Review of Dark Star (1974) by Mark P — 03 Aug 2009

Cheap, cheap, cheap. I mean, the "alien creature" is a beach ball with rubber monster hands on it.

Now, that's not the problem, really.

What you have here is an ultra-low budget film directed by John (Halloween) Carpenter, and written by Carpenter and Dan (Alien) O'Bannon. O'Bannon actually appears in the film, as well. The story is, essentially, a parody of 2001, with a "smart bomb" that becomes self-aware and threatens the crew of the ship Dark Star.

The Dark Star's mission is to travel about the universe and demolish all unstable planets they encounter. The guys on board are all working Joe-types. Blue-collar, and the commander was "killed" in an accident. Now he's in storage, frozen solid on the edge of death.

There's some clever writing here, and the cast is game, if unremarkable. However a lot of the humor falls flat, it's muddled in execution or simply garbled in the poor sound.

What is interesting is watching Carpenter and O'Bannon developing the skills that would serve them well later in their careers. The best sequence in the film is one of the crew hunting down the above described alien. It's so clearly an early draft of a extremely similar sequence in Alien. Carpenter also shoots it with the skill that would fully from on Halloween. I spent half the scene waiting for this weird ball to kill the guy. It's well done, but kinda out of place with the rest of the film.

Well worth seeing if you're a Carpenter or O'Bannon fan, it's an interesting moment in their carreers. As a film on it's own, I found it a little lacking.