Dark Universe (1993)

Waste of time

Stylish but barely mediocre overall

The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

Where to begin? The spores, to me, they never truly explain how the spores get into the shuttle. After all, a shuttle is space worthily, not allot of open vents to the outside like a car or airplane. But that's minor, you must suspend your disbelieve and go with the flow of the film. The creature is a cool alien like design with the orange spores covering it. The acting isn't exactly Oscar worthy and they do get repetitive on the accident ala INCREDIBLE MELTING MAN. But again that's minor. This movie is crawling with pretty girls who stay in and out of clothing. So, there is that. A cool monster, there is that. An interesting if improbable plot, there is that. All and all, this movie has got a lot going for it. Fun, never dull and cool. If you want a realistic movie, then you probably will want to avoid DARK UNIVERSE, but if you want a fun monster romp with semi-dressed woman, then this is the movie for you. 8 STARS.

You know a film is basically destined to stink worse than dirty old socks when the eternally quality-impaired Fred Olen Ray and the comparably talent-barren Jim Wynorski are listed as executive producers (worse yet, Ray also co-wrote the "original" story!), longtime hack actor Steve Barkett receives special guest star billing for his quick pre-credits appearance as a doomed astronaut and Martin Sheen's terminally drab, anything but a chip off the ol' block brother Joe Estevez is the closet thing to a name actor in the entire cast. The horrendously derivative rag-bag premise writes a paltry check that the feeble film itself doesn't even come close to cashing: A huge, fanged, drooling dinosaurian beastie stows away on a spaceship which crash-lands in the dense, verdant, real ferny and swampy Florida bayou. Said bulky ugly creature proceeds to munch on lots of folks, causes several local animals to transform into murderous mutants (the ferocious killer puppet armadillo is pretty laughable) and even makes similarly infected humans metamorphosize into your standard blank-eyed, pasty-faced lethal zomboid ghouls.Steve Latshaw's flaccid direction fails to inject any sense of style or vigor into Pat Moran's threadbare script, which in turn serves as a horrible catalog of every last error one could possibly find in The Bad Movie Book of Serious Cinematic Sins. Said sins include a numbing surplus of dreary chitchat, painfully stilted dialogue (among the choice clunky lines are "I like to watch the news sometimes, but Tom he calls it propaganda" and "This boy scout isn't going to help us find anything"), too much meandering around the woods in circles filler nonsense, a grave lack of any inspired or interesting individual flourishes, a poky stab at narrative thrust and, perhaps the picture's grossest, most unforgivable mistake of all, an insipid assortment of tiresomely one-note stereotypical characters (feisty go-getter female reporter, pompous fat jerk scientist, arrogant macho dude trial guide, meek, skinny nerdy brainiac, shady, double-tongued corporate head and so on). The uniformly flat acting, Maxwell J. Beck's primitive cinematography (the laborious fade-outs and clumsy creature on the prowl POV shots are especially shoddy), cheesy computer morphing f/x, the hokey-looking, pitifully unconvincing monster and Jeffrey Walton's droning, insufferably overwrought score definitely don't help matters any as well. Only some welcome gratuitous nudity (ravishing brunette Blake Pickett in particular makes for a pleasingly ample eyeful sans shirt) and a clever Hitchcock-style cameo by Sunshine State B-movie institution William Grefe as a photo on a dresser effectively detract from the otherwise overwhelmingly substantial tedium and ineptitude that's in alarming abundance in this truly wretched dreck.

Wow. I knew exactly what I was getting into. I love bad horror/sci-fi movies (well, definitely not ALL of them..) but this sucked. A few amusing bits of bad acting stand out amidst a backdrop of low, LOW budget "action." I guess there's a couple decent bits of nudity, and having the monster be named "Steve" is kinda funny. The lack of special effects at the film's start was nearly unbearable. The sad thing is I've seen stuff that's a hundred times worse. MST could've worked wonders.....

Yeah. Right. This movie is right up there with Dusk til Dawn 2: Texas Blood Money as one of the worst, if not the worst ever. I rented this one just to make fun of it and it's so difficult to watch that I didn't even bother. This shlock has absolutely no moment of saving grace. The creature on the box looks like a cross between Giger's Alien and Barney. This one is not even worth getting paid to see. You will feel cheap, insulted and even offended watching this chock. This movie isn't even funny. They show breasts for no purpose other than to give you something to hoot about. I've seen home movies that are better produced than this suckfest. Avoid at all costs, unless renting ultrastink garbage is your bag. This is definitely one for the MST3K crowd. Rating: zero out of *****.