Dead Space Downfall Prequel Film Based on Game
The Ishimura is Attacked by the Necromorphs
Sep 24, 2009
Before Dead Space the game begins, the Ishimura is performing a routine planet crack when the colony below is attacked. A survivor returns to the ship, and unknowingly unleashed a vicious alien species that reanimates the flesh of the dead.
Plot of Dead Space: Downfall
Dead Space: Downfall opens with the security chief Alyssa Vincent (voiced by Nika Futterman) recording a message in which she explains the horror that has befallen the Ishimura and that a mysterious artifact needs to be destroyed.
The film goes back several days to a time when an object known as the ‘Marker’ has been discovered on the surface. The artefact is later brought up to the ship. Suddenly the colony goes dark, and two miners head there to find out what is happening. One disappears during a blackout whilst the other, Colin Barrow (Bruce Boxleitner) searches the colony for his wife. He finds her only moments before she slices into her own throat.
Barrow races through the colony with her in his arms, he makes it to a shuttle unaware that an alien life form has made it onboard. He is refused permission to land on the Ishimura but crash lands in the hanger moments before his reanimated wife attacks him.
The infection rapidly begins to spread as those onboard the Ishimura are quickly and brutally attacked by the growing numbers of necromorphs.
Prequel to the Game
Dead Space: Downfall charts the events leading up to the beginning of Dead Space before Isaac Clarke and the Kellion arrives. It seems that being an anime means that it can be as violent as it wishes, and even horror fans might have trouble holding their stomachs. Even though this film is an animation the violence is extreme and very graphic as the unfortunate crew are ripped to shreds before the audience’s eyes.
The back story that happened on the Ishimura before Isaac arrived was told during the game through a series of audio and visual logs. There is a distinct discrepancy between the two. In the game, it seems that the infection spread through the Ishimura slowly taking several days as the crew struggled with what was happening. In the film, everything happens much faster with the ship and crew overwhelmed in a matter of hours. The layout of the bridge is also different between the film and the game which seems to suggest that the makers of the film didn’t bother to play the game before they made Downfall.
It is easy to spot differences between Dead Space and Downfall, with the voice cast also being different. In fact, Keith Szarabajka as Dr Terrence Kyne is the only actor who voices his character in both the film and the game; everyone else is replaced for the film.
Fans of the game might wish to grab a copy of Downfall as it does give some the game a more detailed background. However, there are a number of differences that makes it almost seem as though the game and film aren’t based around the same series of events. In addition characters that are important to the game's storyline don’t feature (or are even mentioned) at all during the events of the film (the main example of this is the character of Dr. Challus Mercer).
Dead Space is a game that spawned both a comic book series and prequel film. Regrettably there are too many inconsistencies between the film and game to make Downfall a must watch for any fans of the game. However, despite that, fans of the anime genre in which the boundaries of graphic violence can stretch a little further than during live action films will get more than their fill of blood soaked action.
6/10
Graphically violent prequel which adds an extra dimension to the game. But, the inconsistencies rob this film of its rightful place as a terrifying insight into the horror onboard the Ishimura before Dead Space began.
 |
