Dead Space

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.

My review was written in June 1991 after watching the movie on video cassette.

An okay clone of "Alien", "Dead Space" has been in regional release since January but is mainly for sci-fi fans who haunt video stores.

Debuting helmer Fred Gallo has carefully watched the Ridley Scott 1979 monster hit and has smoky sets, chest-bursting monsters and the other ingredients. Film was shot as "Biohazard", a moniker used in 1983 by Fred Olen Ray.

Marc Singer toplines as a space jockey investigating a distress call from a research lab on the planet Phabon. Beautiful genetic researcher Laura Tate is worried after a research assistant died working on creting a new virus to combat the deadly Delta 5 virus. The other scientists, led by Judith Chapman and Bryan Cranston, want to hush up the incident and continue their research.

It turns out that the new virus is a "metamorphic mutant", changing its own genetic structure as it grows. Soon it gets loose, keeps changing form and starts killing people. Gabe Bartalos' makeup effects are okay in the gore department, but the little puppets representing the monster aren't scary. Full-grown monster resembles a huge praying mantis.

Leads Singer and Tate make an attractive team. Outer space scenes look like stock footage from "Battle Beyond the Stars", a 1980 production from Roger Corman who backed this one as well.

STAR RATING:*****Unmissable****Very Good***Okay**You Could Go Out For A Meal Instead*Avoid At All Costs

The plot,as it were,has Marc Singer as a character called Captain Krieger who along with his robot,er,Tinpan (Rodger Hall), zooms about the universe doing not a very lot,it would seem.Until,that is,he answers a distress call from a research facility by the name of Phaebon,where a potentially lethal virus has been discovered.Before long,all manner of hell has broken loose and the virus (that,by the end,has somehow inexplicably taken the form of a giant monster) must be stopped.

Only 70 minutes long.Only 10 characters featured.Yet Dead Space still manages to be a total Dead Zone of a film.

I was enticed to view this very obvious B movie on account of a nice looking cover of a skeleton in a spacesuit.Needless to say,none of the characters featured are ever seen in spacesuits and neither are any of the characters astronauts.Misleading advertising or what?

And the actual film itself is nothing worth watching,despite it's (extremely) compact running time,with it's droll script,bland characters and special effects that could be bettered by the standards of a Wrigley's Spearmint Gum advert.

Tinpan was cool,but that was a robot who belonged in a much better movie.Actually,he's a very,very poor man's C-3PO,but I've got a thing for robots (nothing sexual,but,you know).

12 year old DTV garbage is still garbage.Tinny and one mildly effective jump scene are the only reasons why I feel in any way lucky to have seen what should by rights be in it's DTV grave yard by now.*

I saw Alien. I loved Alien. Dead Space is no Alien. Take Alien and leave out Sigourney Weaver and other credible actors, remove artful direction by Ridley Scott, eliminate wonderful special effects, extract suspense, banish a sensible, thought-provoking script, exile any kind of passion in the material and you have this mess of a film called Dead Space. What a complete bore! Master thespian Marc Singer stars as the space vigilante out to help a space station in the middle of cheesy special-effects land. Soon due to biological testing, a metamorphic mutant is created to fight disease only it ends up becoming a behemoth of evil trying to kill every person alive. The mutant goes through several excrutiating special effect stages including an adolescent stage where it resembles not a little a mini-Godzilla. The film was a test of my endurance not to fall asleep or fast forward or turn the television off. Roger Corman produced this innate rip-off and he should be ashamed. At least if you are not going to use something original, try and do some justice to your source. The film is so bad that there is even a softcore sex scene which happens in a dream! The only dead space in this film was the 80 minute void that I can never replace! Whew! Bow Wow!

DEAD SPACE (1991) is your garden variety ALIEN rip-off about a remote research laboratory on a distant planet trying to find a virus to destroy another even more deadly contagion decimating mankind. They succeed, only to inadvertently create a xenomorph-style monster that quickly works its way through the assembled scientists. Right from the outset you get an outer space battle lifted from BATTLE BEYOND THE STARS so you know this one's going to be cheap and cheerful, and it certainly is.

Muscle star Marc Singer (THE BEASTMASTER) is the hero come to save the day, complete with android sidekick, and amusingly enough BREAKING BAD star Bryan Cranston also features right at the outset of his career. There's a bit of sex, a bit of nudity, some gore and a rather stiff monster that's only seen briefly. Don't go expecting much from this one.