CinemaSerf (August 3, 2024)

I know, thought auteur Matt Woollard. Let's get our mates at Paramount to lend us a sound stage for the day so we can get out those old diving suits from that Jacques Cousteau documentary. Then we can make a pseudo-sci-fi yarn about three entirely interchangeable women stranded on a dark and foggy planet that appears to be being terrorised by a creature attracted to the light and with a propensity to leave huge great droppings. Perhaps, as they sift through this excrement looking for treasure, they figured it only fair that we do the same with the storyline so onwards we go in shared misery. Light? Ah, yes - what did we do with the ones from last year's Christmas tree? Perfect. Who needs a budget? Or a writer? Or a plot? Indeed, after about fifteen minutes of this really quite dreary and pace-free drama I figured that this just had to have been made as a student bet. To be fair, some of the visuals are at least as good as those in an edition of "Space 1999" from, say, 1975 - but the rest of this is complete non-event from start to finish. There isn't any acting to speak of, just the characters in their upturned goldfish bowls searching around in the dark for a missing son "Luccas" (Yes, with two c's for some reason!). Woollard tries to inject a hint of jeopardy at the end with a little double-dealing, but that is but one of ninety minutes that we shall never get back. It's the kind of film that everyone involved with will swiftly want to deny all knowledge of, and it's certainly not worth watching.