''Pandorum'' is a 2009 German/British

science fiction Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel unive ...

horror film Horror is a film genre that seeks to elicit fear or disgust in its audience for entertainment purposes. Horror films often explore dark subject matter and may deal with transgressive topics or themes. Broad elements include monsters, apoca ...

, with elements of

Lovecraftian horror Lovecraftian horror, sometimes used interchangeably with "cosmic horror", is a subgenre of horror fiction and weird fiction that emphasizes the horror of the unknowable and incomprehensible more than gore or other elements of shock. It is named a ...

and survival adventure. The film was directed by

Christian Alvart Christian Alvart (born 28 May 1974 in Jugenheim) is a German filmmaker and screenwriter. Prior to working in the film business Christian Alvart worked in various positions, most recently as a senior editor at Filmmagzin X-TRO. In 1999, he mad ...

and produced by Robert Kulzer,

Jeremy Bolt Jeremy Bolt (born 1965) is a British film producer. After co-founding Impact Pictures with Paul W. S. Anderson in 1992, Bolt has produced the majority of Anderson's films. He is most well-known for producing the ''Resident Evil'' series and '' D ...

and

Paul W. S. Anderson Paul William Scott Anderson (born 4 March 1965) is an English filmmaker who regularly works in science fiction films and video game adaptations. Anderson made his feature film debut with the British independent film '' Shopping'' (1994), a ...

, the latter two through their

Impact Pictures Impact Pictures is an independent film production company founded in 2001 by British filmmakers Jeremy Bolt and Paul W. S. Anderson. Aside from Anderson's film projects (including the ''Resident Evil'' film series), the company has also been i ...

banner. Travis Milloy wrote the screenplay from a story by Milloy and Alvart. It stars

Dennis Quaid Dennis William Quaid (born April 9, 1954) is an American actor known for a wide variety of dramatic and comedic roles. First gaining widespread attention in the late 1970s, some of his notable credits include ''Breaking Away'' (1979), '' The ...

and

Ben Foster Ben Foster may refer to: *Ben Foster (actor) (born 1980), American actor *Ben Foster (footballer) (born 1983), English goalkeeper *Ben Foster (composer) (born 1977), British composer, orchestrator and conductor * Ben Foster (director) (born 1984), ...

. Filming began in Berlin in August 2008. ''Pandorum'' was released on 25 September 2009 in the United States, and on 2 October 2009 in the UK. The film's title is a fictional

slang term Slang is vocabulary (words, phrases, and linguistic usages) of an informal register, common in spoken conversation but avoided in formal writing. It also sometimes refers to the language generally exclusive to the members of particular in-gro ...

for a form of psychosis called Orbital Dysfunctional Syndrome (ODS) caused by deep space and triggered by emotional stress. This leads to severe

paranoia Paranoia is an instinct or thought process that is believed to be heavily influenced by anxiety or fear, often to the point of delusion and irrationality. Paranoid thinking typically includes persecutory beliefs, or beliefs of conspiracy concer ...

delirium Delirium (also known as acute confusional state) is an organically caused decline from a previous baseline of mental function that develops over a short period of time, typically hours to days. Delirium is a syndrome encompassing disturbances in ...

, and nosebleeding. The film was poorly received and a

box office flop A box-office bomb, or box-office disaster, is a film that is unprofitable or considered highly unsuccessful during its theatrical run. Although any film for which the production, marketing, and distribution costs combined exceed the revenue after ...

Plot

After

human overpopulation Humans (''Homo sapiens'') are the most abundant and widespread species of primate, characterized by bipedalism and exceptional cognitive skills due to a large and complex brain. This has enabled the development of advanced tools, culture, ...

depletes Earth's resources, humanity builds an

interstellar ark An interstellar ark is a conceptual starship designed for interstellar travel. Interstellar arks may be the most economically feasible method of traveling such distances. The ark has also been proposed as a potential habitat to preserve civiliza ...

