Be Afraid of the Dark!

Rating: 9/10 (18 April 2020)

This is one of those surprisingly awesome films, one that I really don't know how many times that I have seen. I probably did miss it when it was in the cinemas, but then I also suspect that it may have been one of those films that developed a strong following after its release. In a way as a sci-fi horror film there is just so many things that it does right, from the tense scenes to the absolutely gorgeous cinematography, to the character development throughout the film.
The film is about the crew of this merchant ship traveling through space, that happens to be loaded with passengers, among other things. Anyway, the ship passes through the tail of a rogue comet, which means that rocks go flying through the hull, and the ship then veers towards this desert planet, and after some heroics, the crew manage to land the ship, though not without loss of life (which is sort of expected in a sci-fi horror film).
At first it seems simply like a story about a group stranded on a desert planet where we happen to have this criminal that has escaped custody, but as I suggested it quickly starts to take a number of twists. While it seems like this planet is caught in perpetual daylight, it becomes apparent that this is not always the case, and also, there happens to be all of these nasties that happen to thrive in the dark. It is just during the day (and it seems to be an awfully long day), they are all hidden underground.
The characters are all pretty interesting as well, and I won't go into too many details because that certainly does spoil some of the twists that the movie is regularly throwing up at you. Like, yeah, there are some characters that are pretty straight forward, and what you see is what you get, but there are a number of other characters that have some interesting traits, and some hidden flaws. Riddick was obviously a pretty popular character, considering that there are two more movies based around him, however I would argue that he is actually one of the pretty straight forward characters - much of the concern we have with him stems from the agent that has captured him and is returning him to prison. No, it is the other characters that tend to end up throwing curve balls at you, and quite a few of them.
I've seen this film a few times, and considering its age, I suspect that it is probably fairly well known, but then again, I also suspect that it has probably fallen back into obscurity with a lot of the people these days. However, I wouldn't be all that surprised if there is a cult following, and this film certainly does deserve it, that do hold it in high regards. Honestly, I'm surprised that I haven't actually written a review on it earlier, considering that it does happen to be one of my favourites, and that I did actually purchased it on DVD. Yeah, it is certainly one worth watching.