Dark Space

OK, first off, when reviewing/analyzing this movie, look at the fact that it has a budget of only 750,000 U.S. Dollars. I've seen Syfy movies made with budgets of 1.5 mil - 10 mil U.S. Dollars and are worse than this movie in almost every way. For the budget of this movie, they pulled off some unbelievable stuff - to the point of you hoping that they find a bright future in movie production, because if they had 10 mil U.S. Dollars, I can guarantee you that the movie will be a huge hit!!

Now, given the budget of $750k, the effects of the armor, the hull integrity, the space ship designs, the Artificial Intelligence built into the ships' mainframe, and the planetary (both, from space and ground) effects were stunning! In terms of effects and atmospheric simulations, this automatically gets a 7/10, given the budget.

However, the acting was very good for first-timers or at least beginning actors, as I don't recognize many faces in this movie. They could've done better -- but could they, really? Think about it, most good actors are behind a green screen or actually jumping out of windows, but these people only had a budget of $750k, so they didn't have much to go on, and they pulled it off nicely!

Sure, it had a generic plot, but this is typical with low-budget movies.

Overall, I give this movie a 6/10, because it had great special effects, not bad acting, and generic plot with slight enhancements - throw in an extremely low budget of $750k, and you got yourself a seller!

Just to be sure no one is mislead, Off World is a poorly done movie. The story is pretty ordinary: a group of college age people go on a spring break road trip in the distant future. They rent a space ship and it crashes (of course) (apparently somewhere in the woods around Denver) and they must fight aliens and Bobba Fett's in order to survive. The story was serviceable enough, but everything else was terrible. The dialog was horrific: I get more p**y there than most people get in a life time. Yes, that was a line delivered with absolutely no context or feeling...yechhhh. The entire script was nothing but sparse and unnatural sophomoric dialog. The acting was about as emotionless as I've ever see in a movie...all lines delivered like a 6th grader reading a book in front of class. And since it is a scifi movie I should mention that there are NO special effects or costumes worthy of putting into a modern day movie. I could go on, but I have already deep 6'ed this movie and don't want to think about it much more. Save yourself a trip to the trash bin and skip this movie.

Given the low budget, the space suits and the shuttle craft are credible, and the special effects are fine, I'd say better than those seen in other Sci-Fi movies spending millions.

However, I'm certain the background idea can be better developed and the uncharted planet be given a far more alien look; that Earth-like aspect is something not to be expected and must be ruled out.

The characters must all be changed, since they become annoying stereotypes of a terrible performance; the writing was unsatisfactory as well.

This movie deserves a second chance; nonetheless, I'd suggest re-writing the script in most parts and gather a completely new set of actors and, finally, give it a more space exploration spirit.

It's frustrating to watch this film because it had so much potential and with a tiny re-write it could have been really special. In its present form, however, it's a bit tough to love.

A few months ago, I reviewed a low budget sci-fi film that surprised me. While "Starship Rising" had many faults, I was extremely impressed by the look of the movie. Despite having almost nothing to spend to make the film, the special effects looked so very professional. It's too bad that the film wasn't particularly good when it came to what is important--the plot. Well, when I watched "Dark Space" a few days ago, I felt like it was a case of deja vu! Once again, here was a sci-fi film with a minuscule budget yet had exquisite special effects that made the film look very professional. Yet, as in "Starship Rising", the writing left a lot to be desired. If the makers of either film could improve the writing and characters significantly, I would sure to love to see more of their work.

"Dark Space", unfortunately, starts off very, very poorly. My youngest daughter was watching the film with me and she kept remarking how dumb the characters were--and she was right. Believe it or not, although the film is set in the distant future where space travel is commonplace, the characters seem like they were lifted out of an old "Friday the 13th" or "Halloween" movie! I half expected them to land on a planet where they'd find themselves at an abandoned summer camp or roller disco and the characters lacked depth--they were just there to be killed by some unseen menace. Many of the characters (particularly Devin) were irritating and completely ridiculous...and seemed more like clichés than people.

At this point, you might wonder why we continued watching since we hated the characters so much (and we REALLY hated them). Well, we assumed it was just a really, really bad film and we were actually having a good time laughing at the writing and characters since they were so bad. However, through the course of the film something strange happened--we both found we had to finish the movie and we actually were enjoying what we were seeing. However, I wonder how many people would bother sticking with this one.

On the plus side, the outer space scenes are extremely professional and look like something out of Hollywood as are the aliens. Additionally, although the plot is quite simple (sort of like combining Friday 13th with Predator), it works well and gets better as the film progresses. Plus, the explanation as to what is occurring and why is really very creative. The bottom line is that the film has a lot of merits...along with some god-awful characters that seemed more like caricatures than people.

By the way, if you are looking for an ultra low-budget sci-fi film which has a bit more to offer, try "Hunter Prey". Despite a simple plot, the film is rock solid from start to finish and is a great example of what can be done by clever filmmakers even if they are hampered with a micro-budget.

For crying out loud other reviewers, don't take yourselves so seriously! Have you heard of CAMPY, "B" rate. This movie fills the spot and is worth the watch. Not an Oscar nominee, but wasn't trying to be from what I see. Acting was definitely the weakest point, from my perspective, but I was able to laugh at the moments when appropriate and if you pay attention there is actually some full circle, human introspection at the end. This is better than a lot of big budget movies. Yes, low budget, yes, not-so-great acting, but also yes, entertaining. Looks like a first attempt, and I would say, better than I could do on a first attempt.