Reviews

The plot has no obvious continuity issues, and the scenes are carefully thought out, if a bit naive - but in a positive, honest way. It could even be called a spiritual sequel to the 'episode' with the demon girl in V/H/S, the influences are clearly there but the story is constructed separately, in a neat narrative. The actors are refreshingly on par, nice chemistry between the cast shows through which is always good. The movie is not a huge production, and it does not try to be. This is a good thing because it shows focus on what can work. And it is not lazy or jaded, nor does it look 'poor'. The few downsides it does have come naturally from a lack of budget, but they are not distracting. Other than that, it manages to feel like a properly engaging movie.

I am certainly not sorry for spending the time to watch it.

One can see there was no effort spent in trying to make this a visually worthy trip to the theatre. Aside from veering way off from the original storyline - which in itself can ruin a production considering there was a real initial reason for it being appealing as it was - it is a real shame nothing better came out of a production with the budget and editing values to make it great. This is even more saddening when one considers the cast and performances (including the actors which played the 7 dwarfs) were only marred by the poor dialogue writing. This movie tries to hard to appeal to a market which is overly saturated with verbal clichés and plot developments leading to nothing but predictable high-points. It's almost sad to see the actors struggling to cope (albeit skillfully) with the restrictive role directions set for them. All in all my opinion is that the present adaptation of the medieval story is only a slave to current perceived values of cinema and can only serve as an example to those stupid enough to cater to a slowly dying trend. I'm not saying we should ignore the target audiences but isn't is a shame to see so much sacrificed in order to ensure a couple spend a few bucks extra for their 11 years old child to get in the cinema free of the danger of the queen being a bit too evil and potentially offensive as in the original story? So is it ourselves or the "rating system" that don't like the sight of snow white actually biting from the apple and apparently dying?

I've just finished watching this and i must say i really had low expectations for it as it has been released directly to DVD. However, it has proved to be quite entertaining, it deserves a 7 mark as far as i'm concerned.

The plot: in the distant future, due to interstellar space travel advancements, humanity has started setting up massive mining operations on other planets. Alien life has not been discovered yet, but a certain mining site uncovers a ancient and mysterious artifact which seems to be related to a religious current that places a similar object at its base. The massive artifact is being prepared to be transported to Earth on a transport ship but upon its arrival strange events take place involving the personnel of the mining facility. Paranoia, delusions and a unexplained wave of violent incidents among the miners. The source of these increasingly strange events starts pointing more and more towards the alien object, and the senior security officer on the ship is the only one that seems to foresee the danger.

Animation is decent, if a bit too choppy at moments but it makes up for it on the action scenes where it appears to get noticeably better.

This is not Japanese so don't expect some impressive "camera" (this is animation) movements but with pretty skilled use of CG here and there it manages to pull of some exciting stuff.

The story could of been a bit more elaborate, but they do throw in some details and explanations. Horror fans will be pleased with the amount of gore and blood, but those expecting a solid intrigue and story will be left somewhat unsatisfied. I'm saying this not because it is confusing or bleak but because along the way it promises some nice twists and does not get into details, maybe due to the fact that the movie is pretty short (1hr 14mins).

Overall, a decent animation flick well worth watching on DVD and for those interested, a horror survival video game has been released at the same time (the movie is a back-story to the events in the game ), named simply Dead Space and taking place in the same setting as the movie.