Dead Space
October. 21,1991 RIn this loose remake of "Forbidden World" (1982), Commander Krieger and his robot companion Tinpan are summoned by a distress call to a research facility on the planet Phaebon, and soon find themselves battling a bizarre virus and a monstrous creature inadvertently created by the scientists there.
Similar titles
You May Also Like
Reviews
I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.
How sad is this?
This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.
A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.
The first thing about "Dead Space" I couldn't help noticing immediately was the running time displayed on the back of the VHS-cover. It states 70 minutes! Okay here on the IMDb the running time is supposedly 80 minutes, but that probably includes trailers and/or full closing credits. 70 minutes is practically nothing. How can you possibly tell a proper Sci-Fi tale in such a short period? Well, see below this review for a couple of tips on how to make your film shorter, but usually it's not the best idea. But hey, "Dead Space" is a very redundant movie in general. It is more than obvious that this thing got made in probably even less than a week, under the strict surveillance of Roger Corman. It's a remake of "Forbidden World", which was released also by Corman not even ten years earlier. That movie was a shameless "Alien" rip-off, so basically "Dead Space" is the remake of a rip-off. Only Corman is shameless enough to make the exact same film twice and then still include footage from his other work, like "Battle Beyond the Stars". Marc Singer, who here looks like he might be Kevin Bacon's older brother, plays a lone space macho cowboy who arrives on the research facility planet Phaebon together with his pet-robot Tinpan after they picked up an S.O.S signal. He literally crash-lands amidst a group of scientists that are trying to develop a virus to destroy another virus; namely the lethal Delta-5 disease. Little problem, however, their anti- virus developed itself into a monster and finds pleasure in killing off the crew members. One of the main reasons why I liked "Forbidden World" so much was because of the awesomely cheesy monster design and special effects. That film had an amazing low-budgeted B-atmosphere going for it! "Dead Space" is also very low-budgeted and cheesy, but it never manages to bring forward the same irresistible charm or outrageous enthusiasm. I guess that's a privilege exclusively for 80's movies. The mutant monster looks like a clay dragon and the killings are very uninspired. This is one film that can easily be skipped, except of course if you're a sucker for cheap and amateurishly directed "Alien" rip-offs like there are literally hundreds of out there. As promised, I'm going to reveal some tips about how to make your movie fit right into the 70 minutes limit. For example: combine sequences! Director Fred Gallo knows that every self-respecting Sci-Fi movie needs (A) a sex sequence, (B) a dream sequence and (C) a monster-bursting- through-the-chest moment. In "Dead Space", these three classic scenes are one and the same! The lead girl dreams she has sex with Marc Singers and witnesses the creature bursting through her chest right before waking up! Secondly, if you have a eight-headed cast but not the time to introduce them, start by killing two of them before the cause of the problem is even properly established. If you don't want to waste too much time on the remaining six neither, then make sure they live up to the most commonly known stereotypical trademarks of cinema. One of them needs to be an obsessed scientist who'll continue with the experiments no matter what, one of them needs to be an insufferable coward and you also need one strong female cast member to put the link with Ellen Ripley in "Alien". See, it's easy.
Delta 5 is a disease which has no cure and kills whoever has contracted it, with spaceman("freelance controller") Marc Singer landing on a research station containing scientists attempting to find a cure. A cultured creature(a "metamorphic mutant") breaks loose ala ALIEN and starts attacking crew members. The creature infects those it slashes with a flesh-eating virus that ravages the body relatively quickly and so avoiding it's mandible claws are a must. Singer's guns seem to have little to no effect on the creature so another method will have to be discovered pronto or else no one will be able to survive.DEAD SPACE is umpteenth movie to use BATTLE BEYOND THE STARS footage of battles in space(Singer encounters some "resistance" while answering the distress signal which lands him in hot water)and probably features Roger Corman sets. You have the chest bursting scene where the mutant breaks from it's human shell(the creature, in it's initial infantile form, invaded a victim through the nostril of her nose!) and continues to grow at an alarming rate(examples which mirror ALIEN, also). The uniqueness of this sci-fi horror's creature is that it is a virus which needs to kill because that's what it is designed to do. A virus kills cells and humans, as you know, have plenty of them. It travels through the science installation's vent system and becomes such a nuisance that anyone who has the misfortune of ending up in the same room with it normally doesn't last very long. As other like-minded individuals, I seek after low budget 80's sci-fi creature features, which rip off hits like ALIEN, producing clones on a smaller scale with B-movie casts. DEAD SPACE operates in this fashion which is why I enjoyed it more than the mainstream crowd who would probably find this laughable junk not worthy of their time. Director Fred Gallo shoots around the rubber creature as much a possible, attempting to make it scary, even though the grand reveal(and this is often this case) turns out to be a bit underwhelming. It does allow Singer to play hero, and he gets to show off his muscular physique for the ladies. Singer has a partner in a robot who operates under his command(basically a man with props glued to a uniform)he calls "tinpan".
If I am to remember correctly this movie is not half bad until the alien 'hatches' then it goes so far downhill it'll make you feel like your on a rollercoaster.One particular point sits in my memory, the 'alien' has just escaped and the scientists need to go to the surface for some reason. They make a big deal about how hostile the surface is and how no one could survive on it, but damn it he has to go out and fight the alien. Then they override the computer and open a hatch to ... the south western US! Now we get to see some dude in a suit walk around for like 5 minutes while they blow smoke infront of the camera to make you feel like your in an alien landscape. I believe you can even spot tire tracks on the ground and a rv in the back ground. Then we get a close up of the actor's face looking surprised, a close up of some purple weird dragon head going 'ROAAR' and then the scene of the dude running back to the hatch.My friends in I had to break down and start laughing, it was one of the most inexplicatble sequences in film since the burlesque scene in Glenn or Glenda.
The filmmakers apparently had enough money to be able to afford decent makeup effects, but not enough for a creature that would move around and attack convincingly. We never get a chance to see the "monster" move from one place to another - whenever that happens (supposedly), the camera focuses on the "terrified" reactions of the humans that are nearby. And when a man is attacked by it, he simply seems to be holding an inanimate object against himself so that it won't fall to the ground. This is still not the worst "Alien" rip-off around (the two "Xtro" films are even worse, for example); it's actually sufficiently entertaining if you've got 68 (!!) minutes to spare. (*1/2)