I’m a sucker for Alien ripoffs. Really, I am. Something about the shared stories (monsters whittling down hapless cast members) strikes something elemental in my brain. The formula for films like Alien seems so fundamentally sound to modern storytelling that I bet, had he been alive in the era of science fiction, the Bard himself would have come up with it.
Pitch Black, from the year 2000, has, since its release, ensconced itself as both a cult film and a classic entry in the sci-fi monster subgenre. I’m having a hard time recalling a film that held so little promise yet ended up being quite so watchable. I remember heading to the theater to see it thinking I was in for a real shitfest, but I was wrong. Sure, Pitch Black won’t make most critics’ top 500 lists anytime soon, but for a film with such a derivative nature, and therefore incurring such dismal prospects, it was pleasantly surprising. In a less backhanded way, if a viewer refuses to compartmentalize the flick into preconceived notions of what a good science fiction film is supposed to be, they should discover that Pitch Black is a good science fiction film. Continue reading “October Horrorshow: Pitch Black”