Here's what you need to know; an illegal mining operation on the remote planet, Aegis VII has unearthed a Marker, an ancient alien artefact of great religious significance, but by the time the USG Ishimura arrives to collect the artefact, a series of sudden murders and suicides has turned the colony on its head, and many believe the Marker to be the cause. But the Marker's not finished spreading its influence as contact is suddenly lost with the colony during a mysterious attack. The faith of the Ishimura's crew is about to be challenged however as the colony's attacker finds its way aboard and a nightmarish infection begins to tear the ship apart. With the ship's security forces fighting a losing battle and the survivors being driven to madness, it's only a matter of time before all has been consumed by the power of the Marker.
Dead Space is one of my favourite game franchises and after compiling my 2020 Halloween ritual line up, I played Dead Space on a whim and was completely sucked back into it, I knew that Dead Space would have to be part of this year's Halloween Special which got me thinking, exactly how much Dead Space should I go for. I mean this is a season of spookiness, so why not just go a bit mad with the Dead Space. Many, many years ago I got a Dead Space DVD two pack for Christmas containing the two tie in movies; Downfall and Aftermath, but unlike the games, these two films have largely faded from my memory, and with Dead Space back in the forefront of my mind, I was drawn to re watch them and see if my vaguest memory of liking Downfall and not liking Aftermath was still so.
Dead Space: Downfall tells you what you already know right from the start, that this story does not have a happy ending, as Security officer Alissa Vincent records a video log telling whoever finds it to destroy the Ishimura and the Marker. We then jump back in time and down to the planet as a routine survey team discovers the Marker and the Church and CEC dispatch the Ishimura to collect it. There is something oddly captivating about this opening sequence, it does a very good job of establishing dread, which as the prequel to Dead Space, I would expect it to do, and this opening shows promise. Something that's immediately apparent in the film is the presentation, which fuses an animated style with the industrial look of the Dead Space universe surprisingly well, like the game, the film is very appealing in how ugly it is with dark, dirty environments and angular, mechanical uniforms and equipment. The film's animation is nothing special but the film is at least nice to look at, there is the film's shot composition however, which is sometimes really good, and sometimes a bit naff. The film really likes focusing on eyes for some reason, which isn't a bad thing and sometimes looks really cool, like early on in the film when one of the mining crew slices open her own neck and we see the life drain from her eye in a mist of blood. Speaking of blood, Dead Space: Downfall is violent as fuck and said violence looks great when it's allowed to, with the way the film shows blood in particular being very striking and appealing.
But while the film carries over the visual style of the game almost flawlessly, there is something it doesn't, atmosphere; the film's initial feeling of dread doesn't last for reasons we'll get to, and my best guess is simply that the jump from video game to animated movie is where the atmosphere was lost, the Ishimura just isn't as creepy as it is in the game and despite being pre Necromorph outbreak, feels less alive. Something the film does translate very well, though not necessarily for the better, is the simple characters which are split mostly into three stories; the bridge, the colony and Vincent's security team. Vincent and her team are the de facto heroes of the film and are the first to encounter the Necromorphs once they board the Ishimura and let me tell you, these guys kind of suck. Dead Space's simple characters wasn't a problem because of the game's other strengths but being a movie that's trying to tell a story, it would really help if your characters were good. Them being one dimensional isn't the problem, them being tryhard is, you have the standard fair in this kind of crew; the tank, the shit-talker and the rookie, same person, the alt chick and the assertive, fearless and blindly mission focused leader. On their mission, they also meet up with Irons, a Unitologist engineer who's the first to figure out how to kill the Necromorphs and I was far, far more interested in him than the security team. He's a devout Unitologist who understands that submission to the Marker, willing or unwilling, is inevitable but despite this, he puts the safety of his fellow crew before his faith and takes up arms against the Necromorphs.
He dies, obviously, but his death might be my favourite scene in the film as he gives Vincent time to help some trapped survivors and goes down like a complete badass, killing as many Necromorphs as he can before eventually accepting his fate, uttering a final prayer with his dying words. In contrast, the security team is a collection of annoying stereotypes who say fuck like it's going out of style. In a film about religious fanaticism, monsters and an evil space rocks, these characters come across as immature and tryhard, as if they were written by an edgy teenager. In contrast however, the parallel stories on the colony and the Ishimura's bridge are a lot more compelling. The bulk of the bridge story consists of Captain Mathius' descent into madness and Dr. Kyne's piecing together of the mystery, and these two subplots are the most interesting parts of this film. For a time, Kyne essentially functions as the angel on the Captain's shoulder, trying to reason with him as the demon on his other shoulder; a holographic live feed of the Marker, drives him to paranoia and irrationality. These two are two sides of the same coin, with one abandoning his faith upon seeing the true effects of the Marker while the other becomes increasingly fanatical, seeking solace in the very thing that's corrupting his mind and seeing it as a test of his faith. If you've played the game, you know how this ends, and while it doesn't play out exactly the same as it does in the game, it is nonetheless a fun and intense scene, and one of the few scenes in the film with a solid amount of build-up.
