Pitch Black
USA/Australia 2000
Reviewed by Daniel Etherington
Synopsis
Our synopses give away the plot in full, including surprise twists.
Space, the future. A spaceship is hit by fragments of cosmic debris and crashes on a desert planet. Pilot Fry, bounty hunter Johns, and his captive, Riddick, are among the survivors. When a survivor is found dead, Riddick is blamed. Fry stumbles across a cave where she escapes being killed by alien creatures.
In a deserted camp, Riddick concludes that the planet's last human inhabitants were all killed when an eclipse occurred. The resourceful Shazza repairs a solar-powered vehicle which allows the group to transfer fuel cells from their ship to a craft at the camp. As they head off, an eclipse begins. A swarm of flying creatures kills Shazza. Riddick, whose eyes are altered for night vision, sees larger creatures fill the sky before the group retreat to the crashed ship.
With the vehicle useless, the group carry the fuel cells, using lights to keep the creatures - which can only survive in darkness - at bay. Antiquarian Paris accidentally destroys the main light source. Johns proposes to use Jack, a female passenger, as a decoy. Riddick and Johns fight; the bounty hunter loses and is killed by a creature. Fry, Muslim holy man Iman and Jack take shelter; Riddick presses on without them. Fry follows using phosphorescent bugs for light and convinces Riddick to help the others. Fry is killed but the rest escape.
Review
From its shipwreck-in-space scenario, which recalls Robinson Crusoe on Mars (1964), to its throngs of vicious cave-dwelling aliens, which bring to mind the deadly insect-like creatures in Starship Troopers, Pitch Black plays like an amalgamation of some of the most familiar tropes in science-fiction film. The film's clearest stylistic debt, though, is to the Alien series, and its hybrid of horror and sci-fi. Not only do Patrick Tatopoulos' creatures, which pick off the survivors of the crashed spacecraft, resemble H. R. Giger's razor-toothed predators, but pilot Fry's reluctant, ultimately fearless brand of heroism follows the template set by Ripley in Alien and its three sequels.
David Twohy (who made good use of a low budget on his debut, the sci-fi film The Arrival) directs with a vigour that compensates for Pitch Black's more derivative elements. Just as Alien's shadowy mise en scène tantalised us with glimpses of its monster, Pitch Black initially holds back from showing us its predatory creatures (the first victim is killed off screen). Indeed, this stock horror device, which plays on our desire to see all against our wish to be spared the gore, is given a twist by the nocturnal nature of the attacking aliens. (In the best horror traditions, the characters are at their most vulnerable when the lights fail.) When not shrouded in darkness, the Australian locations are given a subtle sense of otherworldliness by production designer Graham Walker (who gave the outback a futuristic makeover in Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome).
Pitch Black features some lovingly crafted effects - notably director of photography David Eggby's bleached colour palette - and some vivid characterisation. There's an intriguing moral ambiguity, for instance, which surrounds convicted murderer Riddick. With his opaque, inscrutable eyes (Riddick has enhanced night vision), gravelly intonation and reluctance to look after anyone but himself, Vin Diesel's Riddick puts you in mind of the lone, ungiving figures of films by Sam Peckinpah and Sergio Leone. Though some sexual frisson between this consummate outsider and Fry is introduced, Twohy refuses to soften Riddick's hardened exterior, thereby imbuing this predictable plot turn with an uneasy charm of its own.
Credits
- Director
- David Twohy
- Producer
- Tom Engelman
- Screenplay
- Jim Wheat
- Ken Wheat
- David Twohy
- Based on a story by
- Jim Wheat
- Ken Wheat
- Director of Photography
- David Eggby
- Editor
- Rick Shaine
- Production Designer
- Graham 'Grace' Walker
- Music/Score Producer/
- Orchestra Conductor
- Graeme Revell
- Production Companies
- Gramercy Pictures presents an Interscope Communications production
- Made with the assistance of Pacific Film and Television Commission
- Executive Producers
- Ted Field
- Scott Kroopf
- Anthony Winley
- Executive in Charge of Production
- Michelle Wright
- Production Co-ordinators
- Jennifer Cornwell
- 2nd Unit:
- Michelle Russell
- Los Angeles Co-ordinator
- Davia Clayton
- Unit Production Manager
- Sue Mackay
- Additional Unit Manager
- Nick Stewart
- Location Manager
- Campbell McLean
- Post-production
- Supervisor:
- Graham Stumpf
- Co-ordinators:
- Lorisa D. Francis
- Peter Klemchuk
- 2nd Unit Director
- Ian 'Thistle' Thorburn
- Assistant Directors
- Jamie Crooks
- Jennifer Rees-Brown
- Angella McPherson
- Peter McLennan
- 2nd Unit:
- Carolynne Cunningham
- Guy Campbell
- Marc Ashton
- Script Supervisor
- Lyn Alice Aronson
- 2nd Unit Continuity
- Karen Mansfield
- Kira Bohn
- Casting
- Mullinars Consultants
- Ann Robinson
- 2nd Unit Director of Photography
- Ian 'Thistle' Thorburn
- Camera Operators
- Brad Shield
- Henry Pierce
- Derry Field
- 2nd Unit:
- Jack Wareham
- Steadicam Operator
- Brad Shield
- Visual Effects Supervisor
- Peter Chiang
- Visual Effects Editor
- Karen Dimmig
- Digital Visual Effects
- Double Negative Ltd.
