Dark Star

John Carpenter, USA, 1974, 90 mins

Space is boring. Kubrick's 2001 makes a point of exploring the tedium of space travel, as do many other films; but Dark Star remains the only one to exploit this key fact for laughs.

It concerns the attempts by four astronauts, who are hysterical with boredom and hate each other to pieces to relieve the dullness of travelling between their "missions". One's a hippy, one's a slob, one gazes at the stars and the fourth guy came in to check the oxygen tanks and didn't leave quick enough. But things go horribly wrong when the ship is hit by an asteroid shower causing the central (female) computer to fail and bomb no. 19 develops a serious attitude. Described by Carpenter as "one big optical Waiting For Godot in space", Dark Star is not just a satire on pretentious sci-fi films like 2001, but also on American culture in general - one character's penchant for surfing, for example. It's an unusual debut from a director who went on to make thrillers such as They Live and The Thing, but then suspense only comes as a result of long periods when nothing happens (just look at Hitchcock). Writer/actor Dan O'Bannon went on to direct Return Of The Living Dead.

Dark Star was a student film made on a tiny budget (the alien gives it away a bit), so join ESVP and see if you can do better.

Review by Stephen Cox
Taken from EUFS Programme 1994-95