Pitch Black DVD > Reviews

Advantages: The best individual acting performance you'll see for years. Generally brilliant
Disadvantages: Not for the faint-hearted. You'll be scared of the dark for months

...a long time to see Pitch Black. A looooooooooong time. You see, it was originally slated for a cinematic release in April of last year. Then it was put back to May. Then July. When it finally came out in (I think) September, I was beginning to wonder if it would actually be worth the wait. Well, it definitely was. And now, after buying the video release last week, I've been reminded of just how good a film it is. PLOT: PB is one of the most original ... Read review

Advantages: Vin Diesel, horror, cool aliens
Disadvantages: Not enough gore. No wait, actually, there's plenty of gore.

...permanent, eclipse. Total eclipse. Darkness. Pitch Black. With this, out come the aliens, in their masses, and as the group is thinned out, we learn more and more about the people we are watching. The film is at this point a fight for survival, and stays that way until the very end. From the outset, the film is saturated with superb imagery. The daytime desert scenes look almost bleached, they are so blindingly bright. In contrast, when night ... Read review

Advantages: Fast paced, never obvious
Disadvantages: Don't examine the plot too closely

Sometimes the only difference between a low and a high budget movie is the wages paid to the cast. This little gem of a film, featuring not a single actor I’d ever heard of, is a case in point. The plot is fairly standard; spaceship crashes on hostile world, seemingly barren. Survivors, both crew and passengers have to band together in order to discover inhabitants and get their ship airworthy. The inhabitants turn out to be colonies of blood ... Read review

Advantages: If you like to be scared (and Vin Diesel is sooo Hunky!)
Disadvantages: If your afraid of the dark, this wont help!

...the planet is plunged into pitch blackness, with only a few candles to light the way, the fear factor is really turned up. Although, as I said, the effects on the aliens arent skimped on when you do see them up close, this film relies more on what you cant see to set the mood, and it works to very good effect, in much the same way as it did in Alien. For you blood hounds out there though, fear not, because what you do see is gory enough to satisfy ... Read review

Advantages: superb acting and special effects
Disadvantages: what do the monsters eat other than marooned space travellers ?

...tongue firmly in its cheek, Pitch Black sets out to convince us that a case of Jack Daniels is an effective deterrent against a horde of alien beasties. Sure it is. Impression ********** Don't get me wrong, this is a good film. My favourite thing about it is that it has intelligent moments. Not that it is an intelligent film, it is a horror-sci-fi shock and spatter movie firmly paying homage to the Alien films. It does strike me though, that ... Read review

Advantages: The coolest bad guy in history, great effects
Disadvantages: God damned Aussies!

...Well, you should be! Because Pitch Black is an exciting, edge of your seat Sci-fi horror thriller. The basic premise of the film is that a cargo ship, transporting people to a distant planet, accidentally gets caught in an asteroid belt. The ship takes heavy damage and crashlands on a desert planet with three suns which keeps the planet blazed in permanent daylight. The crew is dead except for the pilot and all that is left of the passengers are ... Read review

Advantages: see review
Disadvantages: see review

...ruins an evening. Well fortunately Pitch Black is as entertaining as the trailers made it look - just a little meatheaded at times... The plot is simple and derivative, but as far as entertainment value goes, this one provides a fairly good way to waste an hour or two. It begins with a spaceship on the way to a distant galaxy called New Mecca. However it never reaches its destination because it has an accident en route and the cripple ship must ... Read review

Advantages: Excellent direction,wonderful use of palette and sound,good characters.Pacey entertaining action.
Disadvantages: No genre changer(but then it never said it was)

When I was first invited to watch this film at a friend’s house, even after hearing good things about it, I was still sceptical about how much I would enjoy a derogative and generic film such as this. But once settled down to my friend’s wonderful home cinema set up, I found myself quickly drawn into David Twohy’s alien world of washed out bleak landscapes and distinctly stark imagery. His clever use of limited palettes has already ... Read review

Advantages: Vin Diesel, Great Effects, Vin Diesel and oh did I mention Vin Diesel!
Disadvantages: A little like many others

With monsters that look like a false smiling Anthea Turner, this film is quite chilling. THE PLOT ********* This film starts in much the same way many Sci fi alien films do. Please don't be put off by that. The films starts with a rather large space carrier (economy class trans space travel if you like), The pilot, crew and all the fare paying passengers are in the usual cross-space stasis/sleep. Tucked neatly away in their cosy monitored pods. ... Read review

Advantages: Cool looking aliens style flick
Disadvantages: A huge let down, should have been superb

...was really looking forward to Pitch Black. It took forever for the film to be released since i saw the first trailer and i was getting extremely frustrated that it hadn't come out...then it did, Hooray! Or so i thought. As a big Alien fan i was hoping for something of similar greatness. It's been ages since we had a good Sci-Fi flick...ages. Looks like we are gonna have to wait some more. The basic premise is this... A ship crash lands on ... Read review

Advantages: n/a
Disadvantages: n/a

Pitch Black has got numerous reviews on here rating it very highly. After reading a few of these reviews and watching the trailer I decided that it was a film that deserved to be watched, so off I trundle to my local blockbuster store to get myself a copy. I have to say now that I wasn’t really all that impressed with the film and the I awarded it only 2 stars for the actual film itself with another star being awarded for the visual effects. ... Read review

Advantages: Great climatic special effects, Riddick is a damn good evil person
Disadvantages: Slows down a little toward the end

Mans fear of the dark is well documented, just look to your own childhood- ‘Were you afraid of the Dark?’ Evil is traditionally associated with the black of night and most films prey upon the darkness to depict the psychological horror in your head, Hitchcock being the master of using light and shadow in his best, most chilling films. The newest film to use such a gimmick is ‘Pitch Black’ a Sci-fi horror hat came to my attention ... Read review