There's a certain joy in seeing low budget movies that are clear homages to other films. A lot of low budget filmmakers, in the absence of creativity, just want to make their version of their favorite science fiction or horror film, and there's a charm to it. It feels honest. Then there's "Shocking Dark." This movie was also released as "Aliens 2" and "Terminator 2" in a very transparent marketing ploy. Although, the titles are not really unwarranted on some level. This movie follows the exact plot of "Aliens" to the point where it's barely worth doing a plot summary. Adam, who remembers "Aliens" well, was losing his mind all night. The only major difference is that it is set in Venice in the not so distant future where they have to go through these underwater tubes set up by the Tubular company to find out what's infecting the water. They basically wander a warehouse in sci-fi suits. So where does the terminator come in? About 3/4 of the way through the movie, it is clear that one of the guys on the task force is a robot very obviously designed around the terminator. Our Ripley and Newt of the movie escape through a time pod. He follows them. They still beat him in the end, and since they're in the past they have time to save Venice before the Tubular company can mess it up.
Overall, this one dragged a little but when it was good, it was really good. The acting was often over-the-top, especially in how everyone screamed like they were being murdered regardless of the context. The characters were completely flat, and there were some little bits of side racism between characters that they never had time to grow out of. And let me not forget the dummies. So many good dummy moments. Ultimately though, I think this one suffered a lot for being a cynical attempt at tricking people into buying the wrong movie. Still worth one watch though.
Spoon Rating: 5
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