Space Has A Mouth Like A Hoover™

Dear Space Sequel,

You tend to arrive long after the first in a series of films and very long after reception has cooled to your content. Many people view you as a kind of shark jumping, which I personally do not understand as it bears little to no relevance to a sitcom about a middle-aged Elvis impersonator named after a Sesame St character.

I think you started life as a genuine film, and I’m going to call it and say that your first incarnation was in the film Alien by Ridley Scott. I believe, and correct me if I’m wrong, Space Sequel, but I believe that the tag-line ‘in space, no-one can hear you scream’, really resonated with the recycling writers responsible for proliferent series such as Nightmare on Elm St, Friday the 13th, Halloween, Police Academy and Saw. I think they saw this, and, quite rightly, assumed that space = thrill frontier. Personally, I agree with them. I think setting a movie in space could pose a vast array of different conundrums for characters and audience members to appreciate, and you can see from Alien that I am right. So why am I throwing a gauntlet at you if I like you, I hear you ask.

Basically, I have my concerns with your presentation and subsequent reception. Why are you so heavily loathed when you should be celebrated, particularly by horror fans who slip so easily into science fiction territory. Let’s look at some of your examples and try and figure this out.

I’d like to bring the illustrious Pinhead into the spotlight first. In the fourth instalment, Hellraiser 4: Bloodline, the franchise heads into space and a fascinating and well-shot insight into the history of the Lament configuration as well as Pinhead’s past. There have been questions posed as to why in fact it was necessary to set it in space, but I think it was shot effectively enough to dispel this judgement. However, Space Sequel, you have tainted it with your stench and all people refer to when looking at it is the fact that it was set in space. Bravo.

I’d like now to bring up, in tandem, Jason X and Leprechaun 4: In Space. I think these serve as an excellent juxtaposition of how you are so right and how you are so very, very wrong. Jason X takes the horror series and killer and injects them into a spaceship filled with nubile ‘young’ people to kill as well as some more difficult to kill marines. It is light and fun and has robots, vacuum-deaths and upgrades for our killer. A lot of fun that makes it hard to see whether it was the space setting or the fact that it was tenth in the series that made it such a failure. Leprechaun 4: In Space takes the monster and puts it on a different planet altogether which is interesting, wherein a massive amount of carnage (including something very unsavoury involving a penis) ensues. Here, once again, we’re late in a series, we’re in space and we have an unnecessary sub-title to a sequel a la Hellraiser 4: Bloodline. I put the same question to you, Space Sequel. Is it you?

Add to this Dracula 3000, Zathura and an honorary mention to Halloween 3: Season of the Witch and you have a veritable shortbus of films to peruse. What do they have in common? You, Space Sequel. Why are they so poorly received? Is the answer also you? I don’t know. And that is the crux of my gauntlet. You are so poorly defined, no-one knows why people choose to layer you over their ideas and no-one knows why exactly you fail so miserably, yet there you stand, something that should be incredible, yet just isn’t.

It offends me as a science fiction fan, it offends me as a horror fan, it offends me as a writer, but most importantly, it offends me as a human being that you refuse to drag yourself out of the bargain bin and into the spotlight of success. I hope this gauntlet to the head is a good wake up call for you, Space Sequel, and I simultaneously excitedly anticipate and heartily dread your next appearance in popular culture.

Adrik