IMDB Rating: 5.2/10

Country: USA, 85 minutes

Spoken Languages: English

Genre(s): Horror, Sci-Fi, Animation

Director: Mike Disa

Cast: Ricardo Chavira (voice), Yorgo Constantine (voice), Curt Cornelius, Charlotte Cornwell (voice), Maggie Disa (voice)

Medium: Unknown

Plot Outline: Film Roman is at it again. This time, they have gone back to the "DeadSpace" Franchise and crafted yet another prequel similar to their priorwork on the prequel to Dead Space 1 called "Dead Space Downfall". Deadspace Aftermath is a loose prequel to Dead Space 2 that utilizes the"animatrix technique" of having different animation studios dodifferent segments of the show. While Dead Space downfall was notexactly an animation Masterpiece, Dead Space Aftermath takes it alldown a notch.Set after the events of Dead Space 1, The USS O'Bannon is sent to theplanet Aegis VII to prevent it from destabilizing. This is a cover fortheir true mission of retrieving fragments of an alien artifactpresumed destroyed in the first game. Contact is lost with the O'Bannonuntil it is rescued by a team of space marines. Within, they find ahell house of mutilated horrors only four survivors who are promptlycaptured and taken for interrogation. As each survivor reveals thehorrific events that transpired on the O'Bannon, each of theirflashbacks are rendered in four unique Korean animation styles fromsome of the teams that worked on Dante's Inferno: an Animated Epic. The problem here is that unlike Dante's Inferno which had a centralcharacter that was developed over the course of the movie, Dead SpaceAftermath has four central characters that remain one dimensional andwholly forgettable throughout. They are typical stock characters seenbefore in so many space based horror movies.The "present day" framing story footage is rendered in cel shaded CGIby South Korean "Digiart productions" and "Fx Gear studios", thecompany that made that cringe worthy "Shark Tale" ripoff called "SharkBait". While the rendering on spaceships and the Marine suits in thedark look quite good, the human characters set against the detail-lessbackgrounds look like they belong in the late 90s. Movements are stiffand lifeless, hair looks like play-dough worms, clothing folds are nonexistent and the flat colors just make it all worse. It looks less likeAppleseed and more like the worst episodes of Jimmy Neutron or CloneWars.The flashbacks too are of varying quality. THey each detail differentparts of the doomed mission from the characters' individual point ofviews and it is up to the audience to piece it together for the wholestory. The different animation styles and slight inconsistenciesactually work here as they represent the highly subjective and biasprone nature of personal recollection. For example, the strong willedDoctor Cho sees herself as this tall leggy hot babe in her flashbackwhile Stross sees her, his extramarital girlfriend, as a manipulativeslut with heavy make-up in his flashback. First up is the mentally unstable token big black man, Kuttner, whosuffers from hallucinations of his dead daughter. It is done in adecent American-ish art style with good quality animation by Dong WooAnimation studio (Masters of the Universe 2002, Ultimate Avengers) andTokyo Anime Award winner Tae Ho-Han (Africa a.F.r.I.c.A). StargateSG1's Christopher Judge masterfully portrays the broken man pushed overthe edge of despair and desperation. Its only flaw would be theextremely slow first half which is all talk and no tension. Boring.Next is a flashback courtesy of the stereotypical tough guy, Borges,who seems to alternate between being Hispanic or white with each newsegment. Curiously, his version of his scuffle with Kuttner shows himputting up a decent fight while in Kuttner's version, Borges went downin seconds. Anyway, this segment is done by the same team who also didthe "Fraud" level segment of Dante's Inferno(JM Animation studio andKim Sang Jin), arguably one of that film's worse looking segments.Borges' flashback is also the worse looking here. A higher level of artdetail and rich colors is offset with unnatural character movements,some animation shortcuts and ugly anime-styled character designs (whatbig teeth they have) which tend to go off model. Not to mention the CGIships and fake looking flames effects which clash horribly with thetraditional 2D animation.Stross, the half crazed scientist having an affair with Dr Cho, is thethird flashback. Jong Sik Nam and Dong Woo Animation, who did BatmanGothma Knight's Deadshot segment and the "Lust" segment of Dante'sInferno, present the most fluidly animated Dead Space Aftermathflashback. The atmospheric colors, creative shot angles and highlydetailed artwork (a cross between Aeon Flux and typical Korean Anime)add a dynamic touch to Stross' brush with artifact induced insanity.THe tension and action finally amps itself up, but if feels a littlelate. The segment's only shortcoming is in some obviously unfinishedbackground art. Doctor Cho's flashback connects the O'Bannon mission back to theopening scene of the movie. This one is, while not the worst, a mixedbag. Cho's voice actress has a tendency to over act a lot to the pointof cheesiness. The animation is rife with short cuts and "jittercamera" effects while stylized character designs look like dragonball Zrejects, all overly beefy and stuff. But at least it had a high levelof detail and some good action. The varying quality of the entire movie makes giving a rating hard.Twogreat segments are offset by three not so great ones. It lacks thedeeper philosophical themes and character development of Dante'sInferno. It also lacks the straight forward violence, plot consistencyand sense of tension of Dead Space downfall. Ultimately the entireproduction feels mediocre and lifeless, almost as if Film Roman couldnot afford better CGI artists or first rate studios animation likeManglobe or Production IG. The story is inconsequential in its lead into Dead Space 2 and filled with a lot of wasted potential.

Location: VD9/Horror

Loaned: No