"Screw Star Trek. This is the real shit"
Pandorum is the greatest space film I've seen since Star Wars: A New Hope, and the best sci fi horror film I've seen since the Alien franchise. When I first saw the trailer to this movie, all I thought in my mind was Deadspace, the sci fi/horror video game. Christian Alvart is the director of this movie. Alvart is a kind of 'up and coming' German director. From looking at this guy's filmography, the horror genre seems to be his on his main level, and after watching this, now, I want to see his other films.
The two stars of the show, Dennis Quaid and Ben Foster, both play two astronauts who wake to find themselves drifting through space 500 million miles from Earth and with no memory of what has happened to the crew of a sleeper ship transporting 60,000 passengers. Going to see this movie was very weird for me, because I absolutely hate Dennis Quaid. How this guy ever got to be an A list actor, I will never know. I didn't go see GI Joe in theaters because he's in it, but in this movie, he's still not great but decent and not annoying. Ben Foster, Wow! Throughout all the rave about this guy, saying that Foster is great and captivating, I never saw that in him. I wasn't impressed with his performance in 3:10 to Yuma and his goth style performance in 2004's Punisher, but now, I finally see that, because he delivers a wonderful performance in this film.
Horror films, that take hours to set up a creepy tone, for example The Descent, need to take notice of Pandorum. Once the short introduction of the two characters are made, the movie just kicks right off and gets creepy and it allows the mystery of the film to unravel as it goes along. The film just automatically picks up a horror atmosphere, which gives the glory to the director. What I really loved about this movie is that there's two types of horror films going on in this movie, because after Quaid and Foster introduce each other after waking up, they split up and don't see each other again, until the last few minutes of the movie. The first type deals with Dennis Quaid's character, which has a psychological horror aspect to it. The second, with Foster, is an balls out sci fi/horror/ suspense movie that keeps you on the edge of your seat, and it's a big mystery behind both stories. Now I did say that the trailer of this movie reminded me of Deadspace, but the only connection between the two are the claustrophobia of being set in a deserted space ship. I doubt this movie will do well in theaters but later on in years will be remembered as a great cult classic.
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I really want to check this movie out. I remember commenting that Dennis Quaid has another hit on his hands. Well, as you said, maybe not in theaters, but it will, have its following. I will buy this when its available.
My wife is not big on Horror, but even she is interested. And Quaid has been good in recent years.
And I thought about Dead Space when I saw the trailer too.
Good review!