“APOCALYPSE 2388. Earth is on the brink of extinction. Legendary explorer KURTZ has been sent on a desperate last bid mission to scout an unknown planet on the far side of the universe. A planet that may sustain human life. Butcommunication with Kurtz mysteriously ceases and rookie flight officer MARLOW is assigned the perilous task of completing the objective. Tracking Kurtz into the unknown he reaches it. A new earth. And a race of beings at the dawn of time. But Kurtz has his own plans for the new world and man’s last hope for survival. And to achieve it he will take man to the only place that will protect paradise. Into darkness.”
That’s the synopsis for Into Darkness (via CHUD), a new film from Haunting in Connecticut director Peter Cornwell which is an adaptation of “Heart of Darkness” set in the dark beyond of space. Because the world was aching for it.
The concept sounds moronic, but it’s a sci-fi version of what’s happening with Jane Austen and zombies. Whereas Francis Ford Coppola took the novel and set it in a modern context of Vietnam to reinvigorate its meaning, Cornwell and company plan on shooting the thing into a contextless void where we can’t directly relate the struggle to something real. That plan seems even more silly considering that most great science fiction is set in space as its own metaphor for what’s going on in real life – not built by placing a metaphor inside of another metaphor to get everything confused. Either way, I hope Jason Vorhees is still there to chop this idea to bits.
The horror, the horror…