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over 3 years ago

Life

a review by Markus Birth

"Monkeys in Space" would be a better title for this flick. As with all bad horror movies, the horror only exists because of people ignoring even the simplest rules or just not talking to each other. Add various logic errors to it and you have "Life".

⚠ SPOILERS AHEAD ⚠

Things turn stupid when they start to experiment with that unknown life-form in a lab not suited for that at all. And they don't use remote controlled robot-arms but simple rubber gloves. The life-form, of course, instinctively knows how to use tools and how to penetrate rubber.

It then flees through a CO₂ nozzle (after an empty! flamethrower still had its pilot flame on and triggered the fire alarm) and doesn't end up in some tank but no, somehow gets into the rest of the space station. And this was only possible, because the computer to close the nozzles is a 1950s pocket calculator and you have to close them one by one by entering a 20-digit ID for each one or so it seems.

The story is driven by people knowingly opening hatches that should've been kept closed. Or not talking to each other, like telling the others that the creature is currently nibbling at one's leg.

Another highlight is the creature, finally trapped outside the station, finding its way back in THROUGH THE EFFING THRUSTERS. Why they seem to be connected to the inside of the space station is beyond me.

Same applies to 2 guys venting all air from a (sealed) module, but a 3rd guy opening the hatch from a pressurised area to said module without any indication the module was without pressure. (And, of course, he didn't know anything about the creature being trapped there, because he threw away his comm device the moment it had a bit of reception issues earlier.)

The whole movie is so wrong, I almost had to laugh. Especially, when the last survivors escape in 2 separate escape pods and the one which should reach Earth gets hit by debris and flies into outer space and the other one, trying to get away from Earth is kept from doing that by the creature who suddenly seemed to have acquired knowledge about steering NASA issue escape pods and is keeping the human from altering the course.

The torture ends with some Asian fishermen simply opening the hatch of the space capsule that just landed in front of them. Although they can clearly see the astronaut trapped in some spiderweb-like goo inside. It was like a final insult to sanity and reason.