Dead Space



Commander Kreiger, the lowly commander of a small spaceship, and his robot sidekick, receive an urgent distress call from an isolated scientific research lab that’s trying to discover a cure for the newest deadly disease plaguing humanity. But when the commander and his robot buddy get to the research center, the scientists insist it was a false alarm, and that they prematurely sent the signal when a small specimen escaped from its confines in the lab. Only it turns out, they all still have a very BIG problem on their hands, as the specimen suddenly starts mutating at a rapid-fire rate and begins slowly killing off everyone it encounters one by one. So now it’s suddenly up to Kreiger and a handful of marginally competent scientists to kill the monster before it somehow manages to escape the planet and spread its menace to parts unknown.


Argh!..Oh, wait. That’s Kreiger, not the alien. My bad.

Just to be clear to any video game enthusiasts who may have clicked on this, this Dead Space is not an adaptation of, nor is it the precursor or inspiration for, the survival horror video game series known as Dead Space that was originally released in 2008. So let’s just get that out of the way now. Sorry, guys. You can leave now.

Instead, this Dead Space is actually a remake of the 1982 film Forbidden World, which was produced by none other than the famous low-budget horror maestro, Roger Corman. Now, if you’re wondering why Corman agreed to produce a remake to a film that wasn’t even a decade old at that point, and wasn’t all that great to begin with… That’s a question I can’t help you with. Because while Dead Space is a bit more serious than its predecessor and, surprisingly, even shorter and filled with even less nudity, it’s basically the exact same plot of the first film, just with a different cast and monster design. So they didn’t even bother to change much. Knowing Corman though, I wouldn’t be surprised if he treated the whole thing as a challenge. Like, he was sitting around watching Forbidden World and thought, “You know, this is okay. But how could I make it even cheaper and duller?” And thus, we have this movie.



Full disclosure though, when I started this movie I didn’t actually realize it was a remake. I just saw the one poster of the skeleton astronaut in space giving the “thumbs up” sign and decided I had to watch it. Sure, if I had gone and read the synopsis for both movies, I might have realized that they were essentially the same. But then again most of the movies I watch can basically be summarized by “bunch of people go into the woods/isolated cabin/dark creepy place and… Ohmygosh, that guy’s got a knife! Run!” so I don’t think that would have helped. Plus, I hadn’t seen Forbidden World in years and most of these cheap, sci-fi horrors are pretty much rip-offs of Alien anyway, so it likely doesn’t even matter. But a small part of my brain must have realized the connection between the two films, because the longer I kept watching, the more I kept thinking, “Gee this feels familiar. Haven’t I seen this before?” But nothing looked familiar, so it was a really weird feeling. And at first I kinda ignored it and chalked it up to just seeing Bryan Cranston and that Beastmaster guy walking around, but towards the end I finally gave up and had to look it up, only to realize what had happened. So curse you, Roger Corman, for making me think I was having some kind of stroke.


Pew pew pew pew! Pew!

If you can’t tell by all that, the plots of these two films are drastically similar to each other. And I don’t mean that they’re exact carbon copies of one another, because they did change some things. But it wasn’t until I re-watched Forbidden World the next night that I realized just how similar they were. Like, yeah, all of the major plot points and motivations are still there, and the one chick still has the hots for the hero guy, but I swear they also kept and changed some of the weirdest minor plot details. Both movies start with a little dogfight in space, and they both reuse footage (the same footage!) from another Corman film, Battle Beyond the Stars from 1980. And there’s even a whole little segment where the Marshall/Commander has to fiddle with the wires of the ship so that they can shoot. Like, what a random thing to decide to keep, right?


I guess they thought ship wiring was super important?

And then the dudes get to the research lab, and they both have a similar “boardroom meeting” scene, followed by our “heroes” going to inspect what happened, and then our monster has its big reveal. This is where things in the two films kinda start to simultaneously diverge AND stay the same. Which I know is confusing, but let me explain. For example, in Forbidden World (the one in which our hero gets to eat first) the monster starts off by acting like one of those ‘face-hugger’ Aliens and kills some random scientist we don’t care about, before it goes into hiding. But in Dead Space, the random science dude is already dead (our hero does not get to eat this time), and we get a ‘chest burster’ Alien scene rip-off… before the creature goes into hiding (in the air ducts, why always the air ducts?). So do you maybe see why I was so confused when I started watching this? The only real difference between the two scenes, other than the monster’s initial reveal, is that in World our hero refrains from initially shooting the creature, because the scientists ask him not to. Kreiger from Dead Space, on the other hand, sees that thing burst forth from a corpse in all its blood-soaked glory and immediately goes “F that nonsense” and starts blasting away at the thing with wild abandon. Like, “Pew Pew Pew What’s that? Don’t shoot your scientific marvel? Sorry, can’t hear you! Pew Pew Pew.” So Kreiger in general tolerates a lot less of their shit, and I think makes for a better hero in general.



