manage here are some curly telephone cables. Pathetic.

The only thing that Dead Space has going for it is the most prolonged bout of a creature being stabbed by a dart committed to celluloid and some waking up acting to rival Grandpa Walton. Avoid at all costs.
1/10
evlkeith

If you like this you could also try:
Blue Spandex Babes VI.