November 14, 2011

Movie Review: The Dark Side of the Moon

So, I was trolling my way through Netflix queue in search of something to watch when I stumbled across a intriguing looking title. It was called The Dark Side of the Moon, a low budget science fictioner from 1990. It was accompanied by an image of the, you guessed it, dark side of the moon with a touch of the horizon light showing through with the back of a spacecraft with is engines hot. It wasn't a poster and there no words on it. These taken together did not give me hope for quality, but it was intriguing enough to get me to press play.



This is a B-movie through and through. Cheap effects, poor looking sets, and the acting, well, the acting is nothing to right home about either. Still, I found myself locked in and watching as the ridiculous plot unfolded in front of me. All right, perhaps I should not say ridiculous, but there is certainly something about some details and in the execution.

The movie really does not make a whole lot of sense. Characters do silly things, the plot moves about in silly ways, and end up in predicaments they probably shouldn't wind up in. Still, I found myself arching and at times enjoying this.

The plot plays out liked this, there is a ship sent out with a crew to repair nuclear satellites and they run out of power just as they get to the dark side of the moon. Perfect, right? They fortuitously encounter a derelict ship. They dock and go on oars where they find one dead crewman while they scavenge for useful parts. Odd to find the ship out here, especially when they discover it crashed into the Atlantic years before.

In any case, they gather up the dead guy, who turns out to be not quite dead, and return to their ship. He dead guy gets up and attacks another crewman and this is where things take a turn for the paranoid as some know what is happening while others efuse to believe.

You know what is going to happen here, there will be bickering among the crew, others will get attacked, they all realize that something is indeed happening and they need to stop it. Is there time? Is there any doubt?



The movie is a copy of a copy of Alien, while also being something of a precursor to Event Horizon. The movie helps create an atmosphere along the lines of those two, well one, films with the use of pretty good lighting, which also helps to hide the lackluster sets. However, what the lighting does not explain includes the humanoid computer in the guise of a sexy woman who just sits there and answers questions posed to it. I know I have seen this in another movie, but I can't place it. Here it just seems unnecessary.

Well, the plot of the movie attempts to link the Bermuda Triangle with a similar location on the dark side of the moon. It is some sort of portal that is being used by, get this, Satan to collect souls. I know. I won't go into it anymore. It is actually an interesting idea hampered by a bad script and a hero with a feathered mullet. Not to mention some oddity with the bad guy cutting out triangle flesh pieces. Probably the best piece is the final sequence with a moon based chiller that won't reveal here.

On a side note, I found one recognizable face in the cast, Joe Turkel. You may remember him as the bartender in The Shining or one of the doctors in Blade Runner. I got to meet him a few months ago and he is the ultimate gentleman with some great stories from his career to share.

Anyway, if you like cheesy movies with decent ideas, give this a shot, otherwise stay far, far away.

Mildly Recommended.


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