Dead Space: Downfall

Dead Space was one of the most fun, horrifying experiences I have had in recent years without having to summon up some actual zombies myself. Note: Do not try that at home, kids. It's at best very messy.

Anyways, I ADORED the game for reasons that many of you have probably already heard from one source or another, so of course I was rather eager when I heard that an animated film based on the backstory of the game was on the way. I popped right down to Meijer in the middle of the night to buy it. Within thirty seconds of putting it into my dvd player, I knew I had made a horrible, horrible mistake.

I proceeded to spend twenty minutes watching unskippable previews for bad low budget horror films that I had little to no interest in. You may condemn me for mentioning bad previews in a movie review, but when the movie is ONLY available on DVD, it's a part of the viewing experience as much as anything else is. In any case, after I wethered through that onslaught, I hit play on the actual movie. The animation was that disgusting style I call Americanime. Now, I'm an anime nerd. I love the style, the design, everything about it. What I HATE is when American artists use the fact that anime is popular as an excuse to animate less frames per second, thus leading to that "popular" anime choppieness. It's downright lazy is all it is. In any case this film was literally INFESTED with choppy animation whenever they could get away with it. The dialogue throughout was very badly written, and the voice acting... well... Let's just say the highlight of the voiceacting was recognizing the voice of Cat. From Catdog. Yeah. It really kind of ruined it for me, too.

My main point is that essentially everything about the movie was bad for NO reason. Still, I was a big fan of the game, so I stuck it through, trying hard to not get too upset. Honestly, I was rewarded with some very awesome gore payoffs. That's one thing the movie had in SPADES. The creatures were all properly designed to match, and it pulled even less punches on the gore than the game did, which has to be some kind of record. All in all, the gore kind of saved the rest of it, but only for people like me.

If mindless droning gore and violence is not your idea of a lovely evening, avoid this one at all costs. If, however, you love to see the red splatter, or are a huge fan of the game, it provides some interesting distraction.

6 out of 10 floating body parts.