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Saturday, December 4, 2010

Movie Review - Dark Star (1974)


Everything has a beginning and that is especially true with the latest sci-fi movie "Dark Star" (1974). It was directed and co wrote by John Carpenter. It's basically his second movie made before "Halloween" (1978).

The story surrounds 4 astronauts aboard a small scout spaceship whose mission is to seek out unstable planets and destroy them to make way for colonization. Sound simple enough? They’ve been doing it now for 20 earth years or 3 of theirs and to make matters worse the ship is starting to malfunction with age. They have been denied any retrofitting or repairs due to recent cut backs. A recent electrical accident has left their Commander; Powell dead but he is still able to communicate left on ice in a cryro-freezer. The crew is quirky, an alien beach ball being is loose, and the ship and the bombs have their own personality. Things really get out of hand when the computer malfunctions and the bomb #20 wants to detonate. It’s up to the crew to pull together to get through.

Now, I won’t give away anymore than that. You will just have to watch it.

There was good use of camera work. The set was not bad for what it was. The affects were decent for it's time and in fact the person responsible was hired by George Lucas. Some of the wardrobe and props were questionable though. The acting was alright, all unknowns. The musical score was fantastic, made by John Carpenter himself and had that "Halloween" sound that we are all use to.

This movie was fun but serious at times. It was like “2001: A Space Odyssey” (1968) on crack. While watching I couldn’t help but notice some similarities; this movie may have been the inspiration to the “Red Dwarf” series.

I really liked this hidden jem low budget film. I recommend viewing it and rate it 7.5/10. If anything you should be curious what John Carpenter was able to do as a novice film maker.

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