Australian Penthouse

PANDORUM
Director:  Christian Alvart
Stars:  Dennis Quaid, Ben Foster, Cung Le, Antje Traue
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Review:  Suzan Ryan

PANDORUM is a refreshingly edgy, dark sci-fi thriller that doesn’t quit. The tension is artfully applied to keep you guessing (and stressing) through every minute.

Pandorum affects brain and body functions in a way that is similar to the bends experienced by deep-sea divers—it is a rare yet decimating side-effect of space ‘hyper-sleep’, where temporary memory loss combines with feelings of paranoia and disorientation, which if untreated, results in a descent into madness.

In this instance, Earth’s final survivors travel into deep space aboard the Elysium, a supership carrying a Noah’s Ark of species and humanity hoping to start again on a distant world called Tanis.  Astronauts Payton (Quaid) and Bower (Foster) awaken in a locked hyper-sleep chamber without their short-term memory.

Payton remains while Bower crawls through the ventilation to attempt contact with the crew, only to find the ship’s reactor failing, the decks empty and the ship crawling with creatures that have replaced humans at the top of the food chain.

Employing elements of fear and paranoia done so successfully in movies such as Event Horizon and Aliens (thanks to co-producer Paul WS Anderson), Pandorum is a taut thriller that will reward investigation.