Title: Stranded
Directed by: Roger Christian
Starring: Christian Slater, Brendan Fehr, Amy Matysio, Michael Therriault
Running time: 88 minutes, Unrated, Available on VOD 07/26
The Lunar Base Ark is suddenly hit by a meteor shower and Colonel Brauchman (Christian Slater) has crewmember Ava ( Amy Matysio) go out and repair the damage as only one space suit survived a fire. Turns out she can’t fix the damage, but finds a meteor with spores growing off of it, so naturally she decides to bring some potentially harmful space garbage inside their living quarters. When doing some lab tests with Dr Krauss (Brendan Fehr), Ava cuts her finger on a test tube and somehow develops an “accelerated pregnancy.” Ava starts having hallucinations either from the CO2 leak or from infection and delivers some monster baby that takes a chunk out of crewman Bruce’s (Michael Therriault) leg and somehow is able to clone itself from his DNA. The highly intelligent being is now knowledgeable about the inner workings of the space station and is determined to get off the rock and fly to earth for a one-man/creature invasion of sorts and it’s up to the rest of the crew to stop him.
The Negative: At the 15:50 mark, one obviously expendable character says the title of the movie which is not a good sign. It has the same director as Battlefield Earth (not necessarily a bad thing, because I actually enjoyed the story over the disastrously campy performances), but it’s another strike against this film. Amy Matysio doing Lamaze breathing as her character is first hit with signs of infection was ridiculous. The holo-recorder looks like one of those book lights that came free with my Snuggie. The alien creature effects look like a slimy rubberized toothless hand puppet version of Predator that somebody jiggled in front of the camera.
The Positive: ….ummm….Yeah, I’ve got nothing.
Stranded was a very disappointing effort. The actors didn’t seem very confident in the script either and it showed in their performances. I’m still holding out hope for Christian Slater’s next project because I know he can do better, but as a fan I was kind of embarrassed for him. It’s just not good at all.
Reviewed by: JM Willis
Total rating: F
