Shadowzone

[Andrew]

I watched this the other night and quickly realized that I had made a mistake in thinking that I had seen the entire film.  After some investigating, it appears that I had this mixed up with an episode of “Showtimes The Outer Limits.”

A military investigator arrives at a remote government laboratory to investigate the sudden death of a test subject.  The research group is learning about putting people into extended deep sleep.  Unfortunately, something strange occurs when a subject is lowered to Level 31E (I think it was 31E).

The head scientist is doing his best to cover up the anomaly from the military officer.  He agrees to a test that lowers another one of the two subjects (one male, one quite female – they are kept in capsules, nude) to 31E.  Now, that is funny.  “Subject A died of a massive stroke when lowered to 31E.  To make sure that was not normal, let’s put another subject in 31E.  If he dies, we know that we have a problem.”

Yup, the second test subject dies after being taken to 31E.  In fact, his head explodes and something happens in the test chamber.  The computer identifies another entity in the test chamber as “John Doe.”  The head scientist tries to contact the mystery visitor, but is killed.  Whatever is in the chamber then beats dents in a heavy duty steel security hatch.

Pretty soon, the creature is loose in the facility.  It turns out that it can assume the shape of anything in a person’s mind.  The entity is the inhabitant of a plane of existence that can be touched by humans in deep sleep.  Nightmares might be a byproduct of such contact and the sleep suddenly awaking is actually our natural defense mechanism.

The cast is small and there are two times when we do not see the monster, but it kills a character.  Interestingly, I think that those two scenes are much better than two other scenes where we do briefly see something.  Letting the viewer’s mind come up with a visual for the creature is pretty effective.  There are two scenes with the creature that are effective.  One is just a flash, after it impersonates a monkey, and was interesting.  The second is when we see its true form.  I liked the ultimate creature design.  It is human-like, but sufficiently gooey.

One of the better Full Moon efforts.

[JPickettIII]

I have this movie on VHS and love watching it.  It is a great Full Moon product.  I don't get tired of watching it.  I like the creature, it is a little more gooey than most things.  I liked the fact that there was a lot of darkness, so the viewers would have to use their imagination.  That was pretty useful when Schivers met his untimely end.  Or the computer programer, met his at the elevator.

The ending was alright.  There was no big special fight or special effects done.  Just a light sorce and a big axe to do radom violence again computers.

I will have to say, I was a little confused about the subjects being nude.  But I did not mind looking at the female subject.  Guess that is the guy in me. 

All in all, this is a great movie.  I would recommend it to anyone that enjoys sci-fi movies.

John

[CoreyHeldpen]

Sounds like something I'd like to check out. I think I'll track down a copy.

[AnubisVonMojo]

Wow, haven't seen this movie in.... uhm... at least 9 years! I do remember it being an interesting blend of The Thing meets A Nightmare on Elm Street with a Full Moon budget and being something of a pleasant surprise. I'll have to check it out again. Thanks for the reminder Andrew!