- The Magic Camera Company
- Special Effects
- Supervisor:
- Brian Cox
- Technicians:
- Steve 'Zac' Szekeres
- Pauline Grebert
- David Hardie
- 2nd Unit, Technicians:
- Angelo Sahin
- Patrick Camiggelt
- Miniature Effects
- Hunter/Gratzner Industries Inc
- Visual Effects Miniature Photography
- The Chandler Group
- Graphic Artist
- Mandy Willaton
- Art Director
- Ian Gracie
- Set Designers
- Jacinta Leong
- Martin Ash
- Set Decorator
- Michael Rumpf
- Illustrator
- Phil Shearer
- Storyboard/Concept Artists
- Tim Lawrence
- Brian Murray
- Jason Brubaker
- Costume Designer
- Anna Borghesi
- Costume Supervisor
- Keryn Ribbands
- Make-up/Hair
- Supervisor:
- Margaret Stevenson
- Artist:
- Maree McDonald
- 2nd Unit Make-up
- Sue Kelly-Tait
- Creatures Design/ Supervisor
- Patrick Tatopoulos
- Creature Fabrication
- John Cox
- John Cox's Creature Workshop
- Prosthetic Make-up
- Jason Baird
- Hairstylist
- Carolyn Nott
- Main Titles/Opticals
- Pacific Title/Mirage
- End Titles
- Title House
- Orchestrations
- Tim Simonec
- Arrangements
- Paul Haslinger
- Executive in Charge of Music
- Dawn Solér
- Music Editor
- Josh Winget
- Music Mixer
- Mitch Zelenzy
- Music Design
- Brian Williams
- Robert Rich
- Steve Roach
- Sound Design
- Tom Myers
- Sound Recordist
- Paul' Salty' Brincat
- Re-recording Mixers
- Lora Hirschberg
- Michael Semanick
- Re-recordist
- Mark Pendergraft
- Digital Transfer Supervisor
- Jonathan Greber
- Digital Transfers
- Christopher Barron
- Joan Malloch
- Dee Selby
- Supervising Sound Editor
- Robert Shoup
- Dialogue Editors
- Karen Wilson
- Lindakay Brown
- Gloria D'Alessandro
- Sound Effects Editors
- James LeBrecht
- E. Larry Oatfield
- Sam Hinckley
- ADR Editors
- Marilyn McCoppen
- Michele Perrone
- Foley
- Artists:
- Dennie Thorpe
- Jana Vance
- Recordist:
- Frank 'Pepe' Merel
- Mixer:
- Tony Eckert
- Editor:
- Mary Helen Leasman
- Stunt Co-ordinator
- Chris Anderson
- Armourer
- Allan Mowbray
- Cast
- Vin Diesel
- Riddick
- Radha Mitchell
- Fry
- Cole Hauser
- Johns
- Keith David
- Imam
- Lewis Fitz-Gerald
- Paris
- Claudia Black
- Shazza
- Rhiana Griffith
- Jack
- John Moore
- Zeke
- Simon Burke
- Owens
- Les Chantery
- Suleiman
- Sam Sari
- Hassan
- Firass Dirani
- Ali
- Ric Anderson
- total stranger
- Vic Wilson
- captain
- Angela Makin
- dead crew member
- Certificate
- 15
- Distributor
- United International Pictures (UK) Ltd
- 9,912 feet
- 110 minutes 8 seconds
- Dolby Digital Surround EX/DTS/SDDS
- Colour by
- Atlab QLD
- Super 35 [2.35:1]