But really, I think the cause for most of the changes between the two films boils down to budget. In Dead Space the sets are less distinctive, the costumes are simpler (but a lovely shade of blue), there are fewer characters, it’s not nearly as sleazy (though that might be because they were aiming to show the remake on television at some point), and the monster effects and puppetry aren’t nearly as good. Like, they’re pretty stiff and you barely see it in most scenes. Although I gotta say, I actually kinda like the various designs of the Dead Space monster more than the ones from Forbidden World. In World, the monster was just a big, black spider blob…thing with teeth for most of the movie. But in Dead Space the monster has more distinct forms. So it actually looks like it’s mutating like the scientists claim it to be, and thus actually looks a bit more menacing. Or at least it would if their effects budget had been bigger. But I still say they’re more interesting than the black blob thing, even if the creators are clearly aping the designs from the Alien movies.


Roar!

But what makes this movie lackluster in comparison to the first really has little to do with its budget, and more to do with the poor pacing and just…lack of fun, really. For a movie that’s not only shorter than the first (72 mins vs 77 mins), but also almost using the same script, Dead Space is surprisingly dull. Especially when you consider that this is supposed to be a movie with a monster on the loose.

Part of the reason is that despite the movie’s occasional poor attempt at comedy (they named the robot Tin Pan *sigh*), overall it’s actually trying to be more of a serious, sci-fi film. Which sounds good on paper, but then that means that they got rid of 90+% of the sleaziness of the original. Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, because that means that our “hero” in this film is acting like a mature adult, and not immediately trying to get into everyone’s pants, or creepily spy on underage girls while they try to bathe (damn it, Corman…). Now, there is still one sex scene for the skin fans out there, but it’s a lot shorter and less exploitative. So what’s a movie with a lot less booty on display AND less characters to kill off supposed to do to fill all that extra time? Maybe flesh out the characters it has? Expound upon earlier lines the characters said so that they make sense to the plot and don’t turn into random statements that lead to plot holes, perhaps? … *SNORT* Of fucking course not. They’re going to fill it with aimless meandering and people needlessly traversing the station and putting themselves in pointless mortal peril for the sake of adding tension. Yay rah, yay rah. And no, the random bouts of gunfire, that are inexplicably useless against the creature, do not help liven things up. They just remind us that this is supposed to be an action movie, before going back to filling the time with more drab, dull hallways and dry science talk.


On the plus side, at least most of the characters were less assholish in this movie.

So, basically, Dead Space is a poor man’s version of Forbidden World, which was itself a poor man’s version of Alien. So Corman was really trying to outdo himself with this one. I mean, beyond the cool, gooey monster effects, I wasn’t all that thrilled with Forbidden World to begin with. But to go out of your way to take that story and make it even more unoriginal? That’s impressive. Though I will admit, I did like a couple of the changes they made, like the monster designs, and making the characters act more professional and self-reflective on themselves and the situation. Because goodness gracious did some of the characters in Worlds act like a bunch of creeps and morons at nearly every turn. Going back to re-watch some of that was almost painful. So having a version where people act a bit more normal was a nice touch… Oh! And the ending actually made me laugh, because not only does the guy not get the girl at the end, but she rejects him so soundly that he’s actually stunned, and then the camera slowly pan out and the movie just…ends. Like, “womp womp, no booty for you, END SCENE.” Talk about a weird note to choose to end your movie on. Not sure what they were going for with that, but it gave me one last laugh, so I was pleased with that. But I can’t say too many people are going to be too pleased with this movie. It’s pretty dry overall, despite the acting being surprisingly decent. So unless you really dig sci-fi/horror, or you just want to see Bryan Cranston in one of his first film roles, there really isn’t much reason to see this. Forbidden World may be a lot more sleazy, but it’s also a lot more colorful and fun.

But I do still really like that skeleton poster, though.

Dead Space is available on a variety of streaming services.

Dead Space is also available on DVD as part of a combo pack with The Terror Within. Just don’t accidentally mistake it for one of the many Dead Space video game film tie-ins.

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