Greetings all and welcome to DEEP/DIVE: FilmBunker’s newest (and greatest) editorial series! Join us for a somewhat regular column, where we will skewer, dissect and gleefully over-analyse a wide selection of fine films without any real need for doing so, because ‘The Internet’. Said films may be approaching, or have surpassed, a particular retrospective milestone. They may have penetrated the cultural zeitgeist in a way that demands increased attention from neurotic and/or caffeine-riddled critics. Or they might just have, like, really dank memes. Whatever the reason, FilmBunker is ready to wade through a sea of hot takes and pop-up browser tabs in order to take the plunge.
Pitch Black (2000)
Released: February 18, 2000 (US)
Directed by: David Twohy
Runtime: 104 minutes
There’s a scene in director David Twohy’s turn-of-the-millennium, low-budget, sci-fi action horror film Pitch Black, where our intergalactic prisoner protagonist and entirely-reluctant anti-hero, Richard B. Riddick—played by a pre-Fast & Furious fame Vin Diesel—fights a gigantic, winged, photosensitive alien monster with nothing but a shiny metal shiv. During this violent life-and-death scuffle, Twohy and cinematographer David Eggby (Mad Max, Predator) swing the camera above and below each strike, flitting dangerously around each blow, and then, in a moment of gripping tension, completely immersed in darkness and dirt and pouring rain, Riddick pulls off a lightning-quick hand switch and knifes the beast across the belly, standing tall and triumphant as steaming piles of bowels and viscera fall ceremoniously to the ground. In a moment of pure, uncut, glorious action hero machismo, Riddick then looks down at his fallen foe and quips: “Didn’t know who he was fuckin’ with.” And ultimately, it’s moments like these which makes Pitch Black both a sleeper-hit and bonafide classic of 2000s sci-fi—how it does so much with very, very little.
Filmed on a shoe-string budget of just $23 million, Pitch Black eventually managed to double that figure off the back of modest box office returns and a strong cult following through DVD sales. In Twohy’s vision for the film, the director wanted to cast a slew of smaller, lesser-known actors to help amp up the tension and keep the audience guessing through narrative twists and turns. Diesel, who’d previously enjoyed success by landing on Steven Spielberg’s radar with a small bit part in Saving Private Ryan (1998), was cast in the lead as Riddick, and he brings a gruff, smart, predatory coldness to the role—a vibe which he’d later develop and refine as the enigmatic Dominic Toretto from the Fast & Furious franchise.
The film’s script itself is overly efficient, streamlined, and nothing but the bare bones of escapist, survival-horror storytelling. A space freighter carrying a load of civilian passengers (along with Riddick as inmate-in-transit) crashes unexpectedly on an unsurveyed alien planet. The survivors do their best to piece together the events of the crash and attempt to MacGyver their way off-planet and back to safety in the space-lanes. That is until they realise that the planet’s trinary star system creates a lengthy eclipse every 22 years, which just so happens to coincide with their untimely crash and also reveals the presence of hungry alien inhabitants—the “chimera of the night”—who will now use the all-encompassing darkness to fly and prowl and feed.
With the late ’90s featuring stellar sci-fi horror films, like the pulpy political satire of Paul Verhoeven’s Starship Troopers (1997) or the existential dread of Paul W.S. Anderson’s Event Horizon (1997), Twohy, who co-wrote the script with Ken and Jim Wheats, does his best to follow in this established tradition, keeping the action of Pitch Black grounded in fundamentally human struggles—anger, fear, isolation, and trust—despite the unfamiliar and bleak alien surroundings. As the director notes in the script’s preface: “the focus of the finished film will not be on what the creatures do, but on what the creatures do to reveal the inner nature of the characters. For Pitch Black is, at its heart, a story of humanity and courage—and lack of the same.” Likewise, the gritty and industrial visual aesthetic of the film and the (mostly) dark colour palette are informed by cinematic hallmarks like Alien (1979) and Darkstar (1974), while the third act onslaught recalls the beastly deathmatch at the end of Predator (1987). (Curiously, Twohy also has a writing credit for an early draft of the ill-fated production of Alien 3 from the early ’90s, before eventually finding later success as a director and filmmaker.)
However, while the production details for Pitch Black are certainly interesting in their own right and help to elevate it out from its ‘understated underdog’ status, the film continues to resonate for this critic twenty years on from its release for two distinct reasons. Filming took place in Outback locations surrounding Queensland and South Australia, and there’s a subtle yet persistent Australian undercurrent to the film, captured in the dry, austere landscapes which help to render the extra-solar planetary backdrop as visceral, grim and unforgiving. Also, not to mention great regional casting in the form of Farscape and Stargate SG-1 alum Claudia Black as Sharon Montgomery and Indigenous actor John Moore as John Ezekiel. While both actors end up coming to their own grisly ends, having characters named ‘Shazza’ and ‘Zeke’ dropping colloquialisms like “bloody hell,” “my oath,” and “fuckin’ arse” diegetically in a far-flung, futuristic sci-fi universe is something I completely and whole-heartedly endorse.
And yet, what makes Pitch Black truly special is that this small, unassuming film went on to inspire one of the most unlikely and fundamentally strange franchises of the last few decades, through its follow-up film sequels, the bombastic The Chronicles of Riddick (2004) and the severely underwhelming Riddick (2013), along with various other tie-in media (short films, video games and novelisations). With a massively inflated budget, Twohy returned as director to go full-blown space opera with Chronicles and the result is something akin to David Lynch’s Dune (1984) meets Dungeons & Dragons lore. The universe is under threat from space fascists called ‘Necromongers’ that can do some vague, underworld ghost shit (I think?). Riddick gets a ret-conned backstory: he’s now a member of the Furian (*groan*) warrior race, complete with a messianic saviour arc. Jack weirdly grows up to become a discount Megan Fox hottie. Dame Judi Dench shows up to get a paycheque as a member of the elder race known as ‘Elementals.’ Look, I know it sounds dumb, ostentatious, and completely cheesy, but it’s also super-duper fun to watch and we have Pitch Black to thank for it.
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