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(2) PANDORUM with Dennis Quaid, Ben Foster, Cam Gigandet, Antje Traue, Cung Le. Directed by Christian Alvart (The Boardwalk).

THE sci-fi horror Pandorum succeeds in making the viewer’s skin crawl, but doesn’t achieve much else.

Set 100 years or so in the future when earth is at the point of self destruction and mankind is searching for a new planet to call home, the action takes place on a spaceship where the crew and passengers have been in a state of controlled sleep until they near their destination.

As Payton (Dennis Quaid) and Bower (Ben Foster) wake up, they realise that something is wrong. The ship is operating on back-up power and various systems are malfunctioning. As Bower goes to investigate, he finds the ship overrun by a species of carnivorous aliens, which look like deformed cloned versions of Gollum from The Lord of the Rings.

He teams up with various other survivors to try to reach the reactor core and restart the power. Meanwhile the crew are struggling with a medical condition called pandorum – basically a space version of cabin fever which makes them paranoid and start making illogical decisions.

It’s one of those badly written horrors where you can tell the main characters will be able to dodge almost anything that’s thrown at them, while extras will get eaten within a minute of being introduced.

Due to the lack of power on the ship, many scenes take place in near darkness and while this may add to the unnerving, creepy atmosphere, it makes it difficult to work out what is actually going on.

Editing techniques such as switching rapidly between characters in a battle scene also annoy the viewer rather than enhance the quality of the film. Given the quality of recent Star Wars and Star Trek films, this space odyssey seems a rushed job put together by a bunch of amateurs and is not going to impress sci-fi or horror fans.

Reviewed by Leon Muston ARTS EDITOR mustonl@avusa.co.za