, the ''Elysium''. It carries 60,000 people on a 123-year trip to colonize Tanis, an Earth-like planet. The passengers are placed in hypersleep, and a rotating crew wake biennially to maintain the ship. Eight years into the mission, the ship receives a transmission from Earth: "You're all that's left of us. Good luck, God bless, and godspeed." Some unknown time later, two members of the flight crew, Corporal Bower and Lieutenant Payton, awaken. Improper emergence from the hibernatory state leaves them both with partial

amnesia Amnesia is a deficit in memory caused by brain damage or disease,Gazzaniga, M., Ivry, R., & Mangun, G. (2009) Cognitive Neuroscience: The biology of the mind. New York: W.W. Norton & Company. but it can also be caused temporarily by the use ...

and possibly suffering from pandorum, a space-related disorder that causes psychosis when under emotional duress. The ship experiences power surges caused by an unstable nuclear reactor, and they are unable to enter the

bridge A bridge is a structure built to span a physical obstacle (such as a body of water, valley, road, or rail) without blocking the way underneath. It is constructed for the purpose of providing passage over the obstacle, which is usually somethi ...

. While Payton stays behind to access the ship's computer, Bower uses the ventilation system to search for the reactor. Bower first finds a disemboweled body and a wounded mechanic who tells him to escape "them". The noise summons a group of cannibalistic humanoids who appear to respond mostly to sound. He continues on and encounters an environmental scientist, Nadia, and a farmer, Manh, who does not speak English; both are hostile. He encourages them to band together, and the trio flees into a barricaded chamber, where they find a cook named Leland. Leland has been awake for years, living off the water leaking into the ship, the algae it creates, and resorting to cannibalism. Payton encounters Corporal Gallo, who claims the ship is lost in space and that he killed his team in self-defense. Leland feeds Bower's group and shows them mural drawings depicting what has happened: after Earth vanished following an unknown catastrophe, Gallo went insane, killed his crew, and induced pandorum in other passengers. After goading them into a violent and tribal culture, Gallo went back into hypersleep. Aided by accelerated evolution from an enzyme meant to help colonists adjust to life on Tanis, the descendants have turned into cannibalistic mutants. Leland gases the group, intending to eat them, but Bower convinces him the reactor must be stabilized. As they search the ship for the reactor, Bower hopes to find his wife in an area for family in hypersleep but remembers that she died with everyone else on Earth when she refused to join him. This revelation almost makes him give up and pushes him closer to insanity. After surviving an encounter with the cannibals, Bower's group finds the reactor. A crowd of mutants sleep under the reactor, and Bower crosses a walkway to reset it. The walkway collapses, and Bower climbs down into the mutant pit to reach a ladder. While Manh distracts the mutants, Bower restarts the reactor, killing many mutants. Leland flees, and Manh is cornered by the mutant leader. Manh kills the leader but is killed by a mutant child he hesitates to slay. Gallo becomes increasingly agitated, and Payton prepares a sedative. As they wrestle over the sedative, Gallo is revealed to be a hallucination as Payton IS Gallo. Gallo killed the real Payton long ago when he developed pandorum upon hearing Earth was gone. Because he went into Payton's pod, Gallo mistakenly believed himself to be Payton when he woke up with amnesia. Leland reaches the bridge, and Gallo kills him with the sedative. When Bower and Nadia confront him, Gallo opens the shutters on the bridge's windows, revealing that the ship is adrift in deep space with no stars visible. The shock pushes Bower further toward insanity. Taking advantage of Bower's mental state, Gallo argues they must maintain the violent society rather than revive civilization. Nadia observes bioluminescent ocean life through the windows, and the computer displays that 923 years have elapsed since the mission launched. The ship reached Tanis 800 years ago and landed itself in the ocean. Bower hallucinates a mutant attack and breaks a window. As water pours into the ship, Nadia and Bower climb into a hypersleep pod and eject it. The flood triggers an emergency protocol which ejects the remaining 1,211 pods to the surface, while Gallo and the remaining mutants drown. Bower and Nadia surface near a lush

coastline The coast, also known as the coastline or seashore, is defined as the area where land meets the ocean, or as a line that forms the boundary between the land and the coastline. The Earth has around of coastline. Coasts are important zones in n ...

, and they witness the other pods ascend.

Cast

as Lieutenant Payton/Older Corporal Gallo – The Ship's Lieutenant and captain, later revealed to be Corporal Gallo *

as Corporal Bower – The ship's Corporal and presumed head mechanical engineer *

Cam Gigandet Cameron Joslin Gigandet (; born August 16, 1982) is an American actor whose credits include a recurring role on ''The O.C.'' and appearances in feature films ''Twilight'', ''Pandorum'', ''Never Back Down'', '' Burlesque'', ''Easy A'', ''Priest'' ...

as Younger Corporal Gallo – A Corporal who went insane and killed his team, and believed himself to be Payton throughout most of the movie * Antje Traue as Nadia – the ship's environmentalist, who teams with Bower *

