Pitch Black Movie Review

This movie is both a terrifying trip through a gauntlet of things that lurk in the dark, and a trip to redeem the soul of a man who at first identifies more with the monsters he faces than the people he is with.  Through the trip the main character a criminal named Riddick finds some things that reinforce his disillusionment, but others that stimulate his sense of honor.

The story is good but I find it a little too dark and Riddick is always a little too cold for me to get comfortable with it.  The fact is that Riddick is not a hero, and the story does not transform him into one.  At the beginning he is a dangerous monster of a man, and at the end he still is one, but he has found people he feels worthy of living, and that he grudgingly cares about. It shows that in the end even a monster can help his fellow man.

The show starts out with a cargo ship being disabled and having to crash land on a deserted planet.  One of the passengers is the dangerous criminal Riddick who escapes.  The rest of the passengers find a deserted settlement, and signs that things did not end peacefully.  The settlement has a spaceship, but no power cells.  It turns out that the planet they are on has three suns, and they are heading into a rare time when night will fall.  With the fall of night Monstrous creatures emerge, and Riddick, who can see better in the dark, rejoins the survivors, and begrudgingly helps them retrieve the power cells from the crashed ship.  During the journey some of the survivors die, and fights erupt.  At one point Riddick must step in to save a girl that was in disguise as a boy from being used as bait.  In the end Riddick has decided to leave the planet without the people but the pilot says she is willing to risk her life for them when Riddick asks.  This impresses him and he helps her save them.  In the process Riddick is overtaken by the monsters, but the pilot dies trying to save him.  He manages to win his fight with the monsters, decides to save everyone to repay her sacrifice, and regains some of his humanity in the process.

This movie will appeal to science fiction fans who like horror and suspense films as well.  It will also appeal to action fans because of the fight scenes.  This is not a movie for kids.

This movie can be found a www.amazon.com on disk or for streaming rental or purchase.

StakeLand Movie Review

I suppose this movie can be described as a horror movie, but it seems to be more of a dark coming of age movie to me.  It is true that the movie is basically a post civilization collapse story with "Vampires", but the plot focuses more on a master vampire hunter training an apprentice to live in the collapsed world. 

The vampires in this movie are a lot more like zombies than anything you can find in contemporary fiction for the most part.  They are unthinking, undead creatures constantly seeking blood and fleeing the sun.  they are a bit stronger than normal humans, but not much, and their main advantage seems to be the fact that they are infectious, and there are a lot of them.  From what I can tell in the movie if you are killed by one your rise as one, but all thought ceases in the transition.  The world is definitely in a new dark age in this film, but there are many examples of communities getting by.

The two main characters in this movie are Martin, the apprentice, and Mister, the master.  The story is told from Martin's point of view and narrated by him.  It doesn't really feel like a horror film because the main characters are so numb to the horror around them that the normal tension is just not there.  Instead it is replaced by the coming of age story of Martins training by Mister.  Don't get me wrong all the elements of a horror movie are there, but they didn't hit me the same way.  

The basic plot of the movie is that Mister and Martin are trying to get to New Eden, which is apparently in Canada, where the cold keeps the vampires at bay.  They travel through a transformed United states fighting vampires, and picking up companions, and enemies along the way.

This movie was interesting, but very dark, and I would not recommend it if you are terribly afraid of vampires or zombies.  If you can get past that it is an interesting take on a coming of age tale, and the background for the setting is very well thought out.

I watched this movie on Netflix via my Roku streaming player.