I missed this little nightmare when it was in the theaters, and I've been kicking myself ever since. Instead I viewed it at home with a friend of mine who is a die hard sci-fi fan. He did not find this as funny as I did and has refused to watch anything else with me since I couldn't contain the screams of laughter.

We open with a ship that the computer tells us is carrying an unspecified number of people in stasis, including, a criminal, his guard, some miners, some guru guy, and the pilots. The destination of the ship is never made clear. Next the computer wakes the pilots -- I don't know why, but it turns out to be just in time, because suddenly there is a meteor shower. Wow, had the pilots not happened to be awake, they all would have died instead of crash landing on the desert planet. As it stands, cool guy pilot is killed in the crash along with several people in stasis, leaving us with wimpy girl pilot, three miners, the criminal, his keeper, British antique collector guy, and Guru man. Guru man also has three to five young assistants along, depending on the scene.

Everyone stands around for a while, congratulating pilot girl on her wonderful landing, not knowing that she tried dump them all in space to save the ship but had been stopped by the dead pilot. Then everyone mills around for a while, finding out about each other. The important plot point is that the criminal can see in the dark but is blind in daylight because he was imprisoned in some mines. Yet the miners -- a man, a woman, and a child -- seem perfectly normal. Well, normal except that the child is a thirteen year old girl dressed like a boy, a fact which was instantly obvious.

So they split up to explore the planet. Miner Guy gets sucked down a hole under some whale bones and eaten by a thing. This of course is what happens when you wander off alone. Incidentally, the whale bones litter most of this desert planet for reasons no one ever explains.

Everyone else finds an abandoned science base camp and decides they are saved because there is a ship there. All they have to do is go back to the crash and pick up some power cells, which should be no problem since they found the solar powered jeep that the science team left behind. But wait! While they continue to poke around, Guru man's assistant gets eaten by predetors that are afraid of light, in broad daylight. They also discover that the planet they are marooned on has two suns and is dark only one night every twenty years. And, oh yeah, that night is tonight.

Now they all run around saying how they must get to the crash and back before sunset with the power cells, but instead they stand around arguing about water, the bounty hunter's drug addiction, the wimpy pilot girl's parents, and God. Somewhere there is a scene where the criminal guy proclaims that the miner boy is a girl. Yes, the blind guy is the only one who notices something that's been apparent to the audience for an hour.

In the end they get back to the crash site just as the sun sets for the night, causing the creatures who live underground to swarm out of their caves. Like bats. Miner Woman dies from running into them as a result of claustrophobic attack. Ummm. Then they decide to make their way back to the working ship with the power cells and torches to protect them from the creatures who are afraid of the light unless there is a religious fanatic involved.

Basically they all get picked off until four of them manage to get to the ship and take off. I won't tell you which four, but it is the only four it could be.

Rating: 3 turkeys.

Scene to watch for: The blue slime in the canyon scene.

Best line: "I'm not a girl!"

Response From RinkWorks:

Um. Predators that are afraid of the light on a planet on which it is only night once every twenty years? Ok...