INTERPLANETARY

Astronauts exploring a cavern in Mars discover a fossil that suggests there has indeed been life on the Red Planet. Their first instinct is that their find will make them rich. But only Wil (Chuck Hartsell) escapes from the ensuing bloodshed.

Back on the Mars-based work station that Wil works on for the shady Interplanetary Corporation, he relaxes after a hard day's death-avoiding by lying through his teeth to concerned partner Lisa (Melissa Bush). While his colleagues fuck and fuck around on the primitive space base, he sneaks back down to the cavern alone and records a video of himself presenting the alien fossil to the world. Fame awaits, he believes.

But there is a problem. A big problem. As co-workers and lovers Steve (Michael Shelton) and Michelle (the lovely Amanda Myers) realise when they venture outside onto the red-hued planet surface to explore the area, there is a stranger with a rocket launcher in the vicinity. As moustachioed base watchman Kevin (Kevin S Van Hyning) observes, this is a "security breach" of immense proportions.

Can gun-toting loose cannon Jackson (Kyle Holman) save his co-workers on the base? Maybe, but the question still remains: who is this goateed bloke who's been firing rockets at them ... and why would he do such a thing? Before the surviving group of workers can answer that, or worry about drawing up the paperwork to document the event, an even greater problem presents itself - a hulking alien monster!

Sheesh, how will the employees of Mars Work Base Two cope with this situation?

Finding out is actually a lot of fun, thanks to a smart script and frequently engaging nods to the B-movies of decades gone by.

INTERPLANETARY looks fantastically dated at the start, in a good way. The opening credits and the cheap Mars sets, along with the slightly worn colour palette, help the film to perfectly evoke the look and feel of cheap sci-fi horror films of the early 1980s (I'm thinking INSEMINOID, ALIEN TERROR, CONTAMINATION ...).

When it starts proper, this authentic grindhouse harking is regrettably unsustainable. Instead, the even cheaper interiors and iffy performances can't hope to fool people that this is an aged gem - such is the crispness of the digital film process employed.

It matters little though. The large clunky computers are amusingly akin to those that furnished the TARDIS back in the 1970s and hairdos throughout are big in a mockingly hippy era style.

Performances are zippy as is the pace, FX are splashy and wrong in all the right ways (death on the toilet, anyone?), and political correctness is about as screwed up as the dodgy one-liners that liberally pepper writer-director Chance Shirley's enjoyably daft screenplay.

Speaking of the humour, it works very well in a manner that recalls the character-driven quirkiness of TV's "Scrubs" and even at times "Monty Python's Flying Circus". I particularly enjoyed the fact that the space station is viewed upon by its crew - and the filmmakers - as an office workplace, and as such bureaucracy and clerical duties are points of amusement just as much as the marvellously flimsy sets and overwrought terror scenes.

Tightly edited and well-shot, the film works reasonably well as an action thriller too, but is just a little too light in tone to enthral. Still, with an occasional exterior aesthetic look of ACCION MUTANTE and some nice verbal altercations at otherwise sombre moments that could have come from the pens of Gervais and Merchant, INTERPLANETARY comes up trumps as one of the best retro-tech sci-fi-horror hybrids in recent years. It even cribs from MICROWAVE MASSACRE in two scenes ...

The sub-title to this low-budget Alabama-shot chiller promises "Monsters (and) Mayhem (on) Mars". That, along with the DVD packaging, perhaps suggest this film is more serious fare than what it actually is. But go into it expecting a well-made cheapie with its tongue firmly in cheek, and you can't go far wrong.

INTERPLANETARY is presented uncut on Shock-O-Rama's region-free DVD, in a crisp and well-produced anamorphic 1.78:1 transfer. Grain, specks and faded blacks are all added to the picture to a degree in a bid to make this resemble classic sleaze.

English 2.0 audio is equally impressive throughout.

An animated main menu leads into static sub-menus. Although there is no scene-selection menu, the film can be flicked through by way of remote chapters.

Extras on the disc begin with an audio commentary track from Chance and Stacey Shirley (co-producer, the director's wife) and fellow co-producer John White. From the opening where they describe the film as an ongoing work-in-progress to the jovial mulling over sets and FX - referencing the likes of J J Abrams and THE THING along the way - this is a detailed and bright chat track which is filled with as much information as it is anecdotal mirth.

Rounding off the disc are trailers for BOOK OF LORE/GRAVE MISTAKES, DARK CHAMBER, DEFILED, MILLENIUM CRISIS, RED RIVER, ROT: REIGN OF TERROR, SCULPTURE, SHOCK FESTIVAL and SLIME CITY GRINDHOUSE COLLECTION.

INTERPLANETARY has lots of great ideas and attractive visuals to boot. Its deliberately trashy and frequently funny, as well as being engaging. The DVD is decent too.

Review by Stuart Willis