Intensity	Stupidity:Nudity Ratio 8:4	Budget Medium

Jim Wynorski and Fred Olen Ray produced this puppy? My, how frugal.

A spaceship helmed by a man wearing suspenders crashes in the Florida everglades. An investigative reporter and a man researching an old Seminole burial ground enlist the aid of a local guide and enter the swamp. Soon we discover that they are not what they seem but are actually working with the man that funded the ill-fated space voyage. We also discover that something came back with the ship, something carnivorous. Most of the cast gets killed off and the hero knocked unconscious, but the girls come through to save the day.

Dark Universe is one of the many Alien rip offs that came down the pike after the success of one of the sequels. That is right, this Alien movie was done nearly 14 years after the original, in fact it came out right after Alien 3. I am not sure what Fred Olen Ray ("Bad Girls from Mars") and Jim Wynorski ("Transylvania Twist")were waiting for, possibly funding which fell through, which would explain the quality of the special effects. Now don't get me wrong, I have lots of respect for Jim and Fred. They managed to produce a large number of movies that were pretty entertaining without very much in the way of budget or, truth be told, imagination. But you know what? I watched them. Me and about a million other guys. I have talked before about journeymen directors; guys that can get a film done without spending a lot of money or time. They know they are not making great movies, but they know their target audience (that would be me) and they take enough pride in their work that the scenes are well lit, the actors actually memorize their lines and you rarely see the boom mike.

Dark Universe starts out with some shots of a space shuttle and then various means of exposition informs us that the shuttle is privately owned by a man (Joe Estevez), who thinks NASA spends way too much money on their equipment. The dialog is more than a little strange here because I think it was supposed to be bantering between two good friends, but it comes off as a boss and a disgruntled employee. Apparently to save money, the millionaire put only one person on the shuttle and that guy may have been sweeping floors on his last job. Part of the problem is that Joe Estevez was clearly only there for one day's shooting and none of the rest of the cast was there that day. So Joe gives a lot of press conferences and has a couple of radio conversations. This makes for some fairly stilted conversations.

Anyway, the janitor manages to get the shuttle into a geosynchronous orbit over Florida just before he starts reentry. Sigh. Geosynchronous orbit means that you are stationary over a landmark on the planet. Usually only communication satellites are pushed into geosynchronous orbits. So having lined up the shuttle to right above Florida, our fearless, silver-tongued pilot brings the craft (and some space fungus)down to crash land in the Everglades. Apparently turning off the rockets just lets the shuttle go straight down. Shortly after yet another press conference from Joe, a team of archeologists looking for a Seminole burial ground hire an airboat. Do they take the air boat into the swamp to find what they are looking for? No. They use it get them to where the guide lives. After the some bantering, the guide agrees to take them out into the swamp. He must be an awfully good guide, because they don't even take a boat, just a few day packs. Despite the fact that we see a fair amount of water, gators and other swamp life, our heroes never get near any mud. After a couple of attacks, they set up camp. Suddenly they have three tents, sleeping bags, chairs, tables and lab supplies. All out of six little day packs. Another example of the N Space Pocket.

One of the monster attacks is clearly a rubber armadillo stuffed with cheap spaghetti sauce, you know, the kind that is orange instead of red. No one seems to recognize that this is an armadillo. It is referred to several times as that creature. At first I was puzzled by this. How could they not recognize an armadillo? Still we are talking about B movie logic, so anything is possible. In fact, when it comes time to take the monster out, they use a signal flare to catch it on fire. Odd, if fire could destroy the monster, wouldn't it have burned up when the ship crashed and exploded in flames?

As with most movies of this type, there is a lot of walking around. Maybe if we were really deep in the swamp with lots of interesting vistas and odd animals, the site seeing might be worthwhile, but it is really mostly shots of the cast wandering back and forth over the same patch of ground. There is a fair amount of nudity provided by Blake Pickett ("Confessions of a Lap Dancer", "Click")and Laurie Sherman ("She"), but as usual it is in easily edited spots which can be removed for regular TV viewing.

During the final showdown you would expect to see the complete monster. Up to now we have been teased with shots of the monster hiding in bushes or poking part of its head through a hut. Now is the time to reveal the monster in all it's glory! Well, maybe not. Turns out they could only afford half a monster, so no legs and the monster can only move when the cameras are not on it. But it does have those Boxing Nun arms.

Not actually a scene from movie, but almost as scary!

Got a comment or different opinion? Send a message.