SHOCKWAVE DARKSIDE – The DVD Review

Review by Stephen Tronicek

To anyone who has played a 90’s video game that was on CD-ROM, the phrase FMV will be very familiar. They were these exciting videos that would have real people acting as characters in the game setting up the story. They were…awesome. Cheesy beyond belief, but awesome in their own way. You’re not supposed to make an entire movie like that though.

That said just like the FMV’s, there are parts of SHOCKWAVE DARKSIDE that seem awesome-ish. The story concerns a group of space soldiers trying to get to an extraction point on the moon after a brutal attack. Their story  begins horribly with a large battle sequence going down. The filmmakers might have been too ambitious in their attempt to stage this.  While there seems to be lots of work put into it, the whole thing is choreographed and shot in an unexciting, and uneventful way.  But after that the whole film barrels down, and actually becomes a couple of soldiers walking across the moon it actually gets good. Sure, it looks like an FMV and sounds like an FMV, but once it gets to this point the film starts to becomes engaging. The dialogue isn’t good, but it’s just ok enough to create a sense that the soldiers however silly their personalities are,  human…enough.

The film’s main problem is the way that it’s themes almost seem understated. There’s a huge idea of religion revolving around the movie that is only hinted at through the dialogue, and then shows up as a huge plot point during the last 20 minutes of the film. Why this is understated is because the dialogue hasn’t really given any context as to the importance of religion in the film. There is a sense of bafflement when it tries to make a twist out of that.

Overall SHOCKWAVE DARKSIDE didn’t really work, but was still ok at times. The beginning, and the end are no fun, but the middle is full of dialogue that tends to work while you’re watching it, but is supposed to set up ALL the context of the film. SHOCKWAVE DARKSIDE is a better film then one might expect when getting into it but there were low expectations in the first place.

SHOCKWAVE DARKSIDE is available on Video on Demand and DVD.