Apart of me feels that the film would’ve worked better had the film focused on either the crew or the security team. They’re all pretty much one dimensional, the typical troupes you’d see in scenarios like this. I did like Alissa Vincent as the leader of the security team.

The characters aren’t as fleshed out as I would’ve liked. The buildup works well, and the climax is cool. I love the bloody violence, but I really enjoy seeing the dynamics between the characters as they deal with this situation. It doesn’t feel unnecessary and helps to make the characters feel more legit. There’s also the story of the security team trying to take out the infestation and I did enjoy it.

And there’s this tension between the ship’s captain and his doctor, that forms the core of the human drama with the survivors. The story is split into two plots: the captain and crew trying to survive, and the security team dispatched to deal with the threat. There’s always the power struggle between the characters that make the story more compelling.

We’ve seen scenarios like this from films like Deep Rising (1998), Aliens (1986), Doom (2005), Pandorum (2009), and Virus (1999) in which something happens, a lot of people get killed, and someone stumbles upon the scene trying to uncover what happened. The story seems to blend Doom with Resident Evil, in which an outbreak aboard a spaceship leads to the massacre of its crew after the discovery of an alien artifact. The film follows the transportation of an artifact called the Marker, leading to the deaths of the crew on board the mining ship USG Ishimura at the hands of reanimated mutated corpses dubbed “Necromorphs”. Dead Space: Downfall is a 2008 animated psychological science fiction horror film directed by Chuck Patton, starring Nika Futterman, Bruce Boxleitner, Keith Szarabajka, Jim Cummings, Kevin Michael Richardson, and Kelly Hu.

Dead space downfall review