Director: John Carpenter
Screenplay: John Carpenter and Dan O’Bannon
Starring: Brian Narelle, Dan O’Bannon, Dre Pahich, Cal Kuniholm
Year: 1974
Duration: 84/71 mins
Country: USA
BBFC Certification: PG
John Carpenter’s sci fi satire has now been given what feels like the definitive 4K UHD release from Fabulous Films, an edition absolutely stuffed with special features and supplemental material.
This was my first ever viewing of Dark Star, despite owning an old DVD for years. I’m a huge Carpenter fan and have been since first seeing Halloween on a pan and scan VHS, but there was always something slightly off putting to me about Dark Star. I have a hit and miss relationship with space comedies, but after finally watching this, I might have to rethink that stance.
Dark Star follows four scruffy, dishevelled astronauts who have spent twenty years on a mission to blow up planets unsuitable to sustain life. It’s a futile, almost pointless task they are unlikely ever to complete. Their captain is dead, killed by a malfunctioning chair, and when a beach ball like alien begins causing havoc aboard the ship, the crew find themselves on a chaotic and ultimately catastrophic trajectory.
The film began life as Carpenter’s graduation project, which he took off campus, illegally by most accounts, to complete with real Hollywood funding. Producer Jack Harris, best known for releasing The Blob, stepped in, spending $60,000 to expand the original 45 minute student film into a feature.
Going in, I wondered whether Dark Star would reveal the filmmaker who would later deliver classics like Escape from New York, The Fog and Assault on Precinct 13. Sadly, I couldn’t find much here that clearly connects to Carpenter’s later work. There is the familiar isolated group of outsiders and the suitably synthy, ominous music, but I missed the rich cinematography and creeping dread that defines his best films. Instead, the revelation here was the film’s co creator, Dan O’Bannon.
Carpenter and O’Bannon met at UCLA and bonded over their shared filmmaking ambitions. They developed Dark Star together, with O’Bannon taking on much of the special effects work and playing the increasingly frayed astronaut Sgt Pinback. O’Bannon’s performance is a delight, his comic timing blending the verbal mischief of Groucho Marx with the physical chaos of Harpo.
To extend the film to feature length, O’Bannon created an entire sequence featuring the alien, puppeteered by Nick Castle, who would later appear as The Shape in Halloween, and Pinback locked in a battle of wits. The infamous lift shaft scene, Pinback dangling helplessly while the alien tickles him, is bizarre, inventive and genuinely hilarious.
Beyond the visual gags, the film also boasts a sharp, absurdist script. The philosophical conversations with Bomb 20, which develops an existential crisis about detonating, brilliantly skewer the cosmic seriousness of Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey.
On release, Dark Star didn’t propel Carpenter or O’Bannon to instant success. It was, and remains, an oddball film, one that would pair beautifully with the surreal works of Robert Downey Sr from the same era. But its quirks are exactly what make it fascinating.
The new 4K restoration is outstanding, ensuring that this early work of two major American cinema visionaries will be preserved for generations.
The Extras
What makes this release truly definitive is the wealth of extras. First up is the feature length documentary Let There Be Light, with contributions from key collaborators. Carpenter appears via audio interview, and O’Bannon had sadly passed before the documentary’s completion.
Also included are extended interviews with novelisation legend Alan Dean Foster and Brian Narelle, Lt Doolittle, plus an enthusiastic commentary by self proclaimed super fan Andrew Gilchrist and a written introduction to the film by Dan O’Bannon.
Inside the clamshell packaging you’ll find a double sided poster, eight publicity stills, a reproduction of the original press book, a mission log and a new essay by Michael Doyle. The set is topped off with a Dark Star mission patch, already giving me ideas for next year’s Halloween costume.