Cung Le Cung Le ( vi, Lê Cung; born May 25, 1972) is a Vietnamese-born American actor, retired mixed martial artist, Sanshou fighter and kickboxer. He competed as a middleweight in the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), holding a record ...

as Manh – an agricultural farmer, who teams with Bower and Nadia *

Eddie Rouse Eddie Rouse (July 2, 1954 – December 7, 2014) was an American character actor whose feature film credits included ''American Gangster (film), American Gangster'', ''The Number 23'', and ''Pineapple Express (film), Pineapple Express''. Rouse sta ...

as Leland – the mentally unstable cook who has resorted to cannibalism. *

André Hennicke André Hennicke (born 21 September 1958) is a German actor. He has appeared in more than one hundred films since 1984. Hennicke was born in Johanngeorgenstadt in Saxony. He was awarded a German television award for best actor for ''Something to ...

as hunter leader – leader of the Hunters *

Norman Reedus Norman Mark Reedus (born January 6, 1969) is an American actor best known for starring as Daryl Dixon in the AMC (TV channel), AMC horror drama series ''The Walking Dead (TV series), The Walking Dead'' (2010–2022). He also starred as Murphy Mac ...

as Shepard – a mechanic whom Bower encounters *

Wotan Wilke Möhring Wotan Wilke Möhring (born 23 May 1967) is a German actor. Biography Möhring was born in Augustdorf near Detmold and grew up in Herne. His father was an army officer and his mother worked as a teacher. He has a sister and two brothers. On ...

as Young Bower's Father * Niels-Bruno Schmidt as Insane Officer Eden

Production

The film began life as a preliminary script written by Travis Milloy in the late 1990s. The story was originally set on a prison ship named ''Pandorum'', transporting thousands of Earth's deadliest prisoners to another planet; the cannibal hunters were the end result of the prisoners' degeneration. The characters played by Antje Traue and

were inmates.

's character was a non-prisoner who did not trust anyone. Believing no studio would want to make the film, Milloy thought about making it as a low-budget film shot on video in an abandoned paper mill with unknown actors. However, it attracted the attention of filmmaker

and

, and they gave it to Impact Pictures, who green-lit it. The producers gave the script to director

who was struck by the similarities to his own screenplay titled ''No Where''. His dramatic story was about four astronauts aboard a settlers' ship who suffer from amnesia. Alvart decided that they should meld the two screenplays together, and the producers and Milloy agreed. With the ship now changed to a settler's ship, the use of the word "Pandorum" was changed from the name of the ship to a type of mental illness caused by sustained deep space travel. ''Pandorum'' was announced in May 2008 with Dennis Quaid and Ben Foster in lead roles. Christian Alvart was attached to direct the film, based on a script by Travis Milloy. The movie was financed by

Constantin Film The Constantin Film AG is a German mini-major film production and distribution company based in Munich. The company, which belongs to Swiss media conglomerate Highlight Communications AG, is a large independent German maker and distributor of pr ...

through a joint venture deal with subsidiary Impact Pictures. The partnership helped fund the $40 million production. Constantin drew subsidies from Germany's Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg (MBB) regional film fund, the (FFA) and the (DFFF). The German Federal Film Fund provided $6 million to the production, the fund's second-largest 2008 payout after $7.5 million for ''

Ninja Assassin ''Ninja Assassin'' is a 2009 neo-noir martial arts film directed by James McTeigue. The story was written by Matthew Sand, with a screenplay by J. Michael Straczynski. The film stars South Korean pop musician Rain as a disillusioned assassin ...

''. Filming took place at

Babelsberg Studios Babelsberg Film Studio (german: Filmstudio Babelsberg), located in Potsdam-Babelsberg outside Berlin, Germany, is the second oldest large-scale film studio in the world only preceded by the Danish Nordisk Film (est. 1906), producing films since ...

Potsdam Potsdam () is the capital and, with around 183,000 inhabitants, largest city of the German state of Brandenburg. It is part of the Berlin/Brandenburg Metropolitan Region. Potsdam sits on the River Havel, a tributary of the Elbe, downstream of B ...

, Germany in August 2008.

Release

Summit Entertainment handled foreign sales and presented ''Pandorum'' to buyers at the

2009 Cannes Film Festival The 62nd Cannes Film Festival was held from 13 May to 24 May 2009. French actress Isabelle Huppert was the President of the Jury. Twenty films from thirteen countries were selected to compete for the Palme d'Or. The awards were announced on 23 M ...

