Having stumbled upon a used copy of this piece years back, I bought it out of curiosity.
For a production done back in 1987, it's very good. The character designs are decent, but it's surprising to know that the monster designs were outsourced to acclaimed artist and animator Yoshitaka Amano (Vampire Hunter D, Final Fantasy series). However, beyond this, you'll note a lot of hard work went into the visual presentation of it- there are countless scenes where multiple layers are used to create depth, people walk towards the camera and stay in perspective, first-person povs are employed, and so on.
As for the story itself- it's a fun little jaunt through deep space- in the vein of "Alien" as we watch the crew of the Saldes try and figure out just what happened while they were in cryogenic suspension. It turns out a piece of organic matter got on board the ship and has caused a virus to spread through the ship. Things get bad as some of the crew start showing up dead and panic over possible infection sets in. The virus soon prompts the ships computer to begin taking measures to stop the virus- which endangers the remaining crew members, much like "2001". As more and more members of the crew turn up dead and the computer gets more out of hand, the survivors must fight to stay alive and try and find a way to escape to the planet just below them.
This film is pretty gory, and a lot of the monsters are reminiscent of the creatures from the 1982 version of "The Thing". There are a lot of cool moments in it- like when the crew fights with homemade flamethrowers or when someone one of the things attacks (lots of gore). My main gripe is that it's only about 70 minutes long, so things happen pretty fast in this story.
If you ever see a used copy, buy it- it's worth the money.
For a production done back in 1987, it's very good. The character designs are decent, but it's surprising to know that the monster designs were outsourced to acclaimed artist and animator Yoshitaka Amano (Vampire Hunter D, Final Fantasy series). However, beyond this, you'll note a lot of hard work went into the visual presentation of it- there are countless scenes where multiple layers are used to create depth, people walk towards the camera and stay in perspective, first-person povs are employed, and so on.
As for the story itself- it's a fun little jaunt through deep space- in the vein of "Alien" as we watch the crew of the Saldes try and figure out just what happened while they were in cryogenic suspension. It turns out a piece of organic matter got on board the ship and has caused a virus to spread through the ship. Things get bad as some of the crew start showing up dead and panic over possible infection sets in. The virus soon prompts the ships computer to begin taking measures to stop the virus- which endangers the remaining crew members, much like "2001". As more and more members of the crew turn up dead and the computer gets more out of hand, the survivors must fight to stay alive and try and find a way to escape to the planet just below them.
This film is pretty gory, and a lot of the monsters are reminiscent of the creatures from the 1982 version of "The Thing". There are a lot of cool moments in it- like when the crew fights with homemade flamethrowers or when someone one of the things attacks (lots of gore). My main gripe is that it's only about 70 minutes long, so things happen pretty fast in this story.
If you ever see a used copy, buy it- it's worth the money.