DEAD SPACE: DOWNFALL

A mysterious alien artifact is discovered on Aegis VII, a planet far from Earth. A team of scientists is sent to the planet to study the artifact, called the Mark, which could represent proof of the existence of a superior alien force, even linked to God. After a few months, all contact is lost with the human colony studying the Mark, so the Earth's unitologist government decides to send the USG Ishimura to the rescue, unaware that a mysterious alien force has first killed and then reanimated all the colonists, who have turned into violent and repulsive creatures. "Dead Space - Downfall" is a strange cinematic object, extremely targeted and therefore difficult to access for a wide audience. The origin of it all is a beautiful video game developed by EA Redwood Shores in 2007, a survival horror that perfectly combines the atmospheres of science fiction horror films like "Alien" and "Punto di non ritorno" with the gameplay made famous by the video game saga "Resident Evil". This "Downfall" is an animated film that serves as a prequel to the video game, seeking to add elements to the already complex story that gamers know and doing everything possible to maintain the greatest possible fidelity with the atmosphere of the original product. In reality, the film directed by Chuck Patton does not hit the mark, proving to be little explanatory and too far from the atmospheres of the video game. Let's say immediately that if you don't have a minimum knowledge of the story told in the video game, you will lose a good part of what this animated prequel can offer, noting more than anything the obvious debts that the story has with others already told by horror cinema, so the occasional viewer is warned. But it must be said that even being a connoisseur of the subject, "Downfall" does not offer much more than what is already sufficiently explained in the game, on the contrary, some information and characters that appear essential in the video game are ignored. For the rest, there is the pleasure of seeing in images some details only hinted at in the video game and, in any case, a great coherence is noted in the treatment of those key elements that now constitute the basic mythology of what is being built as a multimedia saga, since a comic book miniseries is also available to further deepen the events prior to the video game. It was said that this film does not reproduce point by point the atmospheres of the video game because Patton bets everything on action rather than suspense. A characteristic of the video game is the healthy dose of real fear that arises from not knowing what lies behind every corner of the spaceship, combined with a constant macabre and deadly atmosphere that manages to instill a great sense of unease. Well, in "Downfall" none of this is there and almost exclusively the importance of physical combat for survival is emphasized, thus bringing to the scene many moments of action seasoned with an excessive dose of splatter. The fun is therefore guaranteed - although in the long run even all those massacres and shootings can get boring - but the unease and tension are almost completely lost. The graphics of the animation are rather particular because decidedly against the current. In an era where digital animation is booming or there is an attempt to imitate/reproduce the oriental style of anime, "Dead Space - Downfall" opts for an outdated mix of traditional animation and computer graphics that is not always aesthetically effective. The drawing is rough, sometimes even rushed, emulating in some way the American cartoons of the mid-1990s; certainly, this choice has its charm but overall it does not seem too intriguing for the eye. In short, "Downfall" appears to be a somewhat useless operation, perhaps poorly exploited, we therefore await with curiosity the announced live-action feature film... there is material for a good film! Add half a pumpkin to the final vote.