, but due to a deal with Contender Films in the UK, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures took over and handled foreign sales to the film.

Overture Films Overture Films was an American film production and distribution company and a subsidiary of Starz (then subsidiary of Liberty Media). It was founded in November 2006 by Chris McGurk and Danny Rosett. Through its affiliated companies Anchor Bay E ...

distributed ''Pandorum'' in North America, Icon in the United Kingdom and Australia,

Svensk Filmindustri SF Studios is a Swedish film and television production and distribution company (both Swedish and international) with headquarters in Stockholm and local offices in Oslo, Copenhagen, Helsinki and London. The studio is owned by Nordic media cong ...

in Scandinavia, and Movie Eye in Japan. The film was set up as a possible franchise. According to Travis Milloy, it was to have a sequel and a prequel. If it performed well, Impact Pictures could

green-light To green-light is to give permission to proceed with a project. The term is a reference to the green traffic signal, indicating "go ahead". Film industry In the context of the film and television industries, to green-light something is to ...

one or more sequels. The

DVD The DVD (common abbreviation for Digital Video Disc or Digital Versatile Disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any kind ...

and

Blu-ray Disc The Blu-ray Disc (BD), often known simply as Blu-ray, is a Digital media, digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 2005 and released on June 20, 2006 worldwide. It is designed to supersede the DVD format, and c ...

release occurred on 19 January 2010 in the United States over

Anchor Bay Entertainment Anchor Bay Entertainment (formerly Video Treasures and Starmaker Entertainment) was an American home entertainment and production company. It was a subsidiary of Starz Inc. Anchor Bay Entertainment marketed and sold feature films, television ser ...

. The director and producer commentaries on the DVD indicate that an unrated version of the movie exists but has not been released.

Reception

Review aggregator

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

reports an approval rating of based on reviews and an average rating of . The website's critical consensus reads, "While it might prove somewhat satisfying for devout sci-fi fans, ''Pandorum'''s bloated, derivative plot ultimately leaves it drifting in space." At

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...

, which judges on a 0–100 scale, the film holds a "generally unfavorable" score of 28 based on 13 reviews. Science fiction magazine '' SFX'' stated that "''Pandorum'' is the finest interstellar horror in years" and awarded the film 4 stars out of 5. ''

Film Ireland ''Film Ireland'' is a cultural cinema magazine published from 1987–2013 by Filmbase (aka Film Base) Centre for Film and Video in Dublin, Ireland. It is Ireland's longest-running film publication.Flynn, Roderick and Patrick Brereton. "Film Bas ...

'' also gave ''Pandorum'' a positive review, appreciating the film's synergy of cinematic techniques, set design, and developed characters. The film was a flop, grossing $20.6 million worldwide on a $33 million budget. It opened at No. 6 at the US box office with weekend receipts totaling $4.4 million. Overture Films declared bankruptcy the following year.

Soundtrack

Track listing # "All That Is Left of Us" (2:43) # "Pandorum" (3:58) # "Anti Riot" (4:17) # "Shape" (2:03) # "Hunting Party" (2:48) # "Kulzer Complex" (4:40) # "Tanis Probe Broadcast" (2:01) # "Scars" (2:20) # "Fucking Solidarity" (3:28) # "Gallo's Birth" (2:22) # "Biolab Attack" (2:25) # "Kanyrna" (3:22) # "The Stars All Look Alike" (4:32) # "Boom" (3:55) # "Reactor" (4:08) # "Skin on Skin" (3:21) # "Fight Fight Fight" (2:56) # "Bower's Trip" (7:51) # "Discovery / End Credits" (7:55)

References

External links

* * * {{Paul W. S. Anderson 2009 films 2009 horror films 2009 independent films 2000s science fiction horror films 2009 psychological thriller films British psychological thriller films British independent films British science fiction horror films German psychological thriller films German independent films German science fiction horror films English-language German films Films directed by Christian Alvart Films produced by Paul W. S. Anderson British action horror films Films set on fictional planets Space adventure films Films set in the 31st century D-Box motion-enhanced films Underwater action films Overture Films films Summit Entertainment films Constantin Film films Films shot in Germany Babelsberg Studio films Generation ships in fiction Films about cannibalism Overpopulation fiction Films about dissociative identity disorder Lovecraftian horror Films set in outer space Films set on spacecraft 2000s English-language films 2000s British films 2000s German films