Dead Space (1991)

The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

Ok... Let's be honest. It cannot be the best movie but is quite enjoyable. The movie has the potential to develop a great plot for future movies

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

The movie really just wants to entertain people.

I love this movie, and even own it on laserdisc.Most critics of this movie miss what I think is the real point of this hilarious spoof. Here is an alien monster out to wipe out the bunch of them, and to a man (and woman!) they are acting more like teenagers in the back seat of a car than interstellar warriors! The cast is totally concerned with making out with each other, and to heck with the monster, or anything else for that matter, in a truly bizarre attempt to commit group suicide. The Dead Space is really between their ears!Yes, it is basically a remake of Corman's Forbidden World, but effects (especially the robot) are better and Marc Singer is more believable as the heroic (?) Ranger.This is great stuff, and it becomes more of a hoot each time you watch it! It's one of the most entertaining travesties you'll ever see!

So let me get this straight, Roger Corman for reasons only he himself knows decided to remake the film "Forbidden World". Not only did he remake it, he apparently decided to take out most of the nudity, make it less gory and make it a bit more talkative. Why? I am sure everyone out there would like an answer to this, but I am guessing he wanted to make a more serious version or something. This one is basically a lot less fun version, you have Marc Singer and his robot pal going to a planet cause an experiment has gone array. So yes, like "Forbidden World" only with all the fun stripped from it. It was not all bad as there was one rather good jump moment I was not expecting and there was a couple of good gore effects, but overall "Forbidden World" has this one beat in nearly every possible way. I mean the effects were even better in that one, as was the music. In that one it was a really nifty 80's sounding set of tracks while this was very forgettable. Stupid twists and the ending was not as cool either. That and another thing that made this film kind of hard to watch was the fact it featured more creature in the air vent scenes. I have watched a lot of horror movies the past few weeks and this theme is getting old. The monster does not look as good, the robot looks dreadful (though it did not look great in the original) just not enough here. Even the girls were more attractive in the other film. Though this film features one of the most unheroic moments I have ever seen near the end that had me chuckling too. Still, if I did not get this on a double feature set of movies along with "The Terror Within" I would be a bit more ticked off.

Delta 5 is a disease which has no cure and kills whoever has contracted it, with spaceman("freelance controller") Marc Singer landing on a research station containing scientists attempting to find a cure. A cultured creature(a "metamorphic mutant") breaks loose ala ALIEN and starts attacking crew members. The creature infects those it slashes with a flesh-eating virus that ravages the body relatively quickly and so avoiding it's mandible claws are a must. Singer's guns seem to have little to no effect on the creature so another method will have to be discovered pronto or else no one will be able to survive.DEAD SPACE is umpteenth movie to use BATTLE BEYOND THE STARS footage of battles in space(Singer encounters some "resistance" while answering the distress signal which lands him in hot water)and probably features Roger Corman sets. You have the chest bursting scene where the mutant breaks from it's human shell(the creature, in it's initial infantile form, invaded a victim through the nostril of her nose!) and continues to grow at an alarming rate(examples which mirror ALIEN, also). The uniqueness of this sci-fi horror's creature is that it is a virus which needs to kill because that's what it is designed to do. A virus kills cells and humans, as you know, have plenty of them. It travels through the science installation's vent system and becomes such a nuisance that anyone who has the misfortune of ending up in the same room with it normally doesn't last very long. As other like-minded individuals, I seek after low budget 80's sci-fi creature features, which rip off hits like ALIEN, producing clones on a smaller scale with B-movie casts. DEAD SPACE operates in this fashion which is why I enjoyed it more than the mainstream crowd who would probably find this laughable junk not worthy of their time. Director Fred Gallo shoots around the rubber creature as much a possible, attempting to make it scary, even though the grand reveal(and this is often this case) turns out to be a bit underwhelming. It does allow Singer to play hero, and he gets to show off his muscular physique for the ladies. Singer has a partner in a robot who operates under his command(basically a man with props glued to a uniform)he calls "tinpan".

The filmmakers apparently had enough money to be able to afford decent makeup effects, but not enough for a creature that would move around and attack convincingly. We never get a chance to see the "monster" move from one place to another - whenever that happens (supposedly), the camera focuses on the "terrified" reactions of the humans that are nearby. And when a man is attacked by it, he simply seems to be holding an inanimate object against himself so that it won't fall to the ground. This is still not the worst "Alien" rip-off around (the two "Xtro" films are even worse, for example); it's actually sufficiently entertaining if you've got 68 (!!) minutes to spare. (*1/2)