Ravager

Title: Ravager
Rating: 1.5/5
Genre: Sci-Fi, Horror
Starring: Juliet Landau, Bruce Payne, Yancy Butler
Director: James D. Deck

It has been some time since Landau stole my heart as the delightfully insane “Drusilla” from Buffy/Angel, and her presence was surely enough to make me want to bump this on my list. Sadly, her role seems to be rather minimal, which comes as a shame given that her character could have lent something interesting to the plot, which is after all is said and done, almost completely devoid of interesting occurrences. Interestingly, it also features “Robin Sachs,” who also can claim Buffy as his claim to fame, playing the minor character of Ethan Rayne or “Ripper” there, and a supposedly brilliant doctor here. Or at least, he would be a brilliant doctor if he wasn't addicted to futuristic heroin.

But let me back up for a moment to explain what it's all about; being a sci-fi flick, the best place to hold it naturally is aboard a space ship. Destined for a backwater world in the middle of nowhere and with a host of passengers including heartbroken frat boy, angry white guy, test tube experiment and the drug addled doctor, they crash land after being in the air 20 minutes and fall flat down into “The Asian Sector.” During the crash they lose almost all power – except for reserves – and break a couple of critical circuit boards when the ships technical officer jumps through them, though fortunately he knows how to repair them. All that he needs is an fictional ore to mine, which just so happens to be a short stroll away from the ship, but as always there's a catch; the planet gets very hot and is subject to earthquakes, but only at inopportune times.

During their midnight stroll in the moonlight, an earthquake occurs, the earth splits and conveniently the technician – of all people – falls down into a man made bunker filled with canisters with biohazard symbols and “RAVAGER” written on the side. Thinking it might be deodorant, he places his cut hand into the middle of the spray from a broken canister and rolls back screaming when he realises it really freakin' burns. Surprisingly, it wasn't deodorant but a biochemical weapon that was hidden in the Asian Sector for a rainy day; a virus so fiendish, it'll make pink stuff come out of your wounds, make your brain haemorrhage, and then turn you into a sort of zombie/vampire cross: slow as a zombie, thirsty as a vampire, intelligence somewhere in between (smart enough to talk, not smart enough to use a weapon). Fortunately for the survivors, he buggers off for most of the film, occasionally jumping in front of people and yelling “boo,” but for the most part letting the remaining crew fix the ship and leave.

It would be easy to pick apart things like the inexperience of the actors involved or the lousy effects, but in truth I was expecting far worse. As mentioned, the character of Sarra (Landau) almost manages to add something interesting in her quest to discover her humanity, but it ends up being little more than some melodramatic babble about compassion and finding as many ways to say “what is a human?” as possible. Even the tension between the Captain and his sexy co-pilot; the promise of an old relationship to potentially be re-kindled gets shot down after a few minutes when spontaneously they get on fine. Without the make-up sex. The effects weren't that bad either; for a late 90s, low-budget sci-fi flick the set design in particular felt superb, filled with fancy dials, wires and obscure looking panels that look like it was constructed by a nerd with too much time on his hands. No, what really gets me is that nothing seems to happen. Just when you think things are finally moving on; that brief few seconds of action involving an 'infected' pushing someone, or grabbing them, or smiling through the window, they disappear and that's the end of that. Most of the film is spent watching people flicking switches, hitting rocks with a hammer and chisel and frantically running about a ship. A fun film, this does not make.