As you may also expect, the subplot of the colony ends pretty quick and isn't quite as fleshed out as my curiosity would like. Yet this part of the film does feature on of my favourite scenes, the previously mentioned sequence where one of the colonists slices open her own neck, a scene that's memorably purely because of how brutal it is, did I mention this film is hella violent. And yet this scene doesn't pack the punch I think it needed to because we don't know who these people are. This is part of the reason the conflict between Kyne and the Captain is so interesting; it's the most fleshed out part of the film, it's ludicrously short runtime of seventy-five minutes just doesn't allow for any substantial development. So towards the end of the film when one of Vincent's team does the 'buy you some time' thing, I just don't care, and that's the same as when the rest of her team bite it too, the only one with any kind of impact is Irons' death because he at least has a shred of depth. Granted, Hammond's death in the game didn't have much impact either, but Dead Space is carried by its gameplay and atmosphere more than its characters, Dead Space: Downfall doesn't have that. What it does have is appealing animation, a tasty bit of Dead Space lore, and its imagery and violence, the former of which is very strong, the latter, not so much.
It's Dead Space so obviously I'll talk about the Necromorphs and inevitably, they are the coolest thing in this film by far. They look completely amazing, and in a move that's actually better than the game, the Slashers all look different, and you can tell on a few occasions who they were before they turned, which the game couldn't do. The design of the Slashers is as cool and wretched as it is in the game, and it's undeniably cool to see them in this style. The film also features the Pregnants and the Infectors, but the bulk of the film's ghoulies are Slashers, which isn't bad at all, because they're great. One Necromorph however is actually done better in this film than in the game, the Lurker, who crawls around on walls and ceilings in the game, shooting at you with barbed tentacles. In Dead Space: Downfall however, the Lurker charges at full speed towards one of Vincent's crew on its baby legs and starts gnawing on his face. When he hurls it away from him, it charges again, this time on its tentacles like a nightmarish Doctor Octopus. It also doesn't take Vincent's team long to realise that guns aren't effective, and their makeshift weapons, the Plasma Saws, are pretty sweet, but not quite as sweet as my baby, the Plasma Cutter. It being a film and not a game, it does lose that all important haunted house atmosphere that's part of why the game is so special, but it could make up for that in its action sequences which, in all honesty, aren't terribly good. I alluded to the film's hit and miss shot composition at the beginning, but the issues with it become very clear in these sequences.
The best way I can describe the effect is shakycam because that's literally what happens, the shot shakes as if the non-existent camera is being shaken about during filming. Why the animators saw fit to do this I don't know because it does hurt the film. The first time we see someone turn into a Necromorph, this doesn't happen and we see all the gory detail as his body is mutilated and mutated. Then there's the film's first large battle as Vincent's team take on a large group of Necromorphs, some shots are clean, some are a bit shaky but nothing too obnoxious, and then there are shots that are headache inducing as that clear and clean animation is lost in a blur of artificial movement. The film clearly wasn't made to the standard of a theatrical animated film, so maybe this was a way around the restrictions they were working with, or maybe it was done just to look cool, which it doesn't. The battle in hydroponics is another bad example of this, and it diminishes how well the Necromorphs are done in the film. The big issue is that this compounds with all the other problems; the spotty writing and poor character development, the passable animation and the runtime, and I wouldn't be surprised if I'm right about this because the film feels rushed, and as though the driving force behind its production was corporate instead of artistic, which is the exact opposite of how the game feels. Again I feel that Downfall could have benefited from being longer and treating its characters better, because there is a fantastic story in here, it's the prequel to Dead Space, but it's too weak on too many fronts to do that story justice. In simpler terms, Dead Space: Downfall could be awesome, but instead it's just meh.
Landing, Crashing or Shot Down, Pick One
Dead Space: Downfall does not reach the bar of quality established by the game, and unfortunately, it doesn't add much to said game, instead relying on Dead Space for a lot of its enjoyment value. That being said, the film doesn't suck, and some elements of it are genuinely good, like its portrayal of the Necromorphs and its near flawless translation of the game's visual style. But the film struggles to tell a strong story, which considering it depicts the downfall of the Ishimura, is a crying shame, its imagery goes some way to make up for its weak characters and at times cringy writing, but then it starts suffering in the action sequences, which are hampered by the film's opting for fuzzy, shaky action that isn't all that good to look at. Like a lot of video game universe material, Dead Space: Downfall doesn't stand on its own as a science fiction horror animation, but I can't hate it too much because for all its weaknesses, there is enjoyment to be found in the simple fact that it's more Dead Space and that it does that well enough. So if, like me, you're in love with the game, Dead Space: Downfall might be worth checking out, but I won't be breaking it out for movie night anytime